Breaks in a session?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Idgeit
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Idgeit

Idgeit

New member
Hey all,

I was recently pondering on this, say if you were doing an 8 hour session, How many breaks would you take during the session and for how long?. Last time i recorded. Their was one main break, and every 20 or 30 minutes the enginner would go outside and take a 5 min break. Whats your average times?

Thanks

- Idgeit
 
i take breaks whenever i find i need them. my ears, mental state and general fatigue tend to dictate that.

i generally force (strongly recommend? :D) the band to take breaks at least once an hour......however, being as most people in bands are smokers, their nic-fits tend to dictate breaks and i don't find myself saying "ok, take 10" much. ;-)

generally speaking, though, we'll do 3 or 4 takes, and then the band will come in for a listen. that tends to count as a "break" for them.

when mixing for long times, i find myself needing to fight against hypersensitivity (thinking that little tweaks seem to make HUGE differences) and over-stimulation (where large changes don't seem to change anything at all). when i find myself eqing or compressing something and it doesn't sound any different.....or when i make miniscule changes and i think they're "huge changes"....i know it's time for a break. in this case, i DO force myself to step away for 10-15 minutes every hour or so.

the other thing to keep in mind is that you don't want to kill the vibe or the session's momentum by forcing a break on the musicians. and at the same time, musicians who have played the same song for 2 hours straight will get burned out quickly. it's a very delicate balance and will vary depending on the group.


cheers,
wade
 
I've never seen an engineer take 5 minute breaks every 20-30 minutes. That seems a little excessive. Maybe the guy was a smoker?

I generally break at some time where it feels appropriate to the work process. There are often natural times for breaks, and you can also tell when people are getting fatigued. I personally prefer to work for a longer chunk of time, like an hour or an hour and a half, and then take a longer break. Like after an hour and a half you'd take 15-20 minutes. All those little short breaks seem to interrupt the flow and after a while it seems like you never had a break.
 
Thanks for that =),

haha was this guy a smoker?, Understatement lol. He smoked around 40 in the studio that day, in the small, non ventalated room, and he had the "No Smoking in the workplace act" sign up (In Ireland, smoking in the workplace is banned) as a joke. All my gear REAKED at the end.

- Idgeit
 
Yeah, that five minute break every 20-30 minutes was a real giveaway. That's a serious addiction he's got going there. All that tar is not good for your gear either.

Every once in a while I'll get some gear on eBay that when I open the box the cigarette smell just comes pouring out. Funny how everybody claims their gear was used in a "non-smoking studio".
 
I take at least 5 minutes every hour. Your ears need sometime to recuperate, and if you don't take some time, you end up chasing after sounds that you would have gotten in about a third of the time if you had been taking the occasional break. That much sound, listening that closely, causes your ears to shut down. Breaks help you to keep your ears working right.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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