Massive Master
www.massivemastering.com
I'm putting this one on a few forums, as I think it's something that really needs to be addressed. It was inspired by an MP3 I heard on an audio forum - A track by a guy with crappy, outdated 16-bit digital gear with old converters and cheap microphones - but really good core sounds. A nice sounding guitar, a great sounding amp with great sound coming from the amp.
So here's something for the "I only have crappy gear" crowd...
Listen to this file - It's classical - Don't be afraid, it's actually pretty heavy (for classical). And don't scroll down too fast...
It's just a short snippet of an orchestral rehearsal I recorded recently...
Crank it up loud - It won't bite... It's only over a minute, so hit "repeat" so it can sink in nicely.
Listen to the clarity in the strings and the winds from the start...
Notice the build at 0:12 at that culminates at 0:22
Now listen to those glorious horn swells... Good Lord, if those don't give you goosebumps, your epidermis isn't working. You can feel the brass against your face (even though they're 40 feet from the mics).
(Now ignore the french horn blurt at 0:44)
Listen to the clarity in the soundstage from around 0:43 - the horns, the strings, the timpani - You can literally close your eyes and point to them - The french horns on one side, the trumps & bones toward the center, the tuba off to the other side... Startling, isn't it... Not the greatest recording in the world, but there are clear highs, clear mids, clear lows, good imaging, great musician-controlled dynamics, all that neat stuff.
What's my point? First, read the gear list...
2 Okatava 012's (16 feet high, spaced 8 feet apart, shooting straight down at the far downstage row of strings) through around 250 feet (each) of balanced cable to:
1 $99 Behringer Ultragain Pro MIC-2200 preamp fed UNBALANCED through Radio Shack quality cables into:
1994(?) first-generation Sony MD recorder with horrendous converters - unbalanced I/O.
Then, it went through my chain here for a whisker of minor sweetening and a little verb (it's a VERY dry stage) just for fun. Keep in mind the volume boost (nearly 20dB!) just to get it up to a decent level (it went in unbalanced) and the added noise involved - Not a big issue, is it...
But my chain isn't the point - This is a fairly solid recording made with garbage for gear. Sure, the post-production brought out some potential, but it's the recording that had the potential in the first place. The recording had that potential from the sound being created on the stage and no where else.
This recording (and all "good" or better recordings, IMO) demonstrates the only real "rules" in audio... "Garbage in = garbage out" and the obvious point of the importance of your core sounds. These guys sounded good and played well. Cheap, crappy gear picked this up just fine. Would it have sounded better with $3,000 Nuemanns going through some really great preamps? Of course it would.
But on first listen, would you ever expect the tracking chain of this recording to total $300?
Is gear unimportant? Certainly not. Dad always said "Get the best you can afford and if you can afford it, get The Best. Then, you can't bitch about it later."
But there are a lot of (mostly home) engineers out there that are copping out on their recordings because of their "crappy" gear. Buying (or cracking) loads and loads of plugins, programs, pee-wee-hermanizers and more, trying to get their recordings to sound "more pro" while their completely ignoring the CORE SOUND.
A cheesy guitar through a cheesy amp with a cheesy tone is going to sound cheesy whether it's recorded through a Behringer or a Neve preamp. A crappy bass with old strings is going to sound bad no matter what it's recorded through - A mic'd amp, a direct box, a $5,000 compressor, etc.
On the flipside, a great guitar tone is hard to screw up - with a 57 or a U87, it's going to sound pretty good. THAT's where all the extras come in - THAT's where you choose the "flavor" you're looking for - Not after you record a crappy sounding instrument and expect to be able to fix it later.
The moral to the story - Of course, use the best gear you can. Great gear is a wonderful thing. In some areas, only the best will do. HOWEVER, don't forget the gear BEFORE the microphones and the preamps. Experiment - Open some new doors - Change your strings and your drum heads - Get someone in who *truly* knows how to tune drums properly and pay attention to everything - Especially what a properly tuned kit sounds like in the room.
Get your core sounds *too good* for your cheap gear to handle. THEN figure out what you need. If it's some sort of Sonic Disgronificator, your sound probably isn't ready for really great recording gear yet. Spend time learning what good sound really sounds like at the source, and work from there.
You'll probably find that some of that "crappy" recording gear isn't so crappy after all...
So here's something for the "I only have crappy gear" crowd...
Listen to this file - It's classical - Don't be afraid, it's actually pretty heavy (for classical). And don't scroll down too fast...
It's just a short snippet of an orchestral rehearsal I recorded recently...
Crank it up loud - It won't bite... It's only over a minute, so hit "repeat" so it can sink in nicely.
Listen to the clarity in the strings and the winds from the start...
Notice the build at 0:12 at that culminates at 0:22
Now listen to those glorious horn swells... Good Lord, if those don't give you goosebumps, your epidermis isn't working. You can feel the brass against your face (even though they're 40 feet from the mics).
(Now ignore the french horn blurt at 0:44)
Listen to the clarity in the soundstage from around 0:43 - the horns, the strings, the timpani - You can literally close your eyes and point to them - The french horns on one side, the trumps & bones toward the center, the tuba off to the other side... Startling, isn't it... Not the greatest recording in the world, but there are clear highs, clear mids, clear lows, good imaging, great musician-controlled dynamics, all that neat stuff.
What's my point? First, read the gear list...
2 Okatava 012's (16 feet high, spaced 8 feet apart, shooting straight down at the far downstage row of strings) through around 250 feet (each) of balanced cable to:
1 $99 Behringer Ultragain Pro MIC-2200 preamp fed UNBALANCED through Radio Shack quality cables into:
1994(?) first-generation Sony MD recorder with horrendous converters - unbalanced I/O.
Then, it went through my chain here for a whisker of minor sweetening and a little verb (it's a VERY dry stage) just for fun. Keep in mind the volume boost (nearly 20dB!) just to get it up to a decent level (it went in unbalanced) and the added noise involved - Not a big issue, is it...
But my chain isn't the point - This is a fairly solid recording made with garbage for gear. Sure, the post-production brought out some potential, but it's the recording that had the potential in the first place. The recording had that potential from the sound being created on the stage and no where else.
This recording (and all "good" or better recordings, IMO) demonstrates the only real "rules" in audio... "Garbage in = garbage out" and the obvious point of the importance of your core sounds. These guys sounded good and played well. Cheap, crappy gear picked this up just fine. Would it have sounded better with $3,000 Nuemanns going through some really great preamps? Of course it would.
But on first listen, would you ever expect the tracking chain of this recording to total $300?
Is gear unimportant? Certainly not. Dad always said "Get the best you can afford and if you can afford it, get The Best. Then, you can't bitch about it later."
But there are a lot of (mostly home) engineers out there that are copping out on their recordings because of their "crappy" gear. Buying (or cracking) loads and loads of plugins, programs, pee-wee-hermanizers and more, trying to get their recordings to sound "more pro" while their completely ignoring the CORE SOUND.
A cheesy guitar through a cheesy amp with a cheesy tone is going to sound cheesy whether it's recorded through a Behringer or a Neve preamp. A crappy bass with old strings is going to sound bad no matter what it's recorded through - A mic'd amp, a direct box, a $5,000 compressor, etc.
On the flipside, a great guitar tone is hard to screw up - with a 57 or a U87, it's going to sound pretty good. THAT's where all the extras come in - THAT's where you choose the "flavor" you're looking for - Not after you record a crappy sounding instrument and expect to be able to fix it later.
The moral to the story - Of course, use the best gear you can. Great gear is a wonderful thing. In some areas, only the best will do. HOWEVER, don't forget the gear BEFORE the microphones and the preamps. Experiment - Open some new doors - Change your strings and your drum heads - Get someone in who *truly* knows how to tune drums properly and pay attention to everything - Especially what a properly tuned kit sounds like in the room.
Get your core sounds *too good* for your cheap gear to handle. THEN figure out what you need. If it's some sort of Sonic Disgronificator, your sound probably isn't ready for really great recording gear yet. Spend time learning what good sound really sounds like at the source, and work from there.
You'll probably find that some of that "crappy" recording gear isn't so crappy after all...
