ashcat_lt
Well-known member
I've been doing more recordings of bands other than my own lately. Whole bands playing together with acoustic drums and amps and microphones and all that happy crap. While I like to stay pretty hands-off as far as production goes - shooting for more of a document of the live sound rather than fancy studio tricks - the groups I've been recording do tend to look to me for advice on whether a given take was good or not, where things might be tightened up or improved, and so on. Plus, of course, it's up to me to make sure that what's coming through the mics actually represents what we're trying to achieve and will get us to a decent overall mix.
I've found that none of this really requires my eyes. I need to listen closely and intently and completely. Of course, like many of us, my basement studio is all one big room. I do all my mixing upstairs, but it would be a real bitch to try to use that area as a control room when everybody's down stairs, and frankly I dig being there in the room where everybody can communicate and just get things done. So during tracking, I'm doing my listening through closed-back headphones. They're not exactly the most flat or ideal, but I'm relatively familiar with them, they give reasonable rejection, and it works well enough.
And they have a nice wide headband, and I've found myself without really thinking about rotating them on my head so that that band covers my eyes so that I can't see anything, and am just forced to actually listen. I'm not worried about meter levels or facial expressions or anything visual at all. I'm just focused on what is actually going to the hard drive. I'm sure other people have other ways of getting into that headspace, but this has been working really well for me.
I've found that none of this really requires my eyes. I need to listen closely and intently and completely. Of course, like many of us, my basement studio is all one big room. I do all my mixing upstairs, but it would be a real bitch to try to use that area as a control room when everybody's down stairs, and frankly I dig being there in the room where everybody can communicate and just get things done. So during tracking, I'm doing my listening through closed-back headphones. They're not exactly the most flat or ideal, but I'm relatively familiar with them, they give reasonable rejection, and it works well enough.
And they have a nice wide headband, and I've found myself without really thinking about rotating them on my head so that that band covers my eyes so that I can't see anything, and am just forced to actually listen. I'm not worried about meter levels or facial expressions or anything visual at all. I'm just focused on what is actually going to the hard drive. I'm sure other people have other ways of getting into that headspace, but this has been working really well for me.