Quitting

[seismetr0n]

i once sold a bass of mine... and still regret it to this day

(gremlin 4 string black and covered in stickers).. actually if you happen to own it, ill buy it back off of ya

 

[VSProductions]

actually, i think you can get some kind of insurance. It can be added on to your house policy. I started looking into it, but then realized i am already paying too much for insurance...

 

[lpdeluxe]

I think SouthSIDE Glen is on the right track. I use the skills I developed as a musician to improve my engineering/producing and my recording skills to improve my playing.


So what's to quit?

 

[brendandwyer]

ok. i mean i understand what you're saying glen but the question is still a simple one. Have you ever gotten so disenchanted with your recordings that you thought about quitting. Like, stop recording and go do something different with your time. It's not really about defining what makes an engineer or an artist, or a combination of the two. More like a personal question about your experience with the emotional side of making, producing, or recording music. At least for me, it can be very emotional, and i know that there were a few times over the course of 20 years of making music that i felt it became a burden on my psyche, and wondered if there was something different i could be doing with my time, something more constructive. Thankfully, my songwriting became revitalized and i began enjoying it tremendously. So it's more of a personal question rather than symantic

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

ok. i mean i understand what you're saying glen but the question is still a simple one. Have you ever gotten so disenchanted with your recordings that you thought about quitting.

No, you're right, and I understand. I was just responding to that one detail you brought up in that one post and was trying to break down any potential line of (mis)understanding between the two sides of the recording disclipine.

As far as the simpler question you re-state here, I'd have to fall back on my first post in this thread. Personally, often is the time where I'd like to ditch all this stuff. But not because of disenchantment in my creations, but because of other things not directly related to the question you posed.

G.

 

[brendandwyer]

cool. that makes sense. With me, when it happens, it's usually just writers block. I'm writing good songs, but i don't like any of them. Thankfully, i go in cycles and i'm always certain if i'm patient and plug along, i'll write one i like and we can work with.

 

[crosstudio]

i've thought about quitting the effort of recording music, but its not the music that is causing it. my backup plan (i didn't want to be a starving artist) took off financially (relatively speaking) and recording music didn't. now i'm stuck making money to feed my family and i can't sacrifice money time or family time for music recording time.

i make a distinction between recording music and band music. whereas the opposite was true 10 years ago when we were young idiots, the band is way easier than recording in the studio.

 

[legionserial]

I have moments where I have spent so long mixing a tune, that I'm sick of hearing it. So I switch to something else and ear fatigue makes all my mixes of other stuff which have been fine for ages sound gimped. Then I start to think maybe I'm not cut out for it and I should just stick to playing guitar and start to consider selling my recording gear etc.

I've always been a 'go back and try again later' kind of person though, so its never likely to happen

 

[brendandwyer]

listening fatigue sucks because a lot of times you don't even know it's happening until it's happened. We tend to record our songs and do rough mixes while we track. THen once all the tracks are completed, we make a decision to mix for the next album. It's very difficult to leave a session with a useable rough mix because by the end of a six hour session of tracking, ear fatigue, along with mind and body fatigue has set in. So we tend to mix it while tracking and hopefully end up with something to review over the next week. We're lucky though to do 2 or three 2 hours sessions, and one 4-6 hour session per week though.

 

[Fletcher]

However, there are many of us on the "engineer" side who consider ourselves "artists" right on the same level as the people on the other side of the wires. This is not just a job for which we're professionals who grind it out every day; if it were we'd spring to another more lucritive field almost immediately. We stay for the music and for the creative aspects.

In my experience the engineer is a player on the session... the engineer is playing the "recording studio". A beginner engineer will have the same chops playing "recording studio" as a beginner guitar player will have playing guitar. The fact that they can get music to move through a wire is 2/3rds a miracle... much like the first time you play an "A" chord with one finger on the second fret... it feels really good, but that don't make you a guitar player.

There are frustrating times when learning any instrument. You hit a plateau in your progress and it gets frustrating. You put down the instrument for a bit and maybe try to attack it again later when you're fresher.

Have I ever considered selling all my stuff and quitting... hell yeah. In fact I've done it twice. Got sick of my day gig working at a shop that pimps hi-end recording gear and almost started another business [building custom motorcycles] with a friend... but the wife wouldn't let me so while I stopped recording I was still 'in the recording business' but a fringe player.

Last year I conned the day gig into building me a proper control room... so now I spend 3 nights a week and one or both days of the weekend in it recording my friends and playing with the hardware. It's a fun hobby again. The bike shop is still a contender [and my new scoot will hopefully be done by May]... but I'm also spending time engineering again [which I haven't been doing for money so it really is just a hobby].

I have moments where I have spent so long mixing a tune, that I'm sick of hearing it.

Ahhhh weedhopper... this means one of several things. You might have some shitty performances there that are making it so the song feels like a 'turd'... or you may have not recorded the performances well so they don't fall into place in terms of the mix... or, you could be "overthinking" the whole thing.

When you're mixing you have to listen to what the song is telling you to do. If you try to fight the song it will fight back [and they damn near always win]. Each song is different. Each has it's own special needs. Much like a woman... you have to figure out what the song is telling you it really wants from the little clues and hints it drops and your ability to decipher the secret coded messages the song [or your woman] gives off. You have to develop the skill of listening to the subtle hints or the song [or your woman] will give you a nearly endless ream of shit and piss you off to no end.

I had a song drift through my world a couple of days ago where the singing sucked, the drummer sucked, the piano player had as much energy as a dead person, and the guitar player seemed to be under the misconception he could keep time.

This was a trailer trash train wreck from hell. The song wasn't any kind of deep songwriting... competent in terms of structure [though it's now about 40 bars shorter than when I first met it]... but the lyrics were as flaccid and dumbass as the "don't know how to breathe" son of a bitch who was trying to sing the thing.

The first thing I did was point out the lyrics that turned the song from a bad love song into a pornographic ditty about oral sex [his words, I just focused on the fun ones and dismissed the dumb ones... the dumb words were just sounds that needed to be blended while the fun ones were worthy of a giggle... it was either that or blow my brains out].

The next step was to get the drummer to feel like he was part of the session which took the addition of some delays that pulled his feel ahead when he was lagging and pulled his feel back when he was rushing. You can do this with some fixed time delays on kik and snare that you blend into the presentation in a manner where you can't hear them as delays but the song falls down and goes to sleep if you mute the returns on the delays.

Then added a send to a Leslie cabinet to obsure some of the pitch on a few things, balanced, blended, effected, cajoled, etc. until the song "sounded" like a song. It was still lyrically horrible, it was still a pack of polished turds in terms of performances... it wasn't a hit record by any stretch of the imagination but it was a fun excercize from my perspective.

I think the reason it was a fun excercize is because I don't have to do shit like that for a living any more... it was just me against the song, and I figured out to listen to what the song was telling me it needed and responded by playing with my instrument [the recording studio] to take a bad song and make it better.

Sorry for the diatribe.

Peace.

 

[brendandwyer]

Good post! Interesting. I'm so glad i record Nate and my albums and not other people. I toyed with the idea of doing demo sessions for other artists. About three sessions later, i was not into it. I felt i was doing a disservice because i just wasn't into other peoples music. That is not to say that our music is incredible or that we are supremely talented, just that i enjoy recording music we write more than working for others. Fletcher, it seems that you can find something rewarding from the most dire session; i would probably not be able to do it. So cheers to you for being able to rescue a session like that.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

In my experience the engineer is a player on the session... the engineer is playing the "recording studio". A beginner engineer will have the same chops playing "recording studio" as a beginner guitar player will have playing guitar. The fact that they can get music to move through a wire is 2/3rds a miracle... much like the first time you play an "A" chord with one finger on the second fret... it feels really good, but that don't make you a guitar player.

Beautifully stated. As was the rest of your post. Very nice!

let us know when you and Anthony Hopkins are through working on the Scout, I'd love to see it .

G.

 

[studiomaster]

I just started! and I got a long way to go and heck of stuff to learn. So 60 years from now, call me up for any gears you wanna buy from me!

 

[LeeRosario]

In my experience the engineer is a player on the session... the engineer is playing the "recording studio". A beginner engineer will have the same chops playing "recording studio" as a beginner guitar player will have playing guitar. The fact that they can get music to move through a wire is 2/3rds a miracle... much like the first time you play an "A" chord with one finger on the second fret... it feels really good, but that don't make you a guitar player.

.

Yeah, but then the shitty part is calling out the people that never learned how to master the guitar and charge rediculous amounts of money for playing an A chord.

 

[legionserial]

Ahhhh weedhopper... this means one of several things. You might have some shitty performances there that are making it so the song feels like a 'turd'... or you may have not recorded the performances well so they don't fall into place in terms of the mix... or, you could be "overthinking" the whole thing.

N-no..I'm just relatively new to the whole mixing and engineering thing in the scheme of things...theres nothing wrong with my performances...lol

Sometimes it takes me ages, sometimes it just falls together...and sometimes I'm just incredibly wasted...

 

[brendandwyer]

In support of fletcher, sometimes the performance and sounds have to change when you are attempting to record. Sometimes how you play live doesn't lend itself well to recording and the performance must change.

Or maybe, and this happens to Nate and I occasionally; you write a song that you think is a great song. You spend 4 hours recording it and HATE it the next day. You just hate the song. You want to put the song in a car, drive it to a residential neighborhood, kiss it on the head, push it out the car door, and never look back.

Sometimes songs just plain suck.

 

[legionserial]

I know whatyou mean. Just I am so anal tho its unlikely anything dodgy would get past the tracking process. I have rejigged entire tunes over stuff like that before. If something aint working in tracking then I don't see how it'll work too well when mixing, so that often calls for a change of arrangement.

My budget doesn't really speed up the process anymore. I'm mixing in my living room. I wouldn't describe my situation as ideal for making music. But that aint gonna stop me heheh

Also, ever got to that point where you have been mixing so long, and blasting yourself with so much different stuff. That you don't even know whats right anymore? Thats usually the point I set everything back to zero and see what I can do from scratch. I usually end up with a whole bunch of mixes for each tune that I use for comparison. Learning from each mix and applying it to the next one. When you have the added element of it all being somewhat of a training experience, it can be a much longer and arduous process.

To sum it up, I am a perfectionist working with less than perfect equipment. If you were to ask me about any of my tunes on any given day, I would never describe any of them as 'finished'...

 

[cpl_crud]

What I hate is when you're in that quagmire situation of doing a mix, re-setting to zero to "get a fresh look", then realising it's 0500 the day after the deadline...

I think I need to get a secretary/negotiator. Preferably, one that will work for rice or maybe pasta (they can have sauce if it's a good month...)

 

[XLR]

No, never thought of quitting recording. I mostly record my own playing. It's too fun and very useful to me in practical ways. I admit though that I've gone for weeks where I haven't recorded but it wasn't from lack of interest. My difficulty is more the opposite... recording and especially mixing get in the way of my playing.

Tim

 

[brendandwyer]

Legion, i would never recommend settling for something less than you expect from your tracking. But sometimes "mistakes" end up being more interesting than the plan. So as long as you're a perfectionist who can make good mistakes and feel good enough to keep them, i would say perfectionism doesn't hinder at all. It's folks who never finish a single project because they keep retracking everything over and over again because it's not *perfect. I've never experienced perfection in any avenue of life anywhere, so i never really expect it in recording either. The beatles were notorious for keeping mistakes. They were pretty good regardless