Tips for gaining wisdom rather than new gear?

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jeffree

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I've done my best in the past few years to avoid buying much new equipment, limiting myself to about one addition a year. Instead, I've spent countless hours trying to improve my meager knowledge of the recording process. A book I recently read--"Behind the Glass" by Massey--really drove the point home for me: that many newer recording folks spend their time researching new equipment-fixes rather than effectively learning to use what they already have. I know I've been guilty of this at times, too.

With gaining knowledge in mind, I'm wondering if anyone can share any books, magazines, web sites, or videos that have particularly helped you to improve your recording craft. I'll start with a few that have helped me get rolling:

* "Home Recording for Musicians (Dummies)" by Strong--a great, very simple introduction to digital recording for those, like me, who came from the cassette portastudio world. Really helpful for me when I was totally lost.

* "Recording" mag--interesting articles, and a nice Readers' Tapes section that helpfully critiques home recordings; in fact, I'm submitting one of my tunes there soon just to get some pro feedback.

* "Behind the Glass" by Massey--interviews with loads of top record producers, with some focus on the interests of us home types. I really got the point here that a good producer/engineer can/could do wonders with cheap equipment and that good gear means little in the unskilled hands.

* This web site, of course, as well as the Yamaha aw16g site.

Anyone have any resources to share? I'd like to keep learning from others, however I can...

With best wishes,

J.
 
Read and study the first two threads in the microphone forum. Tons of great info by some real heavy hitters. Between Harvey Gerst's mic thread (the first one) and the second, that could keep you busy for a long time. There area bunch of links in the second, with this one containing years of knowledge to absorb.

Enjoy!
 
Behind The Glass is very inspiring. Blue Bear turned some of us onto to Mastering Audio by Bob Katz - that's both inspiring and frightening!! I also use the AW16G and it will be a LONG time before my skill level justifies an upgrade!!
 
Sound Advice: The Musicians Guide to the Recording Studio
Written by Wayne Wadhams
 
Another really good tool is to get together with other like-minded people and tear each other's mixes apart. Fresh ears will hear things you don't and with most such things, if you are able to hear something once you'll hear it again the next time it comes up. A tremendous amount of space is spent here on gear, and upgrading gear, and the best gear, but it's your ears that matter. Not their "sensitivity", but their education. I'm retired, and I know from setting up speakers with test CDs that my hearing disappears at 15KHz, but I can hear things much younger people can't, because I have trained myself to listen for them. Books can provide the rationale behind something sounding good or bad, but if you can't actually distinguish between qualities the book won't do it for you.
 
I too am an avid AW16g user - and I wait patiently at my mailbox every month for the new Sound on Sound. It makes EQ look like People magazine in comparison...

For my two cents, I can recommend doing whatever recording projects you can snag for whatever money they can pay in your own studio or someone elses. This has helped me not only to adapt to wildly differing levels of gear but also to deal with the various musical personality types that you need to handle effectively if you are going to be successful in any kind of commercial recording environment.
 
Bobby Owsinski's "The Mixing Engineers Handbook" is the bible in my opinion. Just a wealth of interviews, techniques and gear chains.

EQ Magazine
Mix
I agree on SOS for the English view of music. :D

Tapeop, its free and down in the trenches of modern recording, excellent resource.

Gearslutz if you want to learn about studio gear.
 
The best book is the "Book Of Hard Knocks". You write it yourself.

You try something and it doesn't work. Rather than say, "That sucks" and move on, instead say, "Wow, that really sucks... for this application, but it might come in handy somewhere else, so how did I get this sound?".

Then you file that away somewhere in your brain, till a situation arises where that sound, and how to get it, is needed.

Couple that with moving the stuff around a little bit at a time, in every direction, while noting what the move did to the sound, and you'll be well on your way to being a good engineer.
 
Harvey's thoughts are right on the mark. I would like to add a couple things though.

In my opinion, the best way to learn is to learn from others who know more than you do, to see the process in action. So I would suggest, if at all possible, that you sit in on mixing sessions with a good recording engineer. Or hire a good person in your area to come to your studio and mix a project for you. Or take your project to a studio and have it mixed there.

And when working with the good engineer, take notes on a notepad. Take lots of notes. Take notes about stuff you wouldn't even think of taking notes about. Write down everything that happens from the moment the session starts. Note what the mixer does first, how do they set up, what do they do first when they start mixing, the order of tracks they work on, etc. Literally take notes and mental notes of everything they do, their choices of eq and fx, the whole process from beginning to end.

If you let the engineer know in advance that this is sort of a training session for you, in addition to getting a good mix, they will most likely be quite happy to share their knowledge and experience with you. You'll learn an incredible amount in a few hours, and probably get a much better mix of your music than you could otherwise.

While books are good, and necessary, nothing can compare to actually being there and seeing the process in action. A lot will become clear very quickly.
 
I started out trying to create good songs (interesting lyrics and chord arrangements) ...my first recording (with a shoe-box tape recorder) was just an attempt to capture one good take of a song so I could have it to enjoy and to learn from...along the way the quality of the music increased and highlighted the need for better recording to capture the music...at times I get so bogged down into the recording possibilities and technologys that I forget that the most important thing (to me) is to have a good song to record. I've heard many albums that only have two songs that I am interested in hearing again and again...the other 8 or more songs are recorded, mixed, and mastered at a professional level, but they are forgettable songs. Before even thinking about recording I like to hear a very basic version of a song (one vocal with one instrument)...If it strikes me as a good song then I get into invisioning it as a more elaborate recording...Good songs can survive so-so recording...uninspired songs, even when handled by seasoned professionals in world-class studios, will quickly be forgotten.
 
Thank you very much, everyone, for your suggestions. I've already noted your thoughts and am following up on a couple of them in the next few weeks.

Yes, for me, the hardest struggles involve balancing my very limited time between (A) reading about vs. actually doing, and (B) focusing on technical aspects vs. musical issues. In the former, I'm experimenting a lot with, say, compression, but at some point I really want to understand what this process is and these various labels mean and do (ratio, attack, threshold, etc.).
That's when I turn to various resources. In the latter balancing act, I'm trying hard not to lose my focus on composing and performing the music itself. I remember that folks like Jimmy Page used to record 3 solos, pick the best one, and then move on. Unfortunately, I've never quite been able to do that--even when I'm being paid as a studio guitarist. At home, the tendancy's even greater to keep re-recording and re-writing takes until 'm satisfied. I never go as far as to search for the "perfect" take (impossible), but I do often take probably excessive time to achive something that I'm proud to share.

I know we all have our personal struggles with home recording, and those delicate balancing acts are my biggest, so far. Still, it's all a helluva lot of fun, and I never tire of overall process, nor of hearing the end results if I've put some heart and sweat into them. I just wish I had more time for it all.

Thanks again, with best wishes,

J.
 
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