What is most important?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MrLip
  • Start date Start date
M

MrLip

New member
Pretend you're working on a CD with a relatively small distribution (1000 copies) and a limited budget.

If I divide the recording process into 3 general phases:

Tracking
Mixing
Mastering


Please rank these in order of which you would give priority to doing at a pro studio (the lower priority may have to be done at home with non-pro equipment.)

ie. You only have enuf money to do 1 or 2 of these tasks at a pro studio and will have to do the rest at home (where you have a couple SM57s, Cakewalk, an SBLive, and a home stereo for monitoring), which ones would get priority on the studio time?

For clarity, let's rank them #1,#2,#3.
#1 getting highest studio priority
#3 will probably get done at home

It took me a long time to figure out how to word this question. Hope it makes sense.

Thanks!
 
a few random answers...

- depending on the studios and your equipment - tracking and mixing kinda have to go together. You can't just take an 8-track master (for example) from a studio and port it into your computer with an SBLive - you have to have the mixing board hooked up to whatever tape machine (or other recording device) your recording onto in order to be able to access and mix all of the individual tracks

- I don't know much about Cakewalk's mastering capabilities - but I would leave this job to the pros - it's amazing how much a good mastering job can affect a recording (hopefully, in a positive way).

so I guess my answer to your question would be that it's hard to rank those without further knowing what you're doing and what kind of equipment you would be recording onto.

I'm sure the pros that hang on this board can give you much more insight than little-ole amateur me, though
 
I say it depends on what you're going to charge for the CD (sounds funny, I know). If it's really going to be a CD that you want people to pay for ... I say do it all at a pro studio. You can get away with a lot with home-based DAWs and stuff ... but if you have music that is worth a real CD effort ... then, don't skimp on it.
I have a pretty decent home setup ... but I don't consider it pro ... and the people I record usually get this same resonse from me. I make demos for people ... and even if they think the quality is on par with commercial CDs (I can get close sometimes) ... I make them very aware of my limitations and what a pro studio could offer them that goes beyond that.
If you try to do some recording at home and some in the studio, I think you'll run into issues over format and things like that. Not to mention that a track recorded with a budget mic (I know SM57 is pretty good for a "budget" mic) will still sound like a budget mic even if it's mixed on a Neve console. My opinion is that it's better (and easier) to get it all done at one place. The only time when that may not be true is the mastering process, that usually is easy to work out formats and stuff.
Also, you forgot the very important "overdubbing" step ... it's different than tracking, in my mind. I view tracking as "basic tracks" .. the first live recording of the band. Overdubbing should be it's own step because I think that's when most of the experimentation (ie. "screwing around") happens. :)
Good luck!
 
I would say that tracking is the most important step, if you track the stuff well, with good mics, good rooms, good preamps, a good recording medium (2" tape, ADAT etc.), an experienced engineer placing mics etc. then it makes the mixing and mastering MUCH, MUCH easier.

The second most important step is the mixing, if the stuff is well tracked it is sometimes possible to get a half decent mix without having to do too much, a pro studio would of course have better FX, etc. and would know all the 'mixing tricks'.

Although I am a strong advocate of Professional mastering, if your stuff is well tracked and mixed sometimes it doesn't need too much mastering, so sadly, I have to place mastering last on the priorities list.

Look at it this way, there is only so much that a mastering engineer can do, if you give him a micro-cassette dictaphone recording of your 3 yr old daughter's school concert recorded from the carpark, he aint gonna get it to sound like a Whitney houston album.

The mixing engineer has more control, but there are still a lot of limitations to what can be 'fixed in the mix', it really all starts with the source material.

On the topic of source material, you will get better sounds to 'tape' if your instruments sound good, beg borrow or steal (not really) the best sounding instruments and amps that you can get your hands on for the sessions, change strings, change drum heads, set intonation and TUNE THE DRUMS (pet peave), dont be afraid to walk in with 4 guitars, 3 snares, 3 basses and a couple extra amps.

P.S. sometimes a small guitar amp records better than a big stack.
 
My take on this, is, either all or none!.. Just do it at home.. and give it your best... If you track and mix, at a pro studio and then use home quality equipment to master it... I think, you may as well just do it all at home...(If I had to pick one for the studio, and my life depended on this one decision, I would track it pro...At least you would have a great sound to begin with, and then try and mix it your best and master it at home... You definately can't do drums with the home equip you listed,unless, you do it like the beatles, One overhead mic, and one on the bass drum, so i would track pro in this case)...
 
Im with vox on the all or nothing theory....but if I could only doone thing in a pro studio it would be the tracking.....tracked in a pro studio will come out better than tracked at home and mixed and mastered at a pro studio.....pro studios give you the things most people dont have at home....good sounding rooms, killer mics, pro quaity preamps, compressors, etc....a properly tracked tune will virtually mix itself.....
 
"a properly tracked tune will virtually mix itself....."
Amen..

Of course monitoring is the most important thing, but you knew that, dindja?
 
Monitoring is very crucial to all 3 steps he listed....if you cant properly hear what you are tracking, mixing, or mastering, you cant make the correct adjustments.....my mixes suck because I dont have monitors....i spend more time burning CD's and going from stereo to boombox and back...I should just skip a credit card payment and splurge on some decent monitors....

Mesh, youre drunk..go to bed...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top