Ok, where should we record?

[GraemeC]

Aaah looking back for some reason bits of my post seemed to have got jumbled about' date=' sorry using my gfs computer that does weird things.

I'm just saying that this studio seems tooled out for the heavier edge of the spectrum, and some people have told me that for heavier stuff the Mill isnt quite as good if its really crunching guitar type stuff. This may be wrong but a few people from different bands have told me that

On the whole I'd always recommend the Mill tho, Jo recorded her first album there and except for the sound on the last one done in Cava I think the Mill sound was the best.

Cheers

Stuart[/quote']

Hmm I have never heard comments like that.....in fact there is no shortage of heavy guitars on Pallas albums....!! and the local stuff from guitar bands Ive heard (Alyssa's Wish, My minds weapon) sound heavy enough to me.

G...

[GraemeC]

Just to let u know' date=' they used the facilities here 4 years ago [/quote']

But youve only been open 2years......???

[jester1470]

Hmm I have never heard comments like that.....in fact there is no shortage of heavy guitars on Pallas albums....!! and the local stuff from guitar bands Ive heard (Alyssa's Wish' date=' My minds weapon) sound heavy enough to me.

G...[/quote']

As I've said, its not my genre enough to comment, more comments made from local musicians, I liked what I heard of Alyssa's wish but never rated the MMw stuff, but thats probably because i never rated the band. On the whole if i had the money I'd send any of my bands to the Mill instead of Oceanrock because the Mill would definitely do them justice i know that for a fact, plus after all of the travelling costs etc are taken itno account the Mill is probably cheaper from Aberdeen.

Cheers

Stuart

[oceanrockstudios]

But youve only been open 2years......???

2 years in this building. three in previous

[Flash@TMB]

Come on Graeme - a studio if hardly going to falsely claim to have recorded Fubar. He'd be much more likely to pretend he hadn't recorded Fubar LMAO! It's like a sheep telling you it has slept with Ronz... its hardly going to make that up to enhance it's reputation, or jumper sales.

[Cloud]

On the whole if i had the money I'd send any of my bands to the Mill instead of Oceanrock because the Mill would definitely do them justice i know that for a fact' date=' plus after all of the travelling costs etc are taken itno account the Mill is probably cheaper from Aberdeen. [/quote']

The only reason I'd ever send anyone Oceanrock's way is if they didn't know what they were doing - and to be honest, if a band doesn't know what they're doing in a studio, what are they doing there in the first place?

So go on Nathan, who actually has recorded in the present building with any sort of name value at all? I only recognise Fubar from the list on the website, and from your own confession, they didn't record in that building. So who has?

No-one's going to use a small local studio if they haven't heard what comes out of it first. Significantly, for a studio that's been open 2 years, there's only one google result for it and it points to here, so what does that say? If you google other studio names in Aberdeen, loads of links get pulled up, so..

Technical ability is one thing, but image is everything.

[Flash@TMB]

No-one's going to use a small local studio if they haven't heard what comes out of it first.

So how did all the other studios get their clients? More surprisingly is that certain studios still get clients EVEN AFTER PEOPLE HAVE HEARD what comes out of them LMAO! Its striking that arguably the busiest studio is also arguably the most mediocre. What does that tell you?

Freedom of choice is a wonderful thing. If I took on board everything that the motorcycle press spouted then I'd be riding a Honda CBR600, and so would everyone else. But having had the displeasure of riding a CBR600 on more than one occasion, I can honestly say that it is IMO the worst bike every made. If I listened to the computer press then I would be typing this on a Dell not a Mac.

If everyone listened to Cloud then everyone would be recording at The Mill. But they aren't!

Cloud - Nathan is just trying to earn a living, doing something he loves. He has made an oops in claiming that he can get the same results as the top studios. Which he almost certainly can't! But other than that he is not doing anything terribly evil.

All the average punter is going to ascertain listening to an MP3 on their PC is whether the recording is Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. It will not provide an accurate impression of a studios capabilites. Especially if it's 4 year old Fubar track LMAO! An MP3 is going to run roughshod over things such as quality of the preamps, desk, or DACS - neutralising any sonic failings. At best it will provide some indication of whether or not the engineer is competent. Not that this ever stopped anyone recording at home or with an incompetent engineer And for a fair comparison you'd need the same band to record at all the different studios. Never likely to happen.

As Neil correctly highlighted - most HiFi's are not of sufficient quality to properly discern the subtle differences that distinguish between a great studio and just a good one.

If it was me and my money, then I would choose to record at The Byre... but then most idiots consider themselves to be smarter than I am

[Flash@TMB]

Just to return this to something approaching the original topic...

We get demos from all over the place. Dozens of the fuckers every month. Sometime's the band aren't very good, or the materials not by cup of tea, but usually I get a fair idea of how well it's been produced. That's something I'm always interested in. Back 15 years ago most band demos that were for sale at gigs were on cassette and the quality from terrible. So the results that some bands achieve today is by contrast astounding. A situation that is likely to further improve in the future. And yes the technology is becoming much more affordable, but we're still some way off being able to produce commercial quality results in the bedroom! Above all - no matter how good and inexpensive the equipment becomes, a decent engineer will always be required. Sound engineering is a very misunderstood subject.

Choice of studio is very much a question of horses for courses. Here are my observations based on the demos that I've heard *GASP*. The horses:

Oceanrock - I don't recall hearing anything, but I get so many demos that unless I had already heard of the studio (for instance on this forum) then it wouldn't register. From now on I'll keep an ear open.

Captain Tom's - I've heard some decent stuff and some truely awfull sounding stuff. I suspect that this may be due to their popular "recording for 100" offer... but I've also heard some flagship recordings that have been dissapointing.

Exile Studio - Some astonishingly good results on very tight budgets. Never heard anything crap... other than when the bands have taken it away and mixed it themselves. Have also heard some tracks that were recorded on a higher budget and these are very good. Exile is one of the few studios that produce demos with a very distinctive production. Most places seem to go for a very neutral audiophile sound (which works well on my system), but Exile recordings have the advantage of sounding good on crap systems! On a decent system you can detect traces of production noise though. If I was going for a decent result on the cheap, then this would be my choice. If I was looking for something that 80s pop punk sounding production, then this would be my choice.

My Mates Place - My mates Andy Phillip and Scott Cruikshank have got a place up and running. They are operating on a tight budget, but Andy had previously operated a bedroom studio for many years. They really know their stuff when it comes to guitars, are technically excellent musicians, and can provide music lessons, guitar tutoring, band coaching, and guitar repairs. I haven't heard any results yet, but if you are looking for band coaching or are very guitar driven then you should cjeck them out:

http://www.aberdeen-music.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22383&highlight=andyphillip

The Mill - Everything I've heard from here (with few exceptions) had sounded highly competent and polished. Never heard any bad stories either. Very well respected. Sound quality also seems to have improved recently. IMO the best studio within in the Aberdeen area.

The Byre - We had some demos come through that sounded simply stunning. They were each recorded somewhere called The Byre, but I'd never heard of it at that time but filed the name away for future reference. Then Mark told be he'd somewhere called The Byre and was raving about the facilities. Only recently did I make the connection that they were one and the same place. Doh! Haven't heard any of the stuff that Mark's done there yet, but no doubt he'll read this and show up with a CD this weekend. This is my choice for absolute sound quality.

Now for the courses:

If it was me and my money then I would choose to spend 4 days at a studio recording a 4 track EP of my bands standout tracks. I'd expect to pay in the region of 1000. This would work out at 200-300 per band member. This is what I believe MMW did (at The Mill) and it certainly seems that they got the result they were looking for! The studio selected would be down to personal preferences, suitability, and logisitics...

If I was a novice band then I'd invest in a MiniDisc recorder.

[Flash@TMB]

And Cloud - are you aware that your on-line persona has become a total c**t lately? Cos it has. Best do something to remedy that!

[spellchecker]

There are only four studios in the UK that can and they are Abbey' date=' Air, Whitfield Street (just) and Angel (at a pinch).

[/quote']

hmm, interesting. i thought there would be more studios with this capability. how many are in a full orchestra? is it like 70 or 80 or something?

have you ever worked or been inside metropolis in chiswick? it looks pretty big:

http://www.metropolis-group.co.uk

i only know of it because my friend lives above it! it's this huge old power station that got renovated and converted into 4 or 5 floors of studios (metropolis) and then on the top floor there are some flats. some quite big names have done work there though.

[Cloud]

And Cloud - are you aware that your on-line persona has become a total c**t lately? Cos it has. Best do something to remedy that!

call it apathy

nah, i've just started voicing my opinion a lot more, out of sheer frustration i think..

[MTA]

I have used metropolis for Mastering before with good results. I think they could take a full Orchestra with 90m/2???

[spellchecker]

flash, you raise some interesting points about home recording / studio recording in general. however, i can't help feel there are some contradictions in there - not necessarily in what you said, but just in the impression you give. i think some of it comes from your self confessed audiophile status.

out of convenience i listen to compressed music on my computer which is connected to my old hifi. i don't use mp3 files but instead encode things as .ogg files at a variable bitrate around the 200kbit/s mark. it's more than enough to satisfy me in terms of reproduction in an audiophile sense. if played back to back, cd source against compressed file, would i notice the difference? maybe, maybe not - but that isn't the point. the question for me is, "is it good enough?" and the answer is obviously yes, otherwise i'd either still be listening to CDs or encoding in a lossless format. i think your better quality reproduction system whether because of the cd player, speakers or amplifier alerts you to defects and/or artefacts that users of less quality gear would otherwise not be aware of. for me ignorance is bliss, but perhaps that's only because i've never really sat on the other side of the fence.

anyway, i'm drifting miles off track here, sorry. the inference i got from you (whether intended or not) was that a "home" recording could not be up to the standard as something produced by the likes of the byre, or a studio like the byre (a truly full time, dedicated and planned studio with a time served engineer). or maybe the inference was that you had never heard anything from a home/project studio that you felt matched the quality coming from more professional studios. i thought you meant the first inference, so apologies if i'm off the mark there.

i have spent a lot of time in what could be called a project studio, in glasgow. it belongs to Rico, whose last album was written in that studio. although the studio is really for writing his own work, he does record other bands as well, and some of the results are fantastic. it is definitely not a typical studio in the classic sense.. perhaps in the sense that andrew from the byre described. however, the results often sound amazing, because time and money has been spent on very specific things. i can't remember all the equipment there off by heart, but i remember the studio cost about 35k to fit out. there are 2 live rooms - a vocal room and a drum / bass room. the main vocal mic is a rode classic 2, which is a lovely valve mic. there are david eden cabs which when driven by nice gear sound beautiful. there is a soundcraft ghost mixing desk, which is hooked up to a mac with digidesign stuff running pro tools.

the point i am trying to make is that home/project studios can put out decent stuff - as good a job as a "top london studio" could make of the same material. rico's records are out on general release, and are perceived as "proper studio material".

also, there is a question of engineering and mixing that troubles me - a question i ask myself that is... recently nine inch nails released the source files to their first 2 singles from their new album. without too much effort, it is possible to reconstruct the song from these samples in a multitrack program on a PC, such that the composition sounds the same as the released single. if mixing is so easy, does it then mean that what defines studio quality comes down more to the tracking process? as a caveat, i'm pretty convinced that the samples that were available to download were all fairly eq'd/filtered/tweaked to be even across the frequency spectrum when recompiled - but still - it raises a few interesting issues. and it also convinces me that a home/project studio with the right gear can produce material on a par sonically with that of professional/purpose built studios.

[spellchecker]

I have used metropolis for Mastering before with good results. I think they could take a full Orchestra with 90m/2???

well i have never been inside (though i'd LOVE to!), but from the website it says that they can hold a 26 piece string section

[The Byre]

Quote Flash: "The Byre - We had some demos come through that sounded simply stunning."

__________________________________________________________________________

I'd love to know who that was, as we keep copies of everything done here.

__________________________________________________________________________

Quote Spellchecker: " i thought there would be more studios with this capability. how many are in a full orchestra? is it like 70 or 80 or something? Have you ever worked or been inside metropolis in chiswick? it looks pretty big"

__________________________________________________________________________

Their biggest room is 90 sq m with two 15 sq m booths. (We are 70, 25 and 10, but with definate plans to expand the main room.) 90 sq m is about enough for up to 20 musicians with instruments, but they do not have a piano, so orchestral work is out. The acoustics of Studio A are very good indeed. The equipmnet is a bit dated (old monitors, old desk and not 5.1 capable) but of a high standard and the control room is just great - lots of space and good acoustics. It is one of London's best mid-sized facilities.

But Nathen nailed his colours to the mast of top London facilities - and that means being in a totally different league. The main room at Abbey Road is 470 sq m, Air is about 300 and Whitfield St and Angel are both under 200 sq m. All have brand new AMS-Neve desks (the 88R with a sticker price of around 200,000) and all are fully equippend for 5.1.

But back to Flash's comment on quality, I make it a rule to not allow anything out of the building that is not as good as it can be (within the bounds of reason of course!) I also do not allow guest engineers to work here that do not come up to a certain standard.

(There is a sort of a studio mafia that allows every studio owner to see what is going on and who is working where and which engineers are doing which projects. So if someone makes a claim that they have worked somewhere or on a certain project, any audio professional can look that up and check - even if they have not been given any sleeve or screen credits. So anyone who claims to be an audio engineer, but has never actually worked on anything real, would soon be exposed - or rather just be not listed.)

The UK music scene is very, very small - as is the music scene in every European country - and everybody knows everybody else. The result is that it is very hard to get a new studio up and running and especially hard right now with so much home recording going on. The home recording industry has almost completely wiped out the demo market and taken massive chunks out of the pro market as well. In order to gain a foothold as a studio, the owner has to offer the customer something that he or she cannot get at home.

And let's be quite clear about this: Home studios come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from CuBase on a PC, through to Mark Knopfler's new studio that cost him about 10 million. One of the first things a musician does, once they have been able to earn some real money, is invest in their own recording rig. The guys who are in right now are using their own HD3 rig and a shed load of 192s. The engineer has his own studio with good monitors from Dynaudio and Genelec and a range of first-class mics. He has his own piano, his own Fender Rhodes Mk I, his own Hammond C3 and a huge sampling system.

So, in order to gain his trade, I have to give him something else. Something that he cannot get in London. There is no point driving all that way if he has the same things at home!

On top of that, if I am going to attract trade from London, I have to be up to their standard. Now, nobody expects me to have a bar, a canteen, an in-house hotel and a wide choice of rooms featuring every piece of kit known to mankind. But I do have to have the basics. And the basics usually cost money.

When it comes to kitting out a bog-standard studio, there are suprisingly few choices. This may come as a suprise to many who see all the sexy ads for channel strips, monitors and mics in the pages of Sound-on-Sound or Mix Magazine. Some things are a matter of choice, but most are not.

Many industries are like that. If you are setting up a steel casting works, there is just one make of casting machine you can use. If you do not have a Giesematic (I think that is the name) you will have very few customers. And as I stated before, if you want to run a taxi company in London, you will have to have an Austin Taxi. If you want to run a power tool hire company, you will have to use Stihl chain saws and strimmers. Within an industry, certain products and other things such as education and qualifications, become standards.

Here's a good example: stage vocal mics have to be Shure SM58. This is a cheap mic. It costs less than 100, but it does the job better than any other mic. That is the standard. Yes, you can deviate from that standard for certain special uses and effects, but 9 times out of 10, the SM58 is what one expects to see.

Studio standards are not all expensive. Some are quite cheap. More often than not, the standard is not the most expensive option. Near-field reference monitors MUST be the old NS10 from Yamaha. These were never particularly expensive speakers, but all customers expect to find them, not because they are particularly nice-sounding, but because they have certain propperties that make then very good reference speakers.

Some items just have a certain sound and the studio has to have that item if it is to provide the customer with that sound. Only a Hammond A100, B3, C3 or RT3 fed through a Leslie 145 or 147 sounds like a Hammond organ. Altogether, when it comes to instruments like organ or piano, a studio cannot fob the customer off with samples - he's got all those sample CDs at home. He pays for a studio to get the real thing. If we are talking about pianos, it had better be either a Steinway or a Bosendorfer concert grand. He probably has something from the Far East at home. But if he or she is paying by the hour, it had better be something real.

And so it goes on, right across the studio kit list. The reverb, the desk, the multi-effects, the dynamic processors, the multi-tracks and the monitors.

And before I am accused of being elitist, every section of the market has these standards for every type of studio. A home studio can have a Soundcraft Ghost, a demo room can go for an Audient or a DDA. A mid-market studio used to be able to opt for an Amek (up to about two years ago) or perhaps an older SSL. Top studios have to have an SSL K series or the AMS-Neve 88R.

So yes, it is possible to run a studio at all ends of the market, but the demo end of the market is hopelessly overcrowded and underfunded. As Spellchecker points out, his mate has a perfectly viable studio in his home. So does Mark Knopfler!

[Flash@TMB]

for me ignorance is bliss' date=' but perhaps that's only because i've never really sat on the other side of the fence.[/quote']

It's the joy of listening to something in it's purest form as it were. It's very addictive. If you're ever likely to be in the bar near closing time, then bring along a couple of CDs and we can have a nerdy listen after hours. But yes most of the time when I'm not 100% listening, where the music is ancillary it makes no difference whether it's AM radio or SACD! But if you really love music, then sometimes you just want to sit down a REALLY listen. And that's when it counts

anyway' date=' i'm drifting miles off track here, sorry. the inference i got from you (whether intended or not) was that a "home" recording could not be up to the standard as something produced by the likes of the byre, or a studio like the byre (a truly full time, dedicated and planned studio with a time served engineer). [/quote']

Yes we've got a textbook case of web forum communication here LOL. I was referring to Joe Bloggs with a copy of QBase literally sited in his bedroom!

the point i am trying to make is that home/project studios can put out decent stuff - as good a job as a "top london studio" could make of the same material. rico's records are out on general release' date=' and are perceived as "proper studio material".[/quote']

Oh yeah they can do an excellent job, but in reality 30K of equipment is not going to produce the same S:N ratio and level of fidelity as some of these places can. But most people would be unable to discern the difference. Most practised listeners (engineers) would notice though... certainly during a back to back comparsion.

also' date=' there is a question of engineering and mixing that troubles me - a question i ask myself that is... recently nine inch nails released the source files to their first 2 singles from their new album. without too much effort, it is possible to reconstruct the song from these samples in a multitrack program on a PC, such that the composition sounds the same as the released single. if mixing is so easy, does it then mean that what defines studio quality comes down more to the tracking process?[/quote']

You've hit the nail on the head. Andrew and Mark can shed light on this, more lucidly that I can, but here goes... Mixing is the easy part. It's not rocket science and it is highly subjective anyway. It is really just a matter of pushing faders around until you strike the balance that you like. There are even some basic guidelines on how to set the relative levels of the various drums. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that it's a piece of piss, just that people fail to realise that mixing is the most straightforward part of the process. I always laugh at gigs when some swinging dick offers their opinion on the mix "the snare isn't loud enough" or whatever. Mixing is so subjective that most engineers either mix it entirely for their own ears, or mix a compromise, that from experience, they know will sit reasonably well with most people. Apart from snareman. Best solution is to equip the audience with their own headphones and master bus mixers LMAO.

The hardest part in mixing is bring forward or pushing back the various instruments. All types of music are traditionally mixed to different guidelines. With funk you bring the bass forward. With jazz you push the drums back. With pop you bring the vocals out front. With old metal you bring the snare and the guitars forward and push the bass back. Etc etc.

And PANNNG, an important part of the mixing process, is terribly overlooked. We get sent demos all the time that employ little or no panning. And they suck!

The hard part is engineering everything so that it can sit together in the first place. Everything should live clearly in it's own space yet form a cohesive whole. Tricky when you are working with a large number or tracks. For instance if you cut a certain frequency on one instrument, then you need to boost it for another. It's like making a jigsaw... one piece at a time! A common defect is the bass overlapping the guitars.

So in an approximate order LOL:

1) They have to get the mics right. Select the most appropriate mics and position them in the right places. Sometime you can have several mics just of one cymbal! Afterwards they'll blend these togther. They also need to set up the amps so that the sounds are sitting reasonably well together.

2) Usually they'll listen to each of the rough feeds and perhaps even a rough mix to get an idea of where everything is sitting.

3) The first post recording steps are usually things like normalisation and gating. They need to get the gating just right or it will take the life out of the drums, and or introduce too much mushiness. They also have to maintain if not enhance the 'power'. Getting the gating and compression right on the drums isn't easy! Then the bass guitar needs to sit in with the drums, in it's own distinct space, but coming togther with the kick drum etc.

4) Then they think about dynamic balance, and the power of the music. This is where compressors come in. To make sure that when something big occurs in the bottom end, that it doesn't shit all over everything else in the mix.

5) Then it's into the EQing. Everything will require some filtering, cutting, and boosting in order to jump out of the mix, and in order to leave room for everything else. This produces that clarity characteristic of all good recordings.

6) Then there's the illusion of 'space'. Usually these instruments are recorded in isolation, one at a time. The engineer has to make this sound like the namd were actually playing together, and that each instument has it's own space created in the soundscape. As if for instance the person was standing in a particular place in a room, or on a stage. Certain FX units, compressors, and processors are used to colour the sound and create the space. In studio recording this is probably the main use of the compressor, unlike live performance where it's used much more to control dynamics.

7) They've also go to 'warm up' this virtual soundscape, and that usually means sending the tracks through a really good quality analogue desk, with lovingly crafted preamps. Just to smooth out of the sound.

8) The engineer also has to help along the rthymn of the tune. They have to make it interesting to listen to. Make sure that it doesn't fatigue the ears. This will involve the use of EQ, delays, reverbs etc. They might even cut certain sections of the track and patch it back together. In some cases the'll even cut and paste each drum beat or bass note into exactly the right place.

9) And when it comes to mastering, every track on the album, even compilation albums, has to sit together dynamically.

***

Sorry if that reads incoherently, and it's probably terribly inaccurate. No doubt I missed a bunch of steps. Hopefully someone that knows what they are talking about can clear this up LMAO! It's my best attempt at empathy.

[spellchecker]

what a great post. so do you have a bosendorfer or a steinway then? tori amos is always bleating on (bless her cotton socks) about bosendorfers. i heard there was a software plugin sampler that tries to emulate it, and it takes 2gb of samples or something. i've never even seen one, let alone come close to playing one.

it's funny what you said about NS10's being standard as well, that's exactly what rico has in his studio. i read about them on the internet and apparently they have quite a shifty bass or mid response (i can't remember) compared to some of today's more advanced near fields, yet like you said, it is almost like a standard, cos people seem to know what something should sound like through NS10's or know when something sounds wrong through NS10's! i don't think they sell them anymore, but i know you can still get replacement cones for them.

i'm thinking of getting some tannoy reveals as my first set of nearfield monitors. they seem to get a good review for the range they are in.

edit: oops, this was directed at the byre. but they were both good posts anyway

[Ronz]

Yup,it's true...we suck

Ronz

Ok here's a good one....just spoke to two current members of Fubar (2 years +) and they havent recorded at oceanrocks...

Hmmm....

edit: Ronz has been in Fubar from day one and has never recorded at that studio.....

Cant imagine why anyone would name drop Fubar.....they suck!!!

Sorry Ronz...

edit2: Oh and you shouldnt link to sites where they still use your real name Norman

[Ronz]

He's joking You have our permission to post the mp3's though,it'll be very interesting to hear them

Ronz

Just to let u know' date=' they used the facilities here 4 years ago while Ronnie was on a sabbatical. Fubar should never be dissed because they ALWAYS put on a great show and have a loyal fan base

cheers

nathan[/quote']

[HeinzHines]

Sorry if that reads incoherently' date=' and it's probably terribly inaccurate. No doubt I missed a bunch of steps. Hopefully someone that knows what they are talking about can clear this up LMAO! It's my best attempt at empathy.[/quote']

Seems pretty much that you got all the main elements....im glad this topic has come to mixing....seeing as we already have had the home recording vs studio recording style debate...now we should lead it onto home mixing vs done by a professional...

Im not sure why...but loads of bands goto a studio and record tracks then decide instead of spending more money they will mix things as home....idiots....as Flash pointed out...most people do not have the first clue on how to mix tracks....these home mixing jobs 9/10 sound god aweful....most people who do this home mixing havent the slightest clue as to what gates and duckers(Sp?) do, let alone working with compressors and parametric eq's and such....actually id be suprised if anyone who home mixes even has a decent software for gating/compressing etc....

Pisses me off because a decent mix always makes your tracks sound so much better....

[threeornothing]

As for samples of music - studios (ours' date=' Nathen's or anybody eles's) do not own or have access to the rights to the music their customers record, but here are some links:. .[/quote']

If you want a band to record at your studio, who's recordings you are free to let people hear as an example of your work/quality....we'll gladly do it for free

(can't blame a guy for trying )

[soundian]

Most musicians have got their own project studio where they can record into CoodEdit or PT-Lite and do some bar-beat editing - most will have their own PA mixers and a load of stage mics like SM57s and 58s.

Most bands do not have their own stage mics, except some have vocal mics (if an SM58 or equivalent doesn't work and/or for hygiene reasons) and perhaps some speacialised mics if they have more "exotic" instruments than most venues can't cater for. Bands engineers rather than bands are normally the people that own these as well.

As for PA/mixers, most will only have a small one if they need it for rehearsal. Some cover bands have their own PA but generally most small to medium venues will have in-house PA's and the cost of buying, maintaining,running and transporting a large PA is prohibitive unless it works a lot more often than most bands gig in a year.

[Flash@TMB]

Most bands do not have their own stage mics' date=' except some have vocal mics (if an SM58 or equivalent doesn't work and/or for hygiene reasons) and perhaps some speacialised mics if they have more "exotic" instruments than most venues can't cater for. Bands engineers rather than bands are normally the people that own these as well.

As for PA/mixers, most will only have a small one if they need it for rehearsal. Some cover bands have their own PA but generally most small to medium venues will have in-house PA's and the cost of buying, maintaining,running and transporting a large PA is prohibitive unless it works a lot more often than most bands gig in a year.[/quote']

I think he was talking about bigger professional bands. People that have built home studios etc. Also suspect he means something else by PA mixer. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that Oceanrock have a PA mixer in the studio. Has me confused too.

[The Byre]

Where do I begin?

Asking me how to mic, mangle, mix and master music is like asking how does one build an ocean-going sailing boat or how does one build a house. It's a very big subject! You could start by reading some of the pages on my website on how to record.

Monitors and the NS10: Simple - the NS10 was originally supposed to be a cheap bookshelf speaker from Yamaha. But then someone noticed that it sounded much clearer and crisper than any of the other standard small nearfield monitors, so it began to apear in US studios. This habit spread to the UK and soon customers began asking for the NS10 and also had them at home. It gave them a reference point.

The 'secret' of the NS10 is no secret. They are not ported and have a very light weight membrane on the little eight inch bass driver. Speakers are ported to give them an extended bass. This has the huge disadvantage of causing the speaker to have a poor response time, i.e. it takes them much longer to react to a chage in the signal. This in turn, gives them a 'muddy' sound. PA speakers get around this by using very stiff membranes and long transmission lines for the bass port. They also use masses of power - the latest JBL line-arrays use 6 kW - yes, 6,000 Watts - for each and every box.

The NS10 also had a very good tweeter, so the package became irresistable - just as long as one remembered that they had more or less no bass below 80Hz. They also peaked at around 1.1kHz, so any mixes made on them tended to pull sharp and screachy things like lead guitars and lead vocals further back or the engineer would make these elements more mollow. In this way, mixes made on the NS10 'translated' better to other systems. Some people (Mark is one!) like to use them with a sub-woofer to create a full range sound and therefore have control over all the sound right down to the sub-bass.

The fact that only a fully closed speaker has a better (i.e. faster) response time has since been used by that other studio standard, the M&K 1025 active system with sub. The M&Ks are mid-field, i.e. they throw the sound further.

There is no point using full closed speakers (also known as infinite baffles) for a PA, because they are very inefficient.

Now to the home recording debate: getting a good sound down on tape (well, hard disk) is not only a very academic subject (it involves music, technology, acousics and computer programming) but it is alos very expensive. Flash touched on the subject of how to make a sound stand out in a mix and that is a very good example of why studios are costly places to build and run. High quality real instuments stand up in a mix in a way that all commercially available samples just do not. That means that real concert grand pianos have to sit in rooms that have been designed to sound as good as possible.

(BTW, Tori Amos bangs on about Boesendorfer pianos because she is sponsored by them! But they are very good and are the best European-built hand-made piano available. Steinways are good, if you can get a hand-built version. The off-the-shelf Steinways are mass-produced and not that good. Very, very sadly, almost all the rest are cheap rip-offs banged out at rock-bottom prices in Korean and Chinese factories. The old names like Bechstein and Grotian have long since been bought up and used to sell cheap imports of poor quality boxes. I have heard good things about a marque called Estonia pianos that are built in -yes, you've guessed it! - Estonia. But I have not heard one. Fazioli are high quality Italian pianos, but loose their tuning quickly, so are unsuitable for recording.)

Can you and should you record at home? Well, as I pointed out before, Mark Knopfler has a home studio - but it cost 10 million. Dave Gillmore has a home studio and it cost just 2 million. But what about normal mortals? Well I would not do it for the same reason that I do not do my own pumbing! I am not a plumber.

(Last week I thought that I would quickly replace the immersian heater that had failed in the house, so I went to Wickes and bought a 16,99 heater and a wrench and set to work. Well, to cut a long story short, I managed to put a hole in the boiler and had to get a new one installed by a real plumber who knew what he was doing. My 16,99 immersian heater cost me 300 because I am not a plumber!)

Firstly, let's just look at the statistics: Here is a list of hits that have been recorded, mixed and mastered at home:

um . . .

err . . .

There, that was the list! It was not very long, was it?

Zip, nothing, zilch, not a sausage. Not one record in the history of mankind has been recorded, mixed and mastered at home. OK, some have been started at home and then overlayed in a proper studio. But that is all - and that is very, very few. So statistically speaking, the chances of getting a good sound at home are very very poor.

So why do people spend money on all these home recording packages? Because it says 'A Complete Recording Studio in your PC at Home' on the package. That is a bit like pretending that Microsoft Publisher is a complete printing works and will let you publish something on the scale and quality of the Sunday Times. It isn't, it doesn't and you can't.

But there is a whole industry out there geared at selling the idea that you could record the next World hit at home. Trust me on this one; if it were possible, someone would have done it.

But aren't the newspapers (and mags like Sound-on-Sound) full of stories about people having done just that? Well, yes they are - but it is all complete bollocks. It is just hype to create interest in the product and make the customer think that, by buying this CD, he or she is somehow 'kicking' the system and the major lables. In reality, it is the major lables who put out this kind of stuff to help sell their product.

Sometimes they are the same people who sell the music software - Sony for example.

But there is an ugly side to all this. So a whole bunch of kids all over the World spent billions on home recording, that ain't so bad. It's fun to do and does not make you go blind! But there is another industry that tells people that they can earn a living putting up small studios that are just home recording opperations. That is when it gets unclean.

I say unclean, because there are fewer than 50 full time commercial music studios in the UK and they are mostly struggling.

Here is a thread from the SOS forum and I want you to read it all, from May 2003 to June 2004. From the announcement of the studio to its closure and with it the misguided dreams of a young man and his family. All his kit was later to appear on eBay and was sold off for a fraction of what he paid for it. It makes good reading and should be manitory for all those wishing to enter the studio-for-hire business at the demo end of things:

http://sound-on-sound2.infopop.net/2/OpenTopic?q=Y&a=tpc&s=215094572&f=884099644&m=4923001037&p=1

The person who began that year-long thread, began with "Expect to see a brand new recording studio opening in central Southampton within 6 - 8 weeks. For full details, visit xwww.arby-studios.co.uk to see the amazing equipment and instruments it has to offer."

The words "amazing equipment" kind of remind me of someone else . . .

On the PA and mixer ownership question, most professional bands have a small rig to cover the gap between pub gigs and large tours with PA thrown in (together with hotels, travel, etc) by the promoter. As a small PA rig only costs a few thousand and can double as rehersal rig, it is far cheaper to buy one than to spend several hundred pounds two or three times a week just to hire one. You know, all those gigs in town halls, university canteens and army barracks. Piss-houses we used to call them!

A PA or live mixer is a desk designed for work on the road and in the clubs. they are divided into FOH (front of house) mixers for the main mix and monitor mixers for the band, so that every musician has his or her own mix. Studio mixers are very different, in that they have to be able to route to and from a 24 or 48 track multitrack recorder and do other things that no live mixer would ever have to do like 5.1 mixes, route to different sub-groups and have inserts on every channel, group and output. They also have to have large monitor sections so that the engineer can switch from 5.1 to stereo to mono and compare the mix on different sets of speakers and with and without subs.

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Damn!!! I wanted to write a line or two of clarification. Now look what you people have gone and made me do!!!

[soundian]

I think he was talking about bigger professional bands. People that have built home studios etc. Also suspect he means something else by PA mixer. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that Oceanrock have a PA mixer in the studio. Has me confused too.

Most bands do not have their own stage mics' date=' except some have vocal mics (if an SM58 or equivalent doesn't work and/or for hygiene reasons) and perhaps some speacialised mics if they have more "exotic" instruments than most venues can't cater for. Bands engineers rather than bands are normally the people that own these as well.

[/quote']

This bit was about medium to big professional bands, they're even less likely to have their own mics, because they will rehehearse, record and tour with professional rooms/studios/PA companies who will supply exactly what they need.

As for PA/mixers' date=' most will only have a small one if they need it for rehearsal. Some cover bands have their own PA but generally most small to medium venues will have in-house PA's and the cost of buying, maintaining,running and transporting a large PA is prohibitive unless it works a lot more often than most bands gig in a year.

[/quote']

This bit was about small powered mixers (I'm assuming that's what he means) which are the most common for small bands to own, for rehearsal or small gigs, but very few bands have this, they go to a rehearsal room and use the house/pa company mics. Most people don't see the need for buying a mic if it's supplied everywhere they go.