AMA - recording engineer/musician

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by ThePianoMan, Jun 20, 2017.

  1. ThePianoMan

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    Howdy y'all. I'm a musician and recording engineer, and I've been working on project for a couple years, where I ask different folks about what they would like to see MORE of from their recordings/music. Obviously we'd all love less compressed garbage from the pop industry, but that major complaint aside, what are things you would like to have from your recordings and music aside from that? It just occured to me the other day as I was chatting with an engineer I know, that I should ask my fellow SBAF-ers.

    And I figured, while I'm at it, I might post some recordings I've done, and can also answer any questions people might have.

    A little background on me: I'm a multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer trained in classical, jazz, and world music. I was lucky enough to study theory, history, ethnomusicology, etc. and many aspects of sound recording, but especially acoustics and applied psychoacoustics at a great conservatory. I'm currently working on several experimental and electronic music/fusion projects. I've done sound design for video games and some movie scoring, as well as a lot of purist jazz/classical stuff, and even some broadcast/podcasting stuff. I've worked as a voice actor a bit too. Basically I do a bit of everything, but I have a soft spot for minimalist acoustic recording.
     
  2. Priidik

    Priidik MOT: Estelon

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    RIP daw condoms!
    Bring on analog and acoustic instruments, minimum shit in between mic and output medium.
    Everything else is musicians.

    Compression is too vague description, it needs to be picked apart.
    Perceivable DR limitations, microdynamics presence, stage compression, tonal dependency with all of these.

    It's sad that so many awesome metal recordings are veiled, not so much compressed in conventional sense. (for example Mastodon)
    It's evident that they use superb instruments; drums and riffs have substance, but the end result sounds like band is facing audience backwards or smth.
    I don't think it could be cured with shifting tonal balance around. There is stuff missing.

    Synth pop is lacking in micro contrasts as everything from daw and digital instruments has that for granted. (Noisia despite using modulars --> daw fucks it up, probably).
    Not gonna bother to comment more.

    On average acoustic stuff seems to be much less plagued: sometimes the soundstage is compressed (w/o depth of field). (will edit in the most noticeable example in time)

    In the end it looks to me that the sound engineers are too bored and overdo things.
    Simple recorded live is often better than studio album.
     
  3. Zed Bopp

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    I'm mostly into rock and metal, so that's what I'll talk about. (I've done some non-pro recording on top of playing guitars, drums etc. on my/our tunes.)

    Mastodon is a good example I know very well as I'm a big fan. Their records are mostly pretty good SQ-wise, compared to lots of other rock records these days. One thing that's missing on their records often is a good snap from the snare. They have a lively sounding set in general with lots of bleed from the snares on fills etc., but somehow that immediate snare crack is lost. I'd venture a guess and say it's too much compression / limiting on the drumset in general.

    About snare-sounds... I'm a drummer at heart and just love the sound of a well recorded set. Way too often that great drum and player (and additional gear) sound like a wimpy "tick". It seems that crack is the first victim of brickwalling. I know this is all old stuff, but I just hate what happens to drums when the mix volume is pushed way too hard.

    Also with rock and metal, bass guitar is way too often just the lower octave of the rhythm guitar, you cannot hear it really (...And Justice For All anyone?). I guess this is just as much an artistic choice than just production, but this instrument needs to be heard too. (Mastodon is actually a good example of just the opposite.) Those upfront P-bass tones of Frank Bello in Anthrax are just lovely.

    In conclusion, the drums are the real victim of brickwalling in rock and metal. The guitars are totally compressed by that distortion already, they come unharmed most of the time. I guess bass guitars are too often just tucked away for more convenience.

    IMO Blood Mountain has the best production out of them Masto-albums. Rich Costey has a touch for some snappy mixes :headbang:

    P.S. Micing drums close-mic'd vs preferring room mic's is a matter of another debate :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017
  4. ThePianoMan

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    Just a thought on Dynamic Range compression. When we engineers use compressions, the immediate effect is that the record actually gets QUIETER. It then gets louder because you turn up the gain (whether digital or analog) to increase the volume. A little bit of compression can be a great thing, in fact I use it on some orchestral/contemporary classical and jazz stuff that has level extremes to make it listenable without leaving the audience scrambling for the volume control.

    I recently started using a system called "K-system monitoring" which was started by Bob Katz. It's a wonderful tool because it basically stipulates that rather than looking at the clipping indicator on our DAW or hardware (the 'red-line') it institutes a separate meter that shows the red line when a certain amount of headroom has been used up. Usually this is somewhere between 20-14db below the usual 0 db gain line. He then mandates the calibration and use of, if I'm recalling correctly, an 83db reference playback level in-room. The end result is that you're paying attention to headroom and not compressing the crap out of stuff just to try to boost more gain. The system can be used a sliding reference for broadcasting/film work too which is really awesome. A lot of people, even some otherwise excellent engineers don't realize that compressing music past a certain point actually reduces musical information and headroom to the point of making the music sound quieter, even when the gain is cranked up, such as for radio. Loudness standards for radio are kinda screwy because of that. I recently saw Marv mention that film and video game scores and music sound great right now. Partially because there's still money there, and partially because they're used to working with enforced and reference monitoring standards. They've got certain targets they need to hit. Incidentally, some of the best recorded music out there right now is film and video game soundtracks. Working on those types of projects is a lot of fun for me because some of those parameters are much better defined.

    On the other hand, there's a lot of really well recorded music out there, and not just in the jazz and classical spaces. In fact, if you look outside rock/pop, artists like Rhiannon Giddens, Melody Gardot, Ambrose Akinmusire, Christian Scott, The Cat Empire, etc. are some (quirky) great groups putting out recordings with very good sound quality. Are all of them audiophile/hi-fi gold? No. But some are, and more than that, some of the really exciting music out there doesn't sound half bad. I'm not sure I really need to hear Taylor Swift or Eagles re-issues in super quality. That's not really the intended listening environment for that music. But I also realize some people want that. In any case, *end rant*

    I'll post some recordings hopefully this weekend showing off some experimentation I've been doing with time-phase encoding that can help optimize recordings for headphone and stereo playback. Loving the questions and comments! Keep them coming.
     
  5. Mshenay

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  6. Garns

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    Using analogue to get clarity and transparency rather than a "warm" sound. Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan are all well and good, and sound incredible, but the colouration is clear and very much of its time. Nowadays analogue used as an effect (eg John Vanderslice, Daft Punk, sometimes Nigel Godrich) does not impress me. Steve Albini gets close to how good modern analogue should sound imo, but it also has his own particular sound, very close mic'd and aggressive. Albini's stuff with Low and Nina Nastasia is more subtle and gets pretty close to what I would like to hear more of.

    In the electronic sphere, just go bananas. There is still not much to beat Bernard Parmegiani from the 70s. Maybe Autechre.
     
  7. ThePianoMan

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    @Mshenay
    So, with the caveat that you'll be ear from most anyone who works in sound recording, this field is hard. There's a lot of competition and the pay mostly sucks. I'm lucky to be able to do it about half of the time. (I have several business ventures and work as a design/creative problem solving consultant the other half of the time, which brings in A LOT more money)
    If there's something else you can do to pay the bills while also pursuing audio, do it.

    Ok, so now that you've heard that disclaimer, I'll say it depends on where you are. If you're not in college yet, think about going to school for music production or something creative. I wouldn't recomend engineering school because you can learn to mix and record anywhere and I know a lot of folks coming out of major recording programs like Full Sail and Miami who just don't know how to edit or mix anything besides the giant pop records they've practiced on. Grab a copy of reaper, some free plugins and a cheap microphone and start exploring. YouTube is a great resource. There's also a ton of people who put up free VST plugins, their own mixes for you to practice on, sample libraries, etc.

    Do once you kind of have the hang of that, where do you go? If you're serious about working in video games learn how ganes are made, how music integrates and pretty much the single most important thing you can do to stand out is acyually he a creator. Unless you're working on the next big call of duty/assassins creed/whatever Triple AAA title, (which are basically film work) the most successful engineers are the ones who can also write or compose or play music. Get a midi keyboard and learn to program music. Again youtubs is great. You don't have to be a brilliant pianist to play some cool stuff in. Too hard to to link right now (I'm inn my phone) but there's great video documenting Stewart Copeland (yes, from the police) writing the music for the Old Spyro the Dragon series. Worth checking out. Observe, listen, replicate, then experiment and branch out.

    If there's are opportunities with places who do things you're interested in, go for them. You never know who you'll meet if you're friendly and a good worker. If there isn't, reach out directly to video game composers/engineers and ask them about their work. People are usysalky flattered, and the non-AAA title people are still a tight knit enough community that they appreciate it. Plus not very many people are that proactive so it shows you're invested.

    Probably not the most helpful advice, but it's a tough field. If you want to send me a PM with some more specifics I can see if there are more specific suggestions I can give you.
     
  8. ThePianoMan

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    @Garns

    Agreed. Many people in the industry are chasing "vintage" sounds from particular records. A lot of wannabee "hit makers" who are trying to perfectly replicate that one sound from 1970 with too much money. Unfortunately the gear industry panders to this with crappy tone settings, starved plate tube designs and an endless supply of frequency modelling that almost always makes the recordings sound worse. Modern hardware EQs and other outboard gear can be quite good, but I personally just use high quality digital mastering software and get results that to my ears, are just as good if not better without all that outboard stuff. Different strokes and all that.

    Another note, and this may be a controversial opinion, but I kinda dislike vinyl. It's an inherently lossy format and all the new vinyl nowadays is just recorded into protools anyways. Even if it isn't, it's dumped into a DAW for mixing. So new vinyl is actually just bandwidth limited digital. No thanks.
     
  9. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    That's good to know, I'm already doing this in my spare time lol. I guess I'll continue as is. I think Ideally I want to function as a technician, learn what I need to help great artsits capture their music. But it makes sense that I learn how to capture my self, before I can help capture others
     
    Last edited: Jun 23, 2017

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