Quote:
Originally Posted by thefoxbox  As stated before, I think there is an element of creative problem solving that can be appealing to a recording engineer in this sort of situation. By limiting the number of tools you have at your disposal, you are going to be forced to rely more on your own creativity. I am not implying that DAW users are any less creative, only that we have different approaches to our own artistic fulfillment. |
Actually... no so much on creativity as on your ear and mic placement. Working this way also forces you to understand what you're doing and some of the theory behind it. If not, you'd be hopelessly frustrated. I did a session with a 22 year old engineer in NC a year and a half ago. He wouldn't move a mic if his life depended on it. He'd just reach for the EQ. I'd like to see him work on a desk without EQs like in the old days.
He also erased the end of a song by blindly using the tape counter (which of course slips). He then panicked and wanted to dump the entire song to pro tools. I told him to dump the part of the vamp ending he didn't erase, loop it with as big a loop as he could, then dump it back to the tape and do a razor blade edit. He looked at me in horror saying he'd never edited 2" tape before. I said, "but you edit 1/2" tape all the time." He said, "yeah but I haven't ever done 2" and I'm afraid of messing it up. But you've just messed up the song by erasing the ending. Get me a de-magged razor blade and let's do it." After much rummaging they weren't able to find the demag so I had them find me a pair of needle nose pliers and I heated the razor blade on the gas stove until it was red hot. Sure it took the temper off the blade but I was hoping we'd only need to use it once. He did the dump back to a blank piece of tape, I marked the sections. By this time both the engineer and assistant were nervously peering into the machine room, holding on to the sliding door frame while standing in the control room with the look of terror on their faces. I said, "I haven't done this in a while, I'll probably not get it right the first time. You can always redo it." I did the splice, reloaded the machine, they hit rewind and play... and it was perfect. Their jaws hit the floor and I had a hard time not losing it myself as I was pretty sure I hadn't gotten it right.
That's the difference between sitting at your DAW and working at a place like Daptone.