Do us "young" engineers have an advantage in Gear Slutting?

[moeses]

case in point, i tried a Soundelux e47 recently. I have no idea what an original U47 sounds like, so all I knew, was that the mic sounded effin amazing. While some of ou veterans, might spend 3 hours debating on whether or not it sounds like an original.
I love the Vintech 1272 , i've heard from others it doesn't sound like the original, okay with me.

just bored and thinking of random shite

[paultools]

Young engineer pluses:

Access to way more education information including this board.
More affordable entry-level gear.
More music being recorded for different media=more potential gigs.

Minuses:
Fewer live, more virtual instruments.
Breakdaown of 2nd engineer/intern system.
More people competing for your spot.

[Jose Mrochek]

the advantage today I would say is it's very easy to find out what's out there.

forums like this one make a big difference in how you choose gear. It definetly will have a impact on my next purchase. I would say back in the day you had to be part of a elite group of engineers or work at the very big rooms to know, what gear was cool or was not, etc.. the access to information has definetly changed things

[u b k]

Originally Posted by moeses

Do us "young" engineers have an advantage in Gear Slutting

when it comes to pure gearslutting, absolutely.

when it comes to learning the craft, it's a mixed bag. much more info available, much of it really bad but much of it utterly inspiring.

what is possible today, and the number of people it's possible for, is so far beyond what was possible 20 years ago it's ridiculous. i'm creating sweet sounding, nefariously clever productions with arrangements and sonic trickery that were once the exclusive province of the elite masters, but are relatively commonplace now. i may not be fully recreating the tone of my favorite 70's vinyl or new millenial masterpiece (yet) , but i'm pretty damn close and getting closer each month, and i'm a lone guy in a private room.

i love where everything's at right now, i'm excited to see where it all goes.


gregoire
del ubik

[Eagertone]

basically the implication is that ignorance is bliss... or at least unbiased?

[max cooper]

It seems like the information about the recording process isn't as much of a 'hallowed secret' as it used to be.

In the grand scheme of things, it's probably not important. You have your time, and then it's someone else's turn. Thing is to make the most out of your own epoch and make a positive contribution to the art of recording music.






And buy gear...tons of gear!


I wonder what gear we're ignoring today that will be highly sought after down the road? Like the LA2A or something.

[moeses]

my guess is the early joe meek compressors
we will see a day where those are highly sought after

[max cooper]

You mean like the Brick? I'm 'soughting after' one right now, if any of you guys wanna let one go.

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by max cooper

You mean like the Brick? I'm 'soughting after' one right now, if any of you guys wanna let one go.

I just sold one of mine.

[paultools]

Avalon 737SP

ROTFLMAO had to be there.

[brianroth]

Analog tape is a bit of a "black art" for the younger folks who grew up only knowing digi-boxes of various sorts. Donnie, one of my friends who has been in the biz as long as I have, tells me about a recording session when he needed to play a lead guitar overdub, so he really couldn't be the engineer as well. He enlisted the help of one of the studio's hot-shot ProTools editors to run the 2" Otari. 24 track.

After the first take, Donnie asked Jason for playback, and Jason dutifully pressed "play" on the 2", not realizing you have to rewind the tape first!

In another instance, a young client of mine bought an Otari MX5050 8 track, and I got it all nicely tuned up for him. He later phoned me with what seemed to be an odd problem until I asked some questions. Sorry, but you can't get the analog deck to synch up with the computer without some sort of timecode!

Bri

[alnico]

Once you have used vintage gear that is in top working order, then you can appreciate why some want to do comparisons. After all, a lot of new mics/gear are replicas trying to capture or improve on the original designs. Vet engineers already have a built-in reference and years of experience with gear. So in a way there are able to draw from that and have the best of both schools, Old and New...

[Jules]

Veteran engineers can get frustrated with digital - young engineers dont miss what they don't know - so they arent cursed with trying to re-capture the analog tape days... But then they have'nt been blessed with analog tape experience either..

... it's a double edged butter knife of an issue!

-- a "warm potato"

.. dont leave town we may may need to ask you more questions....

[planet red]

Im a younger guy (22) with a pt hd2 setup, control 24, fatso, distressors, neve and api pres blah blah... I'm lucky enough to have been making a living off recording the last 2 years. Seems to me the times I really learn stuff is from older guys that have been doing this forever..

It takes expierence... a lot of times Ive heard stuff that I thought sounded awesome... only to find out that theres other stuff that sounds 'better'. Its all from a lack of expierence of knowing what good really is..

To me its all about knowing your limitations and knowing that you're going to look back and remember how you used to think you knew everything and realize you didnt know shit...

I'm getting to where I accept where I'm at and try as hard as I can to bring my work to other studios with older engineers to learn more (even though it usually entails not getting paid for those days). 25% of my stuff gets some sort of work out of another studio... either mixing or drum tracking.. and sometimes I eat some of the extra costs for that to happen..

I sort of think its a disadvantage to immediately be able to get unlimited tracks and be able to trigger drums and use a million mics on everything. In the end you end not properly learning to do anything cause you keep layering and messing with stuff that you get a decent product... I'd rather watch a good engineer get great drum sounds with 4 to 6 mics and then have the option of doing all the modern tricks, then having to rely on that stuff for usable sounds...

I think most younger engineers are too naive.. and arent learning enough stuff to really stick around and make something of themselves..

[C.Lambrechts]

I'm 39. That still means I'm young right ?

[RichT]

Originally Posted by C.Lambrechts

I'm 39. That still means I'm young right ?

Yeah yeah, that's young grandpa...

Isn't it time you mowed the lawn again?

[Fletcher]

Originally Posted by max cooper

It seems like the information about the recording process isn't as much of a 'hallowed secret' as it used to be.

It was never a "hallowed secret"... it just had a better training regimen. The gear, and knowledge of the operation of "the gear" is about 30% of engineering. It ain't the tools, it's the operator. Anyone who thinks it's the tools is a fool.

Remember that guitar player in high school that had the big amp and a couple of cool guitars and a bunch of pedals but couldn't play his way out of a paper bag? Same thing applies here.

Now, if you have a fairly developed skill set, if you have a fairly developed set of ears, then really good equipment will be of assistance in making it easier for you to attain the tones and textures relevant to reinforcing the musical statement with the audio. If you don't have the skill set, then the equipment is either a crutch to make you think you have a clue, or a wall you can hide behind so nobody starts to realize just how incompetent you really are [I'm in the latter group].

Machines don't make music, people do. There is no prize for having the most tools, though there are a couple of prizes for the best use of whatever tools you happen to have to further your endeavors.

I worked at a studio for a while that had a neat ad slogan: "It ain't the gear, it's the engineer" [this was in response to two other studios in town having SSL's and we only had an MCI 600]. The long and the short of it was that the work that came out of the facility where I worked was heads and tails better than the work that came out of the "SSL equiped" rooms... this was back in the 80's when studios still had honest to God "staff" engineers instead of relying on the gypsy engineer trade as is common today.

Does the ignorance of certain hardware help the kids coming up? Think about it. Ignorance is just that. Yeah, you may be in love with your Vintech now, but one day, if you keep at this long enough [and as your skills and ears develop], you're going to start to understand why us old fukks could care less about that crap... you're going to understand more of why certain tools have been put on a pedestal while other tools are dismissed as inadequate... but it's all about developing skills.

Put me in a Formula One race car and I'll be able to drive faster than usual... but there is no way in hell I could keep up with a real driver in an identical car. Same goes with engineering... chances are that one of us old, irrelevant [but experienced] old guys will engineer circles around you... much like an experienced race driver better understands the timing of how to combine brake and downshift upon entering a turn, we're going to understand how what we do to "X" sound with affect the sounds of "A", "B", "C" and "D" sounds... we can very often cut to the chase and get shit to fit together almost as second nature just through sheer repetition... we've done it so many times it's as natural as 'peeing'.

The younger engineers will get there, it's just a matter of time and experience... not hardware and gear acquistion.

I realize the above statement is blasphemy around here... but so be it.

Peace.

[mixalot]

something i noticed about younger engineers (me being 37), is there lack of skill regarding workflow and a general lack of focus when getting sounds and making them work with each other. they seemed to be more obsessed with getting the sound into there little box and dropping a plug in on it are compressing the poop out it without even making sound like anything.
then they rush the artist through maybe 2 takes and then spend hours editing whatever they recorded to a grid without listening.. whats that about?
not ranting here but who told them that was the way to run a session?

fletcher: i still work on a mci 636 w/flying faders in my studio share.

[AnalogBob]

Not much of an advantage at all..The only advantage I can see is if someone just wants to be a consumer...You could know very little about audio spend a couple months on this board and you'd have a good Idea whats a good buy and what standard pieces of gear you should get to achieve a certain sound....
I think alot of the "new engineers" are over-inendated with too much information..
...................................
..so many young engineers that I come across do strange robotic EQ dips "at magic" freqcies cause the read it on some board off hacks or out of some mag..are they using their ears??? Are they developing their skill set or style or are they just consuming information and applying what they have read.... When does the student ever graduate...... They also suffer from confidence issues cause they don't know how much gear is adequate and the more you go on the net the more you'll realize that there is somthing amazing that you don't got... Like Fletcher said its not the Gear its the Engineer.....and there is somthing to be said for getting to know a system that works and learing it over years so that your not thinking about how the system works and ohh the music but the system is second nature and the music can have your full concentration.....the whole upgrading every couple years...new plugins..tips on boards..reformating drives...updates...presets.....automation...quantization.......it's an accelerated enviroment and will the new engineers ever settle down and be able to "smell the roses so to speak" I doubt it...... it will just be a different more fractured experience.

[u b k]

something that occurs to me is, aside from the technical aspects of tracking and mixing, one of the things most lacking when learning everything via the web and doing it in isolation in a bedroom is development of the craft of arranging a song.

having been at the songwriting thing for about 10 years, and recording for nearly as long, i really feel like it's only in the last year or so that i'm truly getting a handle on things such as:

1- getting ALL the elements to serve the pulse of the song. it's amazing how that one trick alone creates so much space in a mix and makes the job of gluing things together a breeze.

2- delivering a performance that drops itself into the mix. fluid playing, dead in the pocket rhythm, sensitivy to tone, controlled dynamics, all done on an instrument that sounds good.

3 - stripping it down. less is more, keep it simple etc. when the focal element is magical, and the supporting elements are strong, it's silly how little a song actually needs to make a powerful statement. i want to hear just the singer and either piano or guitar, live, then make that statement my benchmark for how strong the whole recorded arrangement must be. if the voice and one instrument don't cut it, we probably don't have a song yet.

so while the advantages and disadvantages of engineering are debatable, i believe there is much to be missed by working on music in any capacity without some sort of collaboration or ongoing, outside feedback and frame of reference.


gregoire
del ubik

[moeses]

no, i respect what you guys are saying.
but to me it's like having a volvo or a bmw
yeah they'll both get me to where i need to go
but i'm going to feel so much better looking fly as hell in the bmw!!!

let me also add, for better or for worse, i'm an idiot in the tech department.
i couldn't explain to you anything my gear is doing. and i probably do some of the stupidest compression and eq tricks. but i know what i like, and i think my ear is pretty good, through making so called mistakes i've been able to teach my self some pretty good stuff.
same with gear purchasing, let's face it, this isn't the "how to mix forum" it's the GEAR SLUT forum
we are all gear slutz
young and old
<====sleeps with his sweetwater catalog(and a 19 yr old brazillian

[mixalot]

i dont really get what your saying? i have a bmw and i'm old ... does that make me the best of both worlds?

Originally Posted by moeses

no, i respect what you guys are saying.
but to me it's like having a volvo or a bmw
yeah they'll both get me to where i need to go
but i'm going to feel so much better looking fly as hell in the bmw!!!

let me also add, for better or for worse, i'm an idiot in the tech department.
i couldn't explain to you anything my gear is doing. and i probably do some of the stupidest compression and eq tricks. but i know what i like, and i think my ear is pretty good, through making so called mistakes i've been able to teach my self some pretty good stuff.
same with gear purchasing, let's face it, this isn't the "how to mix forum" it's the GEAR SLUT forum
we are all gear slutz
young and old
<====sleeps with his sweetwater catalog(and a 19 yr old brazillian

[enharmonic]

moeses, the BMW might get me chicks, but when I crash, I'm gonna want to be in the Volvo :D

I'm relatively young, and haven't been doing much in the way of engineering for a solid year now...haven't stepped foot in a studio due mostly to the fact that I am finishing college and holding down a full-time job.

I learned in a fairly big studio on an SSL with analog machines. I also learned ProTools, and DP...even some live sound. It was great in the way that learning how to drive is great, but you only get better through working...and when you're not working, you're not getting better. Thatis the kicker for young engineers...especially ones who are trying to sort out hwo they're going to pay the bills in between sessions.

I learned from some great engineers, I have good ears, and I'm not a bad musician. That gives me a certain level of "good" regardless of how often I have a session. There is inded a TON of information out there today...even more than when I started 6 years ago. The only limiting factor for the yong engineer is a proper room, decent gear, and the work to keep your skills sharp and constantly improving. Today's wiz kid is tomorrow's dinosaur. you have to get your chops up and keep them together if you are going to be successful, or even stand a chance at edging out the next guy for a job that pays nothing.

In other words...you make your own luck, regardless of age. I had a very sweet audio gig before some life-changing events took me out of it. You have to live it to make it work, and to have any kind of "advantage"...perceived or otherwise.

If you don't know what a real U47 sounds like, will that stop you from making great recordings? I'd say no...but if you know what that mic sounds like, or what a certain pre or compressor can do...or how hard you can hit tape...and you put these things into your bag of tricks...eventually you will develop your own vocabulary, and be able to do something that you can be proud of based on your level of skill and your place in the world.

[moeses]

all good thoughts
but remember
the question wasn't if the younger guys could engineer better
it was if the have an easier time gear slutting

[enharmonic]

Originally Posted by moeses

all good thoughts
but remember
the question wasn't if the younger guys could engineer better
it was if the have an easier time gear slutting

After reading my first reply, i realize that it was all over theplace...sorry for subjecting y'all to my stream of consciousness posting. I was thinking about being a young engineer, and sorting out gear all at the same time

If we're JUST talking about buying gear...I'd say harder time because there's so many options, but also easier because you can buy things today that would have cost you a TON just 10 years ago. In other words, it's possible to approach "world class" without being independently wealthy these days...but the amount of homework you need to do is pretty heavy.

However...if you don't know what you're doing, you won't know what you need. To me, the two go hand in hand. Gearslutting without chops is a real bad way to spend money.

[u b k]

Originally Posted by moeses

all good thoughts
but remember
the question wasn't if the younger guys could engineer better
it was if the have an easier time gear slutting

actually, the question wasn't whether they have an easier time, it's whether they have an advantage. the original poster talked about the inability to distinguish a u47 from an e47, or a neve from a vintech, which begs the question, "what kind of advantage is that?" the fact that the gear is more accessible these days doesn't necessarily work in your favor.

besides, all good conversations evolve, and i especially enjoy hearing people's stories.


gregoire
del ubik

I think its one thing to know what a compressor does and to be able to hear the diff in EQ settings etc... Thats a basic skill set (consider it undergrad).

However it is another set entirely to know what gear interfaces well with another piece to create a synergistic effect where the sum is greater than the individual parts. This can only come from experience and watching the gurus and learning. With that said. I think the younger cats (I consider myself one I think, but I've probably been doing this too long to keep believing this) need to take advantage of equipment rental. Rent a 1073 and put it through its paces compared to a vintech. Experiment.... You cant swim without getting wet.... Use a 2" studer and compare it to your analog channels.

LISTEN to records and try to duplicate some of what you hear. (alot can be learned at the record store!!!!!)

[dudleys100]

I do however figure there is something to be said about the fresh viewpoint a younger may have towards gear.

I believe that in some cases there are times when a great piece of gear gets dogged because it doesn't "replicate" another piece of gear with little to no praise for its independant worth.

For instance it is nearly blasphemous to say that a "Neve-Alike" or an "API-Alike" is actually better than the real thing in some ways, however it is theoretically possible for this to happen. At some point there may be a pre that comes out that smokes the Neve but nobody may ever know because the fact that it is different (though better) will make it be dismissed as "sub-par".

I have read some say that the Soundelux 250 is an improvement in some ways to the 251 (proximity more usable, more usable high end in some situations) but if I was really used to the sound of the 251 and loved it, then I may have a hard time accepting it as a good mic. However someone hearing them both for the first time may find them equally as good, just different from each other.

HOWEVER!!!! There is the factore of those who HAVE heard and loved the classics and know the things that make them special. So thier ears are so fine tuned that when they hear the new stuff they understand where they are lacking whereas those of us who are just hearing all this new stuff at the same time (like eating a bunch of samples at a candy store) may have a hard time finding the differences. Maybe us new guys need some beens or ginger as a "pallette clenser"

Who knows. Lets all start a recording school where all the teachers are classic engineers and producers, then for our final exam make us do our mixes through an entire studio that is exlusively Behringer equiped

[Dot]

I don't think young engineers have the same advantages. When I started engineering I didn't own any recording equipment, though I owned a lot of instruments. But I had regular access to pro studios where I worked with much more slutty gear than younger up-and-coming engineers today who are working out of their own project studios.

Even if you've got a "room" [ and I use the term "room" almost tongue-in-cheek ] now that you own with something like PT, a few nice pres, comps, mics and some good monitors – that's not nearly the level of sluttiness as working in a real studio with a great selection of pro gear and learning with pro engineers.

There are fewer working larger rooms today where newer engineers can really get their feet wet around a lot of top, pro gear. So, no, I don't think young engineers have an advantage in Gear Slutting.

Working in a real room with a six-figure large-format console and a mic locker to match is the slut equilvilant of an orgy with no protection where you've got one in every hole and one in each hand. A project studio with a few pres and mics is the slut equilvilant of a handjob with a condom.

[Peter Morrison]

First I want to say thank you, to all of the guys/girls that throw all of their heart and knowledge into this forum, so again, Thank You!

But as a young guy, trying to force his foot in the door of this very daunting career path, I feel that even though I am being told Neve this Pultec that, I look over to my studio (well my school's studio) and I see our SSL, PTools, and Neumann mics and find it awesome that this year I fell in love with the AT 2020.

As much as I've taken from this site and the little I've tried to put back in, I still feel that my knowledge is a hell of a lot more important then my toys (though the toys are nice) So for us young guys, I think once we really learn to make the best sound from what we have we finally have the right to lust after the better gear

Thanks
Peter