Studio priorities — a personal rant.

[R.W.]

Hi. I'm a musician, a sometimes-engineer and producer, a self-described gear geek, and an avid reader of this forum. I’ve recently had a string of bad experiences in the studio, so forgive me for the next few minutes as I get on my soapbox.

I think it’s safe to say that most everyone here would agree that the recording chain, from most important to least important — assuming the song is great, the production is top-notch, etc. — goes something like this:

musician > instrument > engineer > room/recording gear

In other words, when it’s all boiled down we all admit a good musician through a bad pre will sound better than a bad musician through a great pre, right?

Okay, my rant: I hate, hate, HATE working in studios that place the musician’s experience last in the chain.

This list could be so long, but here are the biggest issues which have made my week frustrating:

• The most important issue: Your studio must have good, working headphones, with a separate mix for each performer. NO EXCEPTIONS. Playing with bad headphones is terrible. Think about it. A musician is fighting what he hears. THAT MAKES NO GODDAMN SENSE. Twenty minutes ago you were bragging about the $10,000 mic you’re placing over the drums and now I’ve got the singer’s horribly out of time warbling and acoustic guitar blaring in my headphones and you’re wondering why I can’t lock in with the click? Sell your expensive mic that’s busy tracking frustrating drummers and buy a $600 mic that’s recording a relaxed drummer with the ability to turn the guitar down and the click up. Jesus.
  
  
• Another word about headphones — get a mix system. A $200 Furman with $100 satellites is fine. Now, you’re already thinking “I have separate mixes, just ask me for what you need!” Well, let’s say we are in the middle of a great (GREAT) take but the level is way too loud. My ears hurt. Do I a) stop the take to ask you to turn the headphones down, b) play through the take uncomfortably and possibly damage my hearing and therefore career, c) reach over on the next measure of rest to turn the volume down?
  
  
• Another word about headphones — get a mix system. A $200 Furman with $100 satellites is fine. Now, you’re already thinking “I have separate mixes, just ask me for what you need!” Well, let’s say the bass player is too loud and not quite on the click, which is grooving in the track but making it a little hard to lock in. Do I a) ask you to turn the bass down, which (no matter how politely and politically you ask) makes the bass player just a touch curious if he’s doing something wrong? Or b) turn the bass down myself in my mix, preserving the feeling in the room that everyone is grooving as hard as can be?
  
  
• Your biggest job as an engineer, other than providing recording gear, is to have the experience and the listening skills to capture sounds as they are made. In other words, listen to what the musicians are doing and then record them well. It is that simple. Adjust your mic placement and technique to match their setup. Change your settings if they don’t sound good, even if they normally do. Be ready when they are ready. If a musician says, “I have a great idea, let me lay this down one more time really quick…” and it takes ten minutes to spool up for another take because you were messing with unrelated compression settings — or God help me, because you were checking your Facebook messages — you just lost a great take and created an impatient musician.
  
  
• Another word on listening: pay attention to what is happening in the tracking room. Please. The “red light” should not be the signal to start conversation in the control room about all the other clients you had, or gossip about last week, or even about how the current take is going. It should be the signal to shut up and listen to what the musician is playing. The fact that I even have to type this is amazing to me.
  
  
• Some small things: Help the musician load gear in and out. If you run a smaller studio where HVAC needs to be shut off during tracking, turn it on between takes. Provide some snacks to keep blood sugar spikes from ruining the mood. Provide bottled water and coffee. Clean bathrooms.

Now, the bigger and more successful studios usually do a fine job of taking care of both the session players and the clients. In my opinion, that’s a huge factor in why they are the bigger and more successful studios. But lately I’ve been working in a lot of smaller studios charging people $400 a day, and they don’t provide the most basic services to help a musician perform well. I don't care how good your conversion is or how well your room is treated or how nice your mics sound, if you don't help the musician perform well you are wasting their time and the client's money.

Thanks for listening, rant over.

[Dick_Money]

Agree with your rants/requests. Pretty basic stuff that an engineer should have no problem with. Sounds like you are having troubles finding a good engineer. A lot of hacks out there these days. Anyone will call themselves an engineer these days. Best of luck with your search.

[R.W.]

Originally Posted by Dick_Money

Sounds like you are having troubles finding a good engineer. A lot of hacks out there these days.

No, that's the biggest frustration. I know a lot of excellent engineers in the area. I know how helpful it is to work with a great engineer in a good studio.

What happens is I am hired as a session player. I am told when to show up, what studio to go to. These are smaller, owner/engineer studios, with expensive gear and good rooms. The client is paying me big money to play well and the studio big money to record it well. And then the above happens, and what could have been great, isn't.

[Beat Poet]

Originally Posted by R.W.

[*]Another word on listening: pay attention to what is happening in the tracking room. Please. The “red light” should not be the signal to start conversation in the control room about all the other clients you had, or gossip about last week, or even about how the current take is going. It should be the signal to shut up and listen to what the musician is playing. The fact that I even have to type this is amazing to me.

Good post overall. I've had the above a couple of times before - the engineer asks me to play a certain thing, I play it, then I shout down the snare mic "that alright for ya?" and he responds through the talkback saying he wasn't listening, "we'll go again". Then again, having the rest of the band in the control room can be distracting for the engineer, but while it's good to have a laugh and joke with the band, do it during a break and not while I've got to sit around sapping my energy by soundchecking the kit.

[Dick_Money]

Originally Posted by R.W.

No, that's the biggest frustration. I know a lot of excellent engineers in the area. I know how helpful it is to work with a great engineer in a good studio.

What happens is I am hired as a session player. I am told when to show up, what studio to go to. These are smaller, owner/engineer studios, with expensive gear and good rooms. The client is paying me big money to play well and the studio big money to record it well. And then the above happens, and what could have been great, isn't.

Well bad "producing" then. Something is "wrong" on the engineering/producing team if you can't get a good/comfortable headphone mix. It's not rocket science. Or bad selection of studio if they do not have the equipment available to do so, i.e. bad producing.

[R.W.]

Originally Posted by Dick_Money

Well bad "producing" then. Something is "wrong" on the engineering/producing team if you can't get a good/comfortable headphone mix. It's not rocket science. Or bad selection of studio if they do not have the equipment available to do so, i.e. bad producing.

I think you misunderstood me. It's not that I'm having trouble finding good engineers, it's that I'm being forced to work with bad ones.

Or, to be kinder, engineers with their priorities in the wrong order.

[R.W.]

Originally Posted by Beat Poet

I've had the above a couple of times before - the engineer asks me to play a certain thing, I play it, then I shout down the snare mic "that alright for ya?" and he responds through the talkback saying he wasn't listening, "we'll go again". Then again, having the rest of the band in the control room can be distracting for the engineer, but while it's good to have a laugh and joke with the band, do it during a break and not while I've got to sit around sapping my energy by soundchecking the kit.

Exactly!

[Fletcher]

Originally Posted by R.W.

Now, the bigger and more successful studios usually do a fine job of taking care of both the session players and the clients. In my opinion, that’s a huge factor in why they are the bigger and more successful studios. But lately I’ve been working in a lot of smaller studios charging people $400 a day, and they don’t provide the most basic services to help a musician perform well.

Duh -- work in proper rooms that can afford properly trained staff.

If you're working in cheap assed shit holes - what the hell do you expect? When I stay in a Hyatt I expect a bar and a concierge who can arrange what ever is required... and guess what? It costs more than the "Accor" property that barely has a bed and a TV... but that Accor property is WAY cheaper.

You get what you pay for... if you're a session player who is hired onto the gig then either suck it up, do your gig, get paid and leave... or explain to the producer / person hiring you that you only work in proper studios. If you're a good enough player then they'll be sure to book a proper room for your parts... and if you're not a great player then either be happy you're working at all - or turn down the gig.

There are lots of true professionals who can't get work because of the proliferation of $400 a day shit holes... how about instead of pissing and moaning you become part of the solution instead of whining about the problem?

Food for thought?

[Thomas W. Bethe]

All good points. You even made one of them twice so it must be very important to you.

Lots of studios are running on empty and are just barely holding on and I am surprised that they are out buying $10,000 microphones. I am also surprised that some studios don't have a good headphone system installed. <One caveat - a lot of studio musicians are very gentle and treat the studio headphones very well but I have also witnessed musicians taking a pair of $150 headphones and ruing them in just one session by dropping them or bending them so much that they break or getting the cord so messed up that they no longer function or tossing them across the studio when they get frustrated.>

I have worked in many different studios over my professional life and the ones that seem to do the best put the needs of the musicians, engineers and producers first. They may not have the newest equipment but they know how to use the equipment they have and they know what to do to keep people coming back to them. They also provide the amenities that make recording at their studio a pleasure.

There was a while in the late 70's and early 80's where musicians would come or not come to a studio depending on whether they had such and such piece of equipment that was the new "best thing ever" and everyone had to play through one or they were a nobody.

I don't know where you live but it sounds like the studios you are playing in are not doing a good job satisfying your needs as a musician. Have you ever sat down and talked to the studio owner and made them aware of your concerns and problems in a non confrontational mode??? It might help. Then again today with studios fighting to survive they may not be able to do anything about it especially if it costs them money. Most of the things you are asking for are not costly and it may make sense to just make the owner aware of the situation.

Here we only mastering but the clients needs for attended sessions are always first in my mind and we do have snacks and beverages so they can get their sugar cravings satisfied and continue to work. Our studios are very comfortable and I have done some 13 hour mastering marathons for clients and they leave here refreshed and in a good mood.

Best of luck on getting the problems solved.

[minipoodle]

I got into recording through the late Walter Sear, who always liked to remind people that professional recording is first and foremost a service industry. Unfortunately, these days this important idea appears lost on many studio owners. This is a drag as I love being in studios! Many of the larger places understood this as they came from a very different time in the industry.

[R.W.]

Let me say that in my area there are plenty of good studios, with excellent engineers, and I've been lucky to work with a lot of them. For the most part I have a pretty good experience. But after I had a string of frustrating sessions lately I felt I needed to vent a little.

[character]

I'm both a musician and an engineer as well, so I can see both sides of it. It's not always the engineer who is guilty of these things.

Originally Posted by R.W.

[*]Your biggest job as an engineer, other than providing recording gear, is to have the experience and the listening skills to capture sounds as they are made. In other words, listen to what the musicians are doing and then record them well. It is that simple. Adjust your mic placement and technique to match their setup. Change your settings if they don’t sound good, even if they normally do. Be ready when they are ready. If a musician says, “I have a great idea, let me lay this down one more time really quick…” and it takes ten minutes to spool up for another take because you were messing with unrelated compression settings — or God help me, because you were checking your Facebook messages — you just lost a great take and created an impatient musician.

Obviously I prefer to place mics after the musicians arrive and are in place to comfortably play. I don't like to have pre-determined spots for each musician and a cookie-cutter formula for mics and mic placement. However, how many times have musicians shown up and were ready to immediately record, asking why the mics weren't already set up? No patience for a sound check for mic selection, mic placement, tracking levels, or anything else that might delay their trip to the club later. They think a 40 minute album can be recorded in... 40 minutes, right? Except for their two-hour smoke breaks.

Originally Posted by R.W.

[*]Another word on listening: pay attention to what is happening in the tracking room. Please. The “red light” should not be the signal to start conversation in the control room about all the other clients you had, or gossip about last week, or even about how the current take is going. It should be the signal to shut up and listen to what the musician is playing. The fact that I even have to type this is amazing to me.

In my experience, it's usually the band members who are on the phone, talking amongst themselves, or have stepped outside when ready to track. Or they don't have their headphones on after they say they are ready or want to hear playback.

Originally Posted by R.W.

[*]Some small things: Help the musician load gear in and out. If you run a smaller studio where HVAC needs to be shut off during tracking, turn it on between takes. Provide some snacks to keep blood sugar spikes from ruining the mood. Provide bottled water and coffee. Clean bathrooms.[/LIST]

I do this for clients who are good for paying. The kind of clients I mentioned above generally also don't have the money to pay (or have conned someone else into paying for their time). If the whole thing is a hassle, well, I'll help them load out (unless I'm performing major surgery to make their one-take demo sound halfway passable because they want a copy the next day and expect it to sound like their favorite major label band).

Oh yeah, that's probably why I don't work with young bands anymore. But occasionally older and semi-pro bands do at least one or two of the things mentioned above. It's a crazy business because there is no exact formula. That reminds me, I need to order more headphones because they keep breaking them.

[Bookerv12]

Fletcher is right.

I was lucky enough to come up learning in some really pro places, doing 2 or 3 sessions a day.
The thing that struck me early on was..... The better the musicians or session players, the less bull and complaints. (The more I think about it, I never heard any complaints from the best people.)
I have been to some basement studios with elaborate multi channel headphone systems, and the one thing you become aware of is, after the session, all of the channel volumes are cranked all of the way up on the HP monitoring boxes.
Having said that, I have played sessions with crazy monitoring systems that were pretty terrific. Those places were never cheap either.
Like one of the above posters mentioned, if a producer didn't get in and get things ready to go before the session players showed up, it is time for a real producer......or..... you are simply getting what you paid for.