Remote Recording – Is it visceral or knowledge based?

[Studiodawg]

Thanks for this post. I've been thinking about this myself this year and I would have to say that 10 years of very active location recording experience gives me a foundation of experience to make "gut feeling" calls with confidence.

[joelpatterson]

I was talking with a friend of mine, and we came up with an idea that would take alot of guesswork out of the whole enterprise, to wit:

A pair of night-vision goggles, except these would be Sound-Vision goggles (TM) that would let you see sound waves in the air, make the vibrations look like clouds of steam, or something.

You strap them on, and suddenly you can immediately visually determine where the density of sound is reaching its apogee, where different sound sources collide and how, and just overall tell how the sound is behaving.

Remember, you heard it here first, on Gearslutz, April 6, 2009!

[fallforward]

I had a complete trial by fire of recording events and doing live sound at the same time when I was in college just because I was the only one who had the gear. I learned so much from all of those mistakes. I do a lot more planning than I ever did. Have learned the right questions to ask potential clients, i.e where can I load in? how many power outlets are there? When is the earliest that I can get into the venue? Granted I don't do large scale stuff, so I am sure these are questions that would seem common sense to those showing up with a big remote truck with an SSL in it. But for myself (and my SUV) these are things I have had to pickup.

As far as the craft goes, I don't know what I would have done without the internet. In Las Vegas where I live, there are only a handful of successful studios (that aren't just fronts for other illicit activities) even less that record acoustic music. The recording department at UNLV was just a bunch of elitists, so that's why I stayed playing music and got my performance/composition degree, versus a technology degree.

That musical training has done more for me that any recording class that I took (which were only about 4) And reading on this website (and others) is where I really learned what the hell I was doing behind a mixdesk.

The biggest thing I have learned now is to sacrifice a few bucks and pay one of my buddies to help me schlep gear, I have only started doing this the past year or so, and I have to say I don't miss the few bucks like I thought I would, and I definitely don't miss the BACKACHES!!!

I always draw a sketch of the stage with the mics that I am going to use and setup the PT session before I get to the venue with all of the routing already assigned.

Good Luck Guys!
Robby

[Carotte]

Intuition is good, but sometimes leads to mistakes... Taking count of the ''learning by our mistakes'' rule, I guess that either way, intuition gets you to grow wisely... isn't it?