Tracking in the Control room

[BJohnston]

It's gonna be tough to be able to descern what's really going on with your tones. Especially with drums, bass, and guitar tracks...that is assuming your doing full on band type projects. If your doing hip hop I can see that working out okay. I've seen the 1 room thing done...it's possible, but tough.
I usually always track vocals in the control. I like the one on one interaction. It helps when having to coach a performane along. Anyway, that's my $.02.

B

[jchadstopherhuez]

i do it.

i love it.

the tradeoff is that you sometimes have to monitor with headphones and you trade a ton of vibe for complete listening control of whats going down to tape.

i would consider myself more of a producer than engineer...so for me its more important to have communication and a comfortable atmosphere than having ultimate control over tones.

its definitely still nice to have some type of iso space...for loud guitars, vocals, etc.

i still find that cutting vocals in the same room works for me. when i track a whole band...we just stop...play back what we tracked...and make adjustments.

i have found that removing the "glass" between me and the players just creates a cool vibe for the session. everyone seems more relaxed then when playing in a fishbowl.

just my 2 cents.

good luck with it.

jch

[FossilTooth]

Tricky. I used to have a one room project studio.

The biggest rule for me: Don't use headphones exclusively when tracking... particularily when tracking vocals. It's enough to have the singer's pitch reference with a cans only approach. SOMEONE has to be listening through monitors or you will miss things.

So, I turned on the damn speakers and got better results. Cans+Monitors were my friends. KNOW what that guitar sounds like. KNOW if the vocal is sharp or not. No guessing and hoping allowed!

Q: "Won't you get bleed?!?!?"
A: Sure. A little. Nothing you can't handle if you're smart about it. Often, next to none.

[Ramchandra]

I'm building a portable iso booth like the ones real traps has on their site. This might help bleed a bit. Thanks for all of your input.

What if I track with head phones? I have a headphone amp the whole band and my self would be able to here the mix. Or is this a no no?

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by Ramchandra

How many of you only have one room for your studio? What are some of things you do to work more efficiently in this situation? What are the pros and cons? I'm currently treating a room to be used for both tracking and mixing and just wanted to see what the slutz thought about it.

Obviously drums will be tough. You'll have to guess at tones, record a piece and listen back, then keep adjusting until they're right.

You might want to document some settings to use as a starting point.


There are a lot of people who beleive this is the best way to work. I know Roger Moutenot was building a big room from scratch this way with no intent on having a control room. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a cost cutting measure.

[Ramchandra]

sorry sans my last comment just realized what you said about tracking with headphones only.

[8th_note]

Obviously drums will be tough. You'll have to guess at tones, record a piece and listen back, then keep adjusting until they're right.

That's been the biggest issue for me. It works fine but it takes a little longer because you have to record test tracks and make adjustments. If you're doing an overdub situation it's nice to have a POD or some other guitar simulator so the guitarist can lay down a scratch track with the drummer without generating any bleed.

You're going to need some isolation headphones if you don't have them already. I use Vic Firth's - they sound like ass but they isolate well and they're cheap. I don't use them for judging tones but they let me hear what's going on.

[wm_b]

I work in one really large space. I bought one of those clear plexi drum shields and about half the time I put it around me. It depends on what kind of drum sound I'm going for. I have kind of a live end/dead end space with my back to the dead side. I'm far enough from the drums that I can crank the monitors a little and the tone is definately in my face. I just make sure that shield is between me and the kit when I'm setting up the mics. Once you spend some time with your mics and your room you will know when something isn't right.

When I got the drum shield I was a little worried it might have reflections or make the drums sound strange. It closes in the sound if it's close and makes the room mics more roomy since there is less or the direct source sound. I can't say I like it or dislike it from a sound perspective, it's just different.

I also have a couple other smaller rooms that I'm using more and more as ambient spaces.

Go for it.

[Kiwiburger]

I've recently changed my control room to allow tracking. It was previously impossible because of a PC and other noisy devices.

IF you want to design a single room studio, definately build an Machine room and put all your noisy crap in there. And muffler chambers for your air intake and exhaust. With careful design your Machine room could double as an air muffler chamber.

One of the best designs i've seen involved a large central space, with various chambers for musician off the sides. That gave isolation without actually isolating the players.

[midnightsun]

For the most part my control room has been my tracking room-- The following are some observations and approaches.

1. Isolation headphones are very useful for me while tracking the talent in the control room. I use Shure E5's in ear monitors covered with shooting cups.

2. Machine noise has been a pain. My RADAR has proven to be way too loud so I picked up Apogee Symphony with AD & DA X's for the G5. This has been a big improvement but I have a ways to go. I am sure that the best thing would be to get anything with a fan out of the control room. I am expecting that before summers end my big tracking room will be back up and running so I am holding out for this final solution.

3. I know that some musicians can utilize headphones more successfully than others.
As a musician I don't have a problem with instruments but I have never been pleased with my own singing with headphones on. I just might be up for trying the trick of reversing the phase of monitoring speakers to see if that helps.

[The MPCist]

When I'm working alone, I track in the control room. It's dead silent though since my computer and interfaces are all in a separate machine room.

Recording in the control room turns out different results when working with singers. Some love it and will only record that way while others would rather be in the recording room. Usually it's the singers who aren't that good who like being in the control room with you -- somehow it makes them feel more secure about themselves and they can also see the screen and what you're doing (but then that means no surfin on the net for those sessions! ).

[CommunityMart]

Originally Posted by The MPCist

Usually it's the singers who aren't that good who like being in the control room with you -- somehow it makes them feel more secure about themselves and they can also see the screen and what you're doing (but then that means no surfin on the net for those sessions! ).

Just to note, I've found this opposite for me.

[GuitarRuss]

My little studio is in one room. I just bought some extension wires for my Monitor, mouse, keyboard, audio cables and midi and put the machine in the next room. I had to cut off a little corner off the bottom of the door because the cables don't fit under the door. I kept the little wood triangle and will do my best to glue it back on and stain the cracks when I leave - hope my landlord doesn't notice... Anyway, it makes a huge difference. Really, without your computer making noise, what's the difference unless you have a specially designed tracking room?

If you only have one good sounding room, I think it's better to do both in that room (minus your computer) than to do either tracking or mixing in a crappy sounding room.

[Stiff]

I've seen it in a pro studio. I think it looks kind of funny with a big board sitting in front of the band. The guy at the studio said he preferred it to separate rooms and I've heard that from others as well. Someone said it was nice because suddenly the engineer (in the bands case) and the band (in the engineers case) wasn't some lab rat in a box. I only use one room in my songwriters place, but that's a whole other thing.

[barefoot]

Mavericks in New York has a one room setup.

And here's another studio with a rather stratospheric one room layout. You can't see the rest of the room, but it's at least 2000 sqft and full of rare guitars, amps, keyboards, etc.... oh, and a drum kit.



.

[Ramchandra]

Originally Posted by barefoot

Mavericks in New York has a one room setup.

And here's another studio with a rather stratospheric one room layout. You can't see the rest of the room, but it's at least 2000 sqft and full of rare guitars, amps, keyboards, etc.... oh, and a drum kit.



.

those monitors look suspiciously familiar.

[barefoot]

Originally Posted by Ramchandra

those monitors look suspiciously familiar.

How else would I ever get to know these folks?

[Ramchandra]

I bet their glad they know you. Monitors of my dreams.

I'm wondering if I'm going to over do it on the panels. I want it to be live for drums but controlled enough for mixing. I plan on putting a cloud above the drum set and the mix position and then just scatter panels (as uniformly as possible) all over.

Any Ideas

[Samc]

My studio is a twist on the one room design. It's basically on big room with Three booths.

[Zwinter]

Originally Posted by barefoot

Mavericks in New York has a one room setup.
.

I have been talking to Bobby for the last couple of weeks. During one of our longer phone conversations I was quizing him about his studio and he loves the current setup. The biggest thing was the communication. There's no glass separating people so it's easier to get a cool vibe going with everyone on the same page.

I have to talk to Bobby later today. I will mention the thread to him and see if he will add his first hand opinion.

[barefoot]

Originally Posted by Zwinter

I have been talking to Bobby for the last couple of weeks. During one of our longer phone conversations I was quizing him about his studio and he loves the current setup. The biggest thing was the communication. There's no glass separating people so it's easier to get a cool vibe going with everyone on the same page.

I have to talk to Bobby later today. I will mention the thread to him and see if he will add his first hand opinion.

Cool! We had a good phone conversation about it once. Or maybe it was just email? Anyway, after that sweet TapeOp review Mavericks wrote, I feel like he's practically kinfolk!

[rll]

Just got word of this thread, and I've reposted a thread I posted a while back (edited), which sums up the one room thing. I think to make it work, it depends on the room, just like any studio with a control room there is good and bad. Also, the Barefoots have been especially important, and this still bears out after months of working with them. Bottom line: accurate monitoring hepls ALOT no matter where you track.

---------------------------------------------------------

The single room concept comes out of my experiences as a drummer, especially playing on the west coast where I am from. A lot of the studios in California had larger rooms than say NYC where I’m located now, and often the whole band was in one room to track. For playback you walked into a totally different room and the Fender Reverb your guitar player was just cranked through and the bass that moments ago was pumping through a B-15 were suddenly coming at you through a pair of NS-10’s or if you were lucky some old JBL’s. When you cranked the big speakers it was fun, but sounded nothing like what you had heard while playing. So I knew that for me, something was not right. I also had done some recording in a one room facilities that was mind blowingly good to listen to, and a blast to record in that type of studio.


As ADAT’s happened we found ourselves recording in rehearsal spaces and living rooms which I enjoyed. We could all hang out together and play and record, and it was a much more communal thing, like playing music. I thought, huh, if you want to be “scientific” about this, you really should build a control room that is as close to identical as your live room. Of course this seemed impractical for a lot of reason, but it got me thinking in several directions. First off, I got really sick of getting up from the drums and going though 2 or 3 doors, and situating myself in front of some speakers that did not represent the sound of the room I was just playing in. It broke the vibe. What if you were tracking and the musicians didn’t have to wear headphones, (the engineers did!), and you could sit where you were, or move a few feet to get directly in front of the monitors? I also got sick of jazz records where the band would go play a bunch of dates and then go into the studio and be put in phone booths with headphones on. I was tired of hearing the snare drum so pristine and in your face that it felt like the whole band gets shoved up your ass. Throw in the “digital revolution” and you had a bunch of high end that was annoying at best. Cymbals began to sound like microscopic snapshots of tin. A genre of music that was born out of playing together has evolved into the opposite for the sake of sonic clarity. Not my bag.

On the rock side of things, I started hearing about people doing overdubs in control rooms, even vocals without headphones. So why build a separate room? I was sick of hearing pristine vocals that seemed disconnected from the performance. And the reality is that it was: some albums were recorded in not only 20 different studios, but 20 different closets. When I was younger, I would hear a lot of live albums and I found myself digging those records. Then came Song Remains The Same, Frampton Comes Alive, etc., and I was blown away. I was always a huge fan of the Who, and came to find that many of their records were recorded with the basic tracking done in the same room, even the early Stones and Beatles worked this way. Now I am also a fan of Pink Floyd, and records like Dark Side and Animals certainly weren’t live takes with no overdubbing affairs. So I wanted the ability to have that kind of a lush recording as well, but I needed accuracy in monitoring to get there.

As far as the problem of monitoring and mic placement in a one room sitch, it has been pretty easy. The Barefoots have made it even easier. First off, the engineer throws on the headphones and gets basic levels, watching the meters, etc. Then you get to sit back and LISTEN. A good engineer can tell very quickly what changes need to happen, phase issues etc. It really is odd how easy it is. Plus, I see engineers in separate facilities often walking around a drum kit being played, placing mics. In our studio, he doesn’t have to go through 2 doors to get back to the board. What is so cool is that you are listening to the band and the playback in the same room. It dawned on me that this made perfect sense—if you could get the monitors to really capture realistically what was happening, you would know what you are hearing! I can’t emphasize this enough. And this is where the Barefoots have become a major part of figuring this puzzle out. They are the first monitors I have ever heard that when I get up from the drum set and stand or sit in front of the Barefoots (their sweet spot is huge) holy shit, that is my drumset! It sounds like someone just moved the drum kit and put it on top of the console! I am not kidding. They are loud and move some air,

As far as separation between instruments, it just cracks me up how little time engineers (especially younger ones) will spend trying to figure out a room. They’ll spend 8 hours comping a vocal, but a few hours moving instruments and mics around? Any decent room with a bit of space can give you excellent separation. You might have to gobo a little, or angle things in a way that seems to not make sense, but it’s a lot easier to crack than many think. One of the bands I play with recently tracked with an engineer who had never worked in the room before. It was bass, drums, and electric autoharp (which sounds like 5 gtrs on steroids), and vocals. We tracked in a circle and with a few adjustments and a couple of gobos, we played without phones and almost no bleed. The bleed that was there was beautiful and phase coherent. Granted this AE is one of the best, but it shows that it can be done without anymore hassle than a “regular” session.

As far as overdubs, we often track guitars, vocals, everything in the same room—it absolutely makes the final recording glue together much better. And the communication is better between everyone. If you need to change something out you are right there. We track with phones, listen and adjust. Other times it’s no phones, just the monitors and moving around a bit till we find the spot that works. Again, the Barefoots make us feel so confident in what we are hearing that we are now free to go after specific sounds, and know that if we hear them in the room, they will be in the monitors and will translate.

I certainly don’t want to pass judgment on how others should work, but this works for us. That being said, I am very opinionated about how records are made. And frankly, I recognize that many of the recordings I love have been made in a way completely opposite to how we work at Mavericks.

[Ramchandra]

That is one of the coolest things I've heard. What headphones are you using to track with?

[rll]

Usually Beyer DT-150's, they are super comfortable, very accurate, and isolate well.