Hey Steve,
Thanks for your post. And totally, nothing personal. And as I said and you've said we agree more than not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crypticglobe
A great record comes from a collaboration of a GREAT producer and a GREAT Band/artist. By definition a GREAT engineer would immediately recognize that the edge was ON to something cool with his use of delay... because it would have the same effect on him that it has on us!! A great producer/engineer would immediately have the same reaction to Brian Mays guitar sound that we have... MUCHO love, and he would simply do his best to make it translate to tape the way it sounded in the room! Ringo? Fugettabout it. A natural talent... just capture it!
I agree with all the above,
except that sometimes great records get made
without a great producer/engineer, just a great artist. I guess I would hate anyone reading our discussion (if anyone is) and think that in order to make a great record you
must have a great producer/engineer. And in saying that a great producer/engineer would immediately recognize a great tone/talent is giving the producer/engineer the same objectivity you say it's impossible for the musician to posess. Producers/engineers are just as fallible as anyone else in this business. And I know just as many stories of asshole producers/engineers as I do asshole musicians and artists.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crypticglobe
But... I will use U2 as another example. I have heard the story told many times about the recording of the FIRST U2 record. The guys really were not very good players at that point. They have admitted themselves many timees. The collaboration they had with the people they were working with at the time had a real impact on how that record sounded, and a real impact on where they took their "sound".
Just about ANY band Mutt Lange has ever worked with has come out of it with some extra skill sets they did not have before because of the way he is. You can not deny Back in Black.... and they went through fleets of amps before they finally found the ones they all agreed upon. Mutt didn't just take whatever Angus and Malcolm were playing and "go with it". The guys were open to Mutt's input (pretty rare for guitar players), and they spent a LONG time getting it right... and voila... a record was born that is still considered by most as one of the greatest rock records of all time.
Agreed. There still has to be a talent there to begin with. AC/DC had released five(!!!) albums before "Black in Black". So where do you start - wait until you're at the "Back in Black" stage before making an album (and incurring the cost of a big-shot producer, engineer, assistant, studio, etc) or just go and make an album
with the resources you have and the talent and skills you possess at the time? "High Voltage" pales slightly in comparison to "Back in Black" (for me, at least), but it's still a great album. And without "High Voltage" there would never have been a "Back in Black".[/QUOTE]
Quote:
Originally Posted by crypticglobe
There were two points in my post:
1. You can't be truly objective about yourself and you shouldn't be resistent to suggestions from people whose talent you admire. Being resistant to that will put a limitation on your potential as a player/producer/engineer.
Agreed. And you should never let the fact that you don't have the resources to access the above from going and making an album. You've got to start somewhere, even if it is in Australia in 1976 with Harry Vanda and George Young.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crypticglobe
2. A GREAT producer/engineer will know when the player is ALREADY onto an amzing sound/tecnique, and also recognize when they aren't. A producer/engineer that falls into a true "Jedi" catagory is one who can take that player who is good, but with a less than stunning tecnique or tone and bring them into the greatness that they are truly capable of....... and leave the artist thinking they thought it up themselves.

Again, agreed. But there are cases where it's simply not that cut and dried. Why did the Strokes ditch Nigel Godrich and go back to Gordon Raphael for "Room on Fire"? Maybe, just maybe, the Strokes had a better sense of who they were as a band than Nigel did. I love Nigel's production, but you can't be everything to everyone, and it's as important to realise when
you're the problem, not the band, or the amp, or the engineer, or the studio lighting. Again, producers, even great ones, are just as human as all the rest of us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crypticglobe
I know Michael Wagener on the High End forum once stated that a great producer was about 80% (or so) psychologist. This is completely correct in my opinion.
Anyway... I am sure we do agree on a great many things... and I have no hard feelings of any kind. I just felt like you were saying that engineers and producers should always just STAY out of the artists tone/tecnique and just concentrate on capturing it. As stated above... I politely disagree. I do agree however that it is VERY important as a producer/engineer to be able to recognize when they have it RIGHT to start with and not mess with it.

However it's when the collobaration of producer/engineer and talent is REALLY working that the amazing results come. When this relationship is working... even the greats can have something even GREATER squeezed out of them.

I have seen this play out (and not play out due to someone not being good at their role) over and over. I stick by my points.
All in good will.
JMTC...
You're a gentleman and a scholar. And believe me, I desperately want more great music to come out of this industry of ours. Bring on the great collaborations! And let those who have yet to become great learn from their mistakes so that they may aspire to achieve greatness. We often tend to focus on the high points and forget the years of slogging it out in really bad band rooms and crap studios. Remember, everyone has to start somewhere, whether it be in a band called Pen Cap Chew (an early incarnation of Nirvana) or in a bedroom with an MBox. I certainly can't see any other way of achieving it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by crypticglobe
p.s. As to how hard to hit the drums.... I think Slipperman pretty much covered it. There is nothing bad about hitting the drums so hard that they literally are falling apart. In rock and roll... it's usually a great thing! However... all that power combined with poor tecnique will result in a poor result. This (after a phone conversation with the original poster) is the problem he is experiencing. There is no "too hard" if it SOUNDS good. In this case.... it was a tecnique/tuning and drummer unwilling to adapt issue.
Yip. Slippy summed it up for me. What else needs to be said?
Cheers to you Steve,
bdp