The Light of Day

So you want to make an album? (part 5)
KeithHandy posted in Producing, So You Want... on March 28th, 2007

So far, what I’ve written in this series has been predominantly autobiographical, something to give you a sense of who I was and where I’d been when I encountered my first “real” studios. In this installment I take a time-out from that and try to distill what I’ve re-lived so far into some useful advice/wisdom.

Installment 5: What a “real” studio is and isn’t

Don’t misunderstand me; I love recording studios. A fully equipped and nicely furnished recording/production facility is my utopian paradise — the grain of the wood, the leather on the couch, the recessed lighting, and all those glorious blinky lights in the control room — but from the standpoint of you, the person who wants to make a recording, it’s important to foster a good relationship with the recording process, not the studio itself.

With the kind of techno-goodies available to independent artists today, it’s harder than ever to draw an absolute dividing line between “real” studios and home studios. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll say that a “real” studio:

• has a designated “control room”, with a mixing console with at least 16 to 24 channels, and at least one pair of studio monitors (not home speakers).
• has at least one designated “studio” area, separate from the control room, designed or modified with acoustics in mind.
• requires you to pre-schedule a limited slot of time in which to work.
• is operated by a house engineer, who is generally not one of the musicians.
• puts your sound in the hands of a person who may not understand what you are trying to achieve.

In contrast, a home studio:

• is usually a designated room or area in a house or apartment, which could double for other household or living purposes, but is best if it does not.
• may revolve around anything from a cheap 4-track cassette portastudio, all the way up to a mortgage-straining pro-quality setup (you can “grow as you go”).
• may not have the best monitors — but is best if you have some kind of speakers to double-check your sound on, as opposed to only using headphones.
• generally has the performance and recording taking place in the same room, as they are usually handled by the same person.
• allows you to work whenever you have free time.
• allows you to be more intimately involved with the details of designing your trademark “sound”.

If you are inexperienced with recording in general, and you have an opportunity to record in a pro or “real” studio for the first time, the best thing you will come away with is a learning experience. This is not to say that you shouldn’t try to make the greatest recording in the world — go for it, and in some ways you may very well be happy with the sound, and even be able to promote the end product a bit. But if you truly fancy yourself an artist with a clear sound in your head, there will always be noticeable differences between the final mix and your original idea. Conversely, if you lack a clear vision, you will simply be “purchasing” an engineer’s production style — not to mention under-paying him for a producer’s work.

If you’ve never been to a recording studio — even if you intend to do all your work at home — I recommend visiting one, and sitting in on both a tracking session and a mixing session (these are almost never done in the same session, for several good reasons). Depending on where you live, you may be able to find one under “recording studios” in your local yellow pages. Be honest and up front about why you want to do this, and see if they have something booked that would work out well for both you and the studio. Most people in this field are laid back, have a good sense of humor, and would be flattered that you want to learn some tips from them.

In case you actually intend to record in a pro studio, and don’t have previous experience, here are my suggestions:

You are working with a limited window of time. Now is not the time to learn a whole new talent from scratch… for example, playing to a click track. There are studio musicians who have spent years fine-tuning their ability to synchronize their playing to the excruciatingly lifeless sound of an electronic metronome. If you’re not used to it, it can actually make your rhythmic feel worse — far worse — than what you normally play in rehearsal.

Likewise, it may be tempting to play with the exciting range of studio-provided sounds you don’t normally have access to. In my case, with Episodes, it was the acoustic piano and the Hammond organ, neither of which I was used to playing our songs on. I didn’t have nearly enough time to get comfortable with those instruments and give their respective parts a chance to develop.

In general, don’t be so dazzled by what the studio might be able to do for you that you forget to focus on what you’re bringing to the recording. This party is Bring Your Own Vibe. If you’re paying by the hour, your best use of it is to treat it 80% as a gig — one you want to be in exceptionally good form for — and 20% as a chance to go back and clean up a few minor mistakes. Also, keep your ears open (easier said than done) for what the song needs, rather than going in with a list of things to overdub and mechanically checking them off.

Where a pro studio really outshines a home studio (besides in the creature comforts department) is in clarity and fidelity. They will generally advertise some sort of acoustically ideal (and admittedly awesome-looking) environment, but the degree to which this matters depends how far away the microphones are from the instruments; with close-mic’ed sounds it barely matters at all, and ambience is usually faked after the fact with electronic reverb anyway. (I’ll warn you right now, though, when it comes to recording a drum set, the studio definitely matters — and the drum sound is the first thing the ear listens for when it evaluates a full-band mix. More on this later.) The quality of the microphones tends to be the bottleneck making the most difference for most instruments (and voice), and computers have made the recording medium itself a non-issue.

The home studio is a different animal, and I have different advice: do form a relationship with it. You have time to develop a rapport with this studio. You can experiment. You can search deeply into the nooks and crannies of sonic possibility. BUT… and this is important… every so often, pretend you’re paying by the hour, and psych yourself into “perform or die” mode. This keeps you alive as an artist and staves off the malaise of eternal nit-picking.

Next: Part 6!!! What will part 6 be? As much a surprise for me as it will be for you!! As soon as I know what it’s about, I’ll write it, and then put it up on my website! Deal??