How important is Studio Experience to a Musician ...?

PaulBrewer

I just bought the ole Beatles Box Set there and was looking at the accompanying DVD.

There's a mini documentary on each album and on the one for Rubber Soul, their 6th album John Lennon talks about it was only then that they 'knew' the studio.

It struck me that it's very few musicians who even make three albums (unless you're a session player) don't mind the Beatles 13.

Does that lack of real studio experience impact on the music here ?

fitz

Certainly don't think it impacts composition or arrangement.
There's definitely a learning curve for how to go about tracking an arrangement to get the best out of it on record.

I think it's a discipline thing.
Being able to play the same part consistently, knowing you can put down a batch of nearly identical takes every time...that's not something that musicians starting out tend to think about until they have to do it - usually in a studio scenario.

As for "knowing the studio," that's a seperate thing in my book: when the composition becomes informed by the studio I think. That's when musicians start thinking like producers, if that makes sense...

Interesting topic.

11811

Yeah can affect the music I reckon, learning to maximize and get the most outta studio time is a very important skill, especially today where few bands get the opportunity to write in studio. Small things like discovering your drummer can't play to a click track, or the vocalist hasn't finished the lyrics 100% when you arrive at a studio are going to seriously impact the quality of the output.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

drummer and click track?
thats not a small thing

nor is a bass player who cant play the pattern consistently
a guitarplayer who cannot play in tune or in time
a singer - who you discover is actually sh1t while in the studio .
drummers who have **** kits , and cant hit them .


learning to be consistent and productive and not be rabbit in lights in the studio is the main thing to learn.

i think the - how to use the studio as a creative tool is a good bit down the line for most musicians , and id really rather trust an engineer to know this stuff
at first - i guess thats why its 6 albums later the muos finally get to play the knobs so to speak .

having a good home setup is a real bonus to being a good studio player - i must say.

11811

DaDumTish wrote: »

drummer and click track?
thats not a small thing

Yeah its was supposed to be "small things", i definitely wouldn't consider it a trivial matter!

raindog.promo

I've seen a few freak outs in studios where the musicians realise they aren't as good as they think they are, unable to get a take right. It's a harsh lesson to learn all at once.

I think studio experience definitely makes you focus on your playing technique and cutting out sloppy playing where necessary.

Rockshamrover

Niall - Dahlia wrote: »

I think a band with some prior studio experience has its advantages, but I don't think it "impacts" those bands who don't.

It's nice when a band understand how a studio runs and you can talk to them on that level, but do you not think there's often a buzz and excitement about a band who are first timers in the studio? A bit of energy...even if it is niave energy! I think that's a bit more important than the disadvantage of having to explain things that you and me take for granted and find simple to understand.

Bands who are recording for the first time will be more willing to take on your advice and guidance...basically do what they're told! Whereas a band who have recorded before and think they've seen it all will sometimes overstep the line and start trying to run the session. Bit of a pet hate of mine.

I would however like every band to be educated on time issues in the studio! What's realistic in their time/budget. A good preproduction can sort out alot of these things (and that click track issue, happens all the time) and make a bands first visit to a studio go without a major hitch.

I can remember being in the studio for the first time, it was a glorified garden shed set up, but to us it was like being in Abbey road.

We did exactly as we were told and were on cloud nine for days, so I can get what your saying about working with studio virgins. There is definitely a creative energy and no Ego BS to deal with.

studiorat

raindog.promo wrote: »

I've seen a few freak outs in studios where the musicians realise they aren't as good as they think they are, unable to get a take right. It's a harsh lesson to learn all at once.

I think it's a good thing for a musician to understand that they aren't as good as they think they are. The real problem I find is dealing with musicians who don't...

eoin5

I'm still pretty green to studio recording but its taught me to place less value on my own little piece and work together towards making a song better.

I think recording at home can help you with most of the things you need recording in a studio though, working to a click etc.

PMI

A Massive thing that most muso's dont think about in the early days is dont be guided by the clock/money....

doing a great recording can take time ie: yes that snare needs to be changed and another head put on and I have a few mics on the way from another studio, its all part of it.....

Seziertisch

Just reading Slash's biography at the moment. He talks about his quest for his sound when recording Appetite for Destruction. On their first day in the studio (for live tracking) he realised all his guitars sounded like ****. Just before they started tracking his guitar proper (in another studio) Mike Clink obliged by providing him with a handbuilt Les Paul copy (which he has used on every recording since). They then kept renting and returning various Marshall heads until they found the "one". Slash talks about Mike Clinks patience and perserverence when all this was going on. This is a band with a big budget recording in LA (where when it comes to recording studios, techs, choice of gear etc. the very best is in a league well above almost anything you will find in Ireland). Tone is all in the players fingers and gear doesn't matter, my bollix it doesn't.

They had to work at it, and so should we, and because anyone recording in Ireland is instantly at a disadvantage in a lot of ways we have to work a lot harder to get anything even approaching those kinds of results. On top of that you probably aren't going to be working with players who are either a. legends in the making or b. care as deeply about their sound.

PMI

Seziertisch wrote: »

They had to work at it, and so should we, and because anyone recording in Ireland is instantly at a disadvantage in a lot of ways we have to work a lot harder to get anything even approaching those kinds of results. On top of that you probably aren't going to be working with players who are either a. legends in the making or b. care as deeply about their sound.

Why the disadvantage? im a bit lost here??

Seziertisch

PMI wrote: »

Why the disadvantage? im a bit lost here??

I don't think most of the "very best" Irish studios compare to the "very best" elsewhere. I would also say that this distinction extends to the people working there in a lot of cases as well. Historically speaking we just don't have the same culture of recording that exists elsewhere.

Of course, this distinction also applies to bands/musicians and their attitude towards what needs to be done in many cases, too.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

the lads here have it down good -

fingers and style are a big element - but the gear is half the battle as they have said
and funny enough- a good player usually has a tone that allows him to be a good player - its a feedback loop
ive spent a load of money and time looking for good tone - even stripping off paint , sanding necks ,
replacing stock elements on drums , guitars, etc .

if it sounds good as is - the studio will put it down nicely .

i also learned early on how crap i was as a green horn , with big notions .
learned it the hard way by being told by more experienced guys i wasnt up to scratch .
my response was to sulk , then go back to the practise room for a few months til i was.

and now if i was told , i would actively ask where im going wrong and learn from it- instead of sulking -
and then go back to the practise room,

its a shattering experience to realise that you really should have put in those 3 to 4 hour
days learning how to play properly cos you really arent as good as you think you are.

all musicians should know their limitations ,try to stablise them
and enhance and exploit their strenghts .

big egos are very destructive things to have .
if you are jimmy page - then fine , id expect an ego - but if you are joe nobody
then put your ego away and learn - you are only making a w@nker out of your self.

the number one thing to focus on is the overall tune -
not your part , but how your part fits the tune .
play for the music - not for your self.

PaulBrewer

Seziertisch wrote: »

I don't think most of the "very best" Irish studios compare to the "very best" elsewhere.

Yes, but I think, incrementally, that is changing.

krd

Seziertisch wrote: »

Just reading Slash's biography at the moment. He talks about his quest for his sound when recording Appetite for Destruction. On their first day in the studio (for live tracking) he realised all his guitars sounded like ****. Just before they started tracking his guitar proper (in another studio) Mike Clink obliged by providing him with a handbuilt Les Paul copy (which he has used on every recording since). They then kept renting and returning various Marshall heads until they found the "one". Slash talks about Mike Clinks patience and perserverence when all this was going on. This is a band with a big budget recording in LA (where when it comes to recording studios, techs, choice of gear etc. the very best is in a league well above almost anything you will find in Ireland). Tone is all in the players fingers and gear doesn't matter, my bollix it doesn't.

They had to work at it, and so should we, and because anyone recording in Ireland is instantly at a disadvantage in a lot of ways we have to work a lot harder to get anything even approaching those kinds of results. On top of that you probably aren't going to be working with players who are either a. legends in the making or b. care as deeply about their sound.

Slash also had great technique - All though in general I hate hairband music - Some hairband guitar music is fantastic - Appetite for destruction being the ultimate example - But listening to a Motley crue album of out of key widdling is really painful.

The guitar technique I like most that the hairbands had down - is that really high pitched harmonic/feedback - that in all my time playing guitar i could only get through accident.

Marshalls are a lot of fun to play on - I haven't had the chance in years - but you need a big room - And the head is really sensitive to the temperature of the room - I used to put a fan heater blowing directly on the head - it could take 20 minutes for it to get to the right temperature - but once it did you started to get that really phantastic 'So this is what it's all about sound'.

Jim Marshall originally "designed" these amps working as a kid in an electrical repair shop. A "trained" electronics engineer would have set out to design an amp in a completely different manner - to avoid distortion and colour - Since Jim Marshall didn't really know what he was doing - his amp circuits distort the sound beautifully.

Appetite was put together after a few years of playing those songs live - the preproduction was possible done in some great live rooms.

Plus - for individual "takes" - they would have had a board of 24 / 48 tracks to record on - using just a single track as a guide - then a handful of non-credited lowly paid engineers to sift through the takes to find good ones - then months to do this.

And some of the guitar on Appetite is possibly some of the best guitar you will ever hear.

You know - it's not really fair to expect people to "deliver" under unnatural and uncomfortable pressure. Especially, with a "music industry professional", giving disapproving looks of "you truly suck" contempt.


There are people out there who can play note perfect time after time - But they're boring.

I know people who are incredibly slick and they've done records not very many people have bought.

The technology is different these days - but people still employing the 1950s method of - "your song is three minutes and twenty seconds long" - "you have three minutes and twenty seconds to do it once and do it right- and we will howl in derisive laughter if you hit one single bum not"

krd

Seziertisch wrote: »

I don't think most of the "very best" Irish studios compare to the "very best" elsewhere. I would also say that this distinction extends to the people working there in a lot of cases as well. Historically speaking we just don't have the same culture of recording that exists elsewhere.

Of course, this distinction also applies to bands/musicians and their attitude towards what needs to be done in many cases, too.

I think windmill lane was a fantastic studio until they exclusively switched to commercial video and sound production - (But the audio and video for a single baked beans advertisement can pull in more money then they ever made from U2's entire oeuvre

(Even that studio that used to exist on the grand canal - SDS or something - before it became a 'pay to play' ****hole)

Abbey road have a fantastic working studio - but I think the last productions of absolute note to emerge from the complex were Pink floyds 70s recordings

Dispute that if you like - but I don't think Keane 'live in 3d from Abbey road' counts.

iamhunted

Seziertisch wrote: »

I don't think most of the "very best" Irish studios compare to the "very best" elsewhere. I would also say that this distinction extends to the people working there in a lot of cases as well. Historically speaking we just don't have the same culture of recording that exists elsewhere.

Of course, this distinction also applies to bands/musicians and their attitude towards what needs to be done in many cases, too.

by very best do you mean technology/setup etc? Isnt the marking of a great album moreso the music, the ingenuity to get good sounds (motown reckoned their distinctive sound was due more to crap equipment than anything else), the musician/mix/producer skillset etc rather than how good the recording gear is?

Seziertisch

krd wrote: »

Slash also had great technique - All though in general I hate hairband music - Some hairband guitar music is fantastic - Appetite for destruction being the ultimate example - But listening to a Motley crue album of out of key widdling is really painful.

The guitar technique I like most that the hairbands had down - is that really high pitched harmonic/feedback - that in all my time playing guitar i could only get through accident.

Marshalls are a lot of fun to play on - I haven't had the chance in years - but you need a big room - And the head is really sensitive to the temperature of the room - I used to put a fan heater blowing directly on the head - it could take 20 minutes for it to get to the right temperature - but once it did you started to get that really phantastic 'So this is what it's all about sound'.

Jim Marshall originally "designed" these amps working as a kid in an electrical repair shop. A "trained" electronics engineer would have set out to design an amp in a completely different manner - to avoid distortion and colour - Since Jim Marshall didn't really know what he was doing - his amp circuits distort the sound beautifully.

Appetite was put together after a few years of playing those songs live - the preproduction was possible done in some great live rooms.

Plus - for individual "takes" - they would have had a board of 24 / 48 tracks to record on - using just a single track as a guide - then a handful of non-credited lowly paid engineers to sift through the takes to find good ones - then months to do this.

And some of the guitar on Appetite is possibly some of the best guitar you will ever hear.

You know - it's not really fair to expect people to "deliver" under unnatural and uncomfortable pressure. Especially, with a "music industry professional", giving disapproving looks of "you truly suck" contempt.


There are people out there who can play note perfect time after time - But they're boring.

I know people who are incredibly slick and they've done records not very many people have bought.

The technology is different these days - but people still employing the 1950s method of - "your song is three minutes and twenty seconds long" - "you have three minutes and twenty seconds to do it once and do it right- and we will howl in derisive laughter if you hit one single bum not"

I wouldn't have associated Guns'n'Roses with 80s hair metal per say. They considered themselves very different from all those bands, and I think their sound and influences are much more classic rock/70s with kind of a punk/dolls thing going on.

Supposedly Appetite was cut live for the most part with the exception of Slash's guitar and the vocals which were redone after the main sessions. I gather that part of the reason for Slash redoing his parts was that he hadn't been happy with the sound.

That's interesting about heating the amp. Slash talks about being unable to recreate the sound of Appetite again. The amp in question was a modded JCM 800. He even got an amp at a later stage with supposedly the exact same mods and it still sounded different. He put it down to temperature, humidity, dimensions of the room, recording desk etc., saying that those sessions were one of a kind. The guitars were tracked in Take One Studio in California. Slash describes it as a glorified home studio.

Seziertisch

iamhunted wrote: »

by very best do you mean technology/setup etc? Isnt the marking of a great album moreso the music, the ingenuity to get good sounds (motown reckoned their distinctive sound was due more to crap equipment than anything else), the musician/mix/producer skillset etc rather than how good the recording gear is?

I mean technology, set up etc. and probably nearly more important, the actual recording space itself. Just taking places like Ocean Way or Blackbird, there is nothing even remotely in the same league in Ireland. I don't know if there is a single studio in Dublin with a U47 or 67, let alone 10 of them. What these places also have is history, our ears are tuned into the sound of recordings that have been made there. Rupert Cobb talked about the first time he miked up a piano in Abbey Road. He had previously never been happy with his piano recordings, but here he said, miking up the piano used on all those Beatles recordings, he could put the mic anywhere and it still sounded great.

As for Motown having crappy gear. Its not like they had a load of M-boxes hooked up to a load of Chinese mics. I even think there are reissues of the Quad Eight and Electrodyne EQs that they used on the cards. There was no equivalent of today's budget gear at the time, the cost could only be justified as part of a commercial venture.

I don't think gear is a replacement for other stuff, nor do I think that other stuff is a replacement for gear. The Slash story being the case in point; his playing was the same, but his guitar and amp weren't up to scratch in his opinion and who are we to argue. Similarly, a good singer singing into a 57 and an M-box will sound like a good singer singing into a 57 and an M-box, whereas the same singer singing into whatever expensive large diaphragm condenser (or indeed a 57) and a 1073 or whatever will sound like that. If the first option is the sound you are after then so be it, but if the second option is what you are after the you are going to have to get your hands on a 1073 (and possibly a LDC). No one would suggest that a Formula One driver behind the wheel of a Toyota Corolla would be any less the driver than they are behind the wheel of a F1 car. Though if they are planning on winning an F1 race the Corolla won't do.

PaulBrewer

krd wrote: »

I
Abbey road have a fantastic working studio -

Ah it's only alright ...

krd

Take a tour around the studio Guns'n'roses recorded appetite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_ak0TYWf_A&feature=channel_page
And like the man said - I thought it would be bigger.

And further to the state of studios today - you'll here that half of the studio is being converted into a 'home'.


Wikipedia lists 6 engineering assistants.

So my engineering assistant theory is most likely correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appetite_for_Destruction

You know people forget what it must have been like - that to do some work on another song meant someone hoping up and replacing the tape in the tape machine - getting all that miscellaneous stuff done.

Still a great record

Seziertisch

krd wrote: »

Take a tour around the studio Guns'n'roses recorded appetite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_ak0TYWf_A&feature=channel_page
And like the man said - I thought it would be bigger.

And further to the state of studios today - you'll here that half of the studio is being converted into a 'home'.


Wikipedia lists 6 engineering assistants.

So my engineering assistant theory is most likely correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appetite_for_Destruction

You know people forget what it must have been like - that to do some work on another song meant someone hoping up and replacing the tape in the tape machine - getting all that miscellaneous stuff done.

Still a great record

Rumbo was where rhythm guitar (Izzy), bass and drums were tracked. It was at the end of these sessions that Slash got his handmade Les Paul clone from Mike Clink (not the guitar they are talking about in the video.

+1 on it being a great record. One of the first signs that the eighties were on the way out. A return to basics, no rack of effects, no super strats, no super styling, just balls out rock'n'roll!!! (Fist pumps the air)

eviltimeban

My first post here, hiya Tony, anyway I reckon the main issue with bands not having studio experience is when they are going to record their very first demo. We've all been there. You pay a going rate for a few hours with a semi-interested producer / engineer who doesn't offer much input, does a basic mix, then hands you your "tape". I'd say its much the same now, only you get a CD!

The problem I always found is that you have an idea of how you want to sound, but because you don't know anything about a studio you don't really know how to express it. And when you are recording you are a bit in awe of the process, perhaps intimidated by the producer, so you don't really say anything, because you don't really know what to say! And in the end you get a demo which is not really what you wanted. And you've paid for it! But the lazy ass engineer was too busy on the phone / computer / god knows what to be bothered making it sound any better for you.

Of course, a musician with experience would know exactly what to do, what kind of drum / vocal / guitar sound they want, and how to express it. And they would not be afraid to voice their opinions and make the producer do it their way, as its their demo, they paid for it, and its the sound they want. That's just what I think anyway.

If there was a specific demo studio for young bands to come in record, cheaply, with good equipment and an interested producer, that would be a great thing.

Seziertisch

As someone who has approached it from both sides, I think that the bands gear/playing is way more important than the gear in the studio. For a lot of bands going in to cut a first-time demo they are as much let down by shortcomings in their gear as in shortcomings of studio's gear. It is also the case that regarding playing technique what might have sounded fine in rehearsal where nobody was listening particularly closely might not work so well in front of a mic.

Even with the odds stacked against them in terms of the studio maybe not being so great, as long as the engineer is halfway competent, a good player with good equipment will be able to deliver. I recently read an interview with Pete Townshend in which he talked about his recording experience(s). He said that sometimes he would bump into these old time engineers who made jazz recordings in the 50s and they would claim that the results achieved were down to their listening skills; Pete was of the opinion that it was more a case of great rooms and great gear, saying that with what they had at their disposal you would be hard pressed to make anything other than a great sounding recording so long as you stayed out of the way.