In that thread, Jonathan and I talked a bit about how intimidating it is to hear guys like @bozmillar, @ColdRoomStudio, @Danny_Danzi, and many others get results with pretty simple gear. Danny doesn’t quite fit in that category although from what I know he is very comfortable functioning ITB with very basic plugins while recording in a very limited room.
I think the things that these powerhouse engineers have accomplished is the ability to not go overboard with processing ITB. Although I very much understand this concept my “analog” heart makes me behave differently. In the high-end analog world, it is still very easy to mix like crap:) There is a little more forgiveness in cranking knobs and not destroying things though. The other thing is that when you crank an analog eq you get 15db instead of 24:) As I’ve evaluated my strengths and weaknesses as an engineer I know I have very little self-control. As a result, I do almost everything in parallel. I will go crazy on a kick drum eq, compression etc. until it feels awesome to me. I then use it in parallel with a minimally processed track. I find parallel processing in the analog world to be a much more phase coherent experience.
As a pro studio owner/engineer it is pretty intimidating and inspiring to see guys that have spent a fraction of what you have getting comparable and even better results. In short the results that home recording engineers are getting keeps getting better and they keep big name engineers and mid-level pros accountable to keep pushing their skills forward. Every time I sit down to mix I feel I have every bedroom engineer looking over my shoulder saying “I can do better”. As a person that owns a large studio and a pile of gear, you become the “local studio to beat”. It is awesome to have this pressure to keep driving forward. It is intimidating at the same time. I couldn’t imagine ever plugging a mic into an interface pre…for anything. Yet people can do it with great results
I totally get this, and I have to say the capabilities of a home studio these days are pretty crazy. Even Dave Pensado has commented on how ‘the playing field is starting to level out’.
Ok. So operating income can be invested in a way that creates a competitive advantage. A facility advantage. And its a reasonable strategy if its the one you want to take - acquiring specialized tools smaller competitors can’t. There’s risk to that though, and we saw it in the 90’s with studios that took out loans to acquire $500k-$1.5m consoles. Those consoles eventually became a burdened rather than an advantage as smaller startup studios learned to compete without the overhead and debt.
Your competitors will eat your weaknesses for lunch. They’ll go to town on your client base if you can’t figure out how to keep ahead of them!
Perhaps, but ultimately it’s down to indivdual ability. Most people agree that a shit-hot guitarist can make any guitar sound awsome. That is certainly my experience. In the same way, a shit-hot engineer/producer/mixer can deliver a top class recording with any gear. You can own all the high-end gear in the world but if you don’t have the ability to harness its power you’re wasting your money.
Generally (there are exceptions, I know), high-end gear’s main advantage is that it makes the job easier and quicker - it improves the workflow.
I would say if you can produce high quality recordings using low end gear, go ahead and buy as much high-end gear as you want. Othewise, don’t bother, because it will only end in disappointment in terms of the end result.
Yes, remaining debt free is a HUGE advantage. It helps a business stay nimble. I am not meaning to whine and complain (not that anyone is accusing me of this) It is not often that many of us truly talk about what makes us fearful in our businesses and studio. When a client walks into my 2500 square foot live room and then into my control room they definitely get the feeling they are in a “real Studio”. That is a very real advantage. I track using hardware on the way in. It is not common for people to like the raw takes I get from them better than they liked their previous finished material. Most will say “you not only turned this into a recording session but you also turned it into a mentoring session.” When they get to choose from 50 different guitars and loads of different amps choose from three different pianos and three different studio kits they love it. These are all advantages that set my studio apart from the usual home studio.
I actually don’t believe this. I know it is the usual way of thinking but after 21 years of business that has never been my experience. My usual experience is that most studios are pretending to be something they are not. Most commercial studios around here are selling themselves as “A” rooms but they are “B” rooms at best. Most studios are their own worst enemies and if they are a problem they “take care of themselves”.
Customers have great BS detectors, they are the ones that will eat you for lunch IME:) I a very truthful about my room and my abilities with clients. I don’t exaggerate. I own a killer “B” room with a “B” room console. I evaluate projects based on three criteria. 1. Can I elevate it to the next level? 2. Are the people cool and nice to be around? 3. Is the paycheque worth the work? If all three are met, I accept. Here is how I evaluate my current skill set. I am a good enough recording engineer to get a song (that is well written and performed) to high-level small market radio levels and good enough for bands that are just breaking into big market radio. If they need an A-list mix engineer I am good enough at tracking to send tracks to that engineer. I am humble enough as an engineer to know what my current skill set is and not pull the wool over my own eyes. That is not good for clients.
I’m in the same boat. The business competition thing never made sense to me, and every time I find myself in the competition mindset is when I find myself screwing things up.
I think if you are good at what you do and people know that you are good at what you do, more work comes in than you are able to handle.
At least in the plugin world, once I got established, I learned that other plugin developers are not the enemy. My goal is not to beat out slate, or soundtoys or Brainworx. I do much better when I focus on making good products rather than trying to beat out the other guys. I have far more work to do than I have time for.
I guess it might be different for gig work, but I don’t really think it is. Make yourself valuable to people, and they will pay you for your time.
LOL @ power house engineer and my name in the same sentence. Thanks, I needed that. I’ll share a few things in my experience that have really helped me along. Some, you guys will disagree with. Others may open your eyes.
In my opinion as well as experience, I have found certain areas in this field to be hype and fluff. The proof in the pudding for me was/is my beta testing experience. For every company I work for (Cakewalk, Fractal Audio, FXPansion, Melodyne, AcmeBarGig) I have always used a basic, old computer for all my testing purposes. Whether it be a Win XP box with 512 RAM and a 900 mhz processor or my current Dell i3, 4 gig of RAM, dual core, it’s forced me to learn how to use less and still get quality.
What that means in the real scheme of things? When doing test projects, I didn’t have my good gear, hardware, good interfaces, great mics, killer amps or pre-amps available. I wasn’t in a tuned room or even an ARC’d room. I sometimes work out of my little office with a guitar with beat strings, an old Mackie 32x8 just to send signal, a few SM57’s and EV PL60’s, a junk Behringer compressor and either a stock Realtek soundcard or a shitblaster 64 gold card. I can upload several mixes that you’d think were at least done in a really good studio. The room didn’t matter, the plugs didn’t matter, the hardware was junk, and STILL, some pretty cool sounds came out of it for me.
My reason for posting the above? It’s all about getting the sounds right before you press that record button. Over processing will kill you every time. Sure, in my home studio and my big room studio, we have pretty killer things going on that make a difference, but that’s the key word…they make a “difference” not necessarily “better”. My two studio’s are quite similar. One has all the individual rooms for drums, vocals, cab isolation etc. Still quite a bit of rack gear and analog stuff, but it’s there because it looks cool. We rarely use it. We have all that we need in our consoles we us. The Midas is amazing due to the pre’s and front end it gives us as well as the midi controller abilities built in. If we need to push the pre’s a little, they remain musical and can get a little dirt without that ugly, digital sound.
Anyway, quite a few people lead others on to believe there is magic involved in this field when in fact, all you need is the understanding of sound recognition and representation. What sounds work in what mix as well as how to craft that mix to make things work. When to trash a sound and when to put a little time into it…these are the key elements. These days, when I track something from start to finish, very little needs to be done. I can usually get away with a little compression, a high pass/low pass, light eq and call it a day. I never sit there and turn knobs for days, weeks, months like some of the horror stories I read.
What’s even worse is, people will fight me to the death on things and are so set in their ways, they just don’t see in front of them. They think they are doing great when in reality, I’ve had to type them a 3 page report on what needs to be fixed on their mixes. Some are such gear snobs, they feel the need to justify using a piece of gear that cost them 2k. It’s added noise, degraded the audio and has also added a lame distortion they THINK is saturation. We live in a world of non-destructive audio with amazing capabilities. Why degrade something to where it may need to be re-tracked when you find out it doesn’t work? We can simulate just about anything these days and come so close, it’s not even worth the comparison. When I sold my real Massive Passive because I got the UAD version, it was an awakening for me. Getting rid of other hardware was a blessing too. Now I can use multiple instances instead of one. The trade off in sound isn’t as noticeable as you may think. Not enough for me to hold onto this stuff.
Even my amps. After I got my Fractal endorsement, I sold all my amps. The difference is so subtle to me, it wasn’t worth having a room full of old amps that sounded different all the time. To me, the technology today makes an incredible difference that is so close, the energy it takes to draw up the comparison’s are not even worth it. Who will notice other than nerds like us? Seriously…what’s the percentage it makes? 2% total if that? Is it in our minds? Is it because you spent 4k, you feel the need to use this amazing magical box? I say all of the above. We get too anal on things that don’t matter while missing the obvious.
The key word inside the word engineer is the last part. Eer/ear. If you know what you’re doing, have a grasp on what makes up good sounds while just knowing a little on how to make things cohesive, you win every time. Sure, a good set of monitors with some tuning is really a part of the winning process. At the least, make sure the monitors are tuned for flat response more so than the room being tuned. Trust me, you’ll fail more with monitors not being tuned than a room that HAS been tuned. Most people are 2ft to 4 ft away from their monitors. The room isn’t playing as much into it to make a difference at that distance as non-tuned monitors coloring the sound are. I’ve worked in some really bad rooms due to studio’s being overbooked to where the boss put me in a storage room, tile floors, corners, reflective warehouse type deals where sometimes you DON’T want room in the mix etc. As long as my monitors were tuned for flat, and I used careful close mic techniques, no matter where I was, I came out with killer results.
The next thing is to stop keeping up with all the new techniques that are ruining people. This plugin that auto does this, that plug that does that, side chaining…seriously. Let’s take a step back for a second. This side chaining thing with compression is literally cancelling out an instrument so you can hear the other instrument. This is a short cut for engineers that don’t have a clue how to cure frequency masking. If you listen to some of the greatest mixes of the past, you always heard the kick, the bass, and the keys. They don’t trade off, for God sake! Stuff like that and parallel compression when not used correctly, are ruining audio. Granted, if you know how to use this stuff the right way, you’re golden. But to use it as a band aide, ugh…you’re totally missing the boat.
You don’t need loads of know-how to be good in this field. Trust me when I tell you. All the years I’ve been doing this, today it’s “less really is more”. Record something today and just level mix it and pan it with nothing else happening anywhere. Can the mix stand on its own without loads of processing? If the answer is no, you lost. If you can’t share a mix that has no eq, no compression and no effects or tricks that literally sounds super promising, you are not headed in the right direction. Any mix I’ve ever done, I could share with you without nothing. Picture a house without the siding and trim. If it’s built right, you can tell the house is beautiful and will be amazing when it’s processed with siding, gutters and trim. That’s how your mixes should be or you’re missing the big picture.
Bare bones allows you to really hear what you’re getting. This is one thing I hated about hardware, tape and any other destructive process. People complain digital is unforgiving, yet in reality, it’s only giving you back what you put into it. Analog was compressing high end signals as well as giving you saturation. All good if that’s what you’re after. But to me, it sort of defeats the purpose of what digital has to offer. If we already remove 65hz and below and 12k (just my approximation of what seems to be missing when I listen to older stuff and used tape myself) and above due to analog processing, aren’t we sort of missing out on some really cool frequencies that make n “exciting” difference? Think about old recordings. You never heard much under 70hz because those frequencies weren’t accentuated and would mud up due to the limitations we had. You never heard 12k to 16k air…things were warm, and sort of…you know, dead and classic rock sounding. I’m old, I like that sound…but you know what…it’s 2018. I’ve had enough of that dated, dead, sound. I LOVE the sounds of today minus the sub low rumbles of mud and hyper compression. When something is done well, it’s a breath of fresh air to hear all the frequencies in the spectrum without the noise, hiss and artifacts of tape and hardware. Not to mention the lack of recall you lose using those methods.
In closing, none of this stuff is rocket science. Use what works, but you have to really compare your stuff to people who create mixes you respect before you say “this works.” At the end of the day, the world is listening on ear buds. No one cares how much your studio is worth, how many plugs you have or how much analog gear you have. If the sound is bad, none of it matters.
I use a Midas console with the killer pre’s it has. I use a light compression to disc on all instruments to keep the little peaks and valleys sane for conditioning purposes and go in at -6dB at 24/48. I post process with a few UAD plugs, Waves and Sonar plugs. I’ve never been happier with my sounds, my mixes or my over all outcome. The knowledge part is only important when I have to fix mixes that were destroyed by others. Recording good sounds at the source is what matters most and those mixes will mix themselves with little to no work. Keep some of that stuff in mind, guys and girls…it truly is important and you will find this out in time as things progress in your mixing realms.
I think that sounded more dramatic than I intended it to. Anyone who is successful at anything has found some way to capitalize on someone else weaknesses even if they haven’t consciously tried. I’m sure the same goes for both of you. In my view, anytime anyone buys something from Boz, or hires Paul to do something, there is a REASON both of you got that persons cash instead of someone else. That reason (which you may not even know) has naturally exploited someone else weakness. Offering a plugin at a lower price. Offering a plugin that does something different. Offering a plugin that is simpler to use. Offering a plugin that doesn’t require an ilok… All of those are valid examples of having exploited a weakness. So going to town on someones weaknesses, or them going to town on yours, doesn’t have to be read as a hyper competitive thing…I was thinking of it as more of an everyday natural marketplace occurrence. Doesn’t mean you have to be all cut throat with your competitors either.
Chris Lord-Alge told me something at a few years ago I won’t forget. “You don’t have to do everything better than the dickhead down the road. You just have to one thing better. The trick is figuring out which one thing matters most to the client”.
Boz…there’s a point where companies take this overboard. They over-thinking their competitive strategies to the point they hurt themselves. So I can see where you were coming from on that.
As a result, I do almost everything in parallel. I will go crazy on a kick drum eq, compression etc. until it feels awesome to me. I then use it in parallel with a minimally processed track. I find parallel processing in the analog world to be a much more phase coherent experience.
Thanks, I needed that. I’ll share a few things in my experience that have really helped me along. Some, you guys will disagree with. Others may open your eyes.