Recording info


From a 7ball mag article

So I answered some questions for 7ball's december issue, but it's not coming out cause 7ball is well.. over. I thought the info might be useful to some of you though if you're interested in the recording process or are looking for ideas to leave for santa.

What do I have to have to do basic recording?


a micro cassette recorder from walmart: $25.  If I had to take 2 things to a desert island to record, they would be an acoustic guitar and a micro cassette recorder.  The most important practice to get into is documenting your ideas.  You will most likely forget them, so it's important to get them down when the inspiration strikes.  If worst comes to worst, call yourself and sing yourself a message.  I was hanging with one of the guys who did the india arie album and he says the same thing.  In his class he teaches on songwriting, he plays 3 versions of the same song, one recorded on his cell phone, one he did as a demo and the final one with india arie on it, to show the progression of how it works.  The idea, not the equipment is the most important thing. 

If you've gotten into the habit of documenting your ideas already and want to start experimenting than a basic 4 track recorder (Tascam mf-po1 $100) will get you used to the idea of recording and how it works.  You'll also need headphones (walkman headphones will do) and a microphone, which you could use a karoake one from best buy for $30.  You do get what you pay for, but you'll be getting started.  A lot of musicians I know started on 4 tracks.  If you already have a reasonably modern computer, there's lots of options for getting started.  Sonic Foundry's ACID is a cheap and easy way to try recording and Apple's Garage Band comes with every new mac and is easy to use and still quite powerful.  I will say this now and will repeat it ad nauseum.  THERE IS NO MAGIC BOX.  IT'S THE PEOPLE NOT THE GEAR.


How much is the equipment gonna cost me?


Anything from $25 to 2.5 million or so.  If I had to rebuild my rig from scratch I could probably do it now for about $7000.  I'd recommend spending a small amount of money to get started to see if you really like it or not.  If you start working on something and you don't come up for air till sun is coming up than you probably should invest in better equipment cause it means you'll use it.  I have a lot of friends though who have $2000 toys sitting in their closets.  Also remember this, unless you are in prison and they don't allow you to have recording equipment, any reason you have for not doing it ie: no time, no money, no talent is an excuse.  If you can't afford it, than get creative, buy used, intern at a studio for midnight hours, borrow gear.  When I was getting started I didn't have a single piece of equipment to my name, so I'd borrow bits and pieces from people and than record like mad for the 2 days I had something set up.  If it's time, than do 15 minutes a day.  Everyone can do 15 minutes a day.  It's a lot better than 4 hours every day next summer when you have the summer off cause it's not gonna come.  If you want to do it, start now.  If talent is an issue, than get someone to help you or teach you.  Ask around.  I am one of the least talented musicians in the biz, but I make up for it with effort.  Remember, success requires 2 of the following 3 things, talent, passion or discipline.  I believe I got here on passion and discipline.  You can too.  It might be hard getting started, but that only makes the story better and you will discover what courage and character you have.



Can I do everything at home? What 'needs' to be done in studio (live drums? vocals? other?) Is it really possible to make an entire record on home studio/Mac set-up?


Well, there's a number of records that have been recorded in homes, including ours.  Karaoke Superstars was done with a very minimum of gear and knowledge.  In retrospect, sonicly, I think it sounds terrible.  However we've had over 60 film and TV placements on that album and still counting.  Recording in a house isn't really an equipment issue, rather than an acoustic issue.  Recording things that are loud like drums usually works better in a big open space with high ceilings and non-parallel surfaces because of the way sound reflects off walls.  Most houses and basements don't have a large enough room for this, including ours, so on our next album, we'll be tracking drums in a big studio that's got a great sonic space for drums.  Everything else however will be done in our basement studio.  I will stress this again, the single most important thing is not gear but knowledge.  I can take an experienced engineer and record an album using only radio shack equipment and it will sound better than a novice in the most expensive studio in the world.  It's not even about the gear or the space, the way to get a great sounding record is this:

1. Start with a great player.
2. Have them work out a fantastic part for the song
3. Have them play a great instrument that's been tuned and maintained
4. Plug in a mic
5. Press record.

I promise you that it's much more about the player, the part and the instrument than it is about what pre-amp you use.  After the player, part and instrument, it's the engineer, than sonic space, than equipment.  The single greatest advantage of a home studio is that if you don't have a great player or part, you have time.. time to work out a great part and practice it till it sounds great.  That's time you don't have when you're paying $1000 per day.  Also, the home studio lends itself to creative experimentation that you don't tend to get when the clock is ticking.  Big studios are fun, they look really impressive, there's usually free food and drinks, they have fun lounges with big screen TVs that come out of the ceiling.  But you pay for all that.  So I personally like to do stuff at home.



I know Mac's the preference of, well, everyone, but can you do this stuff on PC? {'why would you want to?' would be my answer, but some of our readers aren't going to be among the enlightened 3%}


You absoloutely can do recording on PCs.  It tends to be cheaper for one and almost all of the software except LOGIC which I use is cross platform.  The primary advantage of using macs is that there's only so many models of mac and the software has been tested on each model and will work out of the box with almost no frustration, so you can spend more time making music.  It's kind of like a playstation, you bring the disc home and plug it in and it works, because every playstation is the same versus any PC software, which may not play well with your combination of video board and sound card.  Most PCs from major manufacturers like Dell should be pretty good.  There are PCs optimized for audio already, but they cost as much as Macs so you might as well go mac.  The other thing about mac is that if you're creative at all, you will find the mac more conducive to creativity in general.  The ilife software is awesome.  I use iphoto for my 8000 pics and i-movie to cut together the pre-show videos we do and i-DVD for… well you get the point. There's also something intangible about macs that is very satisfying if you're a creative individual.


Do I need ProTools? Are there alternatives I should consider?

Pro-tools has become the industry standard.  When it cost $10,000 to get into, using other platforms was an obvious choice.  Otto teased me once when we worked on a project and he said he had "real pro-tools" not fake pro tools like I had.  All teasing aside, we were still swapping files with no problems and the $8000 I saved made me wonder who was laughing.  However, the entry cost to pro-tools is now around $500 for an mbox and lots of very fun software.  Be aware though that the mbox is like the first crack hit.  Eventually if you get serious, you'll be looking at a lot of cash.  Still, if I was getting started today, I would buy an mbox.  Actually I have one.  The value for dollar is incredible.  There are other platforms, cubase, digital performer and Logic which I use are all widely accepted pro platforms that exchange files.  Once again, I will stress this, it's not the software, it's the people.  I made at least 4 records on something called voyetra seq gold plus.  I won't be surprised when someone records an entire record in Garage band, which is the obvious place to start if you own a mac.



What's mastering and why does my project need it (and how much will I spend for it)?

There are 3 phases of making a record, the first is recording, in which you will record the music, (sometimes called tracking). Typically you record some parts together like bass, drums and guitars and some parts later usually referred to as overdubs, ie vocals.  At this point you'll have maybe 24 tracks of stuff that goes together.  When you're happy with all your parts and sounds, you need to turn those 24 tracks into a 2 track version which is called mixing.  Sometimes your tracking and your mix engineers are the same guy, sometimes not.  When you're happy with the mix, the engineer will "print" a mix, which is engineerspeak for recording it onto 2 tracks.  The 2 track "master" is than sent to "mastering".  Mastering consists of 2 parts.  The first one is where final eq and compression is applied to sonically enhance the music.  Professional mastering engineers are strange mutant people who hear things that only dogs can and say things like: "of course I took the grillcloth off the speaker, did you really want 0.03% THD distortion on your high end?"  A great mastering room usually has the most accurate speakers you will ever ever hear in your life.  Great mastering can save a bad mix and will put shine on a good one.  The second part of mastering is the last phase before manufacturing, they will do any final sequencing of songs and than prepare your duplication master so that it's ready for manufacturing.  It's a tricky and precise business and I like to leave it to the pros.  If you are going to professionally manufacture CDs than you will need mastering.  If you don't have it done, they will do it at the manufacturing plant and I don't usually recommend that.  If everything I'm saying is news to you, than you don't need mastering yet.  For now, burn your own CDs.  When you get to the point where you want to professionally duplicate CDs than ask around for references. 

Posted: Thu - December 2, 2004 at 12:56 AM          

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