TripleStroke
Senior Member
It was probably a wooden shack with a biker pretend to be a musician type dude who charged 20 bucks an hour from the sounds of it
It was probably a wooden shack with a biker pretend to be a musician type dude who charged 20 bucks an hour from the sounds of it
HA! Yeah exactly right.......
I've been to several "recording studios" where some guy has set up a recording studio in his house. Where he has each musician in a different room of the house. You know the guitar player is in the kitchen etc. A real shoestring operation. Low cost studio time. But usually these guys are the nicest people to work with.
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True. So true. Sometimes the converted houses that get turned into studios for bands to record specific albums can produce amazing results, too.
Looking at "Blood Sugar Sex Magic", all that a house requires to be an amazing studio is Rick Ruben sleeping on a couch in the basement.
Looking at "Blood Sugar Sex Magic", all that a house requires to be an amazing studio is Rick Ruben sleeping on a couch in the basement.
Or Nigel Godrich... I was thinking of OK Computer when I wrote that comment but Blood Sex Sugar Magic isn't a bad citation!
This is my fault. When I originally asked the OP who was the "producer", I meant "Producer" to mean someone who works with/for the band.
As in George Martin with the Beatles.
Both of you are misunderstanding what I was saying. When I wrote I was thinking of a a couple situations. The serve the music comment I was thinking of where I play drums on the weekend is a good example. It's a large church with full time engineer. We have dialogue...I want the way I have tech'ed my drums to complement the sound that is common and fitting for the way the church does music. I would never just roll in and say this is how my drums have to sound...especially if it wasn't complementing the entire band...and yes If the engineer said your drums are too ringy, or tuned to high or whatever I'd change them. I think this applies to session work too...often the producer has a certain sound in mind he wants to achieve, and working with the engineer can help to achieve this.
I also think of a typical studio session with a popular band. Like when I read an article the other day about Ronnie Vannucci in the studio...and he talks about how he worked with his producer and engineer to capture the vision the band and he had for drums for their most recent record.
I know if I was going in the studio with my band I'd want to work as closely with the experts to help achieve the best possible sound for the record and for my band. It's important to realize that the sound you may be after as a band may require so adjustments to the way you normally do things as a drummer when it comes to the studio
I'm not suggesting letting the engineer/producer make all the calls but in a professional setup, typically it's not just "hey I am going to just roll in and do whatever I want as the drummer....because hey I am the drummer...and nobody touches my drums!" Lol. Not only that but why wouldn't you dialogue with your engineer/producer as he has the experience to record great sonics usually and he is on the other side listening to everything...Teamwork makes great recordings
I know it's not apples to apples because the OP was talking about his band but in the session world in Nashville where there is ten guys in line to session drum, being hard to work with and a pain in the ass will get you straight to the bottom of the list.
I don't know Im coming more from the angle of hired drummer I think because that is more my experience....if I was bringing in my own personal band I may have stronger opinions on how the drums should sound, but most likely I would find an engineer that I really loved his stuff and just let him do his thing.
The first time I went into a studio to record in 1967, the engineer was Frank Zappa with the assistance of Ian Underwood.
I've never had to say "nobody touches my drums" because I've never worked with an engineer or staff unprofessional enough to touch (much less make changes to) my equipment without asking.
And I don't understand you're driving at. The problem here was not lack of cooperation by the drummer, it was an engineer who was an extremely poor communicator and no sense of boundaries.
The first post made me mad just reading it and I sympathize with the original poster.
Here is my take on the situation. For orchestral, avant garde, jazz etc., where you may at any time play any component of the kit or it's hardware in an unconventional way, then close micing is wrong. The whole rig has to treated as one complex acoustic voice, and miced from further back or up, in an isolated chamber, as if it were a marimba or a percussionist's rig.
Now the controversial bit:
Considering what producers and engineers expect and want during most recording sessions in the rock genre, we should consider using a good electronic kit in the studio. Just give them the MIDI-out feed to do what they want with. They don't understand acoustic drums so this is a great compromise. The hard work was already done at the factory.
You can buy all the equipment there is to buy with money, but you can't buyAll this is a good reason to save up for your own studio gear. ie. a computer, audio interface and mics (& software of course) and then you can learn all that stuff yourself.
Interesting story!Sounds rough man. For the EP that i've been recording the engineer/producer is also a drummer. 1st thing we did was buy new heads for his kit(Pearl Masters, Coated Ambassadors over clear Ambassadors) and then he had me tune to my satisfaction. Then we recorded it and we determined what we needed to change to get the recorded sound to match up what we heard in the room. This involved retuning the kick and selecting completely different cymbals. The sound in the room ended up not being quite what i would want to play these songs live with but the sound on the tracks is exactly what i wanted. We used 4 mics on the drums Kick, snare, and a pair of overheads. The engineer should be able to mic your kit the way you tuned it and make it sound good but conversely recorded sound is an entirely different beast than live sound in a room and you as the drummer will have to make adjustments in order to get the sound on the tape to be what you hear in your head.
Well I agree with that...you clearly don't understand what I am driving at or saying...but no I don't think there's anything wrong with their producer (same guy as engineer) making some decisions on how the drums should have sounded to make the record sound better. Clearly the OP didn't have a ton of experience in the studio. You shouldn't just assume he knows best.
Clearly neither have you, to be excusing the engineer's behavior in this case.
I've got enough experience in the studio and working as live and studio engineer to have an opinion.
Good. Maybe read a couple of more magazine articles on studio etiquette.