- long winded, but a good read, Bill!
Yeah, $600/hr. is a lot - that's for everything, though. It's a pianist's recording and getting
a good recording of a good piano is a challenge. We brought in an $80,000 Yamaha, so
there was about $100/hr. - including cartage, insurance and tuning. The 3 sidemen were
about $200/hr. The other $300 went to the engineer, studio and misc. - mainly travel and
food.
We chose the studio because of the acoustics for the piano. We got one of the best
engineers in SoCal, or anywhere for that matter, Rich Breen - he brought in some of his
best mics and pre's. We ended up with ORTF B&K 4011's and an alternate pair of
Sennheiser MKH-80's on the piano.
Everything tracked at 96/24 on PTHD (stock 192 converters) - Neve "Air" reissues on the
drums - the studio's vintage tube mics on the sax and upright - TC6000 for ambience. We
treated it like a live to 2 track gig, even though everything is multitracked. Rich
reintegrated the few punches and inserts into the 2 mix!
You get the idea - and yes, it sounds great! MOTM content: we're doing another session
this fall for a more electric album and I hope to take a monosynth equivalent modular for
some analog solos.
Oh yeah, the room was Conway C:
http://www.conwayrecording.com/studioc.html- Barry
http://www.ancientsun.com --- In motm@yahoogroups.com, "wjhall11" <wjhall@...> wrote:
>
> So here's long-winded Bill chiming in:
>
> IMHO Some cutting, pasting, pitch-correction can be a good thing...
> there are some things that can't be done any other way. But in my
> experience, when the core tracks of a record - including the main
> vocal are, essentially, performed - and mostly straight through rather
> than constructed, it makes a huge difference.
>
> About 8 years ago, an old friend played me the master of his band's
> latest record. It had been recorded using the world's highest
> technology. For one cut, he had even rented time on a satellite so a
> session could be done with people in LA and NY simultaneously. He
> asked me what I thought.
>
> I told him that I thought it sounded sterile and that it didn't
> capture the energy of those times when his group just stood and sang
> with their accompanists like I've heard them do in rehearsals and when
> they've been just laughing it up backstage.
>
> He agreed. He bemoaned the olden days when they'd just stand around a
> couple microphone and sing their hearts out.
>
> Yup. Me too.
>
> He and I had just co-produced a live recording on an old 8-track
> analog machine (one of mine) - pre-mixing some of the inputs with an
> emphasis in catching the ambiance of the space. In contrast it was
> alive and vibrant... it had "problems" hiss, hamonic distortion - but
> the recording leaped out of the speakers and demanded your attention.
> It was riveting. Since then, he and his pals used a lower-tech
> approach which I think sounds a lot better.
>
> Jay - Peter, Paul, and Mary live is different thatn PPM in the studio.
>
> Now - Paul S., to be fair, the best Harry Chapin concert in the world
> isn't the same as a studio recording of Harry Chapin. In live
> performance all kinds of other things are happening. (Live recording
> has its own demands - one of my specialties - ahem).
>
> On the other hand - there's my friend Jack Hardy who did some of his
> records live in the studio - one take. Fantastic work.
>
> Frank Sinatra - well - how were those recordings made? Big room - big
> performance - you can't beat them.
>
> I can see how, extended to the orchestra, Barry, one might take
> various sections of a longer performance and edit them together to
> form a better whole than one performance as you're saying, Barry.
> Clearly there'd be economical benefits... but I don't know if that
> makes it a better recording. I suppose it could - like maybe after
> the recording of a few performances, the conductor says: Oh god - the
> first movement of take 1 was perfect, but movement two sucked... let's
> use the second take's version of the second movement - it was
> great..." Well - I can see that.
>
> So my question is, Barry, that jazz thing you produced - was it worth
> the $600 / hr? Honest question. I'm thinking for someone with the
> 600 to spend and an eye on a kind of "sound" - a kind of perfection...
> well... it probably was. I mean, I'll wager it sounds friling great,
> right?
>
> And as Jay has pointed out - let's not forget the making of Strawberry
> fields. Brilliant - spliced together - speed/pitch all weird - but it
> all made it surreal. Perfect. But there it was two performances -
> married, right? Still - it's a performance - not piecemeal. The
> white album - overdubbed, but still performed, right? Even "Let it
> Be" - lots of over-dubbing - but not shredded, right? Much simpler -
> much more direct that what that old friend of mine did over satellite
> - then spliced together all kinds of takes.
>
> OK - but then there's Brian Wilson's Pet sounds recordings, right? So
> what made that "work?"
>
> In my current project (one I reluctantly embarked on at the insistence
> of those old friends of mine - and at Will's) I am playing all the
> core instruments myself - guitar, piano, drums, percussion, bass,
> electric guitars, synths. (Although I'll have a couple of those
> friends come and play instruments I can't play - like strings, horn
> section work, (banjo) etc. - and do harmonies - greatfully, they're
> vying for those so I might not even have to pay them <LOL>).
>
> Poses a dilemma - I can't play with myself in a live recording. But
> I've found that by playing the song all the way through, and, again,
> essentially performing the song with myself - and by re-recording
> every track at least two or three times - performing it with the other
> tracks - there is a point where the recording gels -it becomes a
> recording of a band - albeit of one - because I'm playing along with
> the other performances - like band members do - reacting to the other
> parts - they just happen to all be me.
>
> And a few punch-ins are fine too, as you say, Barry - but I try my
> damnedest to do the take straight through and I rarely "fix" the takes
> of main tracks. I never do a recording with the attitude that "I can
> always fix it later." For me - it's simply verboten.
>
> But I drive people crazy. I do take after take after take - all the
> way through with as little snipping as possible. And I have a huge
> advantage - no hourly charge for the studio - I own it. <shrug> I've
> spent the better part of the last year re-building this particular one
> especially with this project in mind - including building these d∗mned
> MOTM things <g>)
>
> Ah - and what else does all this have to do with MOTM? <LOL>
>
> Well - for me, it's not so far off topic at all. Because It comes to
> - how do you record essentially mechanical technical stuff? Is it a
> performance? I think so - but of a different kind.
>
> I think there are times when the recording itself is the performance.
>
> Clearly - when there's other stuff being done, there is a performance.
> Like Scott and Terry - or you, Doug - when you guys go out to play
> live, right? (BTW - I wanted to get down to Philly to see Scott and
> Terry - but I wasn't in the NY / NJ / Philly area and couldn't there
> in time. I wanted to see how you guys would perform your stuff.)
>
> But - OK - so if the recording is the performance, how does one keep
> it alive? Or is it alive? Or what?
>
> I know this sounds like a recording issue - but I find it interesting
> that it arose now in parallel with a discussion of the nature of
> imitative or invocative (?) synthesis and new modules that would be
> useful.
>
> It comes down to - well - how do we make the best sound? How do we
> record it? How can we be "musical and expressive" (Elhardt)? Where's
> the filter bank, Paul? <G>
>
> Bill (Will's just finishing up a World of Warcraft session - a whole
> different kind of session)
>