An Old Guys Advice for Recording Music

S o, you have spent thousands of dollars building an education in recording arts and science. Now you enter the marketplace expecting to be paid, how foolish are you. Do you even know how to make coffee? The recording studio business is a customer service business. If you can't service your customers past the esoteric mechanical skills you developed at school, you ain't got shizzle. In the world of professional recording studio operations, seasoned folks, with over twenty years in, witness an emerging trend. It's a trend of people entering our business without any concept of customer service beyond their ability to deliver a product by performing basic recording studio operational functions.  Some candidates emerge to become uncouth, unrefined machines looking to become famous, wealthy or actually believe the trade school ad that reads "Work Less, Earn More". It shows a recording engineer sitting at a recording console, touching it with both hands, sta...

There is a lot of really cool looking "plug-ins" available. They're lacking in tactile response and smell nothing like an old Universal Audio LA-2A ...the meter glass tarnished with years of cigarette smoke; spattering’s from an exploding egg cooked in the lounge microwave oven dotting its faceplate and it has been baking in a rack for 10 plus years. Don't boil in microwave!    If you were lucky enough to have multiple LA-2A’s you understood each one’s sonic character. You knew each one's personality because it was housed in a room devoted exclusively to the capture and release of audio signals.  LA-2A These are places where you can denote the smallest change in the signal path between a captured component and its playback medium ... which was generally big ass loudspeakers sucking gallons of energy to move mass quantities of air. Some engineers report being able to hear the difference between two different power cables used on the same piece of gear.   Y...

It used to be easy. Just make sure the little pointy headed needle thingy didn’t stay stuck too long to the right side of the meter box, (the thingy with the numbers on it).  We called it a meter card and sticking the needle to the right side of the meter card was called “Smoking the Meters”. A basic slap to the right side of a VU meter whose meter card indicates a maximum of +3 would be a signal strength (basically) around +8 to +10 dBV (in physical life that is 8 to 10 volts rms). That same signal would be approximately +11 to +13 on an analog PEAK meter. If the tape recorder that signal was sent to is aligned to a reference standard of +3 that signal would then be recorded onto tape at a peak level of +16. That was just a subtle tap to the side of a meter card. The clipping properties of analog tape and electronics was part of the charm of what was called “sock”. Analog tape started clipping around +12/+16 dBV. Today’s digital systems measure and read dBFS on their m...

With the push of a button or the swiping of a finger across a screen ...poof, an audience is entertained. Instantly they are rewarded with the content of their choosing. Seldom if ever does the audience member consider the structural events that have taken place to present their chosen content to them. Be it news, movies or music, the technical aspect of providing media content to a broad market is managed by people. People with feelings and ambitions, not necessarily congruent with one another, work together to deliver the content. Emotion generally weighs heavily over pragmatism when it comes to entertainment. That formula holds true for any human involved with the production of media. The percentages of emotion-over-pragmatism vary with the people involved in its production. News broadcasts are at the low end of the emotion-over scale where music capture is at its highest. Either way, quilts hanging on a garage wall or black walnut walls with motor driven drapes to “tune” a ro...

Getting there Richard lived his life for aviation. His safety awards as a helicopter pilot exceed 15K hours. Richard even has a picture from Igor Sikorski holding an extremely detailed model helicopter he built for Dr. Sikorski. It is personally signed by the aviation pioneer. Richard’s love of his craft was so intense that when he lost his physical ability to fly, his desire to fight his illness passed away too.   The illness eventually won. Donnie, Richard's brother, is a longtime friend and recording engineer of many years, answered his phone “…Scotty, yeah, drive South out of town …you’ll know when you get to your turn, it looks like an old stagecoach trail through the mountains. Follow that to the Valley …it’s up over the pass”.  Donnie’s invite to Richard’s ranch to watch the sun go down over the desert mountains was a welcome rest from the world I was traveling away from. As I found the stagecoach trail and started working my way over the pass, I was preoccupied wi...

Digital/Analog Warriors The sun setting behind the desert mountains at Richards Ranch is an awesome soul lifting experience. It visually tells you that there is more to our world than what we see before us. The soft crackle coming off the campfire completes this visceral effect. It has just become more than stunning. Evening is coming to the Old School Music House behind the swash plates gate. Beer for my counterparts and an Ice-Cold metal glass of sweet valley water for me makes up our beverage choices for the evening. What vibe session would be complete without 2 acoustic guitars gently resonating angelic tones into the evening air ...well there were moments when Paul played a discord and asked …” is this weird?” The following are not exact quotes, this was a Zen-vibe session, not a court date. Digital sucks Paul gently adds to the quiet. Donnie tells a story of when Mike, who is not only one of the best steel guitar players you’ll ever hear but a talented award-winning ...

Zen-Vibe Session #3: How do you know? You call Chips As Paul’s note carries off into the orange, black starlit sky Donnie asked …Just how many things had to come together to bring us to this place at this time? Donnie continued, Richard loved and nurtured this place. If it wasn’t for either one of those things, we wouldn’t be here sharing this magic moment. I smiled and said yes, we are a dying breed. I said we have a brother in the Northwest named Bobby Lang. Bobby would say that tonight the music God is smiling down on us.   Donnie’s eyes lit up, he smiled, and he said, “Yes, we are lucky men”. Eloquently Paul brought us back by saying; I use analog consoles every day in various venues serving small to extremely large audiences. He continued; just the other night I was contracted to mix a show where I had to use a digital console. Paul made a face resembling the front grill of an Edsel and worked hard to finger a discord on his acoustic guitar. I didn’t like it he sa...

Zen-Vibe Session #4: People knowledge …a lost treasure? …in the pause of night Donnie performs the simple act of dialing his phone. Only upon reflection does it come to light that the ringing phone on the other end belongs to the world’s leading acoustical engineer. To us it’s just Chips. Donnie put his phone on speaker and sets it in the middle of the table between us. We were talking about how life has become so frantic that we are becoming dinosaurs in our own time, Donnie says as he brings Chips in on our subject. Scotty asked the question of how you know. He said you were the first one to ask him because in acoustic spaces you’re a specialist.   We don’t have that anymore Donnie continued. We used to be able to walk into an auto parts store and the guy behind the counter knew your car. They knew the little tricks and tips to help you complete the job. It’s the computer that has taken that away from us. Now they just look up the part number, show us a picture of the...

Romantics vs. Classics I added to the vibe; We learned how to live our lives a long time ago, at about 2 years old.  Zen master Bernie Glassman said it’s easy …Row, row, row your boat GENTLY down the stream. MERRILY, merrily, merrily life is but a dream. As I finished the quote and our laughter faded into the desert night Donnie’s phone rang. Those of us fortunate enough to have lived a life in the entertainment business know magic. My children grew up to hear this repeatedly “…the only people who don’t see fairies are those who don’t believe in them”. By the look on Donnie’s face, as he was listening to the caller, you could tell that Donnie had just seen a fairy. Don Sciarrotta’s most notable student of recording arts and science was Roger Nichols. In 1972 Donny finished my short introduction to the recording console with “…and the rest is all magic Scotty. If you have it, it’ll happen for you. If you don’t, it never will”. The magic Don Sciarrotta spoke of was in abun...