I think back to when I started in this room 3 years ago and the slap echo (when you clap) was unbelievable. And yet I went ahead believing since I was recording direct through a PODxt at the time acoustics didn’t matter.
If you can’t truly hear what a GuitarPort patch sounds like, well, then it does matter. It matters when you choose your tone, it matters when you add other tones, it matters when you add bass, vocals, etc. If you can’t hear what it is really going in, by the time you get to the mix you’re already in a bit of trouble. If you mix in the same environment, it will add up even more. You will make bigger wrong decisions because you have more bad information. And if you try and master it too…
I know this from both sides, both myself being hard-headed about it initially and then the many folks who have come to Gator-Studios.com for help when they just couldn’t untangle the spaghetti they had created. To get to a great end result you need great results along the way. It starts with the writing, the musicianship. If you have that nailed the rest you’re going to need the ability to hear what you are doing! Even with a lot of experience in engineering if you can’t hear you will make poor decisions. If you have no experience at least you’ll hear your bad choices while you gain experience!
I leave you with the following summary of things I’ve learned over the last 3 years in this room:
- Reference Monitors are supposed to be reasonably flat, so adding them to the arsenal was a good thing. It took a whole whack of hearing problem (from my regular speakers) off the table. They are not supposed to make your music sound good, they are supposed to force you to make your music sound good.
- Corner desks look nice, but absolutely suck for recording and mixing. They put you right in the middle of every acoustic problem. Room orientation, monitor placement matter!
- Use a bit of logic and find ways to improve your acoustic setup. Anything is better than nothing, and everything you do incremental will bring an incremental improvement. If you don’t want to shell out for “real” treatment options, quilts, couches, books all will help. Heck I even used ceiling tiles to good effect. Don’t expect miracles though!
- At the start of the day, doing acoustic treatment properly looked awful expensive and like a total waste of money. At the end, I discovered it’s the most valuable thing I have in the studio. If you don’t understand the theory, throw it out the window….just go get it, you need it.
When there is a project, there is no substitute for having the right tools and right experience, except getting help from somebody who knows what they are doing and has the proper tools to do it right. That applies to houses, plumbing, cars, and music! We’ll leave the light on for you here in the studio.
Popularity: 1% [?]
I'm J.J......and I'm a Gator!