The Petra Zone

Hey for those of us who work in the studio, let's talk about it

I've recorded at home a lot, but as I've spent a lot more money on buying studio gear than what I have earned on CD sales, I don't feel that I can call myself a pro...

But pro's aren't always right you know (thinking of the flac discussion )

I’m talking more along the lines of studio stories, techniques some of our favorite things to do in the studio when recording. I know there are tons of boards out there on the net about this. But I think it would be cool for fellow Petra fans and friends who do this type of thing to get together and just share and talk.

You are welcome to start. If you like, you are very welcome to give some feedback on my latest song. It was recorded and mixed in Reaper by me alone:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=55960

Multiple tracks for background vocals with differing harmonies is one of my favorite things.

On my drum tracks, I'm a big fan of a bass drum mic, micing the snare/hi-hat, and then some condensers to pick up everything else drum wise. Similar to the approach that Zeppelin used in the old days, or something like it.

Granted I am not a "pro" when it comes to recording but I like that sound on everything I've heard, less is more I guess for me. We use ADAT's (yeah I know it's old LOL) for the primary recording then I go direct for the vocals through a 57.

I mean the gear we use is 12 years old or so but it works and sounds good.

On my drum tracks, I'm a big fan of a bass drum mic, micing the snare/hi-hat, and then some condensers to pick up everything else drum wise. Similar to the approach that Zeppelin used in the old days, or something like it.

I've used several different drum mic tecniques, both as a drummer and a studio engineer. One of my favorite to play and record with in a small setting is the "Producers Method" there are several tips on how to do this on the net. But the first time I tried it, it sounded really good. It is best used for 4 piece kits with no more than 3 or 4 cymbals. Hi-Hats get picked up really good.

But I also love tracking everything on the drums, so the Producers Method wouldn't work in that case. And just a quick note, I can't stand electric drums, never have liked them, never will. I recorded on a V-drum kit and just hated it all to pieces, not one of my favorite recordings.

Boray wrote:I've recorded at home a lot, but as I've spent a lot more money on buying studio gear than what I have earned on CD sales, I don't feel that I can call myself a pro...

But pro's aren't always right you know (thinking of the flac discussion )

Just as there is a difference in MP3 codecs, there is a difference in FLAC, and that is what I hear. I am not the only one. There are also errors with many FLAC codecs and 24- bit material, metadata, etc. Read up. I do labor over details sometimes and harp on minutia....I realize that. But there are issues with codecs not the necessarily the files themselves. I also have had some differences in data service providers. I can download zipped 24/88.2 wav and AIFF files from various ftp sites and sometimes get incomplete files. I have had this happen several times. So, this is also an issue, I am sure, with some of the FLAC files I have received. It doesn't really matter. With hard drives being so cheap, FLAC has all but been abandoned.

Boray wrote:I've recorded at home a lot, but as I've spent a lot more money on buying studio gear than what I have earned on CD sales, I don't feel that I can call myself a pro...

But pro's aren't always right you know (thinking of the flac discussion )

You know, my very first studio session ever as a musician was at age 11. I was so excited, the engineer Jeff (who is also a studion engineer instructor at his studio in Fresno, CA) pulled up a chair next to the mixing console and told me to sit down and watch him. That's when I fell in love with the studio, after that I worked with several Grammy and CMA award winning and Gold Record engineers and I watched everything they did and I asked question and some of the things they all preached was "tune your ears" "know what you are listening to" also to get as many publications and learn from those that have the experience. I've worked in the studio with engineers who have credits with Korn, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tom Petty, Big House, Ringo Star and some stuff for Disney and Warner Brothers movies. I've learned a lot and I've tuned my ears to notice things. Brent has tuned his ears to notice things. It's not about blind tests, it's about being sure of what you hear.

The best joke I ever heard in the studio fits with this,

Question: How many producers does it take to screw in a light bulb
Answer: I don't know, what do you think?

Never be satisfied until it's perfect! the idea of "oh it sounds good to me" is the difference between pro's and amateurs.

so what kind of gear is everyone using in their studios?
I'm still waiting to see some pics from brent.

brent wrote:

Boray wrote:I've recorded at home a lot, but as I've spent a lot more money on buying studio gear than what I have earned on CD sales, I don't feel that I can call myself a pro...

But pro's aren't always right you know (thinking of the flac discussion )

Just as there is a difference in MP3 codecs, there is a difference in FLAC, and that is what I hear. I am not the only one. There are also errors with many FLAC codecs and 24- bit material, metadata, etc. Read up. I do labor over details sometimes and harp on minutia....I realize that. But there are issues with codecs not the necessarily the files themselves. I also have had some differences in data service providers. I can download zipped 24/88.2 wav and AIFF files from various ftp sites and sometimes get incomplete files. I have had this happen several times. So, this is also an issue, I am sure, with some of the FLAC files I have received. It doesn't really matter. With hard drives being so cheap, FLAC has all but been abandoned.

The whole idea of Flac is that it's lossless - that it will recreate the exact same waveform data as put into it. Of course there can be errors in codec implementations, but there could just as well be an error when importing a wav file in some obscure program. That would not make the wav format lossy.

Boray wrote:

brent wrote:

Boray wrote:I've recorded at home a lot, but as I've spent a lot more money on buying studio gear than what I have earned on CD sales, I don't feel that I can call myself a pro...

But pro's aren't always right you know (thinking of the flac discussion )

Just as there is a difference in MP3 codecs, there is a difference in FLAC, and that is what I hear. I am not the only one. There are also errors with many FLAC codecs and 24- bit material, metadata, etc. Read up. I do labor over details sometimes and harp on minutia....I realize that. But there are issues with codecs not the necessarily the files themselves. I also have had some differences in data service providers. I can download zipped 24/88.2 wav and AIFF files from various ftp sites and sometimes get incomplete files. I have had this happen several times. So, this is also an issue, I am sure, with some of the FLAC files I have received. It doesn't really matter. With hard drives being so cheap, FLAC has all but been abandoned.

The whole idea of Flac is that it's lossless - that it will recreate the exact same waveform data as put into it. Of course there can be errors in codec implementations, but there could just as well be an error when importing a wav file in some obscure program. That would not make the wav format lossy.

The point we're trying to make is it can all look good in the discription of the product, but unless you can hear it for yourself and I mean really tune your ears to listen for changes, then the discriptions of the product are just words.

bakersfieldpethead wrote: The point we're trying to make is it can all look good in the discription of the product, but unless you can hear it for yourself and I mean really tune your ears to listen for changes, then the discriptions of the product are just words.

As I described earlier, I don't have to "tune my ears" to do that. I did that thing with two tracks beside each other and inverting the phase of one of them. But that will of course not tell me if there are errors in the flac encoder/decoder of other applications than reaper.

Reaper is cool and will be better. I think Justin is getting it positioned to sell it. I could be wrong. But he has sold off everything else. The guy is freakin' brilliant. He got hundreds of thousands of people to pay for his development and beta testing for him. Sweet. Reaper has forced other coders to take notice. But, it does so much that it has become daunting for those that have been using other, smoother operating, DAWs for extended periods of time.

I don't care for his plug ins, or some of the names he has had. The guy is blasphemous at times and that puts me off.

Presonus Studio One Pro will be the killer application, if that company can improve and grow their support. That is another thing. I would not be buying any firewire devices just yet. Light Peak will be out and those devices will be killer. Avid has been demonstrating LP with HD interfaces, running PT9 Native for over a year. It is cool. The good thing about LP is that it is backward compatible with other formats, via converter/adapters. USB3 will be an improvement, but the pro audio and video guys will not like it. Presonus has screwed up and is looking at moving all devices to USB3. Wrong move. They just limited their purchases to the semi-pro market.

We've been running Cuebase 5 in our studio. With Yamaha backing Steinburg now, I can only look to better things ahead with them. Presonus hasn't done bad either.

I have a few Tascam items in the studio, but I can't help but feel that they are on their way out, they used to be a standard for studios but Tascam's stuff lately just isn't cutting it for some reason.