Am I the Ony Country Engineer Here!?!?!

sei046

Anyone have any experience in the irish country/ america country genres? Its prob about 70% of my workload at the mo.

teamdresch

This is supposed to be quite good :
http://www.amazon.com/Russ-Longs-Guide-Nashville-Recording/dp/B0009F4Z0C

What's the studio you work out of?

sei046

one myself and my Da built. He is pretty big in the irish music industry so we tend to attract a lot of country artists! I nearly know all the country engineers personally at this stage. There are only a handful of decent ones!

frobisher

I know a guy who is a musician and singer in a band with a strong country vibe going on. He engineers in a studio in town too. Are you looking for someone to do a job or something? PM me if you need more details.

sei046

No man thanks its just rare to come across someone involved in that music on the net. Was looking to share some experiences and tips!

Savman

What exactly is a "Country Engineer" pray tell? By the thread title, I thought it was an Engineer who lived down the country. Apparently not.

I would say an Engineer is an Engineer, regardless what genre he works in. Sorry to nit pick, but I just don't get it. Obviously certain engineers will specialize in a given style, fair enough, but it's still all guitar/bass/drums & keys orientated.

From a technical perspective, you have to mix an act based on its instrumentation alone, otherwise you are playing the role of producer and this is where your own personal music taste matters.

Niall - Dahlia

Savman wrote:

What exactly is a "Country Engineer" pray tell? By the thread title, I thought it was an Engineer who lived down the country.

Hehe, that's what I thought when I saw the thread title too.

But I can understand why you might call yourself a "country" engineer, or any other genre for that matter. If you specialise in a certain genre, especially one with such a distinct (some would say cliched) sound as country, and you're in demand by country artists on merit of being able to achieve that sound, then why not.

I don't much like country music. Wouldn't say no to a session though!

sei046

the reason i said country ENGINEER is that with country there is almost certainly a way to record the instruments and certainly a way to ENGINEER it even before the producer gets there. its that side that i was looking for someone to have some experience in. I know what your saying and i did choose my words carefuly

squibs

I once "remastered" an album for a local Irish country artist. He did the usual thing of only commisioning a tape dupe run, because most of host target audience hadn't moved onto CD (this was circa 2001, not 1986 :eek: ). I still see Irish country cassettes for sale in local petrol stations to this day. Who still does cassete duplication in Ireland?

So I needed to clean up and remaster an indifferent production on a terrible medium, with a nasal country (as in rural) accent over a karaoke backing. All so the guy could get radio play on the local station. My ears died a little that day.

I can appreciate good country, but it's rare as hen's teeth, especially in Ireland.

jebusmusic

I think the definition of a 'Country Engineer' would be someone that can record and put up with basically the same songs over & over again, (with slightly different lyrics), sung by different insufferable idiots, then mix it so it's as safe as possible, sounds like Daniel and won't hurt granny's ears.

Roughly speaking of course.

sei046

lol i completely sypathize with what your saying as the majority of irish country is muck. in saying that i would love to see one of you guys mix a country song or even play country. thats nothing against you guys at all its just that it takes an awful lot of practice and discipline. Some of the best musicians in ireland are playing country for their jobs

squibs

sei046 wrote:

lol i completely sypathize with what your saying as the majority of irish country is muck. in saying that i would love to see one of you guys mix a country song or even play country. thats nothing against you guys at all its just that it takes an awful lot of practice and discipline. Some of the best musicians in ireland are playing country for their jobs

Agree with you completely for the most part. Just curious about what makes mixing country difficult. What are the trouble instruments?

jebusmusic

squibs wrote:

What are the trouble instruments?

Daniel O'Donnell

sei046

what makes it hard is the discipline. Playing absolutely bang on and in the pocket is not something you have to worry about in most genres. in rock etc. its nice to hear some ornamentation or the drummer doing a little frill etc. Its making the instruments make the right noise, not sound like themselves. In rock we like hearing a nice punchy guitar or whatever, thats not what you want in country at all. Overall, the discipline.

Savman

Fair enough, but I still think a good engineer should be able to mix any act regardless of genre. Obviously there are speciality genres such as Classical, but I don't think Country is that different tbh. Instrumentation-wise it's no different than a rock band. The role of an engineer, is simply to recreate whatever sound is coming from the amp/drum/voice using whatever tools he has in his arsenal.
I still think yer gettin the role of Engineer confused with Producer but whatever works for you bud

sei046

i never said i dont mix different type of acts. I am working on a rock record as we speak. But country is prob the onl genre and i suppose fair enough classical are a bit different in the approach you have to take

frobisher

I'm not sure I'm with you on this one. Not 100% anyway. At the essence of engineering is the ability to make an instrument sound on tape like it does in the flesh. There is of course alot more to it than that, especially these days when entire musical styles have encompassed recording technology into their sound pre-studio. A quality engineer who can do rock should be able to do country in my books. The skills required are transferable and ascend styles. Production on the other hand is a different affair....

Neurojazz

I agree... mixing is getting sounds layered in the correct manner with the least loss of audio from the original source - regardless of style.

Classical / Heavy metal / country / jazz all end up at a humans ears via physics - i'd engineer around the live instruments and get the creamiest sounds possible on tape / virually - then compress the crap out of them and drool ;P

I use SSL buss compressors and ram the sound as hard as i can through them.... sounds awesome

It's only purists and teccy geeky sorts that get wrapped up in finite arguments about the nth of stuff...

It's all physics and math!

sei046

you lost me there man lol. I know what your saying lads and i have the same view in every other aspect bar when certain things need to be different. Like when you want more oomph from a kick drum or somethin. to stand at the kick you dont hear that real low end that ends up in the track. There are little nitty gritty bits like that(not that though) that you need to be aware of in country as you do any genre but a lot are fairly miniscule details. and it is these details im interested in talking about. Its the experience of an engineer that works with country that i was looking to find here. You dont as an engineer really want to hear the source as it is when you stand at it a lot of the time. And things like these give different challenges to the engineer. An engineer is a broad term to describe who gets the sounds down, its the engineers who have had to get the country sounds down that i am interested in. Understand now lol?