Recording - whats your appraoch? Wall of sound or slam it out?

PaulBrewer

Using a Producer is a great thing in a Studio I think. Better still is a Producer that isn't engineering.

In my experience, despite people's best intentions, if you're the Bass Player that's what your priority is, the bleedin' bass! Similar for Singers, Guitar players......

I can think of 1 Pro Drummer who's a great player technically, but has NO idea what's right for a song - Does a Fill every 8 bars ring any Bells for anyone?... or Cymbals... or Toms?

So that's the value of a Producer, he let's everyone involved, including the engineer, focus on their own gig, while keeping an overview on the whole show, so the band don't have too.

Particularly of use if you're new to recording....

As for StudioRat as his 'Home Thoughts from Abroad' I've only one thing to say --- 'Bleedin' Hippie'....

No, in fairness his points are very valid.

Niall - Dahlia

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Using a Producer is a great thing in a Studio I think. Better still is a Producer that isn't engineering.

True, but I've found that a producer with an engineering background, or at least one with a good understanding of studio equipment, is a big advantage, in my opinion and short experience anyway.

Handlestash

Try linking a number of amps together and micing them individually. Even really crappy practice have their good points. This means that when you play you'll have a few different sounds but the same part. Nice full sound too.
The key for me is well practiced accurate playing, good mics, good gear and a good sound engineer.
A producer is handy if you're unsure of the direction you should take a song or your 'sound'.
A producer is also handy if you've got a number of 'opinionated' members in your band and can't agree on a production.
I really really think that if you're happy with your sound in rehearsals and live you should try to recreate that sound in the studio.
This doesn't mean a huge noisy mess. Listen to Queens of the Stone Age. Heavy rock music but you can hear every element.

PaulBrewer

Niall - Dahlia wrote: »

True, but I've found that a producer with an engineering background, or at least one with a good understanding of studio equipment, is a big advantage, in my opinion and short experience anyway.

True Niall, I didn't mean he/she couldn't Engineer, just that he/she didn't! i.e. it was someone else's gig.

Niall - Dahlia

PaulBrewer wrote: »

True Niall, I didn't mean he/she couldn't Engineer, just that he/she didn't! i.e. it was someone else's gig.

Ah yeah I understood you. The whole "should an engineer also produce" and vice-versa is something that interests me, young bands more often than not don't have a producer and look to the engineer for decisions that he should only be giving his opinion on (if even that).

Trev M

smurfrockstar wrote: »

First off, I think the most important thing about a producer is that they share your idea of what the hell the song is meant to sound like, not exactly the same idea but definitely somewhere in the ball park. It's a producers job to make your song sound as good as it can.

Now the overdub separation thing. It does work but only for certain types of music and only certain producers too. As an example that somebody else mentioned severe metal like The Dillinger Escape Plan which is all pure precision playing would definitely benefit from a degree of separation also something like Explosions In the Sky are definitely another candidate for separation. on The other hand it can be a load of bollocks, I was recording once and we separated a fairly simple guitar part out to about 7 seven different tracks on our producers bequest, the end result, pure unadulterated mud.

Another thing a bout separation is simply the producer may be looking to increase dynamics of a fairly straight forward rock song by maybe dropping out a guitar note for a few bars and then bring it back in, same goes for the hates, having it separated in the recording while avoiding spill also gives flexability.

Finally, if you notice a producer ****ing about a lot with something, they might be working very hard to get your song to work. This is a massive problem because something that absolutely destroys live can sound ****ing terrible if recorded. I don't know how many times I've seen great bands live and thought 'god help them when they hit a studio'. Think about dynamics before you go into record, too many bands go for the 'everything in' approach whereby the drums, bass guitar vocals keyboard and kitchen sink all start on the first beat and don't finish until the last beat. If the song is dynamically weak you'll catch a producer in a studio trying a lot of separation and various takes to try to get some dynamic into a song. Also if you're writing a song to make your life easier think about how it's going to be recorded, sounds terrible and counter creative but give it some thought when you have the song finished, ' is there just a ton of distorted guitar and no clean guitar, is it all power chords and no arpegiated bits, do I really need anything playing here. Listen to other bands and see how they recorded there stuff.

If you want to check out some nice guitar production without it being intrusive or exceptional in anyway check out Okkervil River, Unless it Kicks, overdriven guitar with a relatively high tone at the start, overdubs of a distorted guitar maybe played with an e-bow but more than likely just a volume pedal, then a twelve string acoustic with another overdriven guitar playing the main guitar riff. Really simple but effective guitar production thats shows that you have to have the song first before the production can do anything. Also Explosions in The Sky The Birth And Death Of The Day, again good solid product but the track has been written with all the separation in ming, most of the time there's maybe two to three guitars just playing one note, another example of how good writing can make production a lot easier but also that for a pure wall of sound separation whther written into the song or created by a producer can be very effective.

**** I've warbled on for ages, sorry bout that.

Great post , Ive recently spent an age dicking around re amping tones, layering, panning tracks diferrently. I should have considered the seperation approach , whilst I have monster lush tones , dynamically its rolling thunder from start to finish.

Trev M

Niall - Dahlia wrote: »

Ah yeah I understood you. The whole "should an engineer also produce" and vice-versa is something that interests me, young bands more often than not don't have a producer and look to the engineer for decisions that he should only be giving his opinion on (if even that).

I think as recording and technology has moved on there is pressure on the recording engineer to assume additional "producer like" responsibilities to enhance what the band is capable of?.

These days its a given that most guys can record a half decent track and make it sound listenable at least. The expectation from bands these days is that when they go in and record they come out with something more than just their recorded sound if ya get me. Its expected that the engineer adds something to the recording that gives the band value for money.

This has been largely my experience last couple of years anyway. I guess a lot of bands dont have a huge amount of experience anyway so rely on the engineers judgement to a large extent.... Usually I always try and track in a way that allows me to have a strauight down the middle track and the track that we've "collectively produced" with additional ideas if that makes sense?