Vocal Editing

In the earliest days of recorded music, the way in which bands were signed to recording deals was quite different, and it was difficult if not impossible for somebody who ‘couldn’t sing’ to be recorded singing – on a music release level anyway. Subsequently, vocal editing wasn’t really done – nor was it done on any instrument. Musicians were expected to perform to a level where things didn’t need editing, because they got it perfect in the recording. And that’s how records were made.

As time went on, record labels realised that the money was made in the promotion of artists, and that popular music was often sold on the image of the artist, not necessarily the actual musical qualities of the artist. In these situations, it was often necessary to edit vocal recordings in order to make them musical; as the artist – who wasn’t necessarily a classically trained pitch perfect singer, was physically unable to perform a perfect vocal take. In rock music, furthermore, the singer may have been unable to cross a musically-rich vocal take with a stylistically-rich vocal take, and thus vocal editing might have also been required.

Early vocal editing techniques included changing tape speed in order to correct the pitch of vocals (as tape gets faster, pitch goes up. tape slower, pitch goes down), and simply adding reverb to cover the pitch change as a word ‘tailed off’. Over the years, this developed, and engineers realised they could record multiple takes of the same line, verse or song, and cut all the correctly sung parts from each of the tracks, and paste them back together to form a vocal take. An excellent example of this is Ian Brown’s vocals, on The Stone Roses records. Brown was a notoriously bad singer, but the iconic and stylistic successes of The Stone Roses meant that the retention of him as their singer was still important to the record label, and thus it was decided that the time consuming process of editing vocals in this manner was worth the time and money of doing so. In the highly competitive market of the modern bands, and the much more financially restricted record labels of today, it is questionable whether the label would consider such time and expense of enough value to choose it over choosing a musically-easier band.

Stone Roses – Ian Brown’s Real Voice

Stone Roses – Ian Brown’s Edited Voice

After that, vocal editing really remained at much of a halt until the invention of DAWs, with limited hardware availability – such as Antares hardware, and standard pitch shifting units which were very commonly available.
DAWs really revolutionised the way vocals could be edited though – with pitch changing available to everybody, the invention of ‘take folders’ – allowing very quick and easy ‘cutting and pasting’ as described above, and of course – the Marmite of all vocal editing – the Autotune.

‘Comping’ in Logic‘s Take Folders

Autotune has uses both as a pitch correction device, and as a sound effect. The over-use of Autotune on pop-punk music, for example, led to the Autotune sound become associated with the pop-punk genre, and now many bands who do not require autotune still use it, in order to gain that pop-punk vocal sound. This stylistic application of the device has in turn helped it, as, to the audience it is merely an effect used commonly across modern recorded music – many do not realise that it is in fact pitch-correcting their favourite singer. However, it’s obvious, recognisable sound has led to manual pitch correction becoming more popular again, as it is less identifiable, especially if used sparingly – ie 1 note in every 16 – where autotune will attempt to pitch-correct all 16 notes – taking away ‘the human element’ in the music, and making it sound clinical and unnatural. Manual pitch correction can be achieved by an experienced engineer using simply the ‘Pitch Shift’ plug-in included with most, if not all, DAW software packages – by cutting the note out of the track, processing it, and then ‘glueing’ it back into the track. However, packages such as ‘Melodyne Celemony’ and ‘Waves Wavestune’ have made manual pitch correction much easier, with audio files being analysed and displayed against a ‘piano roll’, allowing the engineer to make changes in the plugin, without destructive editing on this track – this means that bypassing the plugin leaves the track in it’s original state. So essentially, those plugins are still simply ‘pitch correction’ plugins, but analyse the Wave in a musical manner (by semitone) rather than in a scientific manner (by dB) that you would see on the normal waveform. The applying changes across the track by means of automation – though this automation is applied by the plugin – not by the normal automation functions of the DAW.

Waves’ Wavetune Plug-In

‘Comping’ multiple takes is now a function available in all major DAWs. Personally I prefer Logic’s comping, and find it very smooth and almost always completely transparent. Autotune also comes complete with Logic, as does Pitch Shifting. Logic is available to the Mac user for about £400. In essence – this makes professional vocal editing available to the Mac user for £400 inclusive. A more advanced pitch correction program can usually be had for within £500, and with Audio Technica’s 2020 mic sat at £90, it’s now completely possible for any Mac owning vocalist to prepare a simple studio setup for within a grand. This is fantastic musically, as it is allowing more musicians to record and present their music at a professional standard, and is fantastic too for the studio world, as it is allowing us to deal with vocalists who are more prepared for their studio session.

However, this ease of use, and affordability, of vocal editing, has also become paramount to the movements of the professional recording industry. Record labels are more budgeted than ever, with only 2 PERCENT of records selling enough to pay their costs. In relation to the article, this has 2 immediate effects on the recording music industry:
1) Record labels cannot afford to put bands into studios for such a long time
2) It is more important than ever that labels only sign commercially profitable products, regardless of their actual musical talent.

So – under point one, the modern recording engineer should be able to quickly edit vocals as part of the normal editing procedure – eliminating the need – and thus cost – of an assistant engineer, who would have previously been employed to perform the editing. Often this editing would happen in a separate studio – so this would further cost the label. This would pressure labels into signing bands with more ‘musical’ vocalists (and indeed instrumentalists) to reduce the requirement for additional engineers. This leads into point two – where the labels simply cannot afford to sign bands based purely on their musical talent. In the current climate of the recording industry, record labels can only remain in existence if they sign the bands who are the most sellable, profitable product – whether that is stylistically, musically or otherwise. The ability to quickly, effectively and thus affordably edit vocals, in this sense, is highly productive for the mainstream recording industry.

Many mainstream engineers, and producers, however – particularly older ones who did edit using tape and assistant engineers, seem to feel insecure about this fact, however. And often consider it ‘cheating’. Well – it may be. On one side of the argument, the recording engineer is a specialist trade and the easier we make it for ‘anybodys’ to do the things that, historically, have only been achievable by the best recording engineers, we are taking away their trade. On the other side of the argument, recording engineers have as much responsibility to keep up with modern production techniques as electricians have responsibility to keep up with modern electrical safety laws and requirements. In this ever changing industry, it could be suggested that as the technology becomes more available to ‘anybodys’ – the experienced recording engineers should be becoming experts and innovators in such technology, once again separating themselves from the masses.

Dave

Young People In Music

I wrote this about 6 months ago on my personal blog, and thought I’d add it here. It is a bit of a rant that affects me in my line of work. But it looks forward in a positive manner as today’s failings are still shaping tomorrow’s success.

Today’s big rant is how progression in Music Technology, and the way that Music Tech has been marketed to young people, has left good, serious, young producer’s looking a bit silly and struggling to progress properly. Chat to any major studio, and you can tell them all sorts and they can’t stop telling you how you must come in and check out the studio, try some mixes on their desks, check out their Pro Tools rig etc. Then you tell them you’re 21, and all of a sudden they think you’ve never seen a Pro Tools rig, you think that Prism’s are pieces of glass, SSL is something you use to secure credit card payments and all compressors are in VST… and the only patching of stuff you’ve ever done was in Reason… and swiftly decide that their diary is actually a bit more booked up than they first thought, and actually you can’t come take a look around after all.

So, what is the reason for this? I have compiled a list of the top 3 reasons that young producers and engineers are put down without anyone actually listening to your work… This list comes from a collection of conversations with studio staff, my own experiences, and my friends experiences, and is not all my own opinion.

1) Everyone is a ‘Sound Engineer’. Every band has a person who could play guitar, but they already had 2 of them. They could play bass, but the band already had one of them too. They couldn’t play drums, and didn’t really fancy backing vocals. But.. you know what? Those mixing desk things don’t look all that complicated. They can be your sound engineer! We get a lot of these at work, in my various venues, who come in full of enthusiasm and before anything else get their photo taken with the speakers. They then swagger up to you, and tell you ‘they’re the sound engineer, ennit’. They spend the whole of the headline’s sound check twitching with excitement at getting hands on a big desk, and when you’re finished their eyes light up with such excitement that you’d think they’d just seen a Page 3 model walk past. Within 10 minutes, they’ve fed-back every vocal mic on stage, the kick drum is in the red all the time and there is no such thing as EQ except about 10dB boost on the low end of everything, because bass is cool. ennit. They spend loads of time twiddling knobs on their compressors despite the fact that they’re not patched in, and when you try to explain VCAs to them, they can just about manage to say ‘sort of like subgroups a bit then’. And that’s the only reason a lot of places still have an analogue board. Put them in front of a Digico like I had in Montreux, where nothing is even labelled as it’s all user-definable, and they’d probably cry and break it at the same time.
Don’t get me wrong, practical experience is the way to learn. But engineers coming up to me and saying ‘I’m new to this and the band let me do their sound, can you show me the ropes a bit’ gets people 100 times further than saying ‘out the way mate, im this band’s engineer’. I was just like the former a few years ago, and got my tuition in real time off some of the country’s best in-house engineers, rather than spending years having rubbish sound and being laughed at. But the problem remains, it’s the latter category of people which create the stereotype of the young engineer, and ruin it for everybody else. Confidence is wonderful; arrogance isn’t, especially when you clearly have nothing to be arrogant about.

2) Every year, another 10,000 ‘Qualified Producers’ come out of the colleges. And they all expect to come out, and walk straight into Air Studio 1 and pick up a full time job as a Producer for every band that comes through the door. Yet, just like above, you stick them in front of an inline console and they don’t understand why it has 2 rows of faders. The Mackie 8 buss they had at college only had 1 set. They don’t understand why you have to route the channels, the 8-buss was hard wired into the DigiRack. They don’t understand why the Digi-192 hasn’t got a volume knob on the front. They take one look at the patchbay and just crap themselves. Within 10 minutes they are sat in the hot seat with all the band looking at them, and have to slowly stutter out ‘I…. don’t… know…. what… I’m… doing….’ or, with an attempt at dignity, shout for the in-house – ‘your studio is slightly different to mine, could you just help me familiarise myself’ – yes, pros say that too, but they don’t need an 8-hour familiarisation. Either way, it soon becomes apparent to the band that the in-house has been in all day, and whether they like it or not they’re going to be coughing up the in-houser’s normal daily rate… not just the studio hire like their beloved ‘Producer’ promised them. And in many cases, they’ll have a quite word with said in-house afterwards, to the effect of ‘can we tell him we’ve got to cancel, and do the session with you instead?’
Again, I had to learn through time in studios making mistakes and getting help off the engineers. But likewise, a bit of honesty always helps and having them in the studio with you also reduces the likelihood of you blowing up their £10,000 monitors. Such behaviour, along with asking why the computer doesn’t have fruity loops, just checking that their beloved vintage Ribbon mic was supposed to have Phantom Power… wasn’t it? and other such habits are the root cause of anybody who started Secondary School after Pro Tools was invented – and became available en masse, being branded an idiot.

3) Too Many of the UK’s Studio Managers are Stuck in the Past. Because you didn’t mix your first record on a Tascam 8-track tape machine, you will never fully appreciate Pro Tools. Fact. Apparently.
As somebody who did have a gigantic Tascam 10-channel but 8-track (never quite understood that) recorder that weighed so much you needed a car to move it anywhere, I can see their point. Pro Tools is a lot easier and saves a lot of hassle. But we need to get used to the fact that DAWs are the new medium, and the fact that today’s young producers are brought up on DAWs rather than tape is just a reality that we have to face. It’s far cheaper, easier and better sounding to fit out a College Classroom with 30 iMacs with bring-your-own headphones, Logic 9 and Pro Tools LE than it is to fit out a College Classroom with 30 2″ tape machines, with any brand of console and bring-your-own headphones. And the fact that by the time these people hit the studios they are effective, proficient DAW users, is a good thing – although unfortunately the above situation does mean that there is little opportunity for new engineers to experience hardware consoles and outboard. And it simply cannot be denied that running your mix through a real SSL G+ and it’s buss compressor will always sound much livelier and musical than running it through the Waves emulation. And the reality is, if you apply simple logic, the transition from the aforementioned Mackie 8-buss to a G+ isn’t, actually, all that hard. 90% of the console, outside the Master Section, is exactly the same, just laid out differently and labled differently. But through the lack of practice, experimentation and true understanding of Analogue Equipment that modern Music Tech students are given, our ‘Qualified’ engineers are simply unable to transfer their working skills across. And this, yes, does go back to point 2. But I think if the Studios could wake up and see the value of in the box mixing, and it’s own place in music, they might have an overall more positive attitude towards the young people at the controls. Strongroom’s fairly recent venture into fitting an ICON board into Studio 2, as opposed to another SSL or Neve, is a step in the right direction for in-the-box mixing, which has become ever more popular due to it’s availability and cost efficiency.

So, in conclusion, the availability of Equipment, Education and ‘Employment’ has led to a great increase in the number of young people becoming involved in Music Production, and thus naturally a greater number of young people are succeeding in this industry. However, it is still clear that attitude problems both on the sides of studios and of the young people themselves is causing barriers between the two, which unfortunately affects guilty and innocent parties.

And thus I will continue to do what I do – hang out in the right places, meet the right people, constructively B.S people from what I read in SoS, and crack on working hard, developing my relationships with studios, producers and bands, which allows my CV to speak for me, not my age. And would advise others to follow the same route, as it seems to be working from my end. Providing people allow their work to speak for them, rather than their ego; and people can listen to each other’s work, rather than look at the statistics; I think that there is a bright future for the young members of the music production industry who are willing to put the time, effort and money on the table to succeed.

Dave

Mixing In Circles

Had a band in my small mixing room in London last night, mixing one of their tunes. Really good band, really good tune, really painful session.

Band had come to mix something that I’d done a rough mix of. In these sessions, the band is paying for your time, not necessarily for your mixing. So, even if you know better, you kinda have to do what they want.

So we start looking at the drums.

Kick

Band: ‘can we listen on it’s own?‘

(solo)

Band: ‘yeah that’s fine‘.

[thought]OK, that was easy.[/thought]

Snare

Band: ‘can we listen on it’s own?‘

(solo)

Band: ‘hmm that’s got too much bottom and mid. can we get some more top on it?‘

Engineer: ‘you don’t need it, that’s in the overheads. the snare mic is largely there to support the overhead mix‘

Band: ‘yeah, but, surely we should make it sound good by itself, then mix it in‘

Engineer: ‘O…K…‘

(EQ snare to loads of top end and less bottom end)

(solo off)

Band: ‘oh no. way too much top end. can we add some low mid and bottom end to make it sound punchy again‘.

(didn’t even bother dialling it in, just recalled the EQ setting from earlier)

Band: ‘yeah that sounds fine mate, cheers‘.

[thought]no surprise there then…[/thought]

4 hours of that. on the bass, on the guitar, on everything. new mix done. sent to band. and guess what? It sounds absolutely no.frikkin.different.

But, of course; because they were sat there with me telling me what to do, the old mix is now complete crap and the new one is loads better. I’m pretty sure, had I sent the old mix AGAIN, they wouldn’t have noticed.

This is where I really do question how it’s even possible that band’s egos come so much higher in the chain than their budgets, despite them calling you for 3 hours begging you to cut a better deal as they’ve got no money and it’s not their fault and they don’t go to work as they have practice but some dude from sony really likes them (apparently) and because he’s a mate of the guitarist’s girlfriend’s dad’s best-mate’s drinking-buddie’s casual-sex-partner’s dog-walker; they’re the next big thing and in no time they’ll be touring around the world with Muse as their support band and selling 25,000 records a night and will give you HALF the royalties (apparently), and thus you should record them on the cheap – whereas if you charge full price you won’t get any royalties.

this isn’t a rant. this is a lol. yes, a lol. an actual, genuine, laugh. out. loud.

PS: forgot about this bit. band say the kick hasn’t got quite enough punch. So, I solo’d it, opened the EQ, and noticed it was a bit quiet. turned it up just to make it easier to EQ. after fiddling the knob, which, on the MOTU 828/2 is cleverly concealed to look a lot more technical than a plain volume knob, the kick has simply got louder, no EQ yet. ‘OH YEAH MATE, THAT SOUNDS MINT’. I think that pretty much sums up the session.
if the current generation of bands genuinely feel that the best way to make things sound better is simply to turn the studio speakers up, and the ability for bands now to buy their whole home studio for the price of a week in the studio (see last blog), it is no wonder that half the demos I get sent to consider for production deals sound like utter, utter turd. And turd sounding records (that only sound good when the speakers are at full volume), don’t get production deals. Or record deals. Or publishing deals. Or… any other type of deal. Lesson to learn here bands? If you want to be successful, get it recorded, mixed, and mastered, by somebody who knows what they’re doing… Properly.

Dave

The Return of the Great Engineer?

What car is better? An Aston Martin, V12 Vanquish, or a Land Rover 110 300Tdi? I assume we all agree the Aston? Well, you’re all wrong. Because what I didn’t tell you, is that they’re being compared in a race through the Amazon rainforest. And the Land Rover is being driven by a world rally champion. And the Aston is being driven by my non-driver Grandma…

This post comes after quite a long talk with Richard Lightman, the director of the Music Producers Guild, at the Audio Engineering Society expo at Novotel Hammersmith, yesterday afternoon.

For a long time, there has been great discussion on just how much of a great recorded sound consists of the engineer’s input, and how much of it consists of the sound of their equipment. Thus, for a long time, it has been considered by many that the sound of a great record can only be achieved in a major studio, utilising top of the range equipment only available to top-end studio budgets. In some ways, the plight of the engineer has almost demised, as the critics often seek to find as to where a record was made, and what desk it was, what mics did they use, pro tools or logic, prism or apogee, tape or digital, sampled or real drums, amps or sims, the list goes on. Often, I feel that the engineer who chose the mics, chose the software, chose the console; and indeed operated those things, is drowned out in the written noise of the technical specification.

The question is raised many times “can I actually use the plugins included with Logic to get the same sound that I can achieve with Waves plug-ins”. And the answer, is probably no. But what do Waves plugins sound like? There is no set sound. Waves plugins sound like the engineer setting them. So do Logic ones. For this example we’re going to talk about EQs. And I’m pretty sure a Logic Channel EQ set by Chris Lord-Alge could blow the pants of a Waves R-EQ set by a bedroom hobbyist. So, I did raise the point with Richard: “since the class divide between those who can and can’t afford expensive plugins, has ‘I can only afford Logic bundled plug-ins’ been used merely as an excuse?” – and I wouldn’t maintain that, yes, it probably has, by many people. Everything in the world of audio sounds different, and once you’ve reached the basic standard of audio processing (that Logic plugins exceed), it’s about getting it to sound right. Who cares if it sounds as good as a £1000 Waves EQ? If the £1000 Waves EQ doesn’t fit the track, it’s useless. I won’t argue, since I’ve bought Waves Mercury and begun to use the API emulations, SSL emulations, and R-EQ plug-ins, I have noticed an improvement in the musicality of the EQs. But, that’s an improvement when it’s set properly. If set badly, they still sound as bad as a badly set anything else. Conclusion: It’s the engineer using the EQ that makes the EQ sound good. And the same for compressors, reverbs and anything else for that matter. A great engineer on an average EQ will produce a better sound than an average engineer on a great EQ. Of course, a great engineer on a great EQ is where great records come from. The tricks are – learning how to use plug-ins to get them sounding their best, and learning which members of your plugin collection to use at which times. And both those things are things that ONLY engineers can do, and your kit can’t decide for you.

Then of course, there’s the way in. The old phrase ‘you can’t polish a turd’ still sounds. A 20-plugin chain of Waves, McDSP, Sonnox and URS can’t fix a badly recorded instrument. And, even if it gets close, just imagine what that level of processing would have done to a well recorded instrument! Once again, these been no end of claims that you can only record well with good gear. But what does good gear sound like? Again, there’s no set sound. Yes, our Golden Age Pre-73 has a distinct sound that a £100 Behringer mic pre won’t fulfil – but it’s not supposed to. Use the Behringer as it’s supposed to be used, learn the sound that it makes. Then set it properly. And guess what? Get it right, and you’ll exceed the sound of a badly set Pre-73. And again, people will tell you, you need a ‘good’ pre-amp. What’s a good pre-amp? If it fits the track, it’s a good pre-amp. If it doesn’t fit the track, it’s not a good pre-amp. End of. The same for microphones. I’ve had countless people tell me ‘The Neumann U87 is a better vocal mic than the Shure SM58. Can we use that one please” in the studio. Now, tell me, young vocalist, why is the Neumann a better vocal mic than the Shure? Because, I think we can both agree, that your vocal take will not match the power, emotion or strength of a Bono vocal take. Does Bono use a U87? no. Does he use an SM58? Yes. Oh dear, this doesn’t bode well for you, does it? Of course, there’s an equal number of times when I would use the 87. No, wrong. There’s far more situations when I’d use the 87. But, it’s not a failsafe solution. Once again, the secrets are – knowing HOW to use the kit – where to place the mic, where to place the vocalist, how to treat the room; and knowing WHICH kit to use. And, like we said – that’s an engineers job.

We could go on. And say the same about live room acoustics. About the performers themselves. About their instruments. About their amps. About what they drink before singing. About everything. But we won’t, because if you haven’t got the message by now, there’s not much point going on.

But! You all ask, But! Where is this going? What’s changing?

Well, back to the conversation with Richard, everyone is getting really rather upset at the evolution of studio equipment. Mainly people who can afford it. Tape is just too expensive to use. SSL G+ consoles are unmarketable as they cost as much to service annually as Audient consoles cost to buy. GML EQs cost thousands, when you can buy an infinitely more useful GML plug-in for the Sonnox EQ, which remembers it’s settings, and can be applied to every channel in the project. And 10 years after being used in the mix, you can come back to it and it’ll be exactly as you left it. So everyone’s had to go digital. A quick thing we questioned too – MIDI-controllers in the shape of mixing consoles. Digi C24, ICON, Euphonix, etc. They’re all much the same – you get faders on the table, and you can control them in Logic / Pro Tools / Nuendo as you see fit. But… you can do that with a mouse. So, with limited exceptions (riding vocals, aux sends etc – and writing the automation; or using the control features on a soft-synth), are people using these controller desks as anything but a nostalgic trip down memory lane? Are they actually serving a practical purpose? Or do we just not recognise a control room that doesn’t have a big black object with knobs and faders plonked in the middle of it? Anyway, we’ll leave that for another day… So. Everyone’s gone digital. Really. Yes, Audiophiles / GearSlutz / etc hate the prospect of ‘In The Box’ mixing. But it’s a hell of a lot cheaper, a hell of a lot more practical, and can our end user (who actually pays for the record), little Jimmy and his iPod cranked up to 11 with cheap tinny earphones, only once the record’s been cranked to within 6dB of itself by a mastering engineer, actually hear the difference? We’re not going to go into ITB/OTB mixing too much here either, but just trust us when we say that, short of bands who really do have the finance to be in a top studio for a long period of time, in the box, digital mixing is really on the way up and analogue, OTB mixing is on a fall. And the plug-ins really are starting to take over. In Propagation House, we can mix on 48 channels of well-emulated SSL E-series channel strips, then put it all away in a 6″ x 4″ x 2″ box, then mix on 48 channels of API 550-Bs and 2500s, then stick that in the 6x4x2 cupboard (known more formally as an HDD) and get the SSLs back out again. To do that with consoles would cost no less than £100,000 and would require permanent employment of a couple of highly skilled console techs. To do it in Pro Tools cost us a few grand of plug-ins and only one of us need be in the studio. And fact of the matter is – with only 2% of commercial records actually making their production costs back – the guys running the show at the record label are not interested in the extra cost for the sake of ‘a bit of analogue warmth’.

So, what’s the catch with digital. Well, in the last few months, it’s ALL gone pirate, really. Our Waves bundle and Pro Tools HD system cost us a significant amount of money, and it still does as we keep it constantly updated and fully operational. And we’re proud of being legit, it means we can offer our customers a stable system, with customer support available from the manufacturers if required – and thus cause minimal disruption to our sessions. However, if you wanted to break the law, you could pickup Waves Mercury, and Pro Tools HD, off the web, free-of-charge, and get making music.
There is some hardware you still have to buy. You can’t download a cracked copy of a microphone or audio interface. But they ARE getting very cheap. At Propagation House we pride ourselves around our top mic collection – including classics such as the Neumann U87, Sennheiser MD421, Audio Technica 4033s; and less-known choices such as the Heil PR20 and PR40 dynamic mics. We also pride ourselves on pre-amps from Sennheiser, Golden Age, Neve, Focusrite and Amek; and audio interfacing with an Avid Pro Tools HD2 system – comprising of 192 converters and 2 Accel cards. But, especially in an age of iPod or laptop-speaker listeners, the primary audience (in the eyes of the record labels’ finance departments, at least) really probably won’t notice the difference. I picked up a high quality MOTU 828mkII 2 years ago for £500 – that gets you 2 reasonable pre-amps, 8 line ins and 8 ADAT ins. Now, the £500 will get you a Focusrite 56 – with 8 decent pre-amps, including 2 professional-grade Liquid pre-amps; as well as the same 8 ADAT inputs, and a whole variety of other interfacing options. It’s a well-rated and reliable cross between pre-amps and interfacing. Of course – the price difference also reflects build quality, converter quality and connector quality. But, like everything else – with records, as far as the labels are concerned, being predominantly played on iPods with rubbish headphones or tinny laptop speakers, in the band’s eyes it needs to be the feature set, not the audiophile qualities, that select their equipment. Another one – for mics, a reputable music technology magazine recently tested a £90 consumer-level condenser mic against a variety of top-top-end professional condensers, and preferred the £90 mic to the lot of them. Seriously. But – of course – this was engineered by a team of some of the UK’s top recording engineers – not the amateurs that are most associated with buying the mic. And, of course, it was tested in a suitably high performance console ,and recorded in an acoustically-superb room. But still, as a result of the moving technology and ever reducing prices, you can pick up a good sounding studio set up for less than many studios will charge you for a day’s recording – which will plugin to the firewire port of your macbook.

So, what’s the result? Well, it means that, for a small budget, you really can get yourself a small, home / portable studio that will compare with the big studios. What you can’t do however, is download your engineer off the web. Which means, in my eyes, that the future is bright for the recording engineer. With the playing fields levelling, and consumer gear opportunities rising to meet the standards of professional equipment; the engineers will become the key separation between recordings. Not the gear. Which in our eyes, is only positive – it’s about time that highly trained, professional engineers are able to publicly separate themselves from poorly skilled engineers who are unable to provide the skills for which they charge. And you, the musicians, might actually start to get a much fairer opportunity to book studios and engineers where your music will come to life.

Of course, you might ask, why a professional recording studio – which is after all, a big brick box containing all the equipment that we may have seemingly suggested you don’t actually need – would come on their own blogging telling you this. Surely, we should be telling you that pirate plug-ins don’t work properly, and cheap gear will make your music sound shit, right? There’s just no point – most of you probably know it already, and there’s just no point lying – too many big studios do it, and evidently they’re not all doing too well at the moment.
Well, we’ll tell you. Whilst it can be possible to get results that are more friendly with the pockets of our record labels, using cheaper, simpler equipment available for inside a grand from your local Digital Village store, we, the musicians, should want to record our art as best we can. If the Beatles had used the minimum possible technology to record their albums 50 years ago, could we still listen to them today and think they sound great? Of course we couldn’t. As musicians, we need to show pride in our art, and refuse to settle for less. If we do settle for less – the men in suits will only ask us to settle for EVEN less. We need to future-proof our art, and take pride in the way it sounds throughout the production process – not simply worry about how it sounds when it reaches little Jimmy’s iPod. If we reduce our standards, everyone will reduce their standards, and the audience will have to reduce their expectation – which should never have to happen.

The effects of a great room, great instruments, great microphones, great pre-amps, great converters and great processors are still as important as ever. But it’s vital that as these great factors become more and more available, the standard of engineers is kept in line with it’s development. After all, only a GREAT engineer can make the great rooms, instruments, mics, and all other great members of the signal chain come to life in the manner that makes for a great record. And for you, the artists, this just isn’t practical. Your forte is performing, and THAT is what you need to concentrate on, whilst we, the audio engineering community, concentrate on the engineering and production.

So, my conclusion is that whilst the ever-developing technology, reduction of costs, and increasing abuse of copyright theft all bring the capabilities of consumer and ‘prosumer’ recording closer to the level of professionals, it’s still the Mk1 original recording engineer that makes it all come to life. And, it’s when you use the great engineers, that you will realise, and appreciate, the true value of the highest quality, professional equipment, and see what difference it does make. In other words – if your engineer isn’t good enough, it really doesn’t matter whether you use professional or consumer equipment – technology has brought them so close to each other that technology alone is not sufficient to separate them. What does separate the technology, is the engineer using them.

At Propagation House, our mix of great engineers, great equipment and facilities, and additionally the great surroundings in which you record, the true value of our professional and legitimate range of equipment really comes to life, and you can leave with a truly great surrounding record.

Dave

First Post

Welcome to talkback, the Propagation House blog.

We will be using this blog to keep you, our customers, fans and friends, up to date with all the latest developments at the studio and any news that may be of interest you.

As well as all the normal news you’d expect on a blog, we’ll be adding photo diaries of band sessions, building work and the daily happenings at the studio; interview sessions with bands; recording features and gear tests; and mulitmedia from our sessions.

This blog is already an exciting new home to all that goes on at Propagation House, so be sure to check back often as something is always happening, and through this site, you can be the first to know about it!

We’re just in the process of getting a mailing list going. Once that’s up, be sure to sign up to be the first to hear about any important information, special offers and deals, and exclusive members-only competitions happening at the studio.

It’s an exciting time for Propagation House in an uncertain future for the recording industry, and for artists, managers and industry folk alike, you can’t afford not to be with us as we tread every step.