I recorded my band recently at a studio that functions by recording to tape or digitally, then editing with protools. Having now experienced the hell of digital editing, I can't help but imagine that it is a million times worse to do such work without a computer program.

Granted, my band recorded with the whole group (vocals and all) in a single dead room, every mic bleeding into every other mic, so a lot of our editing process was just mic isolation. So at Electrical Audio, are you guys just that much more careful about mic placement to eliminate bleed (or to otherwise get the sound you want without any editing)? Or do you have some alternative equipment that you use?

From what you're describing, it sounds like the engineer, while editing in Protools attempted to remove all of the bleed from other instruments on each track. Is this true?

instant_zen wrote:I recorded my band recently at a studio that functions by recording to tape or digitally, then editing with protools. Having now experienced the hell of digital editing, I can't help but imagine that it is a million times worse to do such work without a computer program.

Granted, my band recorded with the whole group (vocals and all) in a single dead room, every mic bleeding into every other mic, so a lot of our editing process was just mic isolation. So at Electrical Audio, are you guys just that much more careful about mic placement to eliminate bleed (or to otherwise get the sound you want without any editing)? Or do you have some alternative equipment that you use?

check out their studio specs page... they can put each guy in a different room if they want! fuckin' bonanza jubliee!!! whatever that means

russ wrote:From what you're describing, it sounds like the engineer, while editing in Protools attempted to remove all of the bleed from other instruments on each track. Is this true?

Not entirely. Only if there were excessive amounts of bleed, to the point where, say if there wasn't singing going on, it created this really weird ambient sound on the vocal mics. Also the tom mics picked up a ton of crash cymbal, and without editing out those at certain points, most of what you could hear was crash cymbal.

Plus, we had a lot of fun manipulating the bleed. Since every mic picked up slight amounts of everything, we could throw effects on, say, a hi-hat mic, and get some really cool-sounding results. So no, not all the bleed was eliminated, but what we did do for mic isolation was a pain in the ass, and took FOREVER.

And as far as the studio specs pages go, I've read them. They talk a lot about the recording process, but very little about post-production (at least as far as what I've seen... maybe I have to look harder. It wasn't until last week I discovered the easter egg in the Studio B control room, so I very well may have missed something else as well.)

instant_zen wrote:And as far as the studio specs pages go, I've read them. They talk a lot about the recording process, but very little about post-production

That's probably because they don't fuck up so severely during recording



-noah

Noah wrote:

instant_zen wrote:And as far as the studio specs pages go, I've read them. They talk a lot about the recording process, but very little about post-production

That's probably because they don't fuck up so severely during recording



-noah

you are so helpful, constructive, and intelligent in your criticism it kills me. we never "fucked up" (severly or otherwise) on ANY songs of our recording; our E.P. consists of all but one first take. i'll pit our proficiency against anyone's. nothing was "fixed" in protools performance-wise (i actually play ONE wrong note on the final recording), and it pisses me off that you'd imply such a thing.

in an attempt to continue to be more constructive, i will clarify my initial request:

i was wondering if there were any methods of post-production employed at Electrical-Audio, or if there was that much more care taken in the recording process that it was unnecessary.

Thank you.

I don't mean to speak for anyone else, but I think what Noah meant was not that you fucked up in your/yr playing, but that the people engineering fucked up, hence the need to 'fix' 'it' in the 'mix'.

1 - There are many constructive ways to use bleed beneficially.
2 - There are many ways to prevent bleed between instruments.
3 - Mixing and editing are kind of different beasts and while I'm open to the two being integrated, an understanding of the basic differences should precede the inter-pollination of the two.

From the perspective of someone that wasn't involved in your/yr session, it sounds as though the engineering was rushed in a reliance on digital editing in 'post production' which should have been point #4 - mixing is not post-production. Mixing is finishing the multi-track process, reducing all the tracks recorded to one, two (or in some cases, god forbid, 5.1) tracks. Post production is the mastering/sequencing/editing part.

Mixing vs. Post Production vs. Editing is a pretty interesting topic. Bad engineering is dime a dozen and boring.

Cheers - n

Regarding spillage: It isn't necessarily a problem, but if it is, it should be resolved at the time of recording, not later in the process. Doing it later takes a lot of time (as you have learned), and it not being a problem takes a little more attention at the start of the process, but not much more time than doing nothing. The cymbals/toms thing, for example, must have been obvious from the first playback, and could have been dealt with immediately, or at least before you recorded a whole album.

Regarding editing: It is done all the time in the analog domain, and it doesn't take more time than digital editing -- I bet it's faster on average, actually. Spot-erasing for bleed is also done all the time, but not as a matter of course -- just when it's necessary.

Regarding how good we are: We're really good.

Regarding the studio: It is definitely easier to maintain separation if the amps and drums are physically separate from each other, which won't be the case if everybody is in one room and playing loud. It is unusual, though not unheard-of, for me to record a whole live loud band in the same room with no isolation. Live, yes, but generally there is some part of the band segregated acoustically from another part.

Regarding your session: Whose idea was it to do all this editing? Did a conversation happen, or did someone just say, "Okay, now edit all this stuff out," and sit on the couch?

Hope it all came out okay.

steve wrote:Regarding editing: It is done all the time in the analog domain, and it doesn't take more time than digital editing -- I bet it's faster on average, actually. Spot-erasing for bleed is also done all the time, but not as a matter of course -- just when it's necessary.

i'm having a hard time understanding how it could be faster than click click click <delete>

it's so damn fast and easy in logic audio. how can a mechanical process beat it?

not a challenge, just don't understand.

From the description you have given, it sounds like the problem comes from trying to reconcile the way your band was recorded with the 'usual' method of band recording. The error, if it can be called that, happened before tape even rolled by not recognizing how the choice in recording style would affect the final outcome. It sounds like your band has mastered the material if you managed to use first takes, so the decision to put everyone in a room and let you guys do your thing was probably a good one. Trying to make that sound like a fully isolated and overdubbed recording has obviously resulted in a lot of extra work as you have seen, so the lesson to take away is mostly about planning the entire workflow before beginning and making sure everyone involved has a clear idea of the goals.

I would like to hear the recording if you can post an mp3.