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by Ryan Electrocution_Archive
Great post, Sail!For me, i'd determined early on that there had to be a reason why bands were sounding the way that they were on a recording, but I didn't know how or why it was. I saw some of the same names on my favorite bands' records---Andy Wallace, Steve, Brian Paulson, John Agnello, Jack Endino, Dave Jerden, Don Smith, Butch Vig, etc. I knew that they probably all had their own style, seeing as that some bands like Tad and Nirvana had worked with Steve, Jack and Butch--and the records all were quite different from each other. Not only that, but I wanted to figure out how a producer, engineer, mixing engineer, assistant engineers and mastering engineers all imparted their sound, since i'd heard demos and songs with early mixes/ early stages of production and they weren't quite to where the finished, official versions were. Sometimes the earlier versions were also better than the final ones. Some guys like Dave Jerden, i'd realized, their sonic signature was very slick--it worked with some bands, and the atmosphere and big reverbs didn't work with other bands.Most of my wanting to learn the technical details of recording is pretty self serving. I needed it for my own recordings, and the reason for that is because I don't think that anyone really understands an artist or musician better than they, themselves do. There will be people that are close, but if a band or musician is really in tune with what they're doing and what they want to hear and hear the things in their head of how they want it to go, it will inevitably be fairly difficult for some producers/ engineers to replicate....at least without the artist not being totally happy with it. It just becomes a matter of getting their vision down on the recording. Through trial and error over the years on some rudimentary equipment (ghettoblasters, 4 track, 8 track), i'd learned the basics of recording and setting up microphones and got better equipment (guitars, amps, mics, recording equipment) to get what's out of my head onto the medium, and it always seems to end up sounding the way that I want (granted, sometimes it takes a fair bit of tweaking and work). Or in a shorter explanation--I always at least wanted to be the one to screw it up, if anyone was gonna screw it up, ha ha. I'd also heard examples of where some producers/ engineers were just looking at the clock and didn't care about the bands. Which is like any job--there's some things that you like and some things that you dislike--but when you're dealing with a recording, it's basically like delivering a baby, so it needs some care and sincerity, I think. I just really love the whole idea of experimenting with acoustic sounds and electronics (mics, amps, recording equipment, synths, etc) to try and expand on what's already there in the initial vision.