Part 10 - Recording basics - The Hierarchy

 
Welcome back. Last time we summarised the various tools and tricks we'd covered so far and largely wrapped up the initial 'writing' side of the 'rough to release' process. And if all you require is a finished set of lyrics, a chord structure, and / or a melody line scribbled on a stave then your work may be done.

But my memory doesn't work like and I don't read music, so firstly, I require a recording of the complete piece so that there's a permanent record. Pun very much intended.

Secondly, during the writing process I will often get ideas for how I want the final piece to sound; and that's rarely as simple as a single guitar and vocal part. My songs tend to be musically very simple and I rely on production and arrangement to keep the interest going. Blame it on my lack of music theory...

So I need to be able record my parts, add elements to them, remove other bits and generally screw around with things.

And for that I will need some 'stuff'.

"It's not about what you don't have..."

I'm pretty certain that Meursault weren't talking about recording equipment when they sang that line in What You Don't Have but it applies nonetheless.

Before grabbing our credit cards and hurling ourselves at the 'studio' section of our favourite online shopping page it's important to actually think about what you need. The path of recording temptation is long and beset by many false prophets and fake bargains.

The first question therefore, is "what do you want to do?" Because that determines how far down the rabbit hole of Gear Acquisition Syndrome you may need to tread.

In the next entry we'll look at a few junctions in that burrow (to extend the metaphor a bit too far) to give some sensible stepping off points but first I shall share with you some secret hidden knowledge that can only be found in the secret hidden realms of... absolutely everywhere on the internet.

Are you ready? Here you go then:

It's not about the gear.

Honestly, truly, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die it really is not.

When it comes to recording there is a sort of hierarchy of importance and, with some variations around the finer details, it goes like this:

1 Material - fundamentally is it a good song / piece of music.

2 Performance - is it played and sung with passion and meaning.

3 Room acoustic - is the recording taking place in an environment that suits the music or is otherwise acoustically benign.

4 Microphone position - where you put the microphone will make a huge difference to how your recording sounds. Moreso than...

5 Microphone choice - fifth on the list we have our first decision about a piece of gear.

6 Pre-amps / hardware / outboard / converters / other bits of esoterica - all that other gear comes way down here.

At this point you may be raising an eyebrow somewhat cynically and thinking, "If that's really the case, why do expensive studios full of expensive gear exist? And why do people still pay for them?"

And to answer that I would look mostly at points 3 and 4 above. 

When you hire a proper studio one of the key things you are getting is a professionally designed acoustic space. Or spaces. One (or more) areas that have been designed for recording and a separate space that has been designed for mixing. The acoustic of that recording space is key. Put a good player, playing good music, in a good space and you're most of the way there. "Most" because the next thing on the list, microphone positioning, is another key part of what you're paying for - and that's the expertise of the recording engineer. Knowing where in the room to put certain kinds of instruments, then knowing where to put the microphones to highlight or minimise certain characteristics, knowing how different instruments will interact in that space and how players will need to position themselves to do their own interaction, knowing how to make sure that the technical side of things never gets in the way of the music...

All these are skills the recording engineer has that you are paying for* in a professional studio (along with knowing how to use those fancy hardware boxes of course).

If you get all of these bits right, then, and only then, is it worth worrying about expensive microphones and all the other goodie boxes and bits and pieces. 

Because without getting the basics right no-one will care what microphone was used or which compressor it went through.

Intent

So does this mean there's no point in trying to do anything yourself and you have to spend the rest of your lifetime's disposable income on a trip to Abbey Road?

Of course not. It all depends on what you intend to do with your music.

If your final release plan is you and your instrument performing your piece, unadorned, on youtube, then you probably have everything you need. It fits in your pocket, is a genuine technological marvel of the 21st century and you may even be reading this on it. It is, of course, your smart phone.

Abbey Road (or equivalents) are one end of the spectrum, your smart phone is the other. In the next instalment we'll take a look at a few intermediate jumping off points that may either be everything you need, or suitable stops along the way to greater complexity and recording capability.

Your Room

But before we get to gear choices, let's step back up to item 3 and think about your recording space.

Actually, let's back up one more step and look at your composition, because depending on your music you might not actually be recording any 'sounds'. If you compose exclusively using virtual instruments (VSTi's) in your computer then you only need to worry about the monitoring side of things (we'll come to that in the future). In which case, lucky you, off you go, have fun!

But if you do need to record any acoustic instruments or vocals, then you're going to have to think about the room in which you do it. Unless you're very lucky your music room might well end up being the smallest room in the house, often with nearly-square dimensions, and often with minimal soft furnishing in order to fit your gear in.

This is not an ideal situation.

We're not going to get into the details of studio design here because, a) it's not really relevant to this blog, and b) it's a whole book's worth of content. But I am going to share a couple of relevant points here because they may help head off any rabbit-hole diving and help you get on with finishing your songs.

Point the first: when talking about studios, two terms are often confused: sound-proofing and sound-treatment. Sound-proofing is about stopping sound travelling between the studio and the outside, and vice versa. It is difficult, expensive and I do not recommend attempting it without a professional. Sound-treatment, on the other hand, is about controlling the sound in the room, and is relatively cheap and simple to make a big difference. 

So the second point is that it is absolutely worth making an effort with your sound-treatment before hitting record. 

And we'll look at that as the first thing in the next chapter.

* There are other things of course: a professional studio will have access to instruments and noise making devices that you don't have at home, they will have a genuinely sound-proofed room so you don't need to worry about disturbing the neighbours (or being disturbed by them), they probably have access to session musicians and your recording or mixing engineer will probably also have some production skills as well (if your budget doesn't stretch to a producer). In short, there are plenty of reasons why proper studios still exist, but plenty of reasons why there are fewer of them than there used to be.