Here is a great site that caters for things audio, analogue, and archaic.
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Two independent authors (Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew) were researching Beatles recording techniques, when eventually they stumbled across each other. This was inevitable as they were both consummate researchers. Rather than having a cup of tea and wishing each other sucess, they combined forces and Recording the Beatles is the result. This large book is over 500 pages with just as many pictures. The detail on equipment and exactly how various songs were recorded is as amazing as it is informative. The combined research, over several years and across the globe has resulted in this comprehensive reference book on the subject. This was no mean feat - at Abbey Road the people and equipment have move on, so it was a matter of tracking these down from all the corners of the earth. As a bonus, the book is very nicely presented. I spent a weekend reading it cover to cover. For some interesting facts taken from the book, click here.
Brian has said that the next project will be a similar work on the Capitol Records tower. A post in The Recording Revolution identifies 3 roles in recording, and uses a three legged stool as an analogy. The 3 roles are Engineer, Producer, and Pro Tools operator (which without a DAW would be Assistant Engineer). The article concludes by stating that today's engineer must be all three: "You have to think like a producer, engineer, and daw operator in order to cover all of your bases and give your songs the star treatment they deserve!".
Therein lies the myth - that 3 highly skilled individuals can be rolled into one person and still achieve great results. Think about this for a minute. If one professional could do all three tasks, then the pro session would have one person (thus saving two peoples pay). The fact that they don't is due to there being extremely few people who can actually do even two of these things really well. Engineer-Producers do exist but in the pro world of recording they will not attempt both jobs at once. Why then would an amateur be able to handle all three tasks? The answer is that they cannot. This in part explains why in the huge volume of home recorded material there are not many truly great songs made. Following on from Less is More, I have been considering how to impose limitations that will lead to a better music mix (at the very least it will speed things up). Here are some ideas:
1. Stick to this plan for recording mic allocation: Kik 1, SD 1, HH 1, Toms 3, OH 2 (= 8 in total). Remember that this is at least twice the number used on many of the great songs of the 60s! EG 1, BG 1 DI, Vocal 1. So a band recording can be done quite well using 10 mics and a DI. 2. Looking at the above it should be clear that 11 tracks are needed. Don't be fooled into recording 24 just because they are there (or worse still exhausting everyone because there you have an unlimited track count in a DAW). Obviously, you might want to do extra takes of guitar and vocal, but once the 11 tracks are recorded ask yourself 'does it really need this?' ,or 'is it really adding to the production?' 3. When it comes to mixdown on a DAW there is the temptation to keep chucking plugins on a sound. I suggest breaking the process into two stages: First execute a mix as it would happen on a physical desk. The players are faders, pan controls, EQ (typically 2 band parametric + HF and LF shelving). If you are on a top desk you also have a compressor for each channel, but a more typical scenario is to need rack gear. Thus the compressor is not used on everything but reserved for where it is actually needed. This will be vocal and bass. Then there is compressing a sound for effect (eg the kik). That would mean 3 compressors in all. Reverb, by the same reasoning, would use 2 or 3 units - one for the 'room', one for SD, and possibly a separate one also for the vocal. Once the mix is as good as it can be using the above resources, then (and only then) start adding the fairy dust that extra plugins can provide. Now, I'm not saying that more advanced techniques don't have a place but these days I see a lot of engineers trying all sorts of stuff while skipping the basics. An interesting BBC Radio documentary about Abbey Road Recording Studio can be found here.
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