Exactly what I Discovered in the Recording Studio
A buddy of mine who was an audio engineer once presented me what could easily be every aspiring musician’s dream. My friend stated: ” Why don’t you drop by recording studio and let’s make a record.” “We can tackle on it up to the point that you find it satisfactory. Take all the studio time you need.” In return, we agreed that after I printed the record, I’d give him a cut of the sales. This amazing gift was partly because of friendship, and partly because he wanted to gather some experience in the studio he’d built.
For two days at a month every month I spend two hours driving to his studio and spend my evenings there sleeping on his makeshift bed while I record during the day. During the off times in the facility, I used it writing tracks for the record. During those recording periods, I would watch how he set up the microphones, how he would try different things, and switch gears if they didn’t work. I watched him during the mixing procedure, and I watched him resolve problems on the fly. My friend would describe what he was doing, and why, and would always answer my queries.
However, the record didn’t do well in the market. Nevertheless, what I mastered during that experience and others like it has carried me through many different jobs and projects since that time. In those moments when I don’t have a sound tech handy, I am no longer completely lost; I can deal with the equipment on hand to figure out what I need at the point in time. Furthermore, my ear was prepared during that experience to hear when a set of recorded tracks is not mixed well, and even more importantly, what I can do about it. At present I am now capable of detecting what is really wrong with the track rather than just knowing that something is wrong.
I am not a sound engineer, and have no aspirations to become one. The important point, though, is that what I learned in the recording studio was learned by doing-through a blend of mentorship and experience. This is because audio engineering is largely learned precisely that way-by someone showing you the ropes, and through practice and experience.
My friend with the recording facility had in fact been to school, and he had learned a lot of techniques he probably would not have picked up on his own. Nevertheless, I found his gesture of offering me unlimited studio time in order to gain more experience on how to run his studio compelling because this is regardless of the fact that he spent years studying this particular line for work. Despite the advantage he got from his education, my friend still finds it insufficient and he desired more experience.
Whether you gain your education through schooling, through mentoring, through practice or through a combination of these, what really matters in this industry is whether you can generate results. This is what I realized in the recording studio.
