Exactly what I Learned in the Recording Studio
An audio engineer, who is a buddy of mine made me a proposal that no aspiring musician can say no to.. “Come to my recording studio and make a record,” he said. “We can work on it up to the point that you find it acceptable. Take all the studio time you need.” In return, we decided that after I printed the record, I’d give him a part of the sales. This incredible gift was partly due to friendship, and partly because he wanted to gather some experience in the studio he’d built.
So for a couple of days at a time, every month or so, I’d drive two hours to his studio, sleep there nights in a bed he’d set up, and record during the day. In fact, I ended up composing most of the record in the course of off times in the studio. During those recording periods, I’d watch how he set up the microphones, how he would try different things, and switch gears if they didn’t work. I watched as he went through the mixing procedure and as he made remedies for problems that come up at random. My friend would describe what he was doing, and why, and would constantly answer my queries.
Unfortunately, the record didn’t do well in the market. Nonetheless, the lessons I have learned from that experience I was able to apply it in my line of work. At times when a sound technician isn’t available, I no longer worry because I know I can handle the equipment personally and get the results that I want. Moreover, the experienced trained my ear to listen to tracks that are not well mixed and at the same time it also helped me gain enough understanding to handle such mishaps. At present I am now capable of detecting what is really wrong with the track rather than just knowing that something is wrong.
I’m not a sound engineer, and have no dreams to be one. What is important though is the truth that I mastered both from experience and from mentorship in a recording studio. The reason lies on the facts that in order to learn and comprehend audio engineering you need someone who will show and clarify to you the whole process along with practice and experience.
My friend with the recording studio had in fact been to school, and he had learned a lot of methods he probably would not have picked up on his own. Nonetheless, I found his motion 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 of work. Despite the advantage he got from his education, my friend still finds it insufficient and he wanted more experience.
The results are more important regardless of where you got your education. This is what I realized in the recording studio.
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