Recording Class: Week 3

Class was a little disjointed, but I suspect this will be par for the course. Started losely with him talking about voice lessons. He played a Taylor Swift track (the original) and then one of his vocal students singing the same song. I think the point of this was to show an example of autotune. I had recently heard that Taylor Swift wasn't actually a very good singer, so this was interesting. Indeed, you can hear that they've micro-tuned her voice on the recording. When she goes from a low to a high note it steps up robotically. The vocal student sang it for real. The vocal student sounded better. More human. Interesting.

He then played a track with a singer and string section. I think his point was that this track hadn't had much done to it and was good as is. But one of the students thought there was too much "sss" on it...which led us off on this whole discussion of how people hear things differently and how it depends on where you sit and what speakers you have. And how there are natural, smooth "s" sounds and more ragged "s" sounds. And how, once you start focusing on the "s" that's all you can hear. And that to mix you have to be able to choose to focus on something like that...but also be able to choose to STOP focusing on it.

I mentioned how Justin suggested we listen to our mix in a car and Randy didn't like this idea. He thought a car was too perfect an environment because it is one of the few situations where the stereo is designed for the situation you use it in. He seemed in favor of mixing to the best speakers you could find in a room situation...with the assumption that quality can only go down from there. I still think Justin's strategy makes sense, especially given that we didn't have access to an expensive studio situation with perfect speakers. And, frankly, yes, many people listen to cds in their cars...so it is a fair test situation.

Then we got into a discussion of file formats. And that WAV files are the univerally shared format. So you can have people record parts all over the world and share. He showed an example of this and then we talked about how it is these people synched their parts (answer: they all played along to the same backing track). One student asked how to get WAV files out of his Roland machine, which Randy didn't seem to understand (told him to put them on an external hard drive or dvd)...but I got that this guy's machine was too old for that (like mine)...so I told him you have to export them to like a thousand cds (which is true).

I asked how the knowledge that whatever you're mixing will be likely turned into an MP3 changes how you approach mixing/mastering. He basically said that, in an ideal world, you remaster specifically for MP3s in order to compensate for how the format changes the sound. He spent a good deal of time taking a recording and converting it to MP3 and showing us how different it sounded and how you might compensate. A student asked about conversion standards...I think he said 192 kps. He mentioned that there are lots of MP3 converters and that they all have their own EQ mix settings. In theory, the stuff you buy off i-tunes has been engineered for MP3 and probably with an eye towards ear buds. The main thing it seems to do was make the recording sound more "dead"...not as spacious. Held up against one another it sounded worse...but I can't say it sounded terrible. I don't think that I have high enough standards to notice the difference most of the time.

He also played us a youtube recording of Carl Beatty, who he agrees with in most matters. It's probably worth watching several more interviews with this guy:


Randy has revealed a few biases as we've gone along...a major one being that he hates Pro Tools. Not the software per se...but it's philosophy...which he seems to think is "all you need is this" and "everyone needs this." I think he's being a bit over the top on this. Basically, this one software has come to dominate the market, yes. It's not really any different than Microsoft. But there are other software packages if you prefer...including Vegas, the one that Randy uses. Randy doesn't PAY for his software, but instead gets it free from Sony. If you aren't paying, I don't think you get to have a big opinion. I just figure...all of these things are tools. Software...tabletop units like the Roland the student mentioned...or full, old school hardware driven studios...whatever. They can all be used well and they can all be used poorly.

He also has a bias against the idea of one person alone in a room making music recordings who "doesn't need anyone else." Now, I get that part of music is the interaction between people. I also get that, if you have a producer or engineer with 30 years experience, you are going to get a better recording. But what's wrong with having a hobby studio and playing music alone in your basement if that's what makes you happy? This harkens back to Michael Iautaro's (my college music professor...who took 4 years of orchestra from and about 4 additional music classes...and who I loved...may he RIP) argument about how cheap midi equipment and electronic keyboards meant that even a plumber could compose music. And he thought that was a bad thing. This made me very angry. Who was he to judge who should be allowed to compose music?

Crappy basement recordings and crappy basement compositions aren't going to climb the charts anytime soon. They may never even be heard by other people. But if they give the person making them joy...what's the harm in that? Not everyone can afford the time and equipment to be great. And not everyone has the talent to be great. But let them have fun.

I still think that Randy has a wealth of knowledge and there are many, many things to be learned from him. But there are areas where things are his opinion and not strictly fact. As is to be expected.