I hear more people trying to doing everything - write, play all the instruments, recording, mix.

I'm getting sick of people posting marginal tracks that they did all alone. I've done tracks by myself for years, but most of the recordings I've worked on have involved other people. Where did people get the idea that after they put together a project studio - that they should sit in there all by themselves and do everything? And then they wonder why they're not getting a "pro" sound.

Even folks like Stevie Wonder, Todd Rungren, Steve Winwood... who have tracked entire albums by themselves - still were/are actively involved with other musicians on their projects and playing live.

People sitting isolated in rooms by themselves - and going on internet gear forums for company and solace. I'm getting sick of that mentality! [ and I don't use exclamation points very often ]

If I read one more thread from a middle-aged guy who's trying to do rock from his high school years asking what's the best drum machine to get real sounds - I'm going to scream. What is the big frickin deal about getting a drummer? And even if you don't have one in your area, there are all kinds of drummers around the world online who you could get involved with to cut some real drums on your tracks.

I see way too many people trying to do it all. At some point, that's fine. But when it's at the expense of not sharing and playing with other musicians - that's lame. Mix it up. Get out there. Be sociable. You've got a studio. That certainly gives you some brownie points with other musicians to get them to hang out with you and record some tunes. Or get one of these millions of people on the internet forums and do some file sharing and work on a project together.

If you work and collaborate with other people, then I'm not talking to you. And maybe you can jump on this bandwagon and help give the loners a kick in the ass.

So, what's your story? Do you play well with others? Or are you a hermit. And if so - why?

Agreed! Being a small home studio owner I agree. The way I see it, some just like the enjoyment of it and want thoughts. My thought is send them your message up top. That way maybe they will see the light and say "Shit maybe another view will be better." Kinda like a mastering house. I personally HATE to master songs that I mixed. Just burnt and these bands get out there and think "Oh shit he can master it for us." Folks I am by no way shape or form a M.E. That is why you spend just a tad more to have a guy who does it as his job. There is somethng about a Mastering Engineer that makes my mix better. The fact that they usually have primo gear that will turn a piece of shit into a work of art makes me smile. NOt to say that all M.E.'s are great, but you get what you pay for.

agreed DOT?

Doc

quote:

Originally posted by IntelDoc:
agreed DOT?

Absolutely, Doc. Mastering is not nearly as expensive as most people think. When we had Jazzooo's "Two Days In November" CD mastered by John LaGrou at Millennia, no less, with all his fancy gear - the bill was only something like $800 - and his rate was $100/hr. And there are a lot of indy ME's who are even less. You can get CD's mastered by good people for around $500 or even less. Heck, if you're looking for an ME, and you post on a forum - you'll get tons from emails for people wanting your business. And most of them are more than happy to do one song for free just to give you an idea what they can deliver.

well, i'm in that boat far too often. but not from choice. other musicians are mostly very flaky in my experience, and good engineers and producers want to be paid, so i keep ending up trying to do more alone than I would like.

at the moment I have one collaborator, another musician, who is great, and no-one with sound/studio knowledge.

I'd absolutely love to work with a drummer, and a manager, and an engineer and a producer, and a lot of help, but I can't afford to pay those people, and most other musicians seem to be sitting around doing half arsed stuff waiting to be discovered, and think that when that happens everything will be fine.

sure I could spend what I've spent on gear on time in a "proper" studio, and maybe I should have, but its not like that will buy me any real time in a really proper studio, more like just one step up from where I am gear wise, and an engineer who may or may not know what they are doing , and is unlikely to be very interested in my music or contributing musically. And there goes the luxury of experimenting musically, or deciding half way through that the entire approach is wrong and I need to start again. Now, a good producer, along with the proper studio might help me avoid all that, but who is going to pay that person?

one thing I have decided is that if all I have for real right now is an acoustic duo, then an acoustic duo (give or take some minimal overdubs) is whats going to be on the record, I won't fake drums, or try to sound like a band, even though I'd love to have a band, it will have to wait until I actually do have a band!

getting fiddle, vox, and mandocello down to my satisfaction is more than enough of a musical and technical challenge for just me and the fiddler.

so I wonder, how many actually choose what you are describing and for how many is it do it all yourself or give up making your own music?

Yep! I have used Charlie Pilzer in the past from Airshow. Grammy winner ME and a great guy. Location from my studio is 5 miles. Perfect! I also just used Nathan James at Jigsaw Sound in New York and man he did a fantastic job. It is so worth it and he did 2 songs for 100 bucks per song. I mean it is YOUR WORK so why would you want a mixer to butcher it when you can save a month and get a good ME house to do it the right way.

Not to get on a Mastering tangent, but I think it fits your original concerns.

These are the houses that I use at the moment
depending on my media.

AIRSHOW MASTERING - CHARLIE PILZER - Acoustic stuff mainly

NATHAN JAMES MASTERING - JIGSAW SOUND - Rock

STERLING SOUND - Flat out AWESOME!

Doc

We have 3 members. Bill/drums, Tom/bass, and I play guitar, sing, keyboards and the recording/mixing. We get our music mastered by someone else.
I agree that a lot of people are flaky. We would love to have another member to play keyboards or lead guitar, especially for live performances. I basically play rhythm guitar and sing live so it would be great to have someone doing some lines in there. For recordings I could add it, but live... ugg.
If we play super tight it sound pretty full, and Tom and Bill add some fills. Tom's Alembic bass for live is good because it really cuts through and helps fill things up.

I think online collaboration is a really cool idea. But, if you are trying to get something set up as far as a band that would be playing out shows, you really want a band member who's there.

If you're a singer-songwriter and has nobody else working with you, I think definitely for sure get some others involved. I think it's so cool to be able to get anyone to play from anywhere in the world online, this wasn't available in the past and people should use this ability.

I know that if we went to a professional studio the recordings would sound better, but I actually enjoy the recording end of it. I hope to get better as I go along, and I like to be able to experiment whenever I want and not worry if i mess up 10,000 times and am paying for every minute.

evt

Just a quick addition: While I sympathize with musicians (of whatever age) who find the home studio (and the "multi-instrumentalism" which results) a means of sustaining and improving their own music, it seems to me that nothing of substance comes without collaboration. As Dot pointed out, even those rare visionaries who have succeeded with self-production had a lot of input from others.

Just to add another dimension to the conversation: The studio where I work is part of a school, so in addition to hosting projects for area musicians, a good deal of our time is spent teaching the rudiments of recording and production to high-school kids. Many of the most rewarding moments I've had in the studio have come while working on student projects where several musicians (not all of whom were particularly proficient players) have created something remarkably coherent and compelling. Granted, these were kids in a class, not a bunch of session guys on the clock, but I guess my (simple) point is that there's something inherent to collaboration which usually elevates a project beyond the capacities of the individual musicians.

Oh, and about masterinng, I'd simply concur with some advertisement I saw a little while back in TapeOp that compared mastering to dentistry, in that you shouldn't try either without someone who really knows what they're doing.

Absofrickin'-lootely! It drives me a little crazy when people elect to do it all themselves, even if they play most instruments relatively well. I mean it's fun and a game and you can accomplish something. I have a good friend who really is a serious multi-instrumentalist and he can pull it off pretty well.

It all depends on what you want. As a writer, if I'm just crafting something, which is what I mainly do with my pop stuff, I do it all. Why? Because I'm not going to do anything with it. It's for me.

But I have a ton of musician friends who are all great. We do a lot of live playing and I record us remotely with my rig. I have the sax player coming over today for some stuff. I have a drummer who has a decent studio. It's real easy to just send him over something and he can do a track lickity-split.

If you're going for something you want people to listen to, be an engineer and a producer as much as a musician. Hire people.

PS to intelidoc - I can't read you posts because I have to scroll past the avatar.

I agree that collaboration is essential to anything of substance.

It's not easy to find collaborators who actually add something though. Some of my worst disasters have been collaborations where the other party(ies) didnt share my enthusiasm or idea of the goal and the project got pulled back towards a conventional safe outcome, and fell over in the process.

Some of my best collaborations have been working alone where someone else has had detailed critical input into the work, and I have then proceeded to almost completely reject their recommendation, but it forced me to really think about what I was doing.

quote:

So, what's your story? Do you play well with others? Or are you a hermit. And if so - why?

Hermit. Control freak. Recovering.

My main reason for getting the Akai recorder was ease of collaboration. Both remote and eventually in the nice rooms around town. I can already tell you that the next record will have the basics cut live: bass, drum, guitar, organ in a week of studio time elsewhere. I'll handle the overdubs and mixing here.

This record features tracks by others done remotely...organ, piano, drums, harmony vox, and steel gtr on various tracks. Their contributions made me raise my game.

only together are we God.

Here's point 5 from an article I wrote, "Why Don't My Recordings Sound Pro?"

http://www.studioreviews.com/nopro.htm

quote:

5. Doing too much: People who record at home often try to do too much by themselves rather than enlist help with the project. Too many people now "play everything", not really because they actually do play all the instruments well, but rather because they're too lazy or lack the skills to work within a larger group towards a common goal. Let's take the average major label CD release — and we'll say that everyone who worked on it has an average of 10 years experience. You've got a band of 5 people. 2 engineers. 1 producer. 1 mixer. 1 mastering eng. That's 10 people! Multiplied by 10 years each — and you get a total of 100 years total combined experience. That's 100 years [ and in many cases in the real world, it can be 200-300 years ] of sweat and experience competing with the average home recordist — who may have several years experience with a few instruments and a few years recording experience.

I believe that unless you are a solo artist, it's always better to track (at minimum) your rhythm tracks live...whether it's acoustic string instruments or elec. guitar, bass & drums. To me, the live interaction of musicians provides the "interstitial glue" that makes the music come alive. I'm into the types of music that life is important- blues, folk, bluegrass, rock 'n' roll...techno/acid/loops related music is an entirely different beast. Recording a bunch of parts by myself, I've always found it a bit "flat" artistically...so I bring in my buddy that kicks ass on electric guitar, or bring in any one of several "real drummer" friends to help with kit or percussion...music to me is a social event.

On the same side of a different coin, there have been many great records done by one person doing it all...Tom Fogerty's work wight after Creedence immediately comes to mind.

BUT - there were do drum machines, no software, pitch corrections, etc...it was all done pre digital. I think this may have something to do with it, that while it can be done, its a difficult challenge for anyone who doesn't grasp the basic engineering (mic placement, etc) AND be at least very good at a multitude of REAL instruments (not vsti pianos, real pianos...) We all have become so reliant on fixing things in DAW that we forget how to actually engineer...

Just another opinion.

Fixed the avatar... hope you can read em now.

Doc

Inteldoc - Thanks!

Wire - wasn't that John Fogerty, or is my mind fading with age?

I prefer to be either the engineer or the musician, but not both at the same time. I make a terrible studio musician when I'm having to be the one to get levels & press record at the same time. It takes a lot to get a good performance out of me when it's just me & headphones with no other musicians playing. I typically don't do much recording unless someone else is with me.

Another thing I think a lot of people forget or miss, is that there's something that happens when music is created with a group. A group of two or more people. There's a lock in; a mind meld emotionally and spiritually, even if it's not very good. That's why it's FAR better to capture as much as possible, certainly basics, in one go. When you overdub too much, splice too much, it risks losing that THING. There's no NESS there, as in cool-ness, vibe-ness groove-ness.

You end up with clean, septic, mistake-less deadness. OK, that's the other "ness."

A complete Freudian slip...it was indeed John.

For reasons unclear to me, I've been thinking a lot lately about the life Tom lead resulting in his death years ago...But that is a totally different thread...

Sorry for the error, and thanks for clearing it up.

WOW, DOT, that kinda reads like a rant!!

LOL

oh well, steam blown, is steam released.

i do a lot of total recording myself, but i also do a lot of collaboration as well.

for my album, i absolutely had to have live drums....
and i used an excellent drummer via data backups and another engineer to do drum tracks...

i used a pro for mastering.......

and the only thing that held me back from developing even more collaboration on that particular project, was just money.
time, i got time, but dough is a NO.

i spent 7 years full time on the road....
that's 6 nights a week, week after week, month after month, year after year..

so i did a lot of 'playing with other people'.

i can pretty much tell you, within 10 seconds of hearing someone play, whether or not i want to work with them.

it takes a little longer to know if someone is a flake or not.

i met so many flakes on the road, and came across so many diva and prima donna musicians in my time on the road, that if i NEVER cross paths with someone like that again, it'll be too soon.

i can't emphasis that sentiment loud enough, folks.

i'll say this....

if you're going to work with other people, at least TRY to get along with them.

don't make problems, solve them.
be creative, not controlling.

and when you meet someone that has major attitude, or a closed mind, walk away.

being dialed in with other musicians that are in the same headspace as you, is a real joy.
the idea behind collaboration is to experiment, and be open minded to 'other' ideas.


i've done several internet collaboration things, with folks i've never met, but with who i consider friends...

in fact, i just finished several weeks of work on 5 guitar tracks on a 67 minute instrumental!
LOL
with some guys in canada, who have decided that hour long instrumentals are the next big thing.



i've done local collabs with musicians on their projects, both as engineer (haha) and musician.......

so i do try to keep into the right way of thinking so that i don't become a hermit.

but sometimes i find, if i want something done just right, i gotta do it myself.
is that so bad?

I've recorded completely by myself and with a band, and I'm reluctant to say that recording songs alone is bad. I think if it were the only source of experience, then that social musical interaction would be severely lacking. But there are many times when I want to create something from beginning to end without interruption or inhibitions that peers can bring. The more I play and record with a band, the more I want to develop my own ideas. I like to contribute ideas to the band, but in the end, it ends up different than how I envisioned, for better or worse.

-Ian