Instruments

[clintopher]

I'll begin by saying that I am merely a recording enthusiast. I've purchased some pretty decent recording equipment over a couple of years, recording young, local rock bands for fun. I am pretty confident that my setup can produce outstanding sounds if recorded appropriately. The problem is that many of the bands I record have horrible, poorly treated instruments (along with some lacking musical ability, but that's a different story).

Has the focus of purchasing more and more recording gear been misleading? Wouldn't having different types of drums, cymbals, guitars, and amps have more of an impact than having more mics, preamps, and compressors to choose from?


Sorry if this feels like a rant. I'm just trying to justify purchasing my first drum set.

[nordberg]

yes. i've saved myself a lot a hassle by having extra snares, heads, cymbals, guitars, amps, keys etc. around over the years.

[Snarl 12/8]

After the player, the instrument is the first step in the signal chain. GIGO and all that.

It sounds to me like you're making one of those evolutionary steps that keeps the GAS going in a natural way. You keep improving on the weakest link. If you've gotten your recording gear to the place that the sound of the actual instruments is really shining through, then maybe it's time to focus there. Or, you could acquire some of the real turd polishing tools, like autotune, drum replacer samples, etc. Different people might be attracted to either approach.

[riantide]

If I could go back in time to like six years ago when I started taking recording kinda seriously and buying gear when I could, I would tell my past self this:

"I know microphones and outboard gear are very important and very sexy, but for now put your money into room treatment and kickass instruments and amps, and have them serviced often."

I feel like more and more I'm limited not by what mic I do and don't have but by the substandard and poorly maintained instruments that the musicians I record have access to. A [insert cream-dream mic here] going into a [insert cream-dream pre here] is pretty worthless if it's being stuck in front of an acoustic guitar with poor intonation, fret buzz, and a cheap nut that chokes the strings. So I've been finding that I buy more amps and instruments as of late in an effort to play catch-up. Drums and cymbals are next on my list as well; there's nothing worse than dialing in some great drum tones only to have someone's crappy hi hats take a crap all over em.

Feel justified in your upcoming purchase, clintopher. Go nuts.

[Babaluma]

yeah there's no excuse for guitarists not knowing how to set up there own guitars. when i offered to do it for a friend of mines band he said "whoah, you can really do that?", like it was something magical. took me about 6 months of internet research and a lot of tweaking on my own guitars and basses to become confident, but it's so worth it. the recorded sound sounds so much better. do my own setups every 6 months, and set the intonation about twice as often. get yourself a really good tuner for this too, i recommend the sonic research turbo tuner.

[roscoenyc]

Our studio is pretty much built around the instruments first.

In the last year I've done quite a bit of tracking out of town at other studios.
After mixing all that stuff I'd say that the thing I missed most from my own rig
on those sessions was our cymbals.

That's one thing you can't really correct. I'm not a fan of modern smallish cymbals.
I call 'em cocaine cymbals. I don't smoke pot anymore but I'm more in
favor of larger marijuana cymbals.

[acjetnut]

Quality and tone of instruments is the second most important part of a recording. The quality of the player is first. Really, I cannot stress this enough. Even cheapo recording gear is good enough to capture a nice sounding recording of a nice sounding instrument. I once recorded a band through a Zoom H2 (cheap crappy portable recorder), and it sounded awesome because the band sounded awesome.

[standup]

How often do people use studio instruments? When I go to a studio to record, I bring a bass, and I'd be hesitant to play an unfamiliar instrument. I bet guitarists are the same. Amps I could see getting used more often to get tone differences. I've seen drummers use the studio kit with maybe a few things of their own.

[acjetnut]

How often do people use studio instruments? When I go to a studio to record, I bring a bass, and I'd be hesitant to play an unfamiliar instrument. I bet guitarists are the same. Amps I could see getting used more often to get tone differences. I've seen drummers use the studio kit with maybe a few things of their own.

If you do a lot of production then studio instruments are used all the time. If you are just setting up mics and hitting record, then not so often. However, there are a lot of bands that use studios because of the instruments available - things like organs, wurlutzers, rhodes, vintage amps and guitars, etc etc.

[clintopher]

Thanks for all of the responses.

Or, you could acquire some of the real turd polishing tools, like autotune, drum replacer samples, etc.

I'd say I'm pretty well versed in the polishing of turds. I recently had a band come in where their snare heads were switched: resonant head on batter side and vice versa (not to mention that those snare heads were old).

How often do people use studio instruments?

My range of artists begins from high school kids to maybe 21 year old guys. Most of them generally have the same instruments they had when they first learned to play. The one time a touring band came in with a sweet setup from drums to guitars and really, I found it difficult to not make that band sound good. A lot of these groups have the idea that I can make them sound like anything they want through the magical power of studio recording. I probably spend at least 50% of the mix with Drumagog and Melodyne. But I guess that is the kind of music I cater to most.

I once recorded a band through a Zoom H2 (cheap crappy portable recorder), and it sounded awesome because the band sounded awesome.

I really want one of those things to help for filming stuff. The sounds that thing are capable of are great.

[acjetnut]

I once recorded a band through a Zoom H2 (cheap crappy portable recorder), and it sounded awesome because the band sounded awesome.

I really want one of those things to help for filming stuff. The sounds that thing are capable of are great.

I'm not sure "great" is a good word to describe that unit. "Cheap", "functional", and "doesn't sound like absolute garbage" are a bit more accurate. Maybe it would be better then the built-in mic on whatever video camera you have, but not better then a decent shotgun mic.

[???????]

It's about the relationship between the player and the instrument. It's about the player first.

A great musician in a poor third-world country could make amazing music on a couple of garbage cans. A wealthy person with an under-developed ear for music could make a '59 Les Paul into a '59 Bassman sound like cats fucking.

To me it's less about the instrument itself and more about the players' understanding of what the instrument sounds like and what it's capable of producing. In other words, their vision for the sound of it.

It's not always a slam-dunk that you can take an inexperienced musician off their CB700 kit and put them on a set of vintage Gretsches and have an improvement. The closer a player is to the 'beginner' end of the spectrum, the more important comfort and familiarity is. It's entirely possible that putting one of your clients on a great set of drums will make them actually sound worse. Maybe not, but maybe.

Similarly, that old CB700 with missing lugs, wrinkled heads, etc. might have some character or quality that a great, visionary musician could hear and make work perfectly for this track or another.

The touring band with the great instruments was probably not easy to record because of their great instruments. They were probably easy to record because they were tight from touring, and because they had enough of an appreciation for/inclination toward good-sounding instruments and obtaining good sound from those instruments.

Basically what I'm driving at is that in my opinion, if musicianship leaves something to be desired, there's pretty much no way around it. A musician is almost always going to sound like what he or she sounds like, big picture. If you give a poor guitarist a great rig, a guitar enthusiast might be temporarily distracted by whatever of the sound of the great rig that manages to shine through, but the average person probably won't be.

Just my 2 cents. However, IMO having a great drum set and a couple of snares and cymbals around WILL come in handy not to help the 'rough' musicians, but rather to help the occasional good musician that comes through and is looking for a different sound for this or that. Maybe the psychological element will make the inexperienced drummer excited to play, and perhaps get 'their best,' maybe not, who kows. I'm just babbling, sorry.

[Snarl 12/8]

...

That's actually a great point. When I first got my Yamaha Recording Customs after playing for years on some red, sparkly piece of shit kit, it took me 6 months to learn how to play them. At this point I'm more adaptable from set to set, but maybe it's because almost every drum kit is easier to play than those monsters (24" kick).

When we went into the studio one time in High School the studio made me play their set up Ludwigs. They sounded awesome, but I put in a less than stellar performance.

I wouldn't take this to mean don't invest in studio instruments, but you might want to think really carefully about what you get. For drums, I'd make sure you got "average size" drums and put average heads on them. Also, try to get hardware that's really easy to move around. I hate sitting down at an unfamiliar kit and finding that I can't really adjust the hardware to get back to "the feel" that is right for my body. For guitars you might want to think about buying first things that can improve the sound of any guitar, pedals, tuners, amps, etc. So people can play their old familiar axe but with a new luscious tone. Maybe you should learn how to do setups, so you can set up and tune people's axes before they play them. Learn how to tune drums too.

[riantide]

As a musician, I find that very often if I'm at a studio with great instruments I'll be inspired by a really great guitar, a really cool bass, or some obscure keyboard and I'll play differently that I would have if I had used my own gear. Having good instruments that are fun to play at your disposal can really get the creative juices flowing, in my experience.

I think someone already mentioned that the first thing in the signal chain, even before the instrument, is the player. And if you can give the player some really cool tools with which to do their job, then we potentially get better performances which makes doing OUR job easier.

[jgimbel]

I know a guitar is a great one for me when I pick it up and start playing, and I come up with a new riff or song right away. The first time this happened I figured I was just inspired by playing a new instrument, as I hadn't played anything new in a while. Now I have a number of guitars, all of them are ones that I've picked up and playing something, saying "wow that really sounds great on this". I tend to always think of those riffs with those guitars, and playing one on another generally just doesn't feel right.

I guess if I can pick a point out of what I'm saying is that I can't imagine going to a studio and recording a song on a guitar other than the one I wrote it on, or was most comfortable on. I think that'd be even more true if I had only been playing a couple years. HOWEVER I could see going to a studio where they have a guitar similar to yours, but better. For example I have a Squier Strat I bought as a project guitar that I haven't done much with yet, and it plays like a dream, but it's got definite pickup buzz/shielding issues. If I brought it to a studio to record and there was one that played similarly but didn't have hum issues, I'd probably be leaning towards that one.

Than again I always get any issues with a guitar I'm using fixed/worked out before going to a studio, as I can't imagine assuming I'd be relying on a studio's instruments without going a while beforehand to make sure I could get a good feel on them.