choosing a studio for a project

[darjama]

Okay, so my band is looking to do 5 songs in 3 days. We've narrowed it down to two studios, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how to choose.

Studio One is where many albums that influenced me growing up were recorded. The owner/engineer has a reputation for being very fast, very knowledgable and very nice. He's worked with us to find a rate that meets our budget. However, most of what's come out of there is heavier and less atmospheric than our style.

Studio Two is a newer studio, and they've produced several recent albums that are similar sounding to what we're trying to acheive. Their rates are a little high and not flexible.

In terms of equipment and rooms, the two seem to be on pretty equal footing, it's really about the people.

Any suggestions on how to listen for the engineer/producer's contribution to a recording? What I've been doing is listening for the commonalities between different tracks by different artists, to instrument sounds, etc. What else?

[cgarges]

I'd say talk to people who've worked with the potential engineers (not necessarily the studios themselves). Who you work with is so much more important than where you work. If you find out what certain people's experiences have been like, you can get a grip on whether or not that person will be better for you than another. Ask the engineers if they can point you in the direction of something similar to what you do that they've done or ask if they could recommend a couple of clients as references. I appreciate people who ask me those kinds of things. (I'd much rather get that than questions about what equpiment I use.) I'm always happy to point people in the direction of clients who've enjoyed working with me.

The needs of a project can depend on a number of things in regard to budget. A well-rehearsed band, for instance, can get a lot of work done together in a space large enough to accomodate everyone playing together with a fast engineer, as opposed to spending more time with a less-experienced engineer in a space that requires recording of one instrument at a time. One day of studio time in a more expensive room can often lead to a better spent budget if it means a more efficient work environment. However, if a project dictates more actual time spent, for whatever reason, the less expensive room may be the better choice. Ultimately, though, I think it's more a people thing.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joelpatterson]

The "people" thing is crucial--far more important than "the stuff they've done is alot like our stuff." Any decent engineer can tailor the recording to precisely your style. What mostly happens during a session is alot of back-and-forth between you and the engineer, and he's making alot of snap judgements and instinctive judgements about all kinds of things every moment. You need to feel like you trust what he's doing.

Also you need to feel like you're working with someone who's on your same page, can joke and josh with you, be serious and critical when it's called for, and has a sense of the big picture in regards budget/time/scope of the final product.

Which guy would you rather spend an hour drinking in a bar with? There's your answer.

[Seventh Wave Studio]

Go to the PERSON (not the place) you trust more. Think about the bad situations that can arise, not just the good, and think about how they will react.

5 songs in three days and NOT sound like a bad demo will be hard. Trust your guy(or girl) and do not question them once you get started.

3 songs in five days would be better (insert cheesy face made from punctuation here)

Wherever you go, HAVE FUN.

[darjama]

Thanks for all the input. Both places seem like nice enough folks (though at Studio B, I've just been talking with the manager, not the engineer). I'd be happy drinking with either of them. I trust both places, they've both got nice sounding tracking rooms.

I guess I'm surprised to hear the consensus being that choosing between similarly equipped studios with similarly skilled engineers wouldn't have an effect on sound. Don't you think there's tracking and mixing style involved in the equation? I don't think Nirvana's in utero have sounded the same if it was mixed by Michael Brauer. With so many choices involved in recording a record, I can imagine very different sounding records coming out of different engineers, even working in the same studio.

Maybe the speed of what we're trying to accomplish would limit the personal imprint an engineer would have.

In any case, it looks like we're going with Studio A, they're local, and run by a really excellent (and nice) engineer.

[joelpatterson]

Hmmm... well, yes, every engineer has their own way of doing things, but ideally what they're doing is getting out of the way and letting the songs shine through, rather than stamping everything with their own personal watermark. Maybe this is an issue that could be debated endlessly to and fro, how much a watermark is a good thing and how much it's a negativo? I would hope that "very different sounding records" is giving too much discretion to the guy, I mean different people will choose different reverbs for the vocals, but in the end the engineer is supposed to disappear and let the performance and the songs take their stand. The way I'd rank people would be on a scale of how effectively they accomplish this. It would be a fascinating excercise to play the same song twice, different studios/engineers and see how differently they turned out.

I think you made the right choice, I liked the sound of the guy who will work with you, not the guys whose rates were sacred. Let's hear it when it's done!

[drumsound]

Thanks for all the input. Both places seem like nice enough folks (though at Studio B, I've just been talking with the manager, not the engineer). I'd be happy drinking with either of them. I trust both places, they've both got nice sounding tracking rooms.

I guess I'm surprised to hear the consensus being that choosing between similarly equipped studios with similarly skilled engineers wouldn't have an effect on sound. Don't you think there's tracking and mixing style involved in the equation? I don't think Nirvana's in utero have sounded the same if it was mixed by Michael Brauer. With so many choices involved in recording a record, I can imagine very different sounding records coming out of different engineers, even working in the same studio.

Maybe the speed of what we're trying to accomplish would limit the personal imprint an engineer would have.

In any case, it looks like we're going with Studio A, they're local, and run by a really excellent (and nice) engineer.

Just because two engineers will "sound" different it doesn't mean that they both wouldn's make the same record well.

[Brian]

Pick the place that does what you do, regardless of price.
Are you making a demo, a record, or just excersizing your haggling gene? You can't do all three ya know. Sounds like the latter to me. Worse, you're taking a poll and then doing the wrong thing anyway. Annoying. If you're gonna ask, listen!
If the end product is important than you should treat it with respect and not rush it or it will show up in lack of success.
If you take it to the guy who doesn't do what you do because he's nice and he doesn't get it right, blame yourself and your inability to make an appropriate decision based on common sense.

[joelpatterson]

...regardless of price...

*sigh*

[Brian]

...regardless of price...

*sigh*

yeah, sigh

[darjama]

Well, I wouldn't say we're recording a demo, it's a self-produced EP. Perhaps it's a vanity project since we're paying for it ourselves. We're not haggling over price, but we do have a budget we need to stick to. How many projects do you read about in tape op that have an unlimited budget? What happened was when one of the engineers told be his rate and I told him our budget, and he said he would give us more time than our budget would allow at his usual rate. I wasn't really haggling. We probably would have worked with him even with less time. The other studio didn't do this initially (though they have since). I didn't ask either of them to change their price.

My question was really about some advice on listening to determine the engineer's/producer's contribution. Maybe it's an impossible thing to nail down, since it will vary from person to person and project to project. Since no one had an answer to this question, it seems like we got off on a tangent.

The rest of the info was really provided just for background. Obviously we've listened on our own and we've come to our own conclusions. Both "do what we do," I'm not talking about going to a Swedish death metal studio to record Pat Boone style material (though that might be cool).

[Brian]

It read to me like you had a guy who did what you do and a "nice" metal guy who was cheap enuff and you awnted to know which way to go under a budget.
Nobody said unlimited budget and it is never assumed.
I told you to stick to your melieau, you chose the metal guy on price.
Ever hear of "pre-production"?
See if you can get a pre production rate out of tye guy who you really want to work with, and for crying out loud stop taking polls especially if you're not going to follow advice.

[joelpatterson]

Especially your advice.

[Brian]

Especially your advice.

Yeah.

[Ethan Holdtrue]

Something else, (even though it dosent sound like it's going to be a huge issue at the places your checking out) would be to check and see if either place has ever had a system failure which resulted in the loss of a customers work. Good system maintenance and proper backing-up and archiving of a customers work can say alot about a place and it's staff.

I had a power supply blow in my main comp this past October, and I had to frag my drives. Fortunetly I make backups of my customers work, and as a result the 2 bands I was recording at the time still give me their buisness.