do you know what you're doing?
-
- steve albini likes it
- Posts: 365
- Joined: Sat May 22, 2004 8:08 pm
- Location: little rock, arkansas
- Contact:
-
- audio school graduate
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2007 4:51 pm
- Location: PDX, OR
- Contact:
Alright, I'm gonna stand up and say, I know what the hell I'm doing!!!
Most of my recording decisions are predetermined, I've forgotten more music theory than most of my clients know and I'm real tired of "happy accidents" determining the course of a recording... although they have their place.
I love pop music where the composition is actually completed.
Arrogant? Maybe but I think it's important to be confident and competent in what you choose to be an "expert" at.
I never stop learning about this process either.
Most of my recording decisions are predetermined, I've forgotten more music theory than most of my clients know and I'm real tired of "happy accidents" determining the course of a recording... although they have their place.
I love pop music where the composition is actually completed.
Arrogant? Maybe but I think it's important to be confident and competent in what you choose to be an "expert" at.
I never stop learning about this process either.
- musikman316
- suffering 'studio suck'
- Posts: 426
- Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 1:41 pm
- Location: Wichita, KS
- Contact:
Oh, good. It's not just me!cgarges wrote:I spend half my time on sessions (especially the good ones with really good, experienced players) just wondering when everyone is going to stand up and bust me for being completely incompetent. It's like, "Ha ha, we know you don't know what you're doing!"
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
-
- pushin' record
- Posts: 201
- Joined: Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:44 pm
- Location: in my own little world
Wow - that's the most eloquent description of this vocation that I have ever heard.I think recording has so much technical ego and black magic surrounding it and some people want to believe it's ALL methodical. Nothing against methodical, it's the only way to troubleshoot, use gear as a "tool" to solve a problem, get things done efficiently when needed, etc. But there is that creative side to it, too, and that side is subject to those Ethereal Laws of Art. You know, those laws that aren't written down anywhere and change from moment to moment and work one way once and then never that same way again. Except sometimes.
It's not that you don't know what you're doing, it's a turf war between your left/right brain where one side is saying, "DANGER! Errr, IMPEDANCE MISMATCH! PLEASE CONSULT YAMAHA SOUND REENFORCEMENT HANDBOOK!" and the other side is saying, "Hm, what if...". In my case, I will listen to the Paranoid Robot side long enough to know if I am about to fry gear/myself, or if I am going to create more problems down the road by ignoring some technical detail. Then I light some incense and consult the Crusty Hippie side of my brain, who has already managed use 3 Radio Shack adaptors to get an out-of-tune 3-stringed guitar plugged into the mic input of an early 90's Aiwa stereo system (Rock EQ setting, of course). Somewhere in the middle is love. Dirty, unnatural, Robot/Hippie love, but love nonetheless.
And I think that feeling of "Do I actually know what I'm doing?" is the bastard child of that union. That feeling must be ignored like the freak of nature that it is
I know what I am doing, more or less, but I never seem to stop discovering how much more I have to learn.
"We have met the enemy and he is us"
- Pogo Possum
- Pogo Possum
- LazarusLong
- steve albini likes it
- Posts: 308
- Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 12:55 pm
- Location: the cobwebs of your mind
I know what I want, and I have a bag of tricks to draw from. Most of the time I can get there. I think that's the bigger point - knowing what you want. I'm a little tweaky and feel confident with most of the concepts of recording, but it isn't worth a damn if I can't hear the song completed in my head. I don't think you can learn "vision".
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa.
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 97 guests