Your Laziness in Recording

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 9:30 am

I think all these comments are actually evidence of why we should feel better about whenever we actually do to record ourselves.

If I had to choose between a take that's sound quality was crap but where the actual music was great (good feel, energy, etc.) vs. a take with better sonic qualities that was just "good enough" in the performance, I would go for the former. Sure, it would be great to have the best of both, but recognizing your own realistic abilities does more to free you than limit you, IMHO. I think it boils down to understanding your own brain, how it works, and knowing at what point your creative momentum starts to decrease, then, making the most of that knowledge.

If we took this as reasons why not to record ourselves, then alot of our music just wouldn't ever get recorded, and I think that's way worse.

rwc · Post by **rwc** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:32 am

laziness has never affected my recording.

lack of gear has. I don't mean not having an LA-2A, but I've had to record full bands and saw I had 4 XLRs, 2 mic stands with booms, one pair of working headphones cause the drivers in the others are all FUBAR(and are unreplaceable cause they're so cheap).

Not having any working headphones has actually been a godsend recently. I started using a pair of EAW PA speakers instead and everything is so much easier!

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:51 pm

I have a fully mic'd 5 piece kit up at all times tweaked for a hard hitter, a marshall mic'd up, a bass DI with a tube driver, a Fender, all mic'd up too, I have a BRC near the kit so I can make it all go when I need.
I hook it up, then the next day I lay out the arrangement the next day i record, then I give it a day to roll around the vast expanse of my empty skull, then I mix, or overdub, or erase it all and cry.

heylow · Post by **heylow** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 5:41 pm

Laziness doesn't creep into recording myself. Actually...I'm pretty bitchy about the whole deal. Sometimes, I think it might be better if someone who would lighten up a bit would just record me.

Heh.

Seriously.

No.

Seriously.

[dt]

minorkeylee · Post by **minorkeylee** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:28 pm

.[/quote]
Of course, this is also a convincing argument of why one maybe shouldn't record oneself.[/quote]
When I look at the above post, I don't take it in the context of what's going on during tracking. When I'm working from this perspective, its when I'm demoing a song. I've got it in my head and if I spend too much time working out the engineering details it might very well disappear. When it comes time to "really" record the idea, its a different story.
I might be reading too much of my own workflow into mklee's post.[/quote]

I think that's the other part of it. Balls out, caution to the wind when creating....if it's good, go back and make it better after you've captured the moment.

losthighway · Post by **losthighway** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:55 pm

Like many people are saying on here, it has been a helpful thing in my own musical creativity. A lot of times when I have ideas running I will just take a LDC with a -10db pad or my re20 and move it from guitar amp to Rhodes speaker, to my voice, to an acoustic guitar, to my saxophone. Time for placement and setting levels on each is about one minute. I recorded one minute of fucked up semi-classical/jazz with eight instrumental voices in like forty five minutes. I couldn't do that if I was feeling anal.

The laziness has been a burden in client relations. As in: I don't want to twist this guys arm to take 3 ft. of egg shell mattress out of his kick drum so it's just gonna block the hole on his resonant head no matter what I do. So long as he doesn't bitch later.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:14 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:just yesterday on a mix i used many instances of the space echo plug in, rather than take the time to run the tracks out to the real thing sitting 3 feet to my left.

*begs forgiveness*

I hear ya. I just re-wired my whole studio, primarily because there were pieces of gear that never got used. And it was just because they weren't wired in properly and it'd take too much time to hook one up to do something. So y'know, two days after I did that I used my (freshly wired-in) LXP-1 for the first time in forever on a remix thing, and it pushed the track into a whole new place. And the client loves it.

Now to get the 555 back from my bass player...

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:28 pm

This post just makes me want my board back sooner.
I always have everything wired up all the time drums, 2 guitar amps, bass, keys, even two tube vox/acgtr mic and two or three solid state mics which I haven't been able to use since the board died. It's being resurrected though.

dennisjames · Post by **dennisjames** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 2:06 pm

Somewhat related...

We're desperately close to being done with our album. I have 2 more parts to track, then finish the mixes, and send off to mastering. Mastering is scheduled in 11 days (as I've got to have CD's on hand for some out of state dates in October). What I'm finding is that the time crunch is forcing me to make decisions fast. And I hope these are decisions I'll be proud of after the test of time. So while it's not exactly laziness, forcing my hand has helped me focus and prioritize. This is all pretty darn scary too since this is my first time engineering. However, it's also made me think about my approach to future projects with regard to work flow. I like the energy level of acting quickly. If something sounds wrong to me, I'm able to react faster now that I don't have the luxury of spending too much time on it. I also had a moment of frustration with an edit that made me say "fuck it, I'll do a better take". And I did. So, my laziness in editing made me perform better AND gave me a little confidence boost to combat the red light fever.

farview · Post by **farview** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:26 pm

dennisjames wrote: So, my laziness in editing made me perform better AND gave me a little confidence boost to combat the red light fever.

The funny thing is, some old school guys think that editing a bad take IS the lazy way out.

dennisjames · Post by **dennisjames** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:31 pm

I figured someone might get a kick out that. I was incredibly happy that my reaction to the editing problem made me do what I should've done from the get go. Forest...trees..you know the rest. I feel more like a grown up musician now

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:35 pm

farview wrote:
dennisjames wrote: So, my laziness in editing made me perform better AND gave me a little confidence boost to combat the red light fever.
The funny thing is, some old school guys think that editing a bad take IS the lazy way out.

I WAS that guy til I started doing it and then I knew editing is a bunch of work, that I don't want to do, which has no effect on how much of it I do.
Editing is work.
Congrats on performing the part better though, it IS the preferred method.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 10:21 pm

Kinda proud of myself, I just spent the last 6 hours working on a...sort of timely track...and I don't think I did much in the way of shortcuts. Used the pre I wanted to use for the bass, didn't just grab the mic that was on the stand for the lead vocal, used a different mic/pre combo for the backup vocals, stacked 10 tracks of vocals with no cut/paste (not to mention learning the harmonies on the fly), found the exact right sample for the transition bit, played all the bass and keyboard tracks live.

Seems like silly back-patting but given the thread topic I thought I'd mention it.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 6:27 am

I pat your back too, BRAVO! You deserve some back patting for good work!
I go for a recording of a performance over a program every time I can.
Keep up the great work.

akg414 · Post by **akg414** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:39 am

RefD wrote:but i've had a hot chick since 1997.

Ok now... Pictures? I'm sure everyone is now curious

Message Board

Your Laziness in Recording

Who is online