Steve Albini, 1962-2024: Reflections On The Man I Met
Steve Albini taught me two important lessons that will forever stay with me. The first pertains to audio; the recording of drums, the dedication required to become a master craftsman, to hone your skill in uncompromising fashion, not to expect or accept less of yourself in your pursuit of that which you know to be […]
White Noise vs. Pink Noise vs. Brown Noise
What noise annoys an oyster? A noisy noise annoys an oyster! Now we’ve established that, let’s turn our attention to another important question: what’s the difference between white, pink and brown noise? These different flavours of noise are separate and distinct concepts; yes, they’re all noisy and annoying, but they’re differently noisy and annoying […]
Perfectionism Is Not Your Friend
There is a phrase regularly uttered in the studio that is fast becoming one of the most irritating phrases I hear. The phrase is this: “One more take for luck?” I assure you, there is nothing lucky about doing seven takes of the same vocal part. If you didn’t get it right […]
Music and Mental Health
Last night I sat down rather begrudgingly to work on a new version of the studio website. I had been procrastinating over it for a while, but finally I freed up an evening to accumulate recordings from years past to showcase on the new site, accompanied by a suitably clickable image of each artist. As […]
Editing Drums And How To Avoid It
By far the biggest hold-up that can impose itself on a recording session is drum editing. It’s a colossal pain in the arse that you really want to avoid, because it’ll gobble up time and money like Pac-Man gobbles up his brain medicine. Drum editing typically takes place after the initial tracking session. We […]
How Long Does It Take To Mix A Song?
Mixing a song is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. How might you respond to the question, “How long does it take to do a jigsaw puzzle?” Probably with the obvious response; It depends how many pieces there are. It depends how hard the puzzle is. Estimating how long it will take to mix a song, […]
FAQs
Allow your eyeballs to graze upon a selection of real answers to real questions from real people. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve just asked me something similar. I’ll add to this post as more interesting talking points emerge… 1. How long will it take to record x songs? You will find detailed answers […]
Why I Love Recording
Yesterday, after some time feeling decidedly down in the dumps over the horrific year that has been 2020, I dusted myself down, pulled on my engineer’s boilersuit and donned the requisite veil of professionalism to undertake a drum recording session that had been booked, cancelled due to Covid, faffed over and subsequently rebooked. This year […]
To Click Or Not To Click? That Is The Question
In the modern era of music recording it is generally accepted practice to use a click track as the basis upon which to construct your impending masterpiece. Ah, the humble click track; that annoying blippy-bloop that has become so much a staple of the music production process. Fun Fact: the first time I ever used […]
How To Prepare For Your Session
If you have read the post “How long does it take to record a song?”, you will know that I consider a band’s readiness in preparation for their upcoming session to be one of the most defining aspects in determining the quality of the end result. To rock up unprepared with a perennially out of […]
