Tony Visconti related a diffi cult time that he experienced with the Boomtown Rats: “It was a nightmare. It was like a Stephen King novel—it starts out in an
innocent little village somewhere. Then there’s that little touch of evil that starts to grow. . . . ” Speaking about Bob Geldof, Visconti said,
He’s diffi cult, and he knows it. He’s a good performer, a great songwriter, but you have to keep him out of the mixing room. Apparently, he wants every-thing to sound very sizzly and trebly, so I used to mix a really fi zzy top just for him. I used to put this glistening sound on the cymbals, and he loves to hear his sibilance, which was very hard to get on a vinyl record. Then I said, “Bob, there’s a limit. We can’t put too much of this on tape.” His drummer told me,
“You think that’s bad, he goes home and he takes all the bass off his hi-fi set, and he adds more treble!” It was then I realized I must be dealing with a deaf person! 2
Some artists are hard of hearing from standing in front of live amplifi cation for too many years, and you only hope they have the wisdom to defer to those who can hear. When faced with this problem, I do an A/B session with the artist’s favorite records so that they (and I) can get a relative sense of how our work is sounding.
Being at loggerheads with the artist is a concern of Andy Jackson’s: “Or worse . . . members of the band . . . at loggerheads with each other.” He told me he had never seen a situation where the band has completely broken down, but he has seen disagreements where one person gets very upset. “You just have to take the time . . . to make them feel their concerns are being listened to.” Then, “they will back down from their stance.” 3
Bands have complicated interactions. Minor dissent over a part can devolve into a fi eld study of interpersonal relationships and repressed collegial rancor.
Relationships in touring groups become familial, veering into dysfunction with regard to communication competence. The producer must assuage the situation and guide the session back to a functional state.
THE ENDLESS ALBUM
Interminable album projects can be mentally, emotionally, and physically exhaust-ing unless your concern is job security and they are payexhaust-ing you by the hour. Endless albums were largely the realm of rich artists who owned their own studios, and there was comfort in knowing the record would eventually draw media attention. Now, many artists own their own studios, budget is hardly a consideration, and there is little pressure to fi nish. Andy Jackson is a veteran of the endless album: “After six months you think ‘I want to go into a studio where they have to pay for it, I want to get this damn thing fi nished.’ ” 4 The discipline imposed by having to pay for studio time can be a good thing and a creative stimulus in itself. Unfortunately, those who have the most diffi culty making decisions gravitate toward working in their own studios, so the endless album continues.
LACK OF VISION
Andy Jackson spoke of the importance of an overarching vision for a production, asking, “What record are we really trying to make.” He mentioned the problem of artists and producers fi lling up the multitrack and then trying to “make an arrange-ment in the mix.” 5 The producer’s calling exists to realize the stakeholders’ vision.
Diffi cult as it may be, the producer must understand or defi ne the vision and then exercise control, without dampening creativity, to ensure realization. The caveat being that it is counterproductive to hold creative thought too closely to a prede-termined agenda. Producers allow for experimentation, brainstorming, and stream-of-consciousness periods in the budget and the daily work plan. Defi ning a vision with goals, milestones, and time for creative experimentation creates a measurable strategy that balances fl exibility with a high probability of success within budget.
A vision does not include fi ne details, but neither can it be a broad statement like “This is going to be the best album ever.” The vision needs to be aspirational in its end goal. It should draw on the artist’s beliefs and be consistent with their values. An album or track should be strategically consistent with the artist’s (and other stakeholders’) vision of who they are. This becomes a conceptual template by which to judge progress, going beyond the pragmatics of completing guitar over-dubs on schedule.
MICRO-VISION
When most people listen to a track, they do not parse the complexities of the arrangement: how parts weave in and out developing the production; they only know that it works. It can be a surprise to fi rst-time recording artists how much detail goes into a three-minute hit. Sometimes, this process triggers a latent obses-sive-compulsive nature; endless hours are spent adjusting the length of every third 16th note in the fi rst violin part that happens during the third verse, or the guitarist might want to add eight overdubs on the two-beat acoustic guitar lick leading into the bridge. The wise old studio musicians I grew up around would ask, “Will it help sell anymore records?” We did have the benefi t of a limited number of tracks. With unlimited tracks and editing power, producer and artist can stare at the screen for another day adjusting and tweaking. As Andy Jackson said,
Obsessive artists are very often the problem. You spend hours and hours and hours punching in little bits that won’t make any audible difference to the fi n-ished track, and probably won’t make the mix anyway. 6
DAWs have exacerbated the problem. Many artists edit with their eyes rather than their ears. Being able to see and correct problems has been transformative, but zooming in on discrepancies can lead to the correction of parts that sounded fi ne.
It wastes time and can eliminate feel, emotion, and even humanity from the music.
Some old-school engineers used to tape over the VU meters to ensure that they
were using their ears and not their eyes. My rule is that if I do not hear a problem until I see it, I will not fi x it. Sometimes I break my own rules. When micro-vision sets in, take a mental step back and listen to the overall track without focusing on details. Attention to detail is an important part of production, but minutiae can become the proverbial “lipstick on the pig” if you do not regularly reference a wider perspective.
THE SINGER IS NOT PERFORMING WELL
If the problem is tuning, although the go-to solution today might be Auto-Tune or its progeny, vocalists can correct many tuning problems organically. A singer who was in tune on the gig but sharp or fl at in the studio may be suffering from an unsupportive headphone mix, perhaps lack of harmonic support—chords against which to pitch. Headphone balances can negatively affect timing in the same way if there are insuffi cient rhythmic elements in the mix. Singers tend to sing louder if their voice is quiet in their mix and vice versa. Seasoned session singers will tell you what they need to hear, but the less experienced often favor a headphone mix that does not support good timing and tuning. Confusingly, what works best for one vocalist may not work well for another. Some singers can work with the track loud and relatively little of their own voice; others need only a little instrumentation with their voice dominating. Some prefer one side of the headphones off their ear and the other on. The singer I worked with who did not like any reverb in the fi nal mix needed Phil Spector-style reverb on his voice (in the headphones) in order to stay on pitch. Some need to emulate the live experience, and you can record them in the control room, without headphones and with the monitors up loud. There will be considerable spillage, but the vocal performance may be better.
In the early ’90s, I worked in a residential studio with a singer who could not manage one syllable out of three in tune, and the one that was in tune was out of time. I tried every trick I knew, but recording whole words in tune and in time did not happen. At night, I dreamt of capturing whole lines. Auto-Tune was years in the future. Thankfully, I was beta testing an early prototype random access multitrack, digital-editing system. I was able to compile (out of an average of ten takes on each song) the most in-tune and in-time set of syllables (not words). Then I pains-takingly fi ne-tuned each word. Amusingly, someone suggested singing a harmony part—I said it was better as a single line.
Much antipathy is directed at pitch correction systems, but aside from becom-ing a recognizable sound in itself, the more subtle uses have expanded our options.
Having captured a great performance, some inaudible adjustments can fi x intona-tion errors that may not have been correctible by the singer. Singers no longer have to repeat the same line endlessly, and the producer does not have to choose between pitch and performance. The notion that singers are worse today because of tun-ing software may not be correct. Producer Frank Farian did not use Milli Vanilli’s vocals at all on their album, and studio singers (and other musicians) have ghosted
for artists as long as I can recall. Certain styles of music are more forgiving. Alan Moulder takes the view that “with vocals, if the attitude is there, you can stand a certain amount of timing and tuning problems.” He is not averse to fi xing the tun-ing but generally tries “to get the best performance I can.”
Thankfully, there are still singers who perform in tune and in time, and many legacy records we hear daily on the radio were made with the vocalist performing live in the studio without punching in, and in many cases without headphones.
THE MUSICIANS ARE NOT PERFORMING WELL
As with pitch-correction software, there seems to be a trend toward correcting everything captured—perhaps because we can. A performance is more than a series of in-time and in-tune notes, and it should be more than a set of parts that work together. We can edit dynamics, fi x or emulate feel or groove, and comp together the best parts, but there is no substitute for a great performance. I have worked with machine-generated performances since the ’70s, and I value them for what they are.
Equally, I value what a practiced musician has to offer. Editing a couple of mistakes in an otherwise exemplary performance is maximization. Cutting, pasting, and fi x-ing poorly played parts is exhaustx-ing.
Steve Savage presented a paper entitled “ ‘It could have happened’—the evo-lution of music construction” in which he discusses a performance by guitarist Warren Haynes (Government Mule) on an Elvin Bishop track that Savage pro-duced. Haynes came into the studio late one night, after a gig, and laid down three solos. At that point, he left the studio saying that he thought they had “enough stuff ” and that they should assemble the fi nished solo. Even though Bishop liked the solos as they were being recorded, when Savage and he tried to compile a full 32-bar solo, they found they could not construct a satisfactory fi nal eight bar sec-tion. In the end, they had Kim Wilson play blues harmonica for the last eight mea-sures, solving the problem. 7 What is interesting is not that Haynes played badly—he is an excellent musician—but that he was happy to leave the fi nal construction of the solo to the producer and the artist. The performer supplied the raw material and walked away without hearing the fi nished solo. Had Haynes still been there when they discovered the weakness in the last eight bars, within another take or two, he could have given them what they needed. There is now such familiarity with DAWs’
editing power that consummate musicians are treating their parts as raw material rather than a fully crafted piece. This is interesting conceptually, but not if the end result is inferior.
The DAW has been transformative in dealing with lower levels of musical com-petency. I recall a couple of diffi cult pre-DAW sessions. One was with a drummer who had replaced the previous drummer with whom the band had made the demos that got them signed. The new drummer could not play in time or with consistent dynamics. I pieced together a three-minute track from many takes using 32 two-inch tape edits. We were under pressure of time. This was the early days of drum
machines, and the band did not want that sound. I tried to make it work for the band and the drummer, having seen musicians improve rapidly during debut albums when they realize what is required. In the end, I played drums on the rest of the album until they found a replacement. Fortunately, both the single and subsequent album went gold. I played drums from the outset on an album for another artist.
We used early 32-track digital multitrack machines, but rhythm section overdubs (guitar and bass) became painful because the band members could only manage to play about two bars accurately in a row. Inconsistent timbre and dynamics can be as disturbing as timing and tuning issues. The digital tape made punching in fast and clean, and it proved faster to continue punching in rather than copying and pasting.
On a DAW, it would have been easy to fi x and loop parts.
Some producers will not work with bands or musicians who are less than the best, but for others, virtuosity is not a factor in deciding whom to produce.
Creativity can be the basis for respect as much as virtuosity, and using the studio to optimize performances in order to best project the artist’s vision is the essence of production. Nevertheless, it is not fun to discover that the artist or the musicians are less capable than anticipated. It is wise to evaluate the musicians’ abilities before you get to the studio. With programmed demos, it is diffi cult to tell what you will be dealing with until you begin recording. Even when you have seen the band live or in rehearsal, it can be hard to assess how they will perform in the studio. This is why fi lm studios do screen tests. An actor may perform well in a live audition, but some blossom in front of the camera while others shrink. Likewise, some musicians rise to the red light while it debilitates others. With recordings being two dimensional, discrepancies are more pronounced than when you are standing in a room with the band.
On the fi rst day in the studio, if the band is not holding steady tempos and you are committed to capturing the band as naturally as possible, it is essential to understand the source of the problem. Were the demos like this? Did they speed up and slow down when you saw them live? When you are recording the whole band or the rhythm section together, are the musicians comfortable in the room? Can they hear their own instruments and see and hear the others well? Isolating instruments to eliminate spill interferes with the group’s natural communications. With some players, it may be necessary to trade optimum separation for a better performance.
If all else fails, you may have to build the track by overdubbing with a click track.
Further timing issues can be straightened out in the DAW, but the less you have to correct, the faster the process and the more natural the recording will sound.
Headphone mixes also affect a musician’s ability to perform well. Make sure that you listen to the mix, preferably in the studio on the same type of headphones the band is using. The foldback system feeding the control room can sound very different from the one feeding the studio. Do not forget that when musicians are playing, unless they are DI’d, they are hearing their own instrument in the room, as well as through the headphones. Standing in the studio near each musician will give you a better impression of what he or she is actually hearing. Additionally, each
set of headphones can have its own problems. Sending the headphone feed to the control room monitors might give you an idea of the mix, but it will not indicate exactly what the musicians are hearing. Listening on the musician’s headphones can be revealing. A problem that an inexperienced player might not identify (even an egregious one) can be immediately obvious to a producer or engineer. When I was a session drummer, players and singers often complained about their headphone mix, and the engineer would adjust the balance without even listening to the feed. When the musician became insistent that there was a problem, it often turned out to be the specifi c send or set of headphones that was faulty. Producers who take all com-plaints or comments seriously and are thorough in diagnosing problems minimize frustrations for performers. If necessary, give the performers a fi ve-minute break so you can check the entire signal chain and replace or route around a faulty section.
Technical problems happen and can have a damaging affect on performance and morale. Addressing the problem quickly and decisively mitigates everyone’s frustra-tion and builds trust.
If you have checked all these things, and the tempo is still not stable, try remov-ing instruments from the drummer’s mix and listen to how he or she responds.
Sometimes another musician is pushing or pulling the groove. The solution is to identify the culprit and reduce the level of that instrument in everyone else’s head-phones, or have that musician sit out the initial takes. As a drummer, I used to ask the engineer (discreetly) to take the errant player out of my headphone mix. That way I could hold the tempo steady and the other musicians had to play to me.
This raises the issue of headphone feeds; many engineers and producers try to get away with sending the control room mix to everyone. For a quick overdub, this may work, but for a comprehensive group recording session, it is preferable to set up separate cues for each player. The optimum is individual hardware mixers in the studio under the control of each musician. You send sub-mixes to the system and
This raises the issue of headphone feeds; many engineers and producers try to get away with sending the control room mix to everyone. For a quick overdub, this may work, but for a comprehensive group recording session, it is preferable to set up separate cues for each player. The optimum is individual hardware mixers in the studio under the control of each musician. You send sub-mixes to the system and