Production Class

The Production and Recording class I took through PCC ended last week. I'm really glad to have a weeknight open up but I'll miss that class. That was exactly what i needed to get some excitement and motivation put back into me with the music thing. Jim and Graham and Jonathon and all the people who let us into their studios and taught us interesting stuff -- they were all great.

i wish i would have written more during the class while it was fresh in my head, but i'll jot down here the things that i remember and stick out.

For class 5 we went out to Crossroads to have Darren there mix down Jonathon's song. They've got an 80 channel SSL board there, fully analog steelo. Rumor has it Dr. Dre used to use those knobs! That class really drove home the concept that i learned while reading my Logic book. The way to make room in a mix for an instrument, there are 4 ways: stereo location, frequency separation, space and volume. Darren did a good job of EQ'ing out the different tracks to "excite" the music but to also have it cut through and not be muddy (masking). He also had this great trick where he put a speaker into little room, mic'd it, and would create analog, real-time reverb by sending a track to that room and picking up the reverb on another track. good stuff. also, beside his great big monitors (which i can't recall offhand) he had a pair of the industry standard Yamaha NS10's. seems every studio has a pair of these: "if you can make it sound good on those, it'll sound good anywhere."

Another handy tip was to monitor it mono to make sure it sounds good that way. This will show possible phase problems, etc..

Next time i'll write about our last class which was a visit out to a mastering place in troutdale. We got deeper into the producer vs. engineer question also.