20 Oct
2011
20 Oct
'11
8:27 a.m.
Al Thompson wrote:
On 10/19/2011 05:36 PM, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
Who needs mics? Last Wednesday at Starbucks, I saw two college age guys
sharing a table. Each had a laptop in front of him. One had a Les Paul,
the other some other electric guitar. Each instrument was plugged into
some external audio device that was plugged into his laptop. Each had
headphones on. Each was playing and recording, replaying, etc, etc.
After a while, they packed up their guitars and computers and left.
Portable studio. Why should they worry about having large monitors or an
acoustically known room? Their audience won't be listening on that kind
of equipment or that kind of room. They'll probably be listening on
earphones, possibly at the back of a bus with the sound cranked up so
they can hear it over the bus engine ...
--
David
gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
At which point it will become completely
irrelevant. The easier
it becomes to produce something, the more there will be of it
and the less it will be interesting. And there is a secondary
effect: the more something is _perceived_ to be easy, the less
budget for doing it will be available. That applies to science
and technology as well as music.
And isn't that the point to which we've gotten? I'll admit that I'm an
old fart - my first engineering job, in a 16 track studio was in 1979.
If a band wanted to cut a 4 song demo, they had to book studio time at
$250/hour. They had to buy a reel of 2" tape. The studio had several
hundred thousand dollars of equipment, and who knows how much in
acoustic design, room treatments, etc. The alternative for someone who
wanted to record at home and save several thousand dollars was a TEAC
2440, a 24x4 mixer, and a dozen or so mics, which still was going to
cost them a few thousand dollars.
Then came the Fostex 16 track 1/2" machine. Suddenly, it was acceptable
for a "project studio" to open up with a Fostex 16 charge $25-$35/hour
for bands to cut demos (INCLUDING ENGINEER!!!!) The engineer wasn't
necessarily any good - he just did it as a hobby since he only had to
spend a few thousand dollars to get started. A band that wanted to do a
song or two, which would take about 8 hours of time, then had to decide
whether to spend $2000 at the "big" studio, or $200 at the project
studio. The "value" of the big studio was lessened, because more and
more REALLY CHEAP studios were popping up.
Look at the situation now, for the cost of a computer, soundcard, and a
few mics, They can spend unlimited time, cutting unlimited tracks, with
unlimited overdubs. They don't however, have quality large monitors, or
an acoustically "known" room. Now a band can spend that same couple of
thousand dollars, and spend UNLIMITED time in the studio. The thinking
is "why pay ANYONE to record a couple of song for us, when we can spend
that same money and record ALL of our songs?"