How high are metal cd budgets these days?...

[mva801]

Fair point on the sound, but as far as money and time goes, every one of the studios I suggested can crank out a complete mastered album in a month or two for the same money (or less) as was suggested that guy charges. That was the whole point of my post.
Honestly I view the superior/podfarm superstars as being producers in the hip-hop sense instead of the traditional sense. They're essentially co-writing the songs, programming or performing most of the parts and then the band provides vocals. I do honestly give the Sturgian Acolites their due for hard work and talent but if actually playing on your record makes me a snob then I'll happily don my top hat and monocle.

This is pretty spot on. Like you said, at $3,000 per song, with 10 songs, they're spending $30,000. There are ANY number of good producers and nice studios where you can get a great product for that money. Everyone has their methods, and assuming the band can actually play their fucking instruments, I'll take a real performance every time. These bands may be what the labels want and what 15 year olds are buying, but they've always sounded a bit stale to my ears.

 

[drew_drummer]

they've always sounded a bit stale to my ears.

Which bands do you refer to out of interest?

 

[The StabbinCabin]

I mean I feel like he gives himself a good system in that sense. I'm not generally impressed with his product as far as vibe goes but yeah. Generally what he does is stretch the production of a song out to roughly 5 days which translates into 30-45 an hour and that is fair for high-mid studios. He's an additional $250 a day to record real drums out of a studio he freelances out of but I feel like he just sample replaces it entirely. I helped with the vocal production on that Incredible Me's full length and that was my first time meeting him. He was on top of performance and getting good takes but he wasn't gear savvy at all. He wasn't sure that my SM7 was going to make any difference with the screams and really didn't seem like he had put ay thought into properly treating his room. The thing I don't really understand is how he has such a clean product when he's mixing these albums in Rokits and HD280s. It super bums me out and really is just hard to accept that the guy must just have better ears than me.

 

[Line666]

Gear is ridiculously overrated. Nearly all of this game is played out in the musical battlefield of your mind; taking the time to make the right decisions is so much more important than having a shit tonne of outboard - for a lot of semi-pros there is this predominant antiquated notion that you must have X or Y piece of equipment and this effectively functions as a mental crutch against having to place yourself in the front line of criticism or accept the notion that you can't purchase skill and hard work.

As for Pod Farm vs 'the real thing' - you are striking pieces of nickel to pick up vibrations in the air with magnets - the electric guitar is an electronic instrument, theres nothing distinctly real about that anyway apart from the performance aspect so concentrating on performance itself seems to me to be more natural than worrying about different working methods.

That said I'm not really big on the programmed drum thing.

 

[Sloan]

Gear is ridiculously overrated.

 

[Sweetnothing]

This is like a doctor going to the doctor because he has the flu.

People are paying because of the results, not to stare at a giant ssl or a rack full of dumbles. No matter if we consider it better or worse, the fact is that those guys will pay a producer X amount of money ( or the label) based on results, whether he's working with studers or cool edit pro.

That being said, it's up to the client. Or the label. We all can have different opinions about hiring one guy or another though. The results are what matter IMO.

 

[The StabbinCabin]

He must have gone into the pop-producers hyperbolic time chamber for a good year then because his old product 3 years ago used to be TERRIBLE

And I agree somewhat with the gear. I know you have to have good ears, but I definitely feel that a larger room, better mics/pres and maybe cans/monitors would help me personally.

It's just a sucky thought to yourself when someone is better and WAY successful than you with way less than you and has a super "whatever" attitude- and then you meet him in person and like him like everyone else hahaha

 

[egan.]

It's funny that the conversation turned to gear because I never mentioned it but here's food for thought:
Who's more dependent on gear? The guy that can record a band in a rehearsal space or abby road with the mics and pre's available and make a record or a guy who's sound depends on a specific drum sequencer and an amp sim preset he's been working on for 3 years? I'm being hyperbolic of course, but I just wanted to point out that it goes both ways.
At any rate, my point was that recording guys playing their instruments and gear is as relavent as it ever was and tracking your band with a relative "Name" at a studio apparently isn't any more expensive than having half of your album midi sequenced with a "Name" who employs that style. It was a response to a post I found dismissive of the value of the individuality and "sum of the parts" elements of bands that IMO is important. It also creates the sameness to lots of different recordings of lots of different bands.
To each his own though. Ultimately it's about getting the band where they're going.

 

[aramism]

i don't think gear is necessarily overrated i just think in this age it's a lot easier for people who do not have a more traditional audio background to get a decent sound. so much of it is the performance it's not even funny. my ears had a shelf life of 10 seconds listening to those sacramento producers songs but they were edited (i will not use the word recorded out of principle) very very well and arranged in a pop ass way. the end product of the performances (between recording and editing) is clean and upto commercial standards. THAT is what gets this guy his 3k a song. the rest is finding the right band that finds the right audience.

as far as the sound. this is a combination of the tracks being perfect/clean by the time they are edited and also another thing which to me is a big reason why you you get so many young modern "box" producers. the stuff they are using, pod, axe fx, superior, slate, etc. has completely replaced this really long process of recording with microphones in acoustic spaces... these products, line 6, superior drummer etc. are solely created with this type of application in mind. they are already made to sound good enough off the bat without having to do a ton of tweaking.

a great producer/engineer and subsequent mixer had to deal with 5,000,000 things before it got the point a lot of people get to now within 5 minutes. there's not a concern for a physical space to record, drum types, an actual drummer, skins, microphone, microphone placement, cables, tape, compression, eq, blah blah blah

ironically these things are made to make life simpler and are advertised to "maximize creativity time" but the exact opposite happens.

 

[mva801]

Which bands do you refer to out of interest?

Any of the ones posted above, for starters, and the Attack! attacks of the world. I guess it could be more of a genre thing to me? Even with "real" drums most of those bands are hyper-edited and sampled anyhow. I pass them by real quick after a few listens.

All I really listen to anymore is stuff like Isis, Mastodon, High on Fire and Neurosis. All those bands have very organic feels to their recordings, and don't grate on my ears after about 3 minutes.

Like I said, everyone has their methods, and I've recorded more than one record with superior drummer, even though I'd rather not. In the end it's the results that matter.

 

[drew_drummer]

Any of the ones posted above, for starters, and the Attack! attacks of the world. I guess it could be more of a genre thing to me? Even with "real" drums most of those bands are hyper-edited and sampled anyhow. I pass them by real quick after a few listens.

All I really listen to anymore is stuff like Isis, Mastodon, High on Fire and Neurosis. All those bands have very organic feels to their recordings, and don't grate on my ears after about 3 minutes.

Like I said, everyone has their methods, and I've recorded more than one record with superior drummer, even though I'd rather not. In the end it's the results that matter.

 

[Mago]

Copycat? The guy has got the right image,the sound is great,very polished.His website looks simple yet professional.
And he is relevant as fuck,which is most important,no wonder he's got proper management and it's just another proof that skills and attitude are way more important than fancy gear and "audiophile" approach (live drums,amps,etc).
I despise some local guys who advertise on gumtree saying shit like: We got £10k Pro tools,so only that can give you real sound... at the same time they
spit out crap mixes and charge £100/mix. fucking losers.

Yeah copycat, because to me it sounds like something Joey would have done.
Can be that it is because of the genre/style, and how it has to sound nowadays.

I didn't say anything about the gear or his work methods. My comment was more aimed towards, that as Egan has allready said, for that amount of money I'd go somewhere else to record, and get work I fancy more.
But I'm neither in a band that needs that kind of production, nor do I listen to it, nor do I like it too much, so to each their own. If he makes his clients happy and gets lots of work for that price, then great for him.
If I'm into how something sounds, then I don't care how it is achieved, that's why I like unbiased blind tests so much.

Still, also as Egan has allready said, to rely on good performance/musicianship rather than editing to fuck/copy/paste and call that the "audiophile" approach seems pretty strange to me too.

I'm with you on the last part of your post.

But also in "defense" of producers of that kind:
If it was so easy to get that kind of production esthetic just because of the gear used, then there had to be much more guys around getting results of that kind. It's not like the mix gets awesome on it's own, just because of software and presets. One has to learn how to work with it, just as you have to learn how to mic up your cab/drumset/making good coffee at the studio.

Making the best out of what you have without repeating yourself all the time, that's were it's at for me.

 

[JeffTD]

It was a response to a post I found dismissive of the value of the individuality and "sum of the parts" elements of bands that IMO is important. It also creates the sameness to lots of different recordings of lots of different bands.
To each his own though. Ultimately it's about getting the band where they're going.

This is pretty key IMO. I've been talking with friends about this lately when talking about producers who have reputations for being mean while tracking, which I think is the wrong way to look at it. As a recording engineer/producer, our job is to get/record the best takes possible in a quality that will suit the band and be a professional, accurate representation of the artist's vision. As an artist or band, it's their job to both write and perform the material. An engineer getting angry because a musician is botching takes is essentially getting mad because he's doing his job and the musician isn't. That was a roundabout way of getting here but I think my point is that the musicians really have two specific jobs - to write music and to perform music. We're removing the second requirement... which can help, sure - some guys are great writers but not performers, but the fact that them only writing (which is often helped out via producers anyways) has become the norm is incredibly frustrating.

 

[smy1]

JeffTD: while I understand your point of view - anyone in a service industry who can't deal with "the horrible clients" needs to consider another line of work.

 

[vespiz]

edit: bloody hell, double post.

 

[colonel kurtz]

shit, bands around me refuse to kick $300 for an entire EP, much less one song...all the more props to that guy

 

[vespiz]

JeffTD: while I understand your point of view - anyone in a service industry who can't deal with "the horrible clients" needs to consider another line of work.

This is important. Of course bad days happen for everyone and you can decree who you work with, to an extent. But some engineers (especially doing live sound, it seems!) seem to have no grasp that first and foremost this is a service industry. I've gotten a lot of customers and repeat customers by keeping that in mind.

Back on topic, I'm lucky if I can get that bedroom-warrior price out of any band, be it label or independent. I have never seen or could even hope to ask (at this point anyway) recording budgets bordering on 10k, let alone above it.

 

[mva801]

This is pretty key IMO. I've been talking with friends about this lately when talking about producers who have reputations for being mean while tracking, which I think is the wrong way to look at it. As a recording engineer/producer, our job is to get/record the best takes possible in a quality that will suit the band and be a professional, accurate representation of the artist's vision. As an artist or band, it's their job to both write and perform the material. An engineer getting angry because a musician is botching takes is essentially getting mad because he's doing his job and the musician isn't. That was a roundabout way of getting here but I think my point is that the musicians really have two specific jobs - to write music and to perform music. We're removing the second requirement... which can help, sure - some guys are great writers but not performers, but the fact that them only writing (which is often helped out via producers anyways) has become the norm is incredibly frustrating.

All valid points, but there's definitely a way to be demanding without being "mean". If I find that a band I'm working with might not be on top of their performances, I'll give them a little disclaimer. Like hey, guys. When we're tracking the songs I'm going to be pretty demanding about you nailing everything. If I stop and tell you something is bad and re-record it, I'm not trying to be a dick in any way, I'm trying to help you make the best record possible. so try to help me scrutinize everything, and try no to get frustrated if we get a little stuck. It happens to everyone. Most of them understand and welcome the extra scrutiny.

I look at it more as being a band "coach" than anything else. I can help them prepare, and push them to do their best, but ultimately they're the ones who have to play the game.

PS I'm doing a record for a band made up of two kids, a 12 year old and a 14 year old. They kinda suck. And had no drummer, so I programmed them. They have a lot of trouble playing really clean and with consistency, so in the end there's just no way they'll be perfect. That's ok. They're nice kids and I get out of them what I can, and I also try to impart as much as I can on them about all the little things. Being a clean player, playing with consistent level, getting things intonated, etc. So hopefully the next time they record, they'll be that much better.

They somehow got a budget of $1500 too. I guess a bunch of people donated to them or something...

 

[JeffTD]

JeffTD: while I understand your point of view - anyone in a service industry who can't deal with "the horrible clients" needs to consider another line of work.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree - in this profession you need to be able to deal with the most frustrating people in a totally calm and collected manner, it's just frustrating to watch things shift from the guys in the bands doing their job to not doing their job.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I think people do get caught up in gear. I would be genuinely interested in hearing what someone who ONLY works with superior and pod farm could do with some higher end stuff (after learning how to even use it as I'm sure a lot of these guys would scratch their heads when confronted with a patch bay).

If I had to record acoustic drums again I wouldn't bother unless they were willing to go to a nicer studio where the rooms sounded good. For me that project was a fail due to the room, the kit was good, the mics were good, and the preamps got the job done (nicer preamps wouldn't have made a big enough difference to matter).

So for me it's always been the source (instrument) fallowed by the room, the playing, then everything else.