What studio video content do you prefer?

[EdwardPayne]

Hi everyone!
What do you usually enjoy watching in studio report videos?

One long 10 minutes episode with content from every instrument? or..
One episode of each instrument as they comes along in the progress?

Tech talk? Fooling around/stupid stuff? Much musical content from the new songs? A little bit of everything?

The reason i'm asking is because my band (souldrainer) are recording an album at Empire Studio and we got about 100 GB of video and are about to cut a studio report video.

We've kept a studio diary in writing at our web site aswell.
http://souldrainer.com/archives/category/studio-report

Whats interesting to watch for you guys?

 

[Williamn]

One episode of each instrument as they comes along in the progress. lots of tracking video and video from inside the control room.

It might just be me but I kinda hate those studio videos where you just see the band members goofing/drinking/making faces at the camera in 80% of the video instead of the actual studio stuff.

just IMO

 

[smy1]

I really don't watch studio videos at all. Mainly because I don't really care about seeing bands track anything. The last studio diary I actually watched start to finish was the one by In Flames where the drummer was naked every now and then. Of course fans think differently, but you are asking *us*.

Actual fans want to see the band being themselves (which means being cool/funny/serious/evil/whateveryourbandis). They don't give much of a shit about the actual tracking. Keep 30 seconds of the coolest instrumental bits in there and 30 seconds of fuckups, that will suffice. Have your producer say 1-2 words of wisdom about something.

Any studio video that is longer than 3-4 minutes will have a very hard time keeping people's attention.

 

[ahjteam]

Whats interesting to watch for you guys?

The parts that don't include the faces of hangover dudes in the studio bed with laptop on their hand. More tracking/micing/composing/mixing action-jackson...

Actual fans want to see the band being themselves (which means being cool/funny/serious/evil/whateveryourbandis). They don't give much of a shit about the actual tracking.

...than this offtopic shit.

I really don't watch studio videos at all.

I really don't watch the livegigs from the DVD's. If the band is still together and I want to see the band, I go watch them live or if I want to listen to their music, I'll listen to their CD. In my opinion live DVD's are like a bad version and sorry excuse of both gigs and albums.

 

[Machinated]

the "tech" side doesn't really interest me too much, stuff is going to be pretty similar between most bands and what equipment they use.

maybe just some of the more interesting aspects of the recording (instrumentation, meaning of lyrics) and general stuff about what kind of thing you are aiming for etc to try and basically explain the record a bit more is what I like.

 

[FloridaRolf]

Hey Marcus!
A bit of everything would be cool with some details on on gear / stuff you used. Reborn has one of my fav. productions (and the songs just rule), so what's the new stuff going to sound like?
Greetings to the Aeon & Sancti guys!

 

[smy1]

ahjteam: you have to distinguish between fans (90% - who couldn't tell an SM57 from an SSL bus compressor) and "insiders" (10% - who are either musicians/engineers themselves or closely related to musicians/engineers).

The fans want to see some "private" glimpses of the musicians and subconsciously want to live their dreams through their favorite musicians ("Damn, I need to go to work 6 days a week! These guys get to be drunk, lie in bed and then make music from afternoon to late at night! Sooo great!!") and can't be fucked with stuff like "I set the ratio to 4:1 with an attack time of 30ms and auto release" for 10 minutes. Showing the studio and some really over the top takes is cool for them, but one shouldn't bother them too much with that.

The "insiders" either don't give a shit (like me - I only look at studio videos of my very favorite bands - mainly for the "fan reasons" mentioned above) or they are simply interested in technicalities and methods.

The real question EdwardPayne has to ask himself and answer first is: who will he be targetting the video at? Fans or insiders. The video for the fans is so much more important than the video for the insiders which usually only satisfies ones own nerdy tech-wankery and skill-show-off. But it does not advance the band much in the bigger scheme of things (which currently is called "fan interaction").

EDIT: Machinated is right. Explain stuff about the songs/lyrics/concepts etc. - that's something fans can really relate to and want to know (jeez, if I had a cent for everytime someone asked me about lyrics, I'd be rich!) ...

 

[ahjteam]

and can't be fucked with stuff like "I set the ratio to 4:1 with an attack time of 30ms and auto release" for 10 minutes. Showing the studio and some really over the top takes is cool for them, but one shouldn't bother them too much with that.

The settings I could really not give a fuck about, but I meant more about the actual playing, singing etc. you need to keep the shit interesting. But sometimes like a REALLY sneaky teasers of the songs and gear can be really cool. Sometimes. Like Killswitch engage did on the studiophotos of their last album. It fills the needs of the gearwankers and the "general" fans of the band.

 

[VH1]

One episode of each instrument as they comes along in the progress. lots of tracking video and video from inside the control room.

It might just be me but I kinda hate those studio videos where you just see the band members goofing/drinking/making faces at the camera in 80% of the video instead of the actual studio stuff.

+1

 

[462studio]

I like one of each instrument and I don't like it when bands/engineer/producers speak to the camera specifically.

"Fly on the wall" footage is more interesting to me, not someone saying "So we're tracking guitars now. We've got this and that". I have eyes, I'd rather just see how different producers/engineers/bands work normally in the studio.

My personal opinion.

 

[GarethSE]

The settings I could really not give a fuck about, but I meant more about the actual playing, singing etc. you need to keep the shit interesting. But sometimes like a REALLY sneaky teasers of the songs and gear can be really cool. Sometimes. Like Killswitch engage did on the studiophotos of their last album. It fills the needs of the gearwankers and the "general" fans of the band.

Yeah, I think Killswitch handled the whole aspect of pleasing all parties pretty well there actually, respect to them for that.

 

[462studio]

Sometimes. Like Killswitch engage did on the studiophotos of their last album. It fills the needs of the gearwankers and the "general" fans of the band.

To be accurate though, those pictures are from drum tracking in Atlanta. They re-tracked everything they did but the drums back in Mass. The only thing I got gearwhore wise from those pictures was that they used xy for the OHs

 

[EdwardPayne]

Hey Marcus!
A bit of everything would be cool with some details on on gear / stuff you used. Reborn has one of my fav. productions (and the songs just rule), so what's the new stuff going to sound like?
Greetings to the Aeon & Sancti guys!

Thanks!
The new stuff is very heavy, beautiful and melodic.

 

[EdwardPayne]

The real question EdwardPayne has to ask himself and answer first is: who will he be targetting the video at? Fans or insiders. The video for the fans is so much more important than the video for the insiders which usually only satisfies ones own nerdy tech-wankery and skill-show-off. But it does not advance the band much in the bigger scheme of things (which currently is called "fan interaction").

EDIT: Machinated is right. Explain stuff about the songs/lyrics/concepts etc. - that's something fans can really relate to and want to know (jeez, if I had a cent for everytime someone asked me about lyrics, I'd be rich!) ...

Thank you all for you input! We want to target our fans first of all, so I guess we will leave out the technical stuff. I think we might end up with 2-3 minute episodes of each instrument, but with glimpses of other instruments at the same time.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Hi everyone!
What do you usually enjoy watching in studio report videos?

One long 10 minutes episode with content from every instrument? or..
One episode of each instrument as they comes along in the progress?

One episode of each instrument as they comes along in the progress

Tech talk? Fooling around/stupid stuff? Much musical content from the new songs? A little bit of everything?

Tech talk and musical content
Or only musical content for fan tech talk for sneap forum

 

[guitarguru777]

one video for each instrument !

 

[>>>GENZ<<<]

Real working process,not much tech stuff. no stupid shit.
that typical studio reports make me think that all musicians are idiots.

 

[smy1]

Real working process,not much tech stuff. no stupid shit.
that typical studio reports make me think that all musicians are idiots.

Uh, Genz, 95% of all musicians ARE idiots.