Getting Your Music’s Worthin the Studio. Part. 1: Be A Better Listener

Micah: Let’s start with a basic question that many people might not really know the answer to: “What exactly does a producer do?”Bobby: It’s a good question, and there’s no one answer – or rather there are as many answers as there are producers and artist/producer combos. My own self-definition for producing is that I’m there to fill in the gaps: whatever nooks and crannies the artist has in terms of lack of experience, perspective, or confidence. Does the artist need arrangement help, or help figuring out background vocal parts? Does he or she need feedback on vocal pitch? Or lyrics? Does its sound like a record when everyone plays their parts, or does it sound incomplete? Do I need to play some parts to complete the picture,

or find some sonic solution to a problem? Do they need help figuring out the best song sequence? Is the artist comfortable in the studio, and if not, what can I do to help? The list could really go on and on, and in producing I’ve done everything from sit back and give an artist some feedback on the takes to the other end of the spectrum – where I’ve played 20 or more instruments and arranged everything. So the job can be really varied, depending on the artist and the project. So how do I know if I need a producer?Well, look at your favorite CDs and albums, and I bet you’ll find that most will have been produced by someone other than the artist. So be honest about your own skill set and

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Welcome to this special Oasis feature that includes insights from exceptional producer/performer/engineer — and long-time Oasis supporter and friend — Bobby Read. I sat down with Bobby with some questions about recording, producing, and engineering, and I hope you find our exchange helpful and informative.

Look for further installments online at www.oasisCD.com/tips

Enjoy!

Micah Solomon President & Founder, Oasis Disc Manufacturing

Bobby Read:producer/performer/engineer

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be open to someone with a little (or a lot) more experience helping you make the best recording you can. That said, I am also a big believer in home recording and exploration off the clock. Spending lots of time tracking and overdubbing at home is the real stuff musicians need to practice to be efficient and relaxed when they are on the clock. And it makes this next thing much easier: Get acquainted with the recording headspace. Recording requires focus and attention to every moment, while being relaxed and open to the “sea of actual happenstance,” both in performing as well as in the creative process with the people you’ve gotten into this with. Practice and preparation will make your collaborations with producers in the studio much more fruitful, taking some of the unknown out of the process and hopefully allowing for a creative situation where everyone is really working from their strengths.

Let’s say an artist has decided to work with a producer. Would you say that roles need to be clearly defined before the recording process begins?Absolutely. I’ve recorded lots of records and produced a bunch also, and one thing that happens at every session is this:

We’re set up. Everyone is happy with the headphone mix, so it’s time to record the first take of the first song. We’re rolling. The band plays, then the song’s over. We wait for the last chord to fade out, I stop recording.

And then? If it’s been determined in advance who’s the decider, that person will say something. But if not, there may actually be dead silence!

Someone does need to be the one with the final say. It needs to be someone’s job to say “that was great,” or “that wasn’t so great and here’s what we should do.” And this needs to happen over and over throughout the session, on every take, every overdub, every verse of every vocal take. Someone needs to be really listening, taking charge and making decisions, and keeping things moving.

Thus, the need for someone to take on the job of producer. Can it be you? Yes. Can it be a whole band? Yes. Not easy though.

Why do you say that’s not easy?Bands and musicians have loads of subjectivity. Players tend to listen to their own parts more than the whole and have lots of emotions invested in their performances. It’s complicated!

When an artist or band can have objectivity, the ability to really hear the whole picture, and when he or she can step back from the emotional whirlwind that recording can be and make detached choices for the good of the whole, then self-producing can be really powerful. In those cases, an artist can make great strides during the recording process – either really upping their game or breaking through to new ground in their music.

I’ve got to say though, as I sit here and think about it, most, if not all, of the records that I think are great were not produced by the artist. Why?

The artist/player’s job is to stay in performance mode, undistracted by external stuff, digging deep for the best and quickest take. Switching between that and objective producer mode is difficult. The person in producer mode needs to be able to detach and really hear what’s going to tape – because as a musician or artist, our “hearing” gets easily affected by the emotions, attitudes, energy and circumstances of performing.

Producing well takes practice. People who produce records routinely have had more practice developing objectivity. They also usually have a large skill set – technical, musical, and personal – that they bring to the job, leaving the artist free to stay in that performance space. To

me, protecting that space for the artist is key to capturing something special on tape, digits, whatever.

So my feeling is, for the most part, that an artist or band is best off having someone assist them in the studio. It can be a friend – preferably another musician whose opinion you

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“Producing well takes practice. People who produce records routinely

have a large skill set – technical, musical, and personal – that they bring to the job, leaving the artist free to stay

in that performance space.”

trust, who has a cool head, and a diplomatic streak. It can be someone who has produced records you like. A good studio engineer may or may not want to take on that task as well.

In any case, decide who is in charge of your session. Give someone the power to help make the decisions and give the feedback moment by moment in a recording session.

Great. So what about when you’re at the point where you’re ready to mix? What is the first bit of advice you’d offer?When you crank up the monitors most anything sounds good – or bad, depending on your mood. I’d suggest you monitor really softly a lot of the time so you can clearly hear what’s going on and not be fooled by the volume. This goes for speakers or headphones. If you want to know for sure if what you just sang was in tune, take the phones off your head and listen back to it a couple of inches away. Bad intonation just jumps out of the phones from that distance, even though when you had them on it could have sounded fine. Another great byproduct of softer monitoring is lack of ear fatigue, which sets in quickly if you’re cranking it.

The downside is that it’s not as fun for some, and this gets into the head/mind part. I see again and again, both in myself and in others, the tendency to listen louder for the emotional feedback – that is, to listen loud to get the feeling that what I recorded is great! I then listen back a day later in the living room at a moderate volume and hear all the problems I didn’t notice!

So try to avoid that whole roller coaster by making sure things sound good soft, whether it’s checking vocal or instrumental pitch, setting compressors, riding tracks in a mix, whatever. Don’t get pumped up on volume – if it sounds good soft it most always sounds good loud. Once you know everything’s fine, crank it up, have a ball!

What about the “more me” syndrome? Like you mentioned earlier, it’s hard not to focus on your own parts rather than hear the mix as a whole.This is a tough one that requires practice, and if you’re in

a band there are plenty of opportunities to both have the “more me” syndrome, and to fix it. It’s just quite common to pay more attention to one’s own track/part than the others, and it’s really important to hear how all the parts interact to have any objectivity about your own performance.

The cure is to practice really hearing multiple parts simultaneously rather than having your attention slipping around to the various parts. Try it with CDs. Notice how hard it is to really perceive a lot of instruments at once rather than selectively listening to the ones that stand out. The more a whole band works on this, the tighter, more in tune, and more blended things become.

Believe me, working on this one thing will make anyone a better musician, engineer, producer, or all the above.

How were you able to learn to hear the mix as a whole?Our brain/ear connection needs to be trained to

multitask – to take in numerous musical parts and details all at once. It’s natural for our brains to mainly register what is in the foreground (either literally or as a result of selective listening).

I trained myself initially by putting myself through the following process at every gig I played with a great funk band called “Radio King and His Court Of Rhythm” in Boston while at the New England Conservatory. I’d start off the gig paying attention mostly to myself in the monitors, kind of normal.

Once I was comfortable with that, I’d move my attention to our trumpet player and try to “hear” (i.e. perceive) him more than myself. Next I’d “balance” us in my brain, and begin adding each other instrument with the same procedure. It usually took a couple of songs to get a whole picture, and at the end of it I would try to throw my hearing awareness to the back of the room.

Sounds esoteric maybe, but the result was amazing! I could actually perceive everyone else’s parts as clearly as my own, and could perceive my own playing with objectivity and some distance! I think of it as “Mental/Aural Multitasking.”

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“When you crank up the monitors most anything sounds good – or bad,

depending on your mood. I’d suggest you monitor really softly a lot of the time so you can clearly hear what’s going on and

not be fooled by the volume.”

Sounds like a great skill to have for a lot of different applications.Yes, it has helped me enormously in all aspects of music. While playing with other musicians, I’m tuned into the rhythmic meshing, tonal blending, nuances of phrasing, and color. In the studio, I’m able to move easily from focusing on one element to hearing the whole, or any subset. I’m better at overdubbing because I’m so aware of how my playing is working with everything else. And on and on…

And – apropos of monitoring volume and listening – my observation is that people who “hear” in the manner I’m describing, generally don’t need playbacks to be so loud, as their brains can actually register what their ears are taking in, and don’t need more volume to hear.

In his 35 years in music, Bobby Read has covered a lot of territory, including producing, engineering, and/or playing on over 100 records. A saxophone, woodwind, and keyboard player with training from the New England Conservatory, he has recorded and toured as a member of the Bruce Hornsby Band since 1993, and is on Hornsby’s last five studio albums as well as the live Here Come the Noisemakers, the Intersections 1985-2005 boxed set, the Bruce Hornsby and Friends and Three Nights on the Town DVDs, and the upcoming live CD on Verve records. In addition to original music for performance and recording projects, Bobby’s composing history includes music for numerous dance and theater productions, as well as soundtracks for the National Geographic Explorer television series. Learn more at www.bobbyread.com

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