Seamless

02007-03-04 | Music, Recording, Studio, Technology | 2 comments

How has recording an album of music changed in the last decade or two? The change from Analog to Digital, from manual mixing consoles to total recall is obvious, but there is a more important change that has happened. There used to be three distinct phases in he making of an album: recording, mixing and mastering. These phases did not usually overlap at all. Once the recording had ended the studio was changed for mixing, the analog tape machine was switched from the recording or sync head to the play head and mixing would proceed. Once mixing was done one would take the resulting DAT cassette or 2-track analog tape to the mastering place of choice, which often had lots of custom-built gear.

Well, now these three phases have merged into one. Every day of recording is also a chance to tweak the mix and at the end of the day one might engage a few plug-ins and check how the music will sound mastered. I haven’t gone to a mastering studio in almost a decade. My studio sounds great and makes mixing easy. I remember a mastering engineer saying to me: I love seeing you and hearing your latest work, but why are you coming here – your mixes sound fine the way they are. That was the last time I saw him… Everything starting with the albums christmas + santa fe and Little Wing was recorded, mixed and mastered at my studio.

2 Comments

  1. Andrew

    Add composition to the mix as well. With the advent of sequencers you can compose, record mix and master all at once. If you’re working entirely “in the box”, chances are by the time you have your arrrangement figured out, the song is finished!

    Of course the flip side is that with no studio deadlines, the song is never finished!

    Reply
  2. vic

    Just a thought, or question. Do you ever think that you may have a section or tab for musicians sound eng. Your sound that you have been able to capture time and time again are truly the best sounding guitar out ther. Weather classical, flamenco, new age, acoustic, etc. the sound of the guitar that you are able to cature and record are just magical. I wounder if you would ever share the process or maybe make a DVD of the process. Some tips tricks etc on the Leibert sound.

    Reply

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