A belated post.
Late last year a book was published of the Album Rescue Series blog posts, of which, my post on John Frusciante’s Niandra La Des & Usually Just a T-Shirt was included. You can find the book on Amazon. Please check it out.
Thanks to Tim Dalton for putting this book and series together.
I’ve been lucky enough to have been able to contribute to Tim Dalton’s Album Rescue Series. I chose to have a look at John Frusciante’s Niandra LaDes & Usually Just a T-Shirt. Its an album I love from my youth and is one of the main reasons I decided to pursue music and sound production – not so my has a benchmark of quality in the production sense, but more from an artistic sense. Check out my article over at DaltonKoss HQ to read my article and all the other ones in the series.
Also, the whole series of album rescues are getting released as a book later in the year. Will do a post later once the book is out.
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This is another of my regularly asked questions by students of mine. Usually this is from students who have just commenced thier studies, thus are enthusiastic and excited to start a new phase of their learning, or even thier lives. They want to know how they can start off thier new journey in the best possible way. This is some of the most fun I can have as a teacher as you have a group of students who are keen, determined, switched on, if even a little bit shy.
So the question I get, usually by someone after thier very first class is “what audio gear should I buy?”. They often ask about computers, DAWs, mics, plugins, speakers and almost any other piece of gear. The right answer, or at least the answer I give?
A good pair of quality studio headphones that you like the sound of and make sure that you try before you buy. That’s my answer and I’d say more than three-quarters of students really don’t like that as an answer. It took me a while to understand why. What I’ve discovered is that the students have come to learn from me because they want to be in the business of creativity. Which is fantastic and that is exactly what I’ll teach them.
They don’t like my answer of headphones because they want tools that will allow them to create. Headphones aren’t typically looked at as the tool that they will create with. What they are asking when they say “what piece of gear should I buy?” is what is the best tool I need to have to be able to create. And my answer to that question is still headphones.
It’s not because headphones are the most important tool, it’s because they work with the most important tool. Your ears. Having a playback system that you are familiar with will help you train your critical ear. This one of the most important tools you can have when you are working with sound. It will allow you to analyse and understand what you are listening to and how to make it better. When you are first wanting to learn about sound you should be listening and thinking about sound more than you are doing (and you should be doing a lot). But it all starts with listening and you need a great tool that will help you do that. Headphones.
Now, if you want to talk headphones, then let’s do that here.
But, after you get headphones, go; computer, DAW, interface, speakers, mics, desk/surface, outboard. Which is a relatively logical order as you usually need the thing before to get the next thing. But at any point, you’ve still go your own personal monitoring system that you are tuning and improving. If you are a student at a school (like my students) then the institution should have all the other tools you need to produce with (I would hope). But get your own headphones, because trust me, there is nothing worse than “communal” headphones.
Like most of my other “buying guides”, there are a few ways to answer this depending on what you are looking for. I have three regular pairs of headphones and they are all for different uses. Oh, and none of them are earbuds*, just no, no earbuds.
These are for when I am hanging out on the couch watching some TV or playing a game, or if I am on public transport and I’m listening to a podcast, etc. For these, I use the Bose QC25. They have active noise-cancelling and are over-ear cans, they fold up and pack into my bag nicely. I picked these up for an overseas trip so I could sleep on the plane and they have become my main casual headphones. Would I use them for critical listening or in professional situations? Nope. They sound great and they could likely do a good job at it, but they aren’t designed for that type of thing. However, I do like to use them for testing my mixes.
You want to look for something that is designed for general use. If you are planning on being an audio professional, go for something decent. Bose and Sony are good options and these are brands that I trust for consumer listening. Most people already know brands that they like for this sort of thing and there is not usually anything wrong with keeping to the brand you know.
These should be a good, robust pair of cans that can withstand being tossed around a studio or surviving the elements in a demanding shoot. So build quality and durability are important. These are headphones that you can stuff into a production bag or give to the drummer your are tracking in the studio.
Closed back are generally desirable as we don’t want to create to much spill from what is coming out of the headphones and allows you to hear clearly what is coming out of the headphones. However, if you are a musician playing with others or you are on set or on location, you need to be listening out for things outside of what is coming through the headphones. I use the Sennheiser HD215 cans. These are closed back, the components are easily replaceable and you can rotate one of the cans so that you are listening through one and not the other. I know it says for “DJ” use, but being able to rotate one of the cans really helps in being able to clearly monitor from one side and listening to the environment from the other.
They aren’t the most top of the line headphones that Sennheiser produce, but again, I’ve grown up with this brand and I know the sound. I know what they sound like and how they translate. As well, I’m not using them for critical listening, more for practical hearing.
Here is where you need to have quality and uniform response. These are the headphones you will do some mixing on. These are also the headphones I recommend you get first. Closed-back and open-back can both work here depending on your preference. When looking for what you want to buy, make sure that you try them out first. Bring some music that you know really well and try them out. Any pro-audio retailer should have test cans that you can do this with.
My choice is the standard Beyer-Dynamic DT 770 Pro. The 990s are the open-back version which also sound great. Realistically I could go with either. When I went to get my pair of 770s, they were slightly cheaper than the 990s and that was honestly the reason why I went with the 770s as both are great. These are headphones that will last you a good while.
So when it comes to buying headphones, think about what you need and what headphones would be best for that.
Came across this article a couple of days ago. The TL;DR of it is outlining which undergraduate qualifications give you the worst return on investment. Basically, with the money spent on your degree, does the job you get from it make it worth the money spent.
The bit I enjoyed is that all of my qualifications sit in or around at least one of these qualifications (this being education, fine arts and communications – I’m not exactly these, but pretty close). This made me think, as all good articles should …
It can be a confronting question to answer. What if all of my thousands of dollars spent on a certificate, diploma, bachelors (w/ honours), a grad cert and now a masters has all been for nothing? I probably have more qualifications than I need. I’m passionate about education, both as a teacher and as a student so I enjoy being a student and learning new things. Its also why I quite enjoy being a teacher.
I’m also a bit of an autodidact so one would ask, why bother with the qualifications if you can learn everything yourself. In fact, this is a problem for many teachers that I know. What value are they adding to their students if they can just jump on YouTube and learn everything themselves? Admittedly, this is a question I have asked in the past of my own practice. What worth are we providing to our students? Did professors ask this same question of libraries in years past? But I digress …
I use most of my qualifications everyday as I teach in the discipline of my undergraduate degree and most of my other qualifications are in education. So from a knowledge standpoint, the investment has been worth it. Also, I have to have certain qualifications to do my job. So, to remain employed I have had to invest in the status of the qualification. Many of the qualifications in the list in the article require that a person be qualified to a certain level to perform that job because they need to have that experience and knowledge before they begin that job (i.e. the field of psychology).
But what about fine arts? Many great artists haven’t formally studied in that discipline. But they would’ve all have been “students” in their discipline in some form and many of them would’ve had mentors and idols. But none of this necessitates a need to enrol in a formal course of study. But I also don’t think it matters. Learning to be a master painter, musician, filmmaker, actor, designer, etc. necessitates an investment in time to develop the necessary skills to be that type of artist. And you continue to make this investment in time well into the future as you pursue your discipline.
A question that relates to the return on your investment is the question of; is your degree worthless if you then don’t make a career in that discipline? On the face of it, this sounds like its a poor return on investment. But it actually raises questions more about what is the point of a degree. Is it to learn specific, discipline focused skills for a specific job, or is it about having the cognitive skills of a certain level to be able to by employable. The first option makes you better trained for a specific role and the second gives you more options for a variety of work. A bachelor’s degree should give you both. A focus for a specific area and general higher order cognitive skills.
Anyone who completes a bachelors degree should have certain levels of communication, team work, problem solving and critical thinking skills. These are valuable tools that are worthwhile skills in any job and makes you more employable overall.
I hope this post at least raised some ideas about looking at the investment from a time, status and broader skills perspective as money is only part of what you need to invest in order to achieve a degree. Many people look at a degree from only a money perspective and I believe there is more to it than that (on a different note, we shouldn’t have degrees that are prohibitively expensive, but thats a post for another time). The actual piece of paper that states your qualification is really just the receipt. The product you have worked toward for many years is the growth in your own learning of a variety of skills, and not just within the discipline.
From my point of view, its definitely worth it. Yes.
One of the most common questions I get from students is “what recorder should I buy?”. There are a few ways of answering this question as the right recorder depends on your circumstance, goals and budget.
If this the case, then you will want to invest in something that works really well and is either professional level or is customisable that it would be useful in a professional environment. Just like pre-amps in a studio-based environment, the quality of the gear influences the quality of the recording. Having a Neumann U47 won’t guarantee a great product, but a great large-cap condenser mic is worth investing in if you want to work as a professional. And price isn’t always an indicator of quality or a professional level tool. The Shure SM57 is a great example.
So, going for the professional top-end location recorders and mixers, aim for: Sound Devices, Zaxcom, Aaton and Nagra. These are some of the top of the line brands. The consumer or semi-professional level recorders can also be really great. Zoom, Tascam, Roland, Edirol and Sony all make great recorders in different forms.
If this is going to be your main career path, its worth investing a few thousand dollars in getting something that will last and will sound great. However, you can start small and go with a modular style setup that won’t break the bank.
For example, grabbing a Zoom H4n and a Sound Devices 302 Mixer. The mixer has a couple of nice sounding pre-amps which you can then run into the Zoom and use that as the recorder (as the 302 can’t do recordings). I’ve used this setup a number of times (and I have my students use this setup as an intro to location recording) and it works well for something that sounds solid. If you’re going to go with this type of setup then you can upgrade different parts to improve it over time.
Short answer yes with an if; long answer no with a but. (c) The Simpsons. You need a recorder that can handle timecode if you are working on productions that are running timecode. Timecode is a piece of information that we can record with our media that allows us to sync up our picture and audio based on the data and there is plenty of different gear that is associated with working with timecoe
Having a recorder that runs timecode (or the timecode version of a recorder) will always be more expensive than something that otherwise has the same feature set. So I’d only recommend investing in the timecode side once you have got the type of work that requires it. (This results in a bit of a chicken-egg situation; “I can’t take this job because I don’t have the right gear. But I need the jobs to justify buying the gear.”)
If you are planning on working on student or indie films, its unlikely they’ll use timecode. Also if you are shooting on film, you won’t use timecode as you can’t record timecode to analogue film. Also also, you might be shooting digital, but the cameras might not be running timecode … So it really depends.
So, my recommendation is; If you are starting out, rent the gear if you need it. Have your own recorder, if they want to shoot timecode, then rent it. If its a one-off then you should have the budget for the production cover it (this should be organised when you come on board to the project and be really upfront about it). If you are repeatedly doing this, then invest in the gear.
This is where timecode is much less of an issue and realistically, you don’t need to worry about it. Here, you aren’t usually ever working with picture and even if you are it would usually just be for reference, rather than shooting.
Have a couple of channels for a nice mono mic and a stereo rig will get you through most sound hunting adventures. A good mic with a good pre is key here as these will be effects that you master and use in a specific production or into a sound library for use later or for selling (which is becoming a bigger and bigger market). You’ll also need only one headphone out.
Here is where timecode can potentially be a factor. If you primarily want to be a production sound mixer (or a sound recordist or boom operator), then you need a fairly flexible and variable setup depending on what the requirements of the shoot are going to be.
Likely you’ll need multiple channels of recording (4+) to handle booms and wireless receivers as well as needing to provide headphone mixes for yourself, boom operator, director and host of others. Depending on the type of shoot, you’ll be going with a bag setup or a cart setup. Bags are great for small agile productions (shorts, commercials, docos, etc). Television and features can potentially need a sound cart with a larger mixer to manage the signal flow required on a larger set.
Here, flexibility with signal flow is key. Your focus should be on mixing features as this will give you more options. For example, the Sound Devices 552 or 664 gives you either 2 or 4 tracks of recording, but has more options with inputs and outputs. This would allow you to dump a mono mix live onto the camera for the editors reference before post starts. If you need more channels of recording, add a small 2-track handheld to get another couple of channels of recording.
Whichever one is right for you. The best piece of advice is; go for quality, relative to your requirements, because it will make a difference in the long run.
Other great resources on this topic:
I’ve been thinking a lot about language we use over the past couple of weeks. This has been prompted by conversations I’ve had with my students and its come up in two ways. Firstly, the type of language we use within our industry and secondly, the language we are using when discussing our learning. It has really struck me on how much impact the language we use impacts what we do.
One of the big questions we get asked about is mastering. In the context of audio production, this is the final stage of preparing any sound asset for it to be used elsewhere or ready for distribution. Conceptually, that is pretty much it. But you often hear everyone talking about it as some of “dark art”. I’ll agree that you need to have a keenly trained ear to be able to be an effective mastering engineer, but making it sound like magician’s work feels like it lowers the professionalism of the industry as a whole. Its the same when we talk about “tips and tricks” of mixing or recording. If we refer to the skills and knowledge that we have spent years of time and mountains of money learning about as a set of life-hacks then we aren’t doing our own profession, and ourselves, any justice.
Would you pay $2000 for someone to do some “tips and tricks” on the sound of your TV commercial or for someone to apply years of practice, experience and skills to create an engaging soundtrack that meets the needs of the product you are trying to sell? One of those options gives you value for money, the other one is way over priced.
When discussing with students about the work they are completing, they way in which we are discussing the work changes depends on the context of the subject. In one subject, we are working on the development of a major large-scale project. In the other (with essentially the same set of students) we are working on a series of creative projects in the studio for short-turnaround completion. When discussing the development unit, this unit has “assessments” and “due dates” for the “students”. When discussing the studio projects unit, we use the terms “projects”, “deadlines” and “team members”. In the development unit I get asked about “… what do I need to have for the presentation … ” and in the studio projects unit I get ” … how does my mix sound …”.
Admittedly, one unit is more about documentation and prep and the other is about production, but the style of questions shows a difference in cognitive approach. One is asking about what they need to do to get through the assessments, the other is about how can they be better at what they do. What I find interesting is the difference in approaches the students are taking. Because one is using typical “school” language and the other is using professional language they seem to be thinking about them differently. Both subjects are looking at the creation of creative works, so I think the difference is in the way the brief is set, which influences the way they are thinking about it – or at least discussing it with me.
The institute I teach at has recently undergone some changes in its teaching philosophy. One of those changes has to do wits modeling the correct behaviour that we expect of our students. If I write blogs, then they will write blogs (hence the blog writing). I’m a big fan of this pedagogical approach. So if I use the type of language I’d like the industry to use, then hopefully I can get my students to use better language, which means they will think better about their productions, which means they’ll be better as professional practitioners and use better language in the industry, which will hopefully means there is a new way that everyone will look at the creative arts because we won’t be referring to what we do as “tips and tricks”. Am I too egotistical/ambitious/delusional to think that my teaching can have an impact on the industry?
I guess I have to be.
mattbangers 