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Old 02-17-2020, 10:50 AM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
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Default Best way to learn better studio engineering

I've been doing home recording a long time, been a few studios for a bit. I can make decent-sounding recordings and know the basics of mic selection/placement, gain staging, using key effects like compression, EQ, gates, reverb etc. But what's the best way to learn to take things to the next level?

At two extremes, you have "keep playing in your own studio and see what works", up to "go to Berkelee and get a degree in it". At the former end, you don't know what you don't know, though sometimes a good YouTube tutorial can help. Obviously the latter end is quite time consuming and expensive.

Is there something in between? An online course, or site where musicians help each other with that sort of thing? Find local help?

This is about more than just recording acoustic guitar. Once you get into a band setting, little things (just the right compression technique, subtle EQ here and there, using a certain plugin) can make a big difference in getting a polished, professional sound.

Ideas, help and discussion appreciated!
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Old 02-17-2020, 10:55 AM
endpin endpin is offline
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There is a YouTube channel called "Produce Like A Pro" that is pretty good.
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Old 02-17-2020, 11:09 AM
Brent Hahn Brent Hahn is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chipotle View Post
Is there something in between?
Find a way to be in a working studio. Not taking part in the process, just being around it. When I first started "interning" I was mainly a janitor and handyman, but I traded that for the opportunity to be a totally silent fly on the wall. It was great.
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Old 02-17-2020, 11:52 AM
DCCougar DCCougar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chipotle View Post
...I can make decent-sounding recordings and know the basics of mic selection/placement, gain staging, using key effects like compression, EQ, gates, reverb etc. But what's the best way to learn to take things to the next level?...
Jeez, from my viewpoint, you ARE at the next level!
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Old 02-17-2020, 01:36 PM
Chipotle Chipotle is offline
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Jeez, from my viewpoint, you ARE at the next level!
Thanks, although I feel like I've hit a wall in my knowledge. I know all these tools are out there and their basic workings, but I feel like I don't really know exactly how or when to use them to their full potential.
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Old 02-17-2020, 01:47 PM
KarenB KarenB is offline
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Go to a studio. Pay for a few hours and pick the brain of the engineer.
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Old 02-17-2020, 01:50 PM
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Bob Womack Bob Womack is offline
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There are a couple helpful avenues:
1. Make a friend or find an in at a professional studio and see how they do it.
2. Just do it. You'll make mistakes. It is better to do it on someone else's dime and on their work for the first bit of your career.

I went to school for it, college to be exact, but after the first quarter I also built my own little studio and started taking clients with borrowed mics and stuff. I also got a job at a performance hall recording orchestras, choirs, and soloists. A year later, while still in school, when a national TV network called for resume's for recording engineers I reluctantly submitted one. Between my outside experience and what I learned in school, they apparently thought I was capable of parole. I was very quickly shunted into music recording and audio post production for video and film. I've recorded and mixed national music artists, worked as a boom operator then an SFX operator then the audio director for a soap opera, I've done location work for film. I got that first job in 1981 and I've been at it ever since. I basically took anything I could set my hand and ear to. And now I am a sound designer and music producer/engineer. It hasn't been a straight line but who knows? Maybe the variety has kept me sane. Sort of.



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Old 02-17-2020, 06:09 PM
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min7b5 min7b5 is offline
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I’m by no means accomplished in engineering, but I feel like I’ve had a lot of growth in the last year or so that I would attribute to a handful of things:

As someone else mentioned, I paid an engineer that I like a lot just to sit by his side for a few hours or a few different occasions. I asked specific questions and he answered and demonstrated while capturing the whole thing as video screenshot of the DAW with our voices so I left with my own personal custom tutorial. I’ve watched those files many times since.

Secondly, as much as I love and use YouTube tutorials, going to a paid service -in my case Groove3.com- where things are more professionally done on the whole, laid out chronologically, etc. is very very helpful. There’s many many hours just on on my DAW and the plugins I use, and also something like twelve hundred hours of random interviews with famous engineers on endless topics like mixing, or room treatment, or mic choices and placement, and on and on. It’s like a $100 a year and I go back to it over and over.. Crazy good deal I think.

Lastly, practicing not only with my own stuff, but offering to help others by making them YouTube videos for free etc has been very helpful. Forced me to think outside of my own box. Plus the responsibility of making someone else happy and making a deadline is always very motivating for me.
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