Session Sociology

Music recording is a technological process, but it also involves people. The technology exists to serve musicians, and the process of recording must consider the personalities of the people involved.

This episode looks at how those human interactions work, from the perspective of the recording engineer.

How do you deal with difficult people? Or insecure people? What does it take to provide a comfortable working environment so that musicians can be at their best? How does an engineer facilitate the recording process to keep every happy, creative, and relaxed?

This episode looks into those things and provides some practical advice, based on my 50+ years of studio recording.

Thanks to everyone for their comments, suggestions, and ideas for future episodes. You can help extend the reach of this podcast by subscribing to it on any of the 30+ podcast providers that carry it. Your reviews help others find “My Take On Music Recording.” And if you find it useful, share the link with others on your social media. Thanks.

email: dwfearn@dwfearn.com
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Transcript

62 Session Sociology                                       30 April 2022

I’m Doug Fearn and this is My Take On Music Recording

I learned a valuable lesson early in my career. I had opened my studio just a couple of months earlier, in 1969. A band with a strong local following had booked a day to record three songs.

They came in with stacks of guitar amps. Keyboard amps. Bass amps. Like they did for a performance. That made me a little nervous.

The studio was small, and it was a very hot summer day. All those kilowatts of amps rapidly overpowered the air conditioning.

One guy in the band seemed to be in charge. He told everyone where to set up, and he told me what mics to use and where to put them. This was not going to be good, I could tell.

We got levels, a headphone mix that some liked and others said was impossible for them. We did a take, and everyone came into the control room to listen. Right off, they all said it didn’t sound right. When I asked them to be more specific, they couldn’t articulate what bothered them.

The players constantly argued among themselves, and could come to no agreement.

This went on for about two hours, with no progress.

Finally, I went into the studio and sat down with them. I had them turn off the amps, and told them in my most diplomatic way that this obviously wasn’t working. I was not sure if it was my fault or theirs, or a combination, but I didn’t think we were going to get what they wanted.

I told them I thought it best if we stop the session and all go home. I said the session was free, which was hard to do since it was important to build up the business in those early days.

Everyone grumbled and left.

I felt like a failure, but it wasn’t because I couldn’t make them sound the way they wanted. I failed because I lost control of the session.

By the way, the band broke up right after that. A couple of the members went on to long careers in music, in entirely different directions. I know this because those two people became lifelong friends.

The lesson I learned was to evaluate the potential for a terrible session, and, if necessary, turn down the booking. Had I met with them beforehand, we might have solved some of the problems. Or I might have done what I have done occasionally during the pre-booking conversation: I would have told them that it didn’t seem like a good fit for me and my studio.

Sometimes I told players that I thought they weren’t ready for recording and to play for a while before attempting it. It made some mad, but others seemed relieved. Often, they booked time a year or two later and had much better sessions than they might have had earlier.

I never had another session that I had to stop and send everyone home. That was because I learned to avoid those situations that had a high potential for disaster. Or, I knew how to convince them that there was a better way than what they wanted to do.

Most sessions will be fun, productive, and everyone will be satisfied. But getting to that point takes some work on your part.

Many of the highly-successful recording engineers and producers I have encountered in my career seem to share some personality traits.

For one thing, they are comfortable working with and being around the spectrum of human personalities. They genuinely like people and respect whoever they are dealing with, whether they are a music megastar or the guy delivering lunch.

They tend to be outgoing and exude competence in everything they do.

Of course, they are also very good at translating the music performance into an effective recording.

Some are just born “people” persons. But a significant percentage of them are introverts at heart. Despite their introversion, they have mastered the skills of human interaction that help get the most out of the performers while maintaining a relaxed atmosphere in the studio.

And I suspect they had to do some work to achieve that in-charge yet easy-going persona.

I’m not a psychologist, so this is my layman’s perspective on what is going on here. I think if you want to improve your interpersonal skills, you might start by focusing some energy towards improving your sense of empathy with others. I have an intrinsic ability to see, hear, and feel as others do, which is often a burden, but helpful in the studio.

On an intellectual level, you might attempt to understand the other person’s relationship with the music they perform -- or their anxieties and insecurities about their music. What inspires them? What terrifies them? And why?

Anxious, stressed-out people will have a difficult time performing at their best, so part of your job is to make the process less stressful for them. Of course, how you do this must be different for every person you are dealing with. That can be challenging when working with a group that has widely divergent personalities, like those in the session I described earlier.

I talk to every individual I interact with slightly differently. I suspect many people would describe my personality differently from any one else’s description, because I am a different person to each of them. You need to find out how to develop a rapport with each person.

One thing I learned early was that everyone deserves respect, no matter how difficult they may be to work with. You may thoroughly dislike someone you are forced to work with, or you may not like their music or their interpretation, but their approach is not really yours to judge. Your job is to make good recordings, and raising the tension level in a session is not going to help. Treat them as you would like to be treated and things will go much more smoothly.

Often, difficult people act the way they do because they are insecure or intimidated by the studio environment. They may view the recording session as a huge leap forward in their career, where in reality it might only be a small next step. Or a bad previous experience in recording may be influencing how they feel about this recording session.

It’s not always effective, but often you can win them over just by being nice and helping them to overcome the source of their discomfort, which could be general insecurity.

I believe this is an essential part of your job.

Stressed out, distracted musician? Reduce the tension any way you can. One of my favorite ways to do this doesn’t even involve me, but rather Ian Alexander, my second engineer since the 1980s. Ian is a talented musician, as well as being a great engineer. But his ability to get people to relax is often his greatest contribution to a session. His calm demeanor, and total lack of urgency, puts people at ease. He is also a master of jokes, and his quick mind is a delight to those we work with. Ian is a great help to me.

Not all of us have an Ian to fill this role. But someone needs to do it. It is the grease that keeps a session productive. I can do it, but not nearly as well as Ian.

What else can you do to help make the recording process more relaxed? A comfortable physical environment is a good start. The space needs to be clean, the temperature and humidity need to be right, the lighting must be appropriate, and the studio arrangement must work well for the musicians to see and communicate.

Even something as mundane as the studio chairs need to be considered for their impact on the session. The chairs need to be comfortable, at least to extent that people do not dislike sitting on them for long periods of time. The chair has to be solid, so it doesn’t make any noise during recording. The design of the chair must not interfere with a musician or his instrument.

A chair seems simple enough, but some thought has to go into the selection.

Think about how you are going to set up the room. There are the obvious requirements for isolation of instruments in many sessions, but there is more to it than that. Some musicians really need to see each other when they are playing. It may not always be necessary for them to play well, but it does increase their comfort.

We don’t want them facing in a way that makes that eye contact difficult or impossible. We don’t want to use baffles, gobos, or iso booths unless we really have to. We don’t want mic stands, mics, and music stands blocking their sightlines.

This can be challenging when you are using mic techniques to minimize bleed, so some consideration of this ahead of time will help.

Ask the players who they need to see, and take that into account.

Be sensitive to individual preferences. Maybe a vocalist wants to sit, rather than stand. I’ve had some that felt most comfortable sitting on the floor. That’s not typical, and it may be a bad idea, but at least let them try it.

Some vocalists want to have good sightlines to the control room personnel. Others do not. Set them up whatever way makes them comfortable. I’ve worked with quite a few singers who want the studio in total darkness for their finished vocal.

Once you find a good setup solution, keep it the same whenever possible during subsequent sessions on the same project.

Speaking of lighting, make sure that the lights are not shining directly into someone’s eyes. Be sure that they have enough light on their music to read it easily. Make the lighting level appropriate for the session. But also make sure anyone who needs to see their music or lyrics can do so without obstructions in the way.

For someone singing and playing an instrument simultaneously, let them play for you for a minute so you can observe if they need to be able to look at their fingers at any point. You don’t want them to move off of the vocal mic to see that, so figure out where the vocal mic should go to make this work effortlessly for them.

HVAC in the studio can be a problem, especially if your facility was not purpose-built for recording. In my current studio, unfortunately, the air handler for the HVAC is not well isolated from the studio, so I have to shut it down completely while recording.

Whenever there is a break in the session, turn the HVAC back on, not only to return to the proper temperature, but also to refresh the air and adjust the humidity.

The headphones have to work perfectly and the mix and volume have to be right. Surprisingly, some players with decades of experience may not realize that their headphone feed is sub-optimal. You can often tell this by how they play. Trouble keeping time? Turn up the primary rhythm component of the mix. Trouble with pitch? Make sure they have the instrument providing the core pitch reference loud enough. Singing too loud? Turn up their vocal in the headphones. Singing too soft? Bring it down.

I am not a big fan of giving everyone the ability to create their own headphone mix. That might be OK with certain players, but what they want may not be the same as want they need.

For 95% of my sessions, everyone gets the same headphone mix and that works fine. When someone needs something else, I can set that up quickly.

One situation where I use a separate headphone mix is for an older drummer I sometimes work with, who, after decades of playing live gigs, has some pretty severe tinnitus. He does not want any of his drums in his headphones, because it just reduces the length of time he can comfortably play. I automatically set up a separate headphone feed for him when I know he will be coming in.

You should recognize when you need to make changes to the headphone mix. In an overdubbing session, you might find it helps to take some tracks out of their mix entirely.

And I would suggest that if there is a lot of conflict in what each player says he or she needs in their headphones, then the fundamental reason is actually something else. Maybe the overall headphone volume is wrong, but it’s more likely that the arrangement isn’t really right

Often there is not much you can do about an arrangement problem, especially if your role is strictly as the engineer. But you might point it out to the producer or players, if you can do so in a way that makes you seem helpful and not critical.

Generally, the less experience the players have in the studio, the more headphone problems will occur. If you are lucky enough to work with seasoned studio players, you might be amazed at how little attention they pay to their headphones – as long as you provide them with a decent mix. I start out with a duplicate of the mix I want to listen to, and then modify it if necessary. Most of the time, no changes are needed.

Here’s something I have talked about in previous episodes, but I think it is useful to discuss this briefly in this context. That is, what exactly is your creative role in a session? Is your job exclusively to get what the producer wants and keep your mouth shut? That’s not using your skills to their greatest potential, but you may encounter that.

Is part of your job to point out musical problems to the producer? That might include performance problems you detect. Examples would be a bad note, something out of time, some conflict in the parts or in the dynamics. In many recording situations, this is a big part of your role. Catch those things when they happen, do what is necessary to make sure they are fixed now, or think about how it could be fixed later.

Then there are more gray areas, like how did that take feel? This may be out of the realm of some engineers, or some situations, but if you believe that there could be improvement, or that a previous take may have had a better feel, you have to decide if it is appropriate to express your opinion. For some engineers, this is not obvious. An engineer may be totally focused on the details and miss the overall picture. Maybe he can practice and learn to listen with his heart, as well as his brain.

Even more extreme may be your insight into the arrangement, or the structure of the song. You have to weigh how this is going to be perceived and if it is worth potentially throwing the session into chaos. You better feel really confident before you say anything.

Of course, if you are acting as the producer, then that kind of creative direction would be entirely appropriate. Just be sure you don’t cause more problems than you solve.

The studio can be a place where everyone can experiment and stretch their abilities to the limit. A performer in the studio only has to get it right once, and that result could be amazing.

As an engineer, if you have the luxury of time, try some things you have thought about but never attempted. I will only give you one example, but there are endless ways you can use your creativity. If you are recording vocals, try something out of your everyday practice, like keep the vocalist farther from the mic than you usually would. Or closer. Or use a mic you never think of as a vocal mic for a different sound. Try recording the vocal in stereo. Or in a different acoustic environment in the facility.

Half the time, you will say, “well that doesn’t help.” But sometimes you will come up with something perfect for the song. And you will have another tool at your disposal for use in a similar situation at a future session. Just make sure whatever you do serves the music.

Never be afraid to admit that your experiment was a bad idea. Even if it doesn’t do what you wanted, you have learned something.

That’s one simple experiment. A good engineer is always thinking about how they could do something better – or just differently. Sometimes that is for solving a problem, but it could also be an attempt to create a new sound. With the wide variety of tools available to you, the prospects are limitless. Be a pioneer and see if it works. If it doesn’t work, maybe it will suggest another approach, or give you a technique to try in a different situation.

In most sessions, we do not have the time and/or the client does not have the money or time for this type of experimentation. But there are lots of scenarios where you can set up a second or third mic and record them on different tracks so you can keep the session flowing along, and still have some options later. That requires some forethought and preparation.

Sometimes, a traditional way of recording is still best. Your wildly creative idea may be totally inappropriate for the style of music.

Be sensitive to performer fatigue. You, or the artist,  may want to push on and record take after take. But you need to recognize when the performance is suffering. Getting every note perfect when the performer is beat usually does not result in the best final result.

Knowing when to take a break is another part of your job, even if it is just a suggestion, or posed as a question. Often the musicians will be grateful for a break, and come back and knock out the problem parts effortlessly.

Other times, they will feel they are on the verge of getting it right and they don’t want to stop. They may be obsessed with perfection, and suggesting that they take a break may stress them further, especially if they are trying to keep a complex set of performance nuances in mind. There is no clear-cut answer in this case, so sometimes it is better to just let them try it. You should be thinking ahead, about how you might resolve this down the road.

For example, a player might struggle with a complex part, not want to stop, and eventually achieves a note-perfect rendition. But it sounds mechanical and lacks inspiration, while being technically correct. Regardless, you have the part correctly recorded, and perhaps, if it is a tracking session, it can be improved upon as an overdub. You will have to determine if this is a practical solution, since bleed into the mics on various other instruments may create a problem replacing the part.

But if you can easily replace the part later, it might be best to move on. You will have a technically-correct version preserved for reference. Sometimes that is as good as it is going to get, but more often, after a break, or on a different day, the player may knock out the part which is not only technically perfect, but also has the right feel and attitude for the song. It’s amazing how the unconscious mind may be resolving the problems in between sessions.

Most musicians and engineers can only go a few hours of intense recording before needing a break. Sense when this is necessary. Sometimes the perfect time is obvious, like right after one song is done and before starting the next one. Or when a rhythm track is done and you are about to move on to overdubbing. Often, it is not so clear-cut, especially to the performers. If you’re the producer on the session, this is a relatively easy decision.

The break could be short – enough time to use the bathroom, or refill the water bottle or coffee.

For many people, being hungry is a stressor that they may not be aware of. This can have a serious impact on their ability to perform at their best.

Find a logical time to break for lunch. (I use the term “lunch” generically. It could any time of the day or night.)  Thinking ahead will make this go more smoothly. Maybe an hour before the lunch break, perhaps during a short break, get a lunch order together. Order on-line if you can, and have lunch delivered if possible. Usually by the time the food arrives, everyone will be enthusiastic about eating.

I think it is best if you can leave the studio to eat. Not only does this minimize the mess to clean up later, but the change of environment is good for everyone’s head. At my studio, when the weather is nice, we can eat on a screened-in porch. This is a great time for everyone to talk and get their mind off the pressure of recording.

During any session, you have to think several steps ahead, to make sure you are ready for what comes next. You may be the person with the overall vision for the song, so what you do during the tracking session needs to take into account what will be added later.

That “several steps ahead” concept is always useful to an engineer. I marvel at how some engineers were able to envision an entire song, mixed and everything, while working within the limitations of finite track counts in the old days. Back then, you often had to combine tracks as you went along, with no option to change the balance or tonality later. It wasn’t always perfect, but many remarkable recordings were made with only 4 or 8 tracks.

Many years ago, when I was working on my instrument rating for my pilot’s license, I had an instructor who was constantly asking me, “What do you do next?” I would answer, while trying to keep the airplane on a constant course and precise altitude, and keeping track of where I was in relation to the next change in heading or altitude.

As soon as I finished my answer, he said, “What do you do after that?” Now it was more challenging, because I had to remember what I was doing now, plus the next step, while still controlling the airplane with precision. And then the instructor would add, “What do you do after that?”

It was always three steps ahead. He was forcing me to think that way, and at first it was very annoying and stressful. But after a while, it became a habit, and I could usually rattle off the three steps quickly, because I had already thought about them. Ever since, I have thought about the next three steps  not only in my flying, but also in most every other complex task.

Generally, the studio is not as demanding an environment than an airplane in the clouds, but the same concept is applicable. Always think three steps ahead in the process.

Maybe you can tell your assistant to be ready for the studio setup changes that will be coming, and the change after that. Those things could change, but at least you and your assistant will be primed for making the transition as quickly and as seamlessly as possible. Sometimes it is helpful to share your “next three steps” with who you are working with. But if they do not have a logical mind, or are occupied with their task at the moment, it is not helpful. You have to judge that.

Another flying-related procedure I have incorporated into my sessions is the debrief. Early in training, my instructor would take some time after we were back on the ground to discuss what I did wrong, what I did right, and how I could improve.

Even after I was on my own in the airplane, I continued this practice. And now after decades of flying, I still do my own debrief after every flight. I consider ever aspect of the flight, from flight planning, to pre-flight inspection, to engine start, avionics programming, taxiing, take-off, climb, cruise, descent, landing, to putting the airplane back in the hangar. I think about what I did right, and what could be improved.

I do the same after every session. The tasks are different, but the evaluation process is similar. The goal is to constantly improve and refine your technique. I think it helps.

There’s also the “pre-flight” portion of the session. As soon as I know a session is coming up and I have a good idea of what we are trying to accomplish, I go through the entire process in my head. I think about how I want to arrange the musicians in the room, what mics I will use, the control room equipment that is best suited for this project, and the recording format I will use. I also think about the intended audience for the music, and how the recording is going to be used.

If possible, I listen to the songs we will be working on, and what the instruments will be doing. If I can meet with the people ahead of the session, that is always an opportunity to develop some rapport with them, and to discuss the project and gain insight into their goals. You will also detect if there are going to be any problems with the personnel, or with their abilities. If you can’t meet in person, perhaps a virtual meeting will be helpful, especially if some of the people have not worked together before.

The better prepared you are, the greater potential you have for a successful session.

Of course, things sometimes fail to go according to plan. To continue the aviation analogy, no matter how much you have studied the weather for a flight, what you encounter is often not what was forecast. A pilot has to be ready to make changes to their plan, and this is often a difficult adjustment. But like anything, the more you do it, the more flexible you become, and making those changes will become more comfortable. Flexibility is the key concept here. Do not let yourself rigidly follow your original plan if circumstances demand a change in direction.

In the studio, we are often confronted with things we did not expect. It could be that a player couldn’t make it, and there is someone new substituting. A vocalist may have a voice problem. The band may not have adequately rehearsed the song. An instrument or a guitar amp may have a problem.

Maybe external circumstances are affecting one or more player and they have trouble performing. A piece of your equipment may fail. The list is endless.

Whatever problems arise, you have to be ready to deal with them. For technical problems on either side of the glass, offer solutions. Redundancy is your friend. Avoid as many single-point-of-failure items as you can. Be ready to make substitutions, and make them transparent to everyone.

When I go to a performance, no matter what kind it is, I don’t want to be aware of the mechanics involved. I don’t want to see extraneous people on stage changing out a cable, or tuning a guitar. I don’t want to be aware of the changes between scenes. In a movie or video production, I never want to be aware of the mechanics of the production. Well, maybe if I am analyzing what they are doing to help me improve my own video production. What I want is to experience the magic of a seamless production.

Go to a Broadway show and contemplate later that the dozens of unseen people backstage were able to make the experience entirely in service to the story, without any awareness you might have in the mechanics.

Your recording should be like that, too. A listener should never be aware of the things you do. Your job is to create the perfect experience for the listener, who should be totally unaware of all the “backstage” work. 

You can apply that to a session, too. Make the mechanics invisible to the performers. Everything should be ready to go and in place even before the musicians are thinking about what’s next.

That isn’t always possible, but it is a worthy goal. Not only does this save time, but it reduces the stress level for everyone involved, including you.

These transitions should be so smooth that no one even stops to marvel or thank you. It’s transparent to everyone you work with, and that’s part of your job.

You will notice that I have not talked much about your engineering skills, except to suggest that you constantly strive to improve what you do.

In aviation, there is a saying: “That pilot has 10,000 hours of flying. Unfortunately, he has one hour of experience repeated 10,000 times.” If you are not constantly learning, you are falling behind. Make every session better than any that came before. Constantly evaluate your work on all levels and figure out how you can do better next time.

Much of what we do in the studio is so arcane that there are very few people who would even know or appreciate something that we did. The detail that might please you is probably going to be missed by 99% of the people who ultimately listen to the recording. Even the performers are likely to miss most of those things.

So why should we care? Well, if we can improve the recording by 1% with something we do, that may not make a difference. But what if we can find 10 of those 1% things? That is significant and those 10 things are likely to be perceptible to any listener, although they may not know why.

I believe that there are many things we can do that are well below the conscious recognition of the listener. But they still make the experience better for them. Remember, we want a seamless production.

This applies to the performers as well. If you make sure that everything you do improves the recording experience for them, they are going to play better.

I suspect we all have a few industry friends that we share some of our projects with. I find it gratifying when I send a track to a friend and they comment on something tiny thing that I did in the recording that they heard and it pleased them. Sometimes it’s an incentive to think about our peers and how they are likely to hear our work.

Also realize that on both sides of the glass there may be a problem with “trying too hard.” An accomplished classical musician once told me that you perform your best when you think you are performing at three-quarters your best. I’m not sure that is always true, but the concept is useful. Three-quarters your best implies that you are so relaxed that you are not even thinking about your performance. It’s only later that you may be astounded by how well you did.

There are a couple more sayings that I have used for decades:

“I have learned something new from every session I have ever done.”

And, “If you are not having fun, and the people you are working with are not having fun, you are doing something wrong.”

I always appreciate your feedback, so feel free to comment, correct, or suggest anything you feel would be useful. Quite a few episodes in this podcast came from listener suggestions. You can reach me at dwfearn@dwfearn.com

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This is My Take On Music Recording. I’m Doug Fearn. See you next time.