Project studios

[Cerebus]

In my past life as a musician, I worked in a half-dozen studios; everything from home rooms to $100+ an hour places that the big boys used. As the career progressed, we used cheaper and cheaper rooms and did better and better work. My favorite record now is our last one, which we did on an ADAT in a friend's living room.

Part of that was the tech improvement over 5 years, and part of it was our own work... but in general, you're much better off spending more time with less tech. When you've got 32 tracks of analog beauty, the temptation is to overproduce, just because you can. (An especially bad idea for what was supposed to be, at least if you took the band's name at face value, punk rock.)

The worst stuff I did was in the best rooms. Really expensive monitors can make a belch sound good if you aren't really careful. For me, it's tough to concentrate on what you are doing when the solid gold mic in front of your chin is worth $10K. I was always paranoid that I was going to damage the damn thing.

Off-topic but possibly of interest to someone here: I'm selling a Parker Classic Fly, metallic root beer color, mint condition. It comes with a hardshell case, stereo cord, tremolo and documentation. Just too much instrument for this simple rhtyhm guitarist, and I need less debt much more than a choice guitar. It's on consignment at my local guitar store for $800 to me, so the price is that plus shipping and hassle -- and if you want it, get in touch tout suite. E-mail me at shootout@mailcity.com.