Greetings to all who tune in to the ProSoundNetwork! My name is David Schober. This is my first post on this site and I’m thrilled to be here!
I thought I should first tell you a bit about myself before getting into the nitty gritty of postings on recording. My 20-plus year career began as an assistant to the legendary engineer Bill Schnee at his newly opened studio in LA. I soon found myself learning from the likes of Bill, Al Schmidt, Jack Joseph Puig, Elliot Scheiner and other great engineers and producers. It was an education I could have scarcely imagined from my Texas home only a year before. I was blessed to be there and still draw on those experiences daily.
Since then, I’ve had the privilege to work with some of the finest musicians and producers on the planet in studios from London to LA. The music world has radically changed from those all-analog, and record company-dominated days. Nowadays, most albums are being done in part or fully in a home studio…usually by great and talented folks, yet many have had little or no instruction in recording. They’ve done the best they could banging their head against a wall, with some results good, and some bad.
The thing is, it can be challenging to get great results in a home environment even for someone like myself. But with young guys and gals guessing at what to do, it can be downright difficult to make a good-sounding recording.
So over the years, I’ve given suggestions of one kind or another to help my home-recording friends get better results with their projects. Sometimes I’m amazed at the great sounds they’ve achieved by going on instinct. But often there are fundamental things they just don’t know, so I’ll lend a hand and help them get better results. To me, it’s a win-win. They get better recordings and when I’m called to mix for them, I can make better mixes as a result of the better sounds.
Some might say, “Aren’t you doing yourself a disservice? After all, you’re making yourself unneeded in the recording process.” I don’t think so at all. The world has changed. This is how music is being made. There’s a goldmine of creativity there and I want to help make it better!
So I set up a Twitter account and blogsite with the intent of helping these folks. On a flight back from working in LA, I had the inspiration of coming up with “100 Recording Tips.” I thought of some of the basic recording and production lessons I’d learned over the years and whittled them down to 140 characters for twitter. From those tips, I’ve begun to blog on each one with an expanded explanation of my thoughts on them.
Through my posts and tweets, the folks here at the ProSoundNetwork found me and asked me to be a part of what they’re doing. So here I am. I’ll be doing a bit of mirroring of my own posts on my site. And with PSN’s extended reach, I’m happy to be able to connect with even more of you.
What you’ll find here will be various tips and observations I’ve had over the years. Some are clear and practical things to do–or not do–when recording, and some are general principles when recording artists or players. It’s not everything, but it’s a good start. Some may disagree with this or that, and that’s fine. I appreciate any thoughts you all have and hope we can have dialog about them.
One of the downsides of modern recording is that we’re all holed up in our own spaces, separate from one another. I always loved the community of multi-room recording studios. It was a place where you might learn something new and great about how the band is recording down the hall, or have a conversation with a fellow engineer when grabbing a coffee. To me, that’s what music is about: community and interaction. So I hope that we can have a virtual community and interaction here.
So come follow along and be a part of the dialog. There are no stupid questions….maybe some foolish answers! But we can all be a part and learn from each other. Hopefully relationships can develop and we all benefit from them and make our musical efforts even better!
David Schober is an Engineer/Producer with 20-plus years working with the best in the biz, here to help with your recording and production needs. Find him at his website and on Twitter, or leave a comment below.
