Hey Everybody so we just Passed 215 Thousand subscribers and I want to thank each of you for signing up?
Every Week I do SmG viewers Comments Where I answer your Best Questions
Some of Them even Get A dedicated Episode and I'd like to thank Rebecca Barbara for asking this Question what were your biggest Rookie Mistakes
Starting out that Is A
Fantastic Question so here We go here's my top five Rookie Recording Mistakes that I learned the hard Way
so i started recording Professionally Back in
1997 it was Pretty Primitive By Today's Standards With my computer Barely able to play A mix in Real Time Without
Arbitrarily Stopping I was Young I was Eager and I wanted to record Bands more Than Anything Else and
Here Are The 5 worst Mistakes I ever Made, Along the Way Number 5 Charging Flat rates Being A
Doormat for The Band's Look I
Understand When You're Starting out you want to Make a name for Yourself and that means you need to Attract Clients and
Putting up with A lot
Of Shit to get Those Clients that Means Charging Way too little or charging Flat rates and it means
Tolerating all Sorts of Nonsense Like Musicians Showing Up not Prepared
When you charge a flat rate There is no incentive for them to actually learn the material before Coming
Into the Studio
I mean why learn it at
Home when They Can learn it in your Studio Because it's A cool environment With all sorts of cool gear and it's Certainly not Gonna
Cost Them Anything extra Now is it I put up with some Crazy Shit over the years Bands Showing up hours Late or not Showing
Up at all and not even Calling
Drummers Refusing To Record it With Anyone Else in The Band Or even A tempo map yeah that one Turned out Wonderful Guitar Players
Who can't tune Their Instruments Or insist on Recording Their dumpster Reject guitar With Bad Electronics no Setup and ancient strings Because
Recording your Studio Ready Guitars on the wall Would Just Make too much fucking sense remember you can, Just Say
No When A Band insists on doing something Stupid that will waste
Everyone's Time put your Foot Down the worst that Can happen. Is that they'll leave and not waste your Time Anymore
Number Four not Making A, Decision The modern Recording age is great Because, We have a Nearly unlimited
Palette of Sounds and Choices When it Comes to Instruments and Mixes the modern Recording age Totally sucks for Exactly the Same Reason Because
We have so Many Options it Is all too Easy to Keep Second-Guessing Yourself and Never getting Anything
Accomplished in The Tape Days you, Usually, Had a maximum of 24
Tracks That meant Bouncing Sub Mixes and Having to get it right the first Time
When I first got my reamp Box I would reamp the Guitars on Entire Albums 15 Or 20 Times over These Days
Not so much Look
It's great to have a safety net but Unless you learn to Walk away
You will only drive Yourself Crazy because you will never get Anything finished Number Three not Taking Breaks Back in the tape Days
We had to Wait for it to Rewind this Would Take a minute or two giving you a mental Break in The mixing Process
This Ties in Directly With the Make A
Decision Problem Now Because you have the instant Rewind your mind Can Focus Intently on a problem in A mix
The Problem Here is you Can Easily lose Perspective
Because you aren't getting the required Mental Rest and Can Wind up Chasing your Own Tail I
Remember When I quit Smoking A client actually Said to me We Really like it that you
Don't Take Breaks Anymore yes Because how
Dare i take Five or ten minutes Every Few Hours to recharge the creative Flow Breaks Are good Make Sure you Take Them on
A related Note You Could Spend an awful long Time seated be Sure to Watch what you eat and Take the Time to Exercise
This was Me in
1992 This Is what happens when you record Bands for over 20 Years and don't exercise enough
If There's One Thing I wish I could have Told Myself in my 20S and Wanted to Keep my Daily walks up i used to
Walk Everywhere in College
Smoking Helped me Keep my weight Off and When I quit and There was Definitely a lot
Of weight gain so if you're going to go
Into Recording Make Sure you Have an Exercise Routine and stick To it Make the Time Because you are Worth the effort
Number Two first Generation Ide Raid This one Still drives Me insane
Remember That bit About Computers Being Barely, able to play a mix Back Without Stopping
Well i thought that the New Ide Raid systems back in 99?
Would go a long way to Speeding things Up I remember Buying a pair of Matched Hard Drives
Specifically for Audio and then Running Them in A stripe that's Where the Data Would be Split between the two drives and They Playback
Synchronized At a speed Faster Than a single Drive
What They Didn't Tell you Is that if There was even The slightest Glitch all the Data on Both drives Would Disappear and be
unrecoverable I had This Happen to me on two
separate Projects Before I could Back Things Up
The worst Thing I've Ever Had to do in my professional Career was to Call Client and Explain that the Music that they Worked so
Hard at Had Vanished and We have to do it again
at no extra Cost of Course
The First Time That Happened I thought it was A fluke the second Time it happened I pulled the raid System and
Never Had Another harddrive Problem ever
as A consequence of This I back Things up like Crazy Though
So for all you guys out There be sure to Grab A
Usb Hard Drive and Dump your files Onto it on a regular basis trust me it's Worth the Time
Number One Lack of Proper Acoustic Treatment now You Guys Have heard me Say This over and over again get
Acoustic Treatment and The Reason why I Keep Saying this is because of Experience my first Studio was
Notoriously Bad For This I'd Work on a Project get it Sounding great then as Soon as We play it Back
Anywhere About the Studio the Speakers will Be Farting out all over the place the Guitars Would Just Sound like Mud and There's too much
Bass on Everything and
This was a Gigantic problem for me that I'D have to Work Through I
Wasted Hours Upon Hours Fixing These Issues and There was no end to it
When i built my second Studio which I'm in Now?
Things Definitely Improved However I still Had Bottom end issues With my guitar sounds Because I never Bothered to install Corner traps in
My amp room Once I Finally got Around to doing that things Cleaned up
Considerably so if You want to Take Anything of Value from this video Take Note Here
It doesn't Matter how much Money you Spend on your gear if you can't hear it Properly A
$300 Set of Monitors in A room With 2,000 Dollars Worth of Acoustic Treatment is going to
Be far more Accurate Than A $10,000 Set of Monitors in A room with no treatment at all
Don't skimp on This Part Because your Work will Pay the
Consequences for That and don't mix on Headphones Because they lie
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