2 Engineering Methods using Pro Tools

One of the great aspects of Pro Tools or any similar digital audio software is the flexibility of ways they can be used. The sound of your recording is not only dependent on the equipment that you use, but also the way in which you use it. Below I will discuss two methods for using Pro Tools or other software that will drastically affect the sound of your album.

Method #1 – Individual Sessions Files for Each Song.

This is probably the most common use of and DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) such as Pro Tools. In this scenario the engineer creates a separate session file for each individual song.

This is the best method to use if you know ahead of time that the mixes for each song on the album will be markedly different. You will have to take the time to create each new mix from scratch anyway and it will allow you to save the mix for each song very easily. You move on to the next song (and mix) by opening a different file where all of those settings are recalled. This is also the best method if your songs will be using a click track. It is simple to set a single tempo in Pro Tools, but making it change tempos is more complex. Rather than having a single file cover all of the various tempos on the album it is much more simpler and efficient to use separate files. Because this method has you creating each mix from scratch they will probably end up sounding different from each other. This can be useful if you are trying to create a variety of sounds for the album. The danger is that your tracks may sound quite disparate and not fit well together as an album.

Method #2 – Using a single session like a tape machine.

5 Mistakes You Made on Your Last Recording

Everyone who goes into a studio, whether they are an artist, an audio engineer, or a producer, is trying to “get a great sound.” There is a lot that goes into making an excellent sounding recording and a lot of it doesn’t have anything to do with the gear. Here are five mistakes that people routinely make when going into the studio. When your project doesn’t come out the way you expect it to, more often than not you can find the reason in one of these five points.


1.     You didn’t book enough studio time.

• Artists: Today it is common to book a “lockout” of a studio where you have one or a few days in which to accomplish everything. Invariably the beginning of these sessions are relaxed but when you realize that the mixing or editing is going to take longer than you planned it can make the end of the sessions very stressful. Make sure you consult with an experienced engineer or producer for the amount of time you need to do your project without rushing it.
• Engineers: Make sure your artists remember to plan for mixing. Often this takes longer than the actual tracking. Also, make sure your clients plan for doing multiple takes during tracking and that they allot time to listen after each and every take. The recording equipment is never perfect and is prone to failure. Don’t be caught when your pants down because you neglected to listen back to a take.

2.     Lack of preparation

• Artists: Are your arrangements finished? Are your lyrics finished? Did you change your strings and put on new drum heads? When you are in the studio you are on the clock. Wouldn’t you rather finish writing lyrics for free on your own time rather than paying the studio?
• Engineers: Are you truly familiar with your client’s musical style? They are going to expect you to know what all their favorite bands sound like. Make sure that you do.

3.    ....Click Here

Microphone Closet

We have a challenge for all of you budding engineers out there. We have recently reorganized our mic collection and added a couple of choice new pieces. Below is the photo of all of our mics in the closet. The first person that correctly identifies all of them (brand and model) will receive 5 free hours of studio time. Good luck! To receive 5 hrs of studio time you must submit your answer by September 30, 2013

Why is a Producer Needed IN and ON a Recording Session?

Today, the recording industry has two kinds of producers: music producers and executive producers, both who have different roles in the recording process.

A music producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording (i.e. “production”) of an artist’s music.

A music producer has many roles that may include, but are not limited to, gathering ideas for the project, selecting songs and/or musicians, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, and supervising the entire process from recording to mixing, and mastering. 

Music producers sometimes will take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, negotiations, the hiring of musicians (which includes beat makers), selecting the recording studio and/or engineer(s), determining how many hours are required for recording and mixing, and most importantly, keeping track of the booked hours (as a means of staying within the contracted budget).

An executive producer oversees a project’s finances by investing their money, or will find others to invest in such.  The executive producer gets their moneys returned from the sale of CD’s –or whatever else is spelled out in the contract.   This return is usually with a substantial amount of interest (after all, it is their money that started the project) –and is usually paid back before the artist can collect any of their royalties.

Unusual Live Sound Trick

Most music performance spaces are less than ideal acoustically. This can lead to problems with P.A. systems feeding back, and guess who gets blamed for that? The engineer! Here is a quick trick you can use when shape of the room is working against you. Caution, this requires an understanding of phase (polarity) and accurate labeling of cables. Don’t try this at home, or rather; do try this at home before you try it on a gig so you can make sure you did it correctly.

When P.A. systems are properly set up, the main speakers face forward into the room, the monitors face back toward the band members and the microphones are placed behind both the mains and the monitors. Sometimes, even with this ideal setup there is still feedback. Consider that when someone sings into a microphone, the main speaker cones move forward and then backward. The monitor speakers react in the same way, except they are facing the other direction from the main speakers. What you have in this situation is two independent sets of speakers that are working out of phase from each other. This can cause resonant frequencies in the room to be excited and viola, feedback! This feedback is often in the 100-400Hz region. This is the region that is crucial to the fullness of voices and instruments.

Before you reach for the equalizer and start pulling these frequencies out, try this little trick. Reverse the phase of your monitor speakers. What you want to achieve is all the speakers moving in the same direction at the same time so they are in phase. Most mixers and power amps do not provide for phase reversal of the monitors so you will have to modify your cabling. This can be done at any point after the monitor send from the mixer.  If you are using banana plugs on your monitor speaker cables, this is very easy to accomplish. Simply plug the banana cables into the monitors backwards. This is a 180 degree phase (polarity) reversal. If you are not using banana plugs then you will have to open up your cables and physically switch the (+) and (-) wires on one end of the cable only. Let me repeat that, on one end of the cable only! Then immediately label this cable as phase reversed. If you don’t, this cable will eventually get used at the wrong time and it will cause you problems.

So there you have it. A simple fix for feedback due to room resonances that is cheap and relatively easy. This will not fix all of your feedback problems, but in the right situation it can save you from a lot of headaches.

Important Drum Recording Tip

Drummers! There is nothing that can stop a session faster than a rattling drum. You may not be aware of it now, but chances are that somewhere on your kit there is something that is rattling. When you are playing a gig, there is a lot of extraneous background noise that covers up rattles and buzzes. Even when you do get to play your drums in a quiet room, your ears are still 2-5 feet away from the drums. In a recording studio drums are generally recorded with close micing techniques. This means that the mics will be only a few inches away from the heads and shells of the drums. Any extra little buzzes, rattles, or noises will be hugely amplified. Try putting your ear that close to the drum and then playing it. This will give you an idea of the sound that the mics will pick up. Be careful, don’t play too loud for too long with your ear that close or you could cause hearing damage. So before you go into the studio check every lug, every head, and every piece of hardware for anything that might make an undesirable noise. You are paying for studio time. Do you want to spend that time looking for the source of a buzz, or do you want to be relaxed and lay down some great tracks? by Bob DiGiacomo

©2013

Multi-track Recording and Musicians

When a recording is sold for retail sale the public hears two channels of audio; one for the left and one for the right, but when music is being created in the studio, the standard procedure since the 1960’s has been to capture the music on separate tracks. This is the same concept as a stereo (2 channel) recording except there are many more channels of audio. The standard for analog recording is 24 channels or tracks of audio. Some digital setups are capable of up to 128 independent tracks of audio. Let’s take a brief look at what this means for the music and for the musicians who play it.

 The great advantage of multi-track recording is that each individual track (usually a single instrument) can be manipulated after the musicians have played the performance. For example, a trumpet could be made brighter with EQ, or a snare drum that is too loud can be turned down in the mix. Compression could also be added to a lead vocal that is too dynamic. When a vocal is too dynamic in relation to the instruments quiet lyrics can get lost and loud ones can overpower the band. Multi-track recording has been an incredible benefit to modern recording, allowing engineers to achieve a clear and distinct sound for each instrument that is nearly impossible to achieve with mono or stereo recording techniques. The only down side to this is that some engineers and producers can get lazy. Instead of capturing a good sound to tape they might decide to “fix it in the mix.” Although that can save a mediocre recording when the original musicians are not available, it is always inferior to capturing the music correctly in the first place.

Multi-track recording also offers the musicians a chance to go back and fix poorly played notes. When the bass, for example, is recorded directly (no microphone) to its own separate track, the player can go back and record just a small section again. In this way it is possible to assemble a recording that a particular player may not have been able to perform in one pass.  Many studios have separate rooms to isolate instruments that are recorded with a microphone. This way other instruments in the room do not bleed into mics that are not on them directly. There are, however, consequences to this style of recording.  You will never see a live performance with each musician in their own little isolated room. Imagine trying to emotionally connect with someone with a wall between you and them. Wouldn’t it be easier without the wall? The consequence of this practice of separating musicians is that the communication aspect has been devalued in modern music. Listeners often do not even know what they are missing because they have never been exposed to a band that is truly playing together and not just at the same time. 

Before multi-track recording was common, musicians knew exactly what was expected of them; a performance as close to perfect as possible from beginning all the way to the end. This is a lot of pressure to be under, but that pressure creates excitement and energy among the band. This energy is crucial to the feel of the track. The best way to preserve this energy is to place all of the musicians together in the room, just like they are accustomed to when playing live. In this setting it is easy to make eye contact, give signals, and hear the other players. The best, most organic sounding performances will come from a band that literally plays together. In this scenario there will be bleed from other instruments into the microphones and depending on the amount of bleed it is still possible to go back and fix mistakes. In certain situations this does not work. Drums can easily over power a softer instrument such as upright bass. The listener will not notice bleed from the drums into the bass mic and it can actually serve to help the drum sound, but when the bass player needs to go back and fix a note by himself, the new recording will not have the drums in it. This ends up sounding like part of the drums are missing only at the place where the bass player fixed his mistake.

Many of today’s musicians will enter the studio expecting to overdub, punch, and edit and hadn’t even been planning on trying for a perfect take. A recording can be made in this manner, but where is the excitement? Where is the energy? And what happens to the same musician when he or she tries to perform the piece in public? The audience isn’t going to be very happy when they stop the song so they can go back and fix a mistake. Multi-track recording is a double-edged sword with enormous capabilities, but it is very easy to get lost chasing perfection and loose the excitement and emotion of a song. Only experience will tell you when you are about to step over the line.

Sony PCM 3324

THI recently acquired a Sony PCM 3324 digital tape machine. This machine is from the early 1980’s and was among the first that brought digital technology into the recording studio. Looking back, this machine can be seen as an intermediate step in the transition from analog tape machines to hard disk based computer recording.

So why use tape at all to record digitally? Let’s take a look back to the state of technology in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Although today personal computers with gigs of ram and terabytes of storage space are ubiquitous, this was definitely not the case 30+ years ago. Computer technology was developing rapidly, but even corporations that needed to back up large amounts of data were using tape-based computer storage. (Tape for data storage) In some recording projects today one song can take up 1-2 gigs of space. Consider the fact that the best commercial grade hard drive in 1979 might hold .5 gigs and would be extremely expensive. Personal computers didn’t even include hard drives as standard equipment until the late 1980’s. Magnetic tape was an established technology with a proven track record, and was also one that all recording engineers would be familiar with.

The basic operation of a digital tape machine is the same as an analog machine. It has record, playback and erase heads. The PCM 3324 is what is known as a DASH machine, which stands for Digital Audio Stationary Head. This means that the recording and playback heads were fixed and could not move. Later digital tape technology employed rotating heads that helped to encode more data into a smaller length of tape. The difference between an analog machine and a digital machine is that the digital machine must have circuitry to convert an analog electrical signal into a series of ones and zeros that are then stored on the tape as electrical pulses. These electrical pulses are then played back off the tape and sent through another converter that changes them back into an electrical wave that can be sent to speakers and played back. Click HERE for full article

What is the Audio Engineering Society (AES)

Becoming an audio engineer is an exciting journey that expands the experience of listening to music. Producing an excellent sounding recording takes extensive knowledge and experience. Because technology is always changing and new recording techniques are always being developed, engineers need to stay up to date on the current technology.

One resource available to help with this is the Audio Engineering Society  (AES).

AES is an organization of people involved in various aspects of recording. It is a place where engineers, scientists, equipment designers and manufacturers, and related professionals all come together to trade new ideas and information. They hold periodic conventions to bring all these people together. In addition, AES publishes research by members and helps to codify standards within the audio industry.  Membership is not free, but for the engineer who is interested in further developing their craft there is a wealth of history and information available.

Check out The Honablue Institute’s listing in their education directory. THI listing – AES

Why is The Honablue Institute Different From Other Audio Schools?

At The Honablue Institute (THI) we prepare you for the real world of audio engineering.  Other schools put their focus on teaching software – and very little emphasis on crucial engineering skills such as microphone techniques or session procedures.

From day one, our students are placed behind the console and end up having recorded, mixed, and mastered 10 or more album projects by the time they receive their certificate.

Click HERE to read full article

Amapola Dry Sombras Strings recording session

Electro-Tango artist Martin Fuks brought his project Amapola Dry to THI Studios to add live string players to his existing Pro Tools session files. The session was a lot of fun and Robert was cracking a lot of jokes. Martin brought a videographer with him to film the session and they put together an excellent video clip of the musicians performing. Check it out.

Engineer vs Producer

Engineer vs Producer

There is much confusion these days about the roles of the engineer and producer. It is true that these two different jobs have often merged into one, but let’s take a closer look at the two different jobs as they were traditionally performed. We might find out that there is sacrifice when merging these two jobs.

First, let’s take a look at the traditional role of the producer. First and foremost, the producer is the money man. He or she is familiar with music and recording and how to make an album. The producer helps the band to budget their money and time so that the project can be brought to completion. Producers also were generally hired by labels. Sending an unknown band into a studio to record is a large risk and they might not be prepared for the studio. Trying to rehearse or write parts in the studio is a waste of time and money. A good producer will prep the band long before that red light in the control room comes on. The producer is also tasked with making sure the band’s or artist’s final product is consistent with the label’s general style of music. Often, the producer will be involved in song choice as well as musical arrangement decisions and a strong background in music is a huge asset for a producer. He or she needs to be able to channel the artist’s creativity into a form that is commercially viable. This means that a producer must be able to speak the language of the musicians and then “translate” that to the engineer so the artistic vision can be captured on tape.

An engineer has a complementary but significantly different role. The engineer first off, knows how all the equipment operates. Signal routing in the console, in the tape machine, or in the computer must be second nature so when the artist or the producer has an idea, the engineer can facilitate that idea in a timely manner and that creative spark is not lost. This can also means that the engineer needs to maintain his or her studio well, or have a good knowledge of a sub-contracted studio. Mic placement is crucial in this chain. If the engineer doesn’t know how to choose the right mic for a particular application and then place it well, then the creative flow can be broken and the band’s or label’s investment begins to be wasted.


So now that we know what these roles traditionally entail, let’s take a look at what they traditionally do not entail. The producer is not supposed to also be a musician. When a musician is playing they should be very concerned with their own dynamics, articulation, intonation, and phrasing. This is a lot to think about even for the best musicians in the world and can be so distracting that the individual musician can lose sight of the final product. If the producer is playing, then who is listening to make sure each part is correct and in context in relation to the desired final outcome? You might say the engineer should be listening to that. Well, if that is the case, then who is listening for extraneous noises like pops, crackles, bumping the mic stand. Who is making sure the snare mic stays in the same spot? And who is remembering to hit save on the computer every 5 minutes. (Computers still love to crash at the worst moments!)

These days, these separate roles of artist, producer, and engineer are often combined. Sometimes one person does them all. But there is so much to listen to at every stage of the game that it is often overwhelming for one person to perform all three tasks. Usually, while the focus is applied to one are, the others suffer. You could play a great guitar part but not notice that your mics are out of phase. If someone else was paying attention to this then your tracks wouldn’t be ruined. In Hip Hop and modern R and B music, the producer is also expected to provide the beats. What the person is really doing in this instance is being a musician. After all, they are providing the music for the singer to sing over. In any style of music, you must ask yourself what you are missing by trying to perform all three functions. Wouldn’t your final product come out a lot more professional if you had musicians, a producer, and an engineer all doing their jobs without being distracted by other tasks?

Is a Degree Necessary to Become a Recording Engineer?

Recording is one part of the larger music industry that is which up of artists, musicians, engineers, producers, executives, promoters, agents, etc. Of all the various positions, a degree is only necessary if you want to be the executive. You won’t reach that level with some form of formal business credentials. But let’s focus on our niche in the business, engineering.

For the person who wants to get into engineering but has no real world experience, audio engineering courses are the most effective and efficient way to gain knowledge and experience in the field. But what are the most important components of an audio program? The program must be hands on, meaning each student not only learns about the equipment, but actively sets levels, patches in equipment and manages tape machines/computers of recording. The program must replicate real world situations, meaning the pressures associated with recording sessions or live shows must be present, or at least replicated. The program must also be affordable and accessible for the student. Some courses don’t give the students enough hands on time while others never even get close to the pressures of a live show. A four year or even two year degree can offer lots of time for students to experiment with gear, but are prohibitively expensive and take too long to complete. Remember, during the four years spent getting a bachelor’s in audio, someone else is out there “in the trenches” learning from their mistakes and building contacts.

In the field of music engineering, experience trumps credentials every time. The problem with a bachelor’s degree in music engineering is that often, technical understanding is given preference over operational experience. Some institutions have the most current, up to date equipment and technology and since it is brand new, it never breaks down. Unfortunately, this is not representative of daily life in a recording studio, or running sound for a live show. Of course, all of the technical knowledge is necessary, but without experience, a show or a recording session can become a train wreck in the blink of an eye.

The organizations who hire sound engineers know this, so a degree is only a starting point and never required. There is no way to tell from a piece of paper whether or not someone will be able to solve problems and find work-arounds on the fly. This can be the difference between a successful session and a failed one where the client demands their money back. An interviewer for an engineering position will always ask about the applicant’s experience. When the applicant can recount events where a piece of equipment malfunctioned, but he or she was able to think quickly and solve the problem immediately and the show continued without major problems, then the interviewer can be certain that his or her shows or sessions will be consistently trouble free.

When operating all the various pieces of equipment it is not only necessary to know what all the controls do, but more importantly, it is necessary to have a feel for them. How much louder is it really when turning the knob from 9 o’clock to 12 o’clock? For example, when mixing monitors, there is a sweet spot that many knobs will end up in. If the engineer knows this range then a basic mix can be created in a few minutes instead of starting from scratch. When a musician asks for more level, the engineer needs to know the right amount to turn the knob. Too little and the musicians still can’t hear themselves and performs poorly. Too much and feedback can occur or the sound is simply too loud and uncomfortable for the musician, which also causes a bad performance. The same holds true for setting up a headphone mix in the studio. Taking too long to create a monitor/headphone mix will make the performers and the audience (depending on the situation) bored. Who will the promoter or producer hold accountable when a session or show is delayed because of the monitors/ headphones took too long to adjust?

At THI we believe that audio engineering can be learned much faster and with a smaller financial outlay than is necessary for a two or four year degree. Our program is much more efficient and affordable than getting a bachelor’s in audio engineering and also more efficient than learning by trial and error. What can take years to figure out on your own could be learned in days at THI. To find out more about our programs click here: Programs

Hammond Organ Upgrade

A big thanks to Justin Carroll and Judd Nielsen who came by the studio to help us upgrade our Hammond Organ. We have a B-2 from the early 50′s. When Hammond came out with the B-3 they added a circuit called Percussion. Now, for those who don’t know, this is not a drum machine. This is a circuit which adds upper harmonics only to the beginning of the note. These harmonics decay and only the fundamental tone is left to sustain. This gives each note a percussive quality, thus the term Percussion. The original Hammond percussion units allowed for 2nd order or 3rd order harmonics to be added and there were two options for decay rate, fast or slow, and also two volume levels, normal and soft. The unit that we added yesterday is by Trek II and features an extra 5th order harmonic as well as variable volume and decay levels. Interestingly, all the way up on the sliders is off and down is full on. At first this confused us until we realized that it matches the functionality of the draw bars on the organ. Another feature of percussion is that it only sounds if no other notes are being played on that manual (keyboard). This allows the player to control whether the percussion happens by playing legato or staccato. A great player can use this feature to be very expressive. Sonically, our B-2 is now a B-3.
Hammond Organ Upgrade

Mastering

So what is mastering and why do you need it? Mastering can entail many aspects, but all mastering shares one common goal; to make the album be competitive in the marketplace. The job of the mastering engineer is to listen to the mix and assess exactly what kinds of processing are needed to achieve this goal. This could include various combinations of EQ, compression, level adjustment or other types of processing. This combination is different for every song and experience is paramount for achieving consistent results.

Now that you know what mastering is, let's talk about what it is not. Mastering is not for adjusting individual levels of instruments. A particular instrument can be accentuated but individual adjustments need to be done during the mixing phase. Mastering is not for making your album sound like someone else. "Give me that Rolling Stones type of sound." Not going to happen. If you want a Rolling Stones sound then you need to hire the Rolling Stones to play on your album.

So why would you choose THI Studios to master your album?

The most important aspect of mastering any project is the experienced ears of the engineer. Robert Honablue has been mastering records since 1968 and he knows exactly how to tailor eq, compression, etc, to emphasize the most important aspects of a mix. His credits for over 70 gold and platinum certified recordings backs this up. Having high quality gear only makes it easier to maintain a high quality signal, but high quality gear without an experienced operator won't get you very far. Think of it this way, would let a kid who just learned how to fly a kite pilot an jet?

 In the music world today, there has been a small, but significant resurgence in the pressing of vinyl records. Especially in Indie rock, it is common for a group to put out a special edition LP. This gives fans something tangible to hold on to and to listen to and increases the sense of connection between bands and their fans. The knowledge of how to properly cut a master disc for vinyl is being quickly lost simply because young engineers have never done it. The engineer needs to control how deep the groove is, how close the grooves are, and pay attention to the low end of the mix. Improperly mixed and mastered low end can cause the needle to jump out of the groove. Not a good thing. Too little signal and your record sounds weak. Too much and you blow the cutter head on a very expensive (and difficult to repair) Scully or Neuman cutting lathe, for example. A mastering engineer with knowledge and experience will ensure that your LP or EP has the best possible sound quality and consistency between tracks. Who do you want for an engineer, the kid with the kite or the jet pilot?

Click here if you would like to hear "before and after mastering" examples.

Pro Tools Mixing Reference

In the recent months, THI Studios has begun to do mixing sessions with Pro Tools based files.  Some clients have recorded elsewhere (at home, for example) and come to us to mix down the project. This blog post is intended as a general reference so that the artists and producers that we work with can get the best sounds and have an efficient mixing session.
The first topic that needs to be addressed is file structure. Pro Tools and many other DAW (Digital Audio Workstations) store files in a similar manner. When you first create a project you make a project folder which contains all the data. Within that folder you will have the .ptf or .ptx files.  PTX files are made by Pro Tools 10, PTF files are created by Pro Tools 9 and earlier. This is the session file that stores info like track counts, aux and buss routing, and edits. This file does not contain the actual audio. The audio files are stored in a separate folder called “Audio Files.” Depending on the version of Pro Tools that was used to create the project, there may be other folders within the master project folder. These could include “Fade File”, “Region Groups”, and “Session File Backups”. All of these files and folders are required when transferring a Pro Tools project from one person’s system to another.  As long as we get all of these relevant files, we can open Pro Tools files directly without importing or exporting anything. Check out the screen shot to see this illustrated.

Screenshot

When a project has been recorded in another DAW like Logic or Cubase, our (or anyone’s) Pro Tools rig will not be able to open the session file directly. The most reliable method of transferring a project from one platform to another is to individually export each track as a .wav file. This requires that each track is selected from the very beginning of the project to the end and then exported. This will maintain the original timing of the tracks in relation to each other. You wouldn’t want your vocal coming in on the wrong beat and 30 seconds early. Especially in this case, it is very important to name your tracks before recording. All DAWs create the actual audio file name from the track name. If you record first and then name your tracks, the audio file will be named something like “Audio 1”. This make is very difficult to reorganize a project when crossing platforms. Always name your tracks first!
The last topic I want to cover is the use of effects. There are two basic classes of effects that I would like to cover. The first I will call traditional. By this I mean reverb, chorus, delay, compression, etc. These are all things that should be bypassed when exporting tracks. If your session is already in Pro Tools, you do not need to worry about these. We can easily bypass them once the project is in our system. The second class of effect I will call simulators. This would refer to amp simulators like Amplitube, Waves, or Peavey. We may not have the same amp plug-in so it is best to bounce, freeze, or export these tracks with the amp simulator. Just as if someone brought us analog tape, we would expect the guitar distortion to already be recorded; we would expect to get the same in the digital projects.  But one caveat; bypass or turn down all reverbs, chorus, flange (time based effects) before exporting/bouncing/freezing. That way we will be able to add our higher quality effects during the mixing session.
Is this sounding like it is a lot to handle? This is the point when it can be more effective to begin your project in the studio, with a real engineer. The engineer will worry about all of these things so you don’t have to. You should ask yourself the question, “Am I being distracted from making my music because I have to worry about all of this engineering?”