Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio

Allan Watson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138634596
• eBook ISBN: 9781135006303
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Geografia

Recording studios are the most insulated, intimate and privileged sites of music production and creativity. Yet in a world of intensified globalisation, they are also sites which are highly connected into wider networks of music production that are increasingly spanning the globe. This book is the first comprehensive account of the new spatialties of cultural production in the recording studio sector of the musical economy, spatialities that illuminate the complexities of global cultural production.

This unique text adopts a social-geographical perspective to capture the multiple spatial scales of music production: from opening the "black-box" of the insulated space of the recording studio; through the wider contexts in which music production is situated; to the far-flung global production networks of which recording studios are part. Drawing on original research, recent writing on cultural production across a variety of academic disciplines, secondary sources such as popular music biographies, and including a wide range of case studies, this lively and accessible text covers a range of issues including the role of technology in musical creativity; creative collaboration and emotional labour; networking and reputation; and contemporary economic challenges to studios.

As a contribution to contemporary debates on creativity, cultural production and creative labour, Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio will appeal to academic students and researchers working across the social sciences, including human geography, cultural studies, media and communication studies, sociology, as well as those studying music production courses.

Part I Inside the Studio

1 Studio Technologies

Changing Concepts and Practices

DOI: 10.4324/9780203728260-2

As a basic definition, recording studios can be considered as sites in which “appropriate and available technologies are assembled and hired to musicians and producers for periods of time, for the purpose of sound recording” (Gibson 2005, 196). These technologies include recording/mixing desks, often linked to music recording software on computers, as well as a wide range of effects processors and digital music-making machines, a range of microphones, and storage devices for capturing the recorded sound such as digital hard drives and tape machines. The history and evolution of recording studios is one that has been shaped by technological developments; from the post-war introduction of tape recording, that for the first time allowed the editing of recordings through cutting and splicing; through the introduction of multi-track recordings consoles and tape machines in the 1960s and 1970s; to the arrival of digital samplers and drum machines in the early 1980s and subsequently the computer software-based digital audio workstations (DAWs) of the 1990s and 2000s.

However, as Théberge (2012) argues, it is important to recognise that the modern history of the recording studio is not only one of technological and economic contexts and changing studio configurations, but is also one of changing concepts and practices in sound recording. For example, multi-track recording concepts and practices, he argues, differed in fundamental ways from those associated with earlier forms of record production; thinking of music as a series of individual “tracks,” rather than a single performed “event” enabled producers and engineers to develop a more compositional approach to the recording process (see also Moorefield 2010).

The purpose of this first chapter is twofold. First, it traces technological development in the contemporary recording studio, from the beginning of the age of multi-tracking in the 1960s, through the development of digital music-making machines in the 1980s, to the development of software and computer technologies for digital multi-tracking in the late 1990s/2000s. Second, the chapter considers the impact of these technologies on the roles that the record producer and recording engineer play in the recording studio, in particular how technology has acted to position producers and engineers as key intermediaries in the creative process of music production.

1.1 Studio Technologies: A Recent History of Development

The Rise of Multi-Track Recording and Mixing

The multi-track recording studio is the basis for our contemporary notions of what a recording studio is, how it operates, and how music is made (see Théberge 2012). Now the most common technological method of recording popular music, multi-tracking is a method of sound recording that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources to create a cohesive whole. Musical instruments and vocals can be recorded, either one at a time or simultaneously, onto multiple tracks of audio that can be individually processed and manipulated, either during or post-recording, to produce the desired results. As Warner describes:

Artistically, whether using digital or analogue systems, the rewards of multitrack overdub recording are enormous; first, recording each track separately enables the user to attain a much higher level of musical accuracy, specifically timing and tuning; second, each track can be recorded in minute sections, bit by bit, and as a consequence, levels of performance are achieved which would be impossible “live”; third, the complete separation of each track offers control of volume, timbre, and spatial positioning of the signal on the track in relation to the other tracks; and finally, decisions as to suitability of virtually all the separate sounds need only be made at the mixdown stage—that is, when the multitrack tape is “mixed down” to the stereo format that will be the final product.

(2003, 23; emphasis in original)

Multi-track recording machines became available as early as the late 1950s and early 1960s following the pioneering work of Les Paul. In the U.S. eight-track Ampex recorders existed as early as the late 1950s, with Atlantic Studios in New York the first studio to operate one (Simons 2004), while in the U.K. Abbey Road Studios would see the arrival of one-inch, four-track recorders late in 1963 (Moorefield 2010). However, it would be through the development of in-line digital recording consoles in the late 1960s, led by the U.K. technology companies Solid State Logic (SSL) and Neve (Box 1.1), that would really define the beginning of the era of multi-tracking. As Théberge (2004) notes, the entire development of multi-tracking, along with the practices associated with it, is inseparable from a simultaneous evolution in the design of recording and mixing consoles. These consoles not only had the facility to record multiple tracks of audio (Figure 1.1), but also to mix these multiple tracks together into a single stereo recording, allowing the producer and engineer to adjust elements of the source recordings and add effects in order to finalise the balance of sound within recordings, before storing these to tape via multi-track tape machines (Figure 1.2). Sixteen-track recording became widespread in professional studios by 1971, and by 1973 24-track recording had been introduced (Moorefield 2010). Subsequently consoles would be developed which allowed for up to 96 tracks to be recorded and mixed.

Figure 1.1 Close-up of Neve VR60 Legend 60-channel recording console with labeling showing separate tracks of audio Source: Author

Figure 1.2 24-track 2-inch tape machine Source: Author

Box 1.1 The development of multi-track recording consoles: SSL and Neve

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.K. technology companies Solid State Logic (SSL) and Neve (AMS-Neve since 1992) pioneered the development of multi-track in-line digital recording consoles. With each microphone and effect having its own set of faders and controls, these consoles gave producers and engineers a new level of control over the various sounds and components that were recorded in recording studios (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3 Recording to multiple channels of audio on a Neve VR60 Legend 60-channel console Source: Photograph courtesy of Tony Draper

Console development would take a further leap forward in the late 1970s as SSL and then Neve integrated computer software and memory into recording consoles, allowing producers and engineers to save settings across as many as 32-tracks and easily reestablish the settings between recording sessions, ensuring these were exactly the same from session to session—“Total Recall.” The Total Recall system incorporated a sensor on each and every fader, button and knob on the console and saves a “snapshot” of the desk's status. This means that at the end of a project the entirety of the desk's settings can be saved onto disk and recalled at a later date for recalls, remasters, remixes and overdubs etc.

In 1977, SSL introduced the SL 4000 B console which integrated a studio computer system with an in-line audio console. In the same year, Neve installed the world's first moving fader automation system, Necam (Neve Computer Assisted Mixdown) at London's AIR Studios, which would later be followed by SSL's automated fader system, launched in 1991. Automated faders (Figure 1.4) allowed the recording of fader moves made during a mix, which will then play back automatically. So if, for example, an engineer wanted to ride guitars up in the chorus, they would drop the guitar faders into record on the automated faders system, play the track, and physically push the faders up for the chorus. That move is recorded, and will then be played back by the motors inside the faders when the mix is played back.

Figure 1.4 Close-up of Neve VR60 Legend console showing moving fader automation system Source: Author

The digitalisation of consoles progressed into the 1980s and 1990s; in 1980, Neve produced the world's first digital audio console, the DSP, and in 1988 AMS released the world's first fully dynamically automated digital console. In 2001 Neve released the 88R, which they termed the “ultimate analogue recording console.” Both companies continue to produce recording consoles and associated digital recording technologies today, with many of the new developments aimed at the post-production and film industries as well as the music industry.

Sources: Leyshon (2009); http://ams-neve.com/about-us/ams-neve-history/70s (accessed 08/03/2013); http://www.solid-state-logic.com/about/history.asp (accessed 08/03/2013)

As Leyshon (2009) discusses, the innovations made by SSL and Neve in developing these recording consoles made them the control desks of choice for leading freelance engineers and producers, and as such “consoles integrated with software and with the capacity for memory became obligatory passage points for studios wishing to attract producers” (2009, 1323–1324). Thus particular recording desks, combined with particular palates of technologies in particular studios, would become key assets in attracting client bases for recording studios. Most major studios therefore invested in one or both of these types of control desks. For example, the control room of Studio One at London's Abbey Road has a 72-channel Neve recording console, while Studio Three has a 96-channel SSL recording console. The control room of Lyndhurst Hall, the orchestral recording space at AIR Studios, London, has the world's largest Neve 88R console, with a total of 96 channels (costing approximately £600,000), and Studio One has a 72-channel AIR-custom vintage Neve desk, while Studio Two has a 80-channel SSL desk. Studio One at Capitol Studio, Los Angeles—the studio's orchestral recording space—has a Neve 88RS console, while Studios Two and Three also have Neve consoles.

Even today, the major studios continue to invest in expensive Neve and SSL desks. The control room of Studio Two at Abbey Road was newly refurbished in January 2011 to accept a new 60-channel Neve mixing console; while in 2010, the Engine Room, located in Bermondsey in London (part of the large Miloco Studios group) became home to an SSL 4056G 56-channel console that had been obtained and refurbished following the closure of the renowned Olympic Studios in London, at the cost of tens of thousands of pounds. However, the high costs of these consoles are prohibitive for most small studios working on very small budgets. For these studios, investment in one of the wider range of budget mixing consoles available on the market is the only option; however, these desks can be given some of the functionality found on the larger software-integrated SSL and Neve consoles, if they are integrated to a computer via an analogue to digital converter.

Digital Music-Making

The late 1980s saw a new range of automated digital music-making music machines become available on the market. Drum machines, for example, enabled musicians to programme rhythmic patterns without actually hitting any drums (Goodwin 1988); the first drum machine which employed sampled sounds, the Linn LM-1, was released in 1979; the Linn Drum, popular with producers of 80s disco and pop music, would follow in 1982 (Moorefield 2010). Around the same time a number of digital sound-processing and recording technologies became available, including the first personal computers, sequencers, sampling computers and synthesizers. The first commercially available sampler, the Fairlight CMI, came onto the market in 1979 (ibid.). The introduction of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) protocol would be of particular importance (Box 1.2), as it provided a system that enabled the connection of, and communication between, multiple digital devices (Bennett 2009). As these technologies began to dramatically fall in price, they became accessible to a much wider range of producers and studios; the first sampler at a price affordable to a broad market, for example—the Ensoniq Mirage priced at less than US$2,000 (roughly one-quarter the price of other samplers on the market)—was introduced in 1984 (Rogers 2003). Such developments were in no small part the reason for the emergence of “project studios”—smaller studio installations that began to take on commercial work (Théberge 2004).

Box 1.2 Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) code was developed in 1982 by American engineer and musician Dave Smith. Before the development of MIDI, it had been all but impossible to control multiple digital synthesizers, samplers, signal processors and mixing desks. This was due to the incompatibility of the various systems being developed by manufacturers, meaning that one manufacturer's systems could not synchronize with those of another. MIDI provided a single interface and code through which multiple digital music-making machines could operate together, and as it was adopted by many of the leading manufacturers including Yamaha, Roland, Casio, Akai, Korg and Kawai, it meant that compatibility issues between various systems were resolved.

MIDI allows one musical instrument/device to control another device: for example, when a note is played on a MIDI instrument, it generates a digital signal that passes along a MIDI cable and triggers a note on another instrument. A numerical value is assigned to each aspect of a note, including its pitch, its duration and loudness. These signals can be stored and manipulated using a MIDI “sequencer” (which can be a dedicated device or a program on a computer) and then can be combined with other MIDI channels. This allows musicians to combine instruments to achieve a fuller sound, or to create combinations of different sounds. Using a MIDI-based sequencer ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I Inside the Studio
• PART II Beyond the Studio
• PART III Working and Networking in the Recording Studio Sector
• Glossary
• References
• Index