Ezomz Productions

Today at the Clubhouse continued without any changes in the rainy weather; the giant puddle on the lawn which Paul had affectionately named “Lake Antonell” had continued to grow since Friday. In terms of recording, today shouldn’t have been too complicated, albeit slightly more difficult than Friday’s solo vocal. We had an unnamed band coming in to record one song. Almost all of the setup was done yesterday, so there were only a few finishing touches that needed to be done this morning before we were ready to hit record. There was only one problem; the band’s bass guitarist wasn’t there! Apparently he had played another gig the night before and had a seven hour drive to get here; no one had heard from him yet. Luckily, my fellow engineer Eli (who just so happened to also be a bassist) stepped up to the plate and pulled out the studio’s bass to record a scratch track before the band’s bassist eventually showed up later in the afternoon.

While the band was on break, Shawn (another engineer) and I had an interesting discussion about changes in recording technology. The Clubhouse uses an interesting mix of modern digital technology and vintage analog technology; the main mixing console is a classic Neve 24-input console which is completely analog and is known for the unique coloration that its circuitry gives to sound. This is complemented by an ultra-modern, fully digital Pro Tools HD Accel 3 system. Studio owner Paul Antonell created this setup so that he and the other engineers could work on digital “in the box” projects fully within Pro Tools, as well as have the utility and unique sound of an analog console to work with. Now, Shawn and myself, both being children of the digital age, favor efficiency over the preservation of analog technology, and we both agreed that a far more efficient solution (monetary costs aside) would be to instead use a digital console, such as Digidesign’s C|24. The C|24 has many advantages over the Neve console in terms of efficiency and ease of use which would help to save valuable studio time. For example, every time we set up a new session with the Neve console, we have to label each fader by hand with what instrument it’s wired to as well as naming each track in Pro Tools. The C|24 does this automatically, pulling the track names straight out of Pro Tools and displaying them on a screen above each fader. This is one of many efficiency advantages the C|24 has.

Now, at this point I’d like to point out that Digidesign is (unfortunately) not paying me to say any of this; it’s all just personal opinion. And while the C|24 may be more efficient, it can’t duplicate that famous “Neve sound” that our current console is so well known for. So really it comes back to the seemingly never-ending debate of analog vs. digital. Will digital every completely replace analog? It doesn’t seem like it will happen any time soon. Digital equipment manufacturers are doing their best to make their products sound like analog gear, but most of the analog crowd are quite set in their ways. At the very least, it’s going to take more than a Waves plugin with the name of their favorite analog equipment company tacked on to change their purchasing preferences. Time will tell.

So, currently we’re finishing up recording the vocals, and I’m sure that I’m going to be called up any second to do some Melodyne magic. With that in mind, I’m signing off to go tune vocals with digital software and an analog console. Keep rocking out everyone!

-DS