RECORDING
RECORDING + TECHNOLOGY | Doug Doppler
Last night I had the pleasure of interviewing spent after load-in, sitting around while drums IS IT LIVE OR IS IT MEMOREX?
Hillsong Michael were tuned and mic’d up before I played a note. For those of us who remember this cassette
Guy Chislett about the making of People, More often than not, the entire band would play tape commercial, it’s been an amazing journey
Hillsong UNITED’s latest recording. As I was live, and then one by one we’d replace parts to where we are today technologically speaking.
at the espresso machine this morning I was that needed fixing and overdub additional Regardless of age, and unlike UNITED’s People
pondering some of the ways I could distill that tracks. While we’d start with a scratch vocal release, many of our favorite live albums weren’t
conversation into a bit of a recording tutorial track, the singer would be sparing on the take totally ‘live’ for a myriad of reasons. My biggest
that was broad enough so that everyone could to save their voice for the vocal overdubs that album credit besides playing and tracking my
benefit, but specific enough that the more all too frequently happened much later in the own sessions on the popular video game ‘Guitar
seasoned recording readers would have some day. Studio time was expensive and you went Hero’, is for being part of the ‘crowd chant’ on
meat to chew on as well. Let’s see how we do! in with a job to do and had to get it done before one of Joe Satriani’s albums. Unlike a lot of live
leaving to stay within your budget. Key point, album overdubs, Joe was totally transparent
the technology directly affected everything. about the fact that there were some overdubs.
producer
and
guitarist
GENERATIONS + TECHNOLOGY
Ironically, the ReAmp Michael mentions is the
It is important to understand that the way each
generation experiences technology is going to My actual first recording experience mirrored result of a live bass amp meltdown for one of
impact their workflow. Key to this conversation the home studio trend that just about all of us Satriani’s live albums where producer/engineer
is the fact that workflow tends to be dictated by are part of, even if it as simple as recording John Cuniberti had to find a way to feed the
the gear you’re using. musical voice memos, where a huge number raw DI (direct injection) track into a bass amp.
of the songs we play at church actually start.
I grew up under the wings of an engineer who Again, technology allows us to capture a BLENDED RECORDINGS
was on staff at Berkeley, California’s now- moment in time… Akin to rehearsing a worship team for a service,
practice recordings take a lot of the weight
shuttered Fantasy Studios. Hours would be
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April 2019
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