and , as many might have already discovered , any track without compression sounds more open and transparent than the same track with a lot compression trying to make up for excessive dynamic range . Al was acting as the compressor by manually controlling the record levels during tracking . If the arrangement was too complex , he had assistants following the score and making calls like , “ Four bars until the piano solo .”
Al explained his approach as just something that he learned to do when he started out , and contends that he has always worked this way ! The first recordings he did were always live mixes to mono tape . Eventually , they added additional mic channels but everything was still live mixed to the mono or stereo tape master . Al was already entrenched in his first engineering gig at Apex Studio in NYC before multitrack recording became a reality around 1955 - Elvis
Presley made the first album using a multitrack tape recording in 1957 .
Al loved musicians and they loved him . He said frequently how much he enjoyed the camaraderie and the bantering back and forth with the artists and their band . He enjoyed what he did so much , which probably why he seemed to have the keys to the fountain of life .
And So … Please take these lessons from Al seriously . Try them out . They might just rock your musicrecording world !
Bill Gibson Teacher at Berklee College of Music Online , content creator for LinkedIn Learning , and author of more than forty books and videos about live sound and studio recording . Most recent book releases : The Ultimate Live Sound Operator ’ s Handbook , 3rd Edition , and The First 50 Recording Techniques You Should Know to Track Music . He also recently self-published an eBook / Audiobook combo called Stream Great-Sounding Audio : Guide for Streaming Church Services and Other Events .
BillGibsonCourses . com
Photo : Chris Schmitt www . chrisschmitt . com
Recording was always fun for Al . He loved musicians and they loved him . Al with Joe Walsh .