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Post by coolcat on Mar 18, 2014 3:47:51 GMT -5
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Post by coolcat on Mar 18, 2014 3:48:33 GMT -5
Many artists produced their own recording sessions. One such is Cat Stevens, who has complete control of all his recording activities. Here the engineer's job goes beyond the normal routine. Cat will want to know for example whether his last take was good enough or whether he should record another before coming into the control room to listen. The engineer then finds himself making decisions based on musical judgment. In this role he can be very helpful to the artist, saving much studio time and avoiding unnecessary playbacks.A Cat Stevens session can be extremely long and arduos because of his fanatical attention to detail and quest for absolute perfection. Each separate performance is recorded many times over until a flawless rendering is captured. Cat Stevens is an artist who makes full use of multi-track recording, more so than any other I have been associated with. For the same tune he will record his voice separately on perhaps six different tracks. Then he will listen to each track separately, marking on a song sheet the best lines from each, and we will track bounce; all the best lines from tracks 1 to 6 will be 'bounced' over to say, track 10, and the resulting performance will be faultless. This method of recording can also be used for guitar, keyboard and so on. Cat, moreover is unique in that he will not wipe any of his performances, but keeps everything for possible scrutinity later. Even after achieving the perfect take, he may return the next night and assemble another.When every tracks is recorded, final mixing too can continue for days, each mix of the same tune sounding that bit different from the previous one. The difference, as I hinted above, may be undetectable to the average record buyer while enormous to Cat Stevens. One must remember here that he has probably rewritten the song several times before hearing it another thousand times in the studio, so that he is now at the point where it no longer excites him. Any change, no matter how small, will renew his interest. This of course applies to many other artists and producers too. Many of Cat Stevens albums have won production and engineering awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and one has to admire his true professionalism.
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Post by Sir Lorry Load on Mar 19, 2014 11:58:02 GMT -5
Many artists produced their own recording sessions. One such is Cat Stevens, who has complete control of all his recording activities. Here the engineer's job goes beyond the normal routine. Cat will want to know for example whether his last take was good enough or whether he should record another before coming into the control room to listen. The engineer then finds himself making decisions based on musical judgment. In this role he can be very helpful to the artist, saving much studio time and avoiding unnecessary playbacks.A Cat Stevens session can be extremely long and arduos because of his fanatical attention to detail and quest for absolute perfection. Each separate performance is recorded many times over until a flawless rendering is captured. Cat Stevens is an artist who makes full use of multi-track recording, more so than any other I have been associated with. For the same tune he will record his voice separately on perhaps six different tracks. Then he will listen to each track separately, marking on a song sheet the best lines from each, and we will track bounce; all the best lines from tracks 1 to 6 will be 'bounced' over to say, track 10, and the resulting performance will be faultless. This method of recording can also be used for guitar, keyboard and so on. Cat, moreover is unique in that he will not wipe any of his performances, but keeps everything for possible scrutinity later. Even after achieving the perfect take, he may return the next night and assemble another.When every tracks is recorded, final mixing too can continue for days, each mix of the same tune sounding that bit different from the previous one. The difference, as I hinted above, may be undetectable to the average record buyer while enormous to Cat Stevens. One must remember here that he has probably rewritten the song several times before hearing it another thousand times in the studio, so that he is now at the point where it no longer excites him. Any change, no matter how small, will renew his interest. This of course applies to many other artists and producers too. Many of Cat Stevens albums have won production and engineering awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and one has to admire his true professionalism. I very much enjoyed reading this excerpt from "The Recording Engineer" that you thoughfully shared with us, coolcat, and "welcome" to Majicat!  This passage from the book only further confirms Yusuf's long-known affinity for being quite the painstaking perfectionist with his craft.  I'll never forget how longingly we fans waited for his albums to be released during the 1970's... as we presently do, too, for that matter! Many of those release dates slipped 'past-due', and I would bet that this was the result of his perfectionism. We, of course, are the ultimate beneficiaries of this 'habit', as the wait never fails to be proven worthwhile. -Bud |
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