I buy some stuff; one of the things is 77p, the other £1.20p and the third is 88p. I pay with a £5 note, how much change am I owed?
Whenever I pay for something at a checkout, I have a little game I play with myself, which is to work out in my head the amount of change I should get. As soon as I arrive at the number (in this case £2.15), I tell the cashier, we check and hopefully the technology, and I agree.
So why this silly game? It’s to keep my brain active. Yes, the technology can give me the answer, but that helps the store and not me.
I make and edit a lot of videos and belong to several groups for like minded people. Today someone posted a screenshot of an image they were editing of an office block and in the middle of the shot was a large radio tower, they were asking how to remove it from the shot.
A discussion then played out in the comments with several people suggesting various plug-ins that could track and remove the object. I looked at the shot and saw that the radio tower was sitting on a clean background and that it could be painted out of the shot in Photoshop and then the shot re-composited – no plug-ins necessary. At this point of the story, you may not live in a world of editing video and motion graphics so I may be talking jibberish to you. With that said, the point of this illustration is that while a plug-in might fix the problem, there may be another way that just requires some thought. My experience of being handed this kind of problem before has shown me that solving solutions without the aid of technology can help grow your skill set and reduce your reliance on what may be costly and in some cases unnecessary purchases.
The real answer to the radio tower problem is finding a DOP (Director of Photography) who doesn’t create the problem in the first place. I spent several years in post houses in Soho, London and the propensity for a movie ‘Director’ (speech marks intentional) to send a drive of footage and say ‘now edit’ this jumble of footage into a meaningful movie increased as the DSLR revolution took over, where everyone is a film director. The concepts of storyboarding, shot planning, lighting tests, checking the shots as your shoot, labelling the footage, shot logging, etc. seem alien to many new film makers.
Enough of the movie world, this is an audio blog, but my concerns translate into the world of recording, and I think they are worth discussing.
The term fix it in the mix should be one we frown upon for two reasons;
1. We should get it right in the first place by taking the time to record things right.
2. You can’t fix it in the mix, you can repair it, but it will never be as good.
Firstly, preparation. The RAF (Royal Air Force) have an old saying which is called the seven p – prior preparation prevents piss poor performance.
What does this look like in the world of recording?
- The song is written and arranged before we even think about recording.
- The artist/band have rehearsed the song so well they can perform it in their sleep.
- If you are recording a third party, then you speak with them before they get to the studio to find out what they need. What instruments are being recorded and with this information you know what mics, preamps and other hardware you will need.
- The hardware is set-up and tested before the band talent arrives.
- If you are self-recording most of what is written above still applies to you.
- Also take the time to experiment when capturing the audio, try different mics, different positions for the instruments in the room. I challenge you to get one mic and move it around the room and listen to the results; you’ll find you have a multitude of different sounds, none of them is right or wrong, just different. One of them may be the sound you want and as it’s then tracked right will need little treatment in the mix.
- To the second point, I was asked to do a video where I was challenged to mix a track in 15 minutes just using stock plug-ins. When I got the track to mix in 5 minutes, I was done. It was so well recorded, the only thing I could do with the plug-ins was to ruin it. Conversely, I have been sent mixes that had you given me 15 hours and all the plug-ins in the world and I couldn’t have made it sound good.
Let me be clear, I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s only good if it’s hard – I’ll use technology to save me time where appropriate, but often we simply use it because we are too lazy to do things right or we haven’t taken the time to learn a new concept to add to our skill set.
I think we are all poorer for it if we continue to take the line of least resistance.
Returning to my checkout game, and this is a more serious point. One of the greatest health threats facing us globally and especially in the West is dementia and other related illnesses. It’s a complex subject but one we must all consider. Many leading studies are saying that some of it can be prevented, here is the list of things that can help from the Alzheimers Association;
- Stay curious and involved — commit to lifelong learning.
- Read, write, work crossword or other puzzles.
- Attend lectures and plays.
- Enrol in courses at your local adult education centre, community college or other community group.
- Play games.
- Garden.
- Try memory exercises.
- I don’t know about you, but I still want to be doing this in later life not battling with this heartbreaking condition.
Has technology made us dumb, lazy or both? I think so, and for the sake of this industry and our long term good, I believe that we must do all we can to change that.
Discuss.
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