This post was first published in Jan 2014 at projectstudiohandbook.com/PSHforum
You may have heard that Phil Ramone died in March of last year.
For those of you who don't know him, he was recognised as one of the industries greatest record producers, primarily because of the records he produced for singers.
The vocal performances he recorded made stars of many of the artists he worked with, and included Barbra Streisand, George Michael, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Rufus Wainwright, Ray Charles, Elton John etc etc.
The interesting thing about his vocal production technique was that it didn't rely on any specific equipment. Choice of mic, pre-amp, compressor etc were all secondary for him. He focused almost exclusively on making the performer feel great and loved. This may sound easy but it is a great talent.
In all our years of recording we have only ever met one other with that gift, Bluey of Incognito. We have seen musicians and engineers roll their eyes at the ceiling after several fruitless hours trying to get a performance from a singer. Not Bluey. He has an ability to fill the studio with positivity for days and weeks on end, and encourage performances from singers no-one thought possible. We can honestly say that the performances he produces would sound great if he was using an SM57!
It's good to get the equipment right, but its only a small part of making great recordings.
Phil and Bluey came to mind because we were working on scripts for our microphone / vocal recording series this week. Perhaps we'll add a video about the psychology of studio performance. Or perhaps its a little out of our remit. What do you think?
Thanks for reading.
You may have heard that Phil Ramone died in March of last year.
For those of you who don't know him, he was recognised as one of the industries greatest record producers, primarily because of the records he produced for singers.
The vocal performances he recorded made stars of many of the artists he worked with, and included Barbra Streisand, George Michael, Billy Joel, Tony Bennett, Paul Simon, Rufus Wainwright, Ray Charles, Elton John etc etc.
The interesting thing about his vocal production technique was that it didn't rely on any specific equipment. Choice of mic, pre-amp, compressor etc were all secondary for him. He focused almost exclusively on making the performer feel great and loved. This may sound easy but it is a great talent.
In all our years of recording we have only ever met one other with that gift, Bluey of Incognito. We have seen musicians and engineers roll their eyes at the ceiling after several fruitless hours trying to get a performance from a singer. Not Bluey. He has an ability to fill the studio with positivity for days and weeks on end, and encourage performances from singers no-one thought possible. We can honestly say that the performances he produces would sound great if he was using an SM57!
It's good to get the equipment right, but its only a small part of making great recordings.
Phil and Bluey came to mind because we were working on scripts for our microphone / vocal recording series this week. Perhaps we'll add a video about the psychology of studio performance. Or perhaps its a little out of our remit. What do you think?
Thanks for reading.
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