Dumbass - noun - A stupid person; these words are used to express a low opinion of someone's intelligence.

If you’re one of the many aspiring songwriters / musicians / engineers out there that is trying to record an album independently, you have two choices: Record the album yourself at home or go to a “professional” studio. Unless you have years of audio engineering experience, the latter choice will surely yield better results. If you want a CD that will be competitive with major label CD’s, you should hire professionals.

If your sole goal is to become a professional audio engineer and you have some songs of your own that you want to record, you also have two choices: Record the album yourself at home or go to a “professional” studio. At this point, you might ask “Why should I go to a studio and have someone else record it for me when I have a degree in audio engineering?” Yes, you may have a degree and you may have recorded your friend’s band for your school project but you can learn a lot (check your ego at the door) by hiring an experienced engineer and watching them work. You can watch them work and pick their brain (just be cool about it and know when to shut up and let them work). What I learned in recording school makes up for only about 10% of the knowledge I have today. I have learned the remaining 90% by recording my music at home, reading books, surfing the web and recording my music in “professional” studios.

Know the Craft

You see, I was one of those musicians who thought it would be safer to become an engineer than it would be to try to become a rock star. I soon found out that it is just as hard to “make it” as a professional engineer as it is to “make it” as a musician. Since my heart was never really in the technical side of music production, I reverted back to writing music and either recording it myself at home or hiring a “professional” to do it for me. By working with other engineers I learned what to do and what not to do. Mostly, I learned what not to do. So many engineers get caught up in gear and specs that they lose sight of what is most important: CRAFT.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines craft as: 1) skill in planning, making, or executing 2) an occupation or trade requiring manual dexterity or artistic skill. While there are “no rules” in art, there are guidelines in craft. The old cliché “You have to know the rules before you can break them” is true. Most true professionals know these guidelines from experience. Nobody ever sat me down and told me the guidelines of the recording craft. In college I learned about frequencies and the difference between a condenser mic and a dynamic mic, but very rarely did I receive advice on how to make great sounding recordings.

Most of the guidelines for recording music are considered to be “common sense” by industry professionals.

Identifying the Dumbass

So how do you tell who knows what they’re doing and who doesn’t? First of all, you can listen to what they’ve done. This is the ultimate test. However, just because someone else sounded good doesn’t mean you will sound good. Also, make sure you listen to their demo CD on your stereo, not in the studio on their monitors. Music usually sounds good in the studio it was recorded in, but not in “real world”. So in addition to listening to what the engineer has done, you can also ask questions and just LISTEN to the things they say.

With the advent of computer technology, there are many “professional” studios out there that claim they can give you a “professional” product. Many these studios have just one employee, the owner. The owner is often a musician posing as an engineer. They most likely didn’t go to school for audio engineering and think that because they read a few books and have a DAW, they know what they are doing. Be wary of these people because they often DO NOT know what they are doing.

I have fallen victim to them in the past. I have learned the hard way. Now I want to help you to identify these amateurs posing as professionals. So I have created a Top 10 list of the dumb things that dumbass engineers have said to me. If your potential engineer says any of the following statements, RUN AWAY!

The Top 10 Dumbass Engineer Statements

10. "It doesn't matter what kind of guitar/bass/mic cable you use."

You should not cut corners on your cables. Spend some extra money on high-quality cables that deliver pure, noise free sound. Why shoot yourself in the foot right from the start? The best way to achieve a great mix is to have a great source.

9. "I use the preamps on my board to record vocals."

If it's a high-end Neve or SSL console, fine. But if you are using something like a Mackie and want that “professional” vocal sound, you will need to use a high-quality external microphone preamp.

8. "There’s no benefit to recording on analog tape because it is going to be converted to digital when you put on CD."

I found a studio that had a 24-track analog tape machine and I wanted to record drums, guitars and bass on analog tape and then import it into Pro Tools for tracking vocals/mixing. My request was met with a “Huh, the tape machine needs maintenance.” I was told by another engineer that it didn’t matter if I recorded to analog tape because it would ultimately be converted to digital. Then lo and behold, I was reading an interview with Roy Thomas Baker (Engineer/Producer for Queen, the Cars and the Darkness) and he said that’s what he did on the last Darkness album. He likes to use the tape machine to get the warmth and compression that you can get from saturating the tape with a hot signal.

7. "I like to mix on cheap monitors because they sound more like “real world” speakers.

While it is a good idea to have a pair of “real world” speakers for reference, you should be using high-end monitors for the majority of your tracking and mixing. If you use bad or mediocre monitors exclusively you will most likely end up with a bad or mediocre mix.

6. "I can master the CD for you."

Mastering is typically done by mastering specialists with many years of experience. It’s really easy to “butcher” the recording if you do it wrong. You wouldn’t have a heart surgeon work on your brain, would you? Have your CD mastered by a qualified mastering engineer.

5. "If everything sounds good by itself, the mix will be great."

This is an actual quote from an engineer I worked with. We spent a bunch of time tweaking each track "by itself" to get each track to "sound good" and when we put it all together it was the equivalent of building a house with a blindfold on. What a mess! Any engineer worth his or her salt knows that you have to alter the sound of each track within the context of the other tracks, because everything affects everything else.

4. "I mix with headphones."

While headphones are useful as a reference sometimes, they usually result in bass heavy mixes and cause listening fatigue, which affects your judgment.

3. "We'll fix the out of tune vocals with AutoTune and reverb."

The vocal should be in tune. Sing it over, punch in, comp tracks (combine several takes) and only use Autotune/effects to "sweeten" a good performance.

2. "I don’t listen to any new music."

Beware of engineers who do not stay current with modern music. They probably have a production style that is behind the times, which will make your recording sound obsolete. A true professional has an understanding of the past and the present, even if you are going for a “retro” sound.

1. "Let’s quadruple track the guitars and record two keyboard tracks."

Yes, I confess. I’m the dumbass who once said this. I learned the hard way that “less is more”. When you have a gazillion  available tracks, it’s very temping to keep piling on more and more. You can have a lot of tracks if the parts are carefully orchestrated. However, you can get a really huge sound with a minimal amount of tracks. Take the Police, for example. They have some songs that sound as big as the Pacific Ocean, because the instruments have room to breathe. You are able to hear the ambience because it’s not being covered up by a million tracks of nonsense.