Recording - November 2017 - 13

4. Your bACK
As mentioned elsewhere in this issue,
the primary posture of the recording
engineer is hunched over: hunched
over a mixer, hunched over a control
surface, hunched over a computer keyboard. When we get "in the zone", we
don't like to stop what we're doing, for fear that it will be
hard to restart our creative motor. That can mean long,
long stretches of time when we're hunched over.
A properly designed ergonomic chair becomes vital to
health. There are some incredible purpose-built models out
there (like the ErgoLab StealthPRO chair reviewed on page
58), but even a business chair with the right design is better
than a spare kitchen or dining room chair.
You don't realize
how important
hand protection is
until you need it.

Features to look for include proper lumbar support so you
don't slump with a curved spine, ventilated back and/or seat
so you don't get hot and sweaty, well-made casters so you
can roll easily on whatever floor covering your room has, and
arms that support your forearms properly and can be easily
moved out of the way if you want to play guitar or bass.
You might also consider a specialty task chair with no back
at all, which forces you to sit upright as you work. It aches for
a while if you've been slumping for years, but when you get
used to it, your backside will thank you.
Oh, and when you need to move gear around, protect your
spine by using a folding dolly cart (I love my RocknRoller
Multi-Cart)-and while you're at it, protect your hands (I use
Gig Gear's Gig Gloves). They seem silly until you smash a
finger, herniate a disk, or drop a console on your foot.

5. Your eyes
Staring at a computer monitor for hours
on end can be rough on you. People
will spend huge amounts of money on a
high-powered PC or Mac for use as a
DAW, and then save a hundred bucks
buying a cheap monitor. The reasoning
is: "If you're not doing video or gaming,
what do you need fancy graphics for? Audio's all that matters, right?"
Well, no. You look at waveform displays, you look at plugin controls, you look at virtual mixers and parameter lists and
automation curves. You stare at them for hours while making
tiny mouse movements over and over again. If your monitor
isn't crisp with a good color balance, those tasks will become

torture. You don't need a top-end gaming display and killer
graphics card; you just need something that's nice to look at
for long periods. And if possible, get more than one display-
there's no such thing as too much screen real estate for a DAW.

6. Your brain
Staying of sound mind is critical to
cranking out good results. For every
story of an engineer turning out a brilliant
track while wasted, there are hundreds of
untold stories about the opposite. The engineer wakes up on the studio couch feeling like death warmed
over, staggers to the DAW, listens back to that "one brilliant
take" the band managed to nail before passing out in the
tracking room... and discovers that it's out of tune, out of time,
out of balance, and out of control. Where's the romance of the
Rock And Roll Lifestyle™ now, huh?
You can't always control whether the artist overdoes it, but
part of your job as an engineer is to be able to handle anything that comes your way. It's far easier to do that when
you're in control of yourself and feel confident when you sit
down at the mix position. Know your studio inside and out,
practice your technique daily, hone your skills to a fine edge...
and if everybody else is indulging, be the one who takes it
easy. Remember, the cool-headedness of the engineer who
saves the session from going off the rails is another famed
music-industry theme, and it's a much nicer one to aspire to.

7. Your space
We've written over and over that the
first thing you have to do is make sure
you're hearing your music correctly...
and yet, submissions to Readers' Tracks
still list everything down to guitar strings,
but not monitors. Acoustic treatment, bass trapping, diffusion,
monitoring... learn what these do for you, learn what the
products out there do (and don't do!) for you, and get your
room sounding right.
This is not a place where I get to say, "This is kid stuff." Getting
room acoustics dialed in and matched up with monitors is hard.
Moving around the room, hearing where bass is accentuated or
diminished, getting high-frequency absorption just right without
overdoing it, tackling room reflections, soundproofing... it's a
long job and a largely thankless one, and it's very far removed
from the romance of cutting tracks. But the first time you sit down
at the mix position, play back music, and the room sounds
accurate and clear, you'll thank yourself for doing it right.

8. Your tools
Throwing money at a problem isn't
always the right solution. Many times,
a sticky situation requires brainwork,
technique, and persistence, more than
it requires the latest whizbang studio
RECORDING November 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - November 2017