There’s a basic disconnect in how most people view learning the art and process of music recording and mixing. Say you get a new job, and they need you to place a widget in a bag, seal the bag, and place it in a container. On day one, someone will teach you how to do this task. There’s not a whole lot of room for variation in how this job is performed; they have their specifics of how they want their bag sealed, and how the container should be organized. All of this leaves you with very little room in which to create a “new” way to perform this task. You are ready to get to work.
But say you, with absolutely no experience, got a job in a recording studio. Would they throw you in the control room and say, “Mic a kick drum and get a great sound”? Most likely not! First of all, technically you’d likely have little idea of what mic to use, where to plug things in, what knobs to turn, or even how to manage to get audio to play over the monitors. But even if you were able to sort all of that out, what is a “great” kick drum sound? Obviously, most studios would never operate this way, and it’d be far more likely you would shadow a skilled engineer and begin to learn their methods and techniques. Maybe, over time, you’d begin to make sense of all this and create a recording style all your own.
Here’s where I see the disconnect. In all these cases, we’re initially looking at the recording equipment, learning how to use it, and then accepting or rejecting the results. Now, stop for a minute: Why are we recording? What is the end goal? The end goal is to make a recording of music (or simply organized sounds) for a listener to partake of at a future date, right? What’s missing here?
In order to make great art, you must first study great art. In college, as part of my art minor, I remember taking a pottery class. As a child, I had been raised around kilns and clay, so this sounded like a fun class that would be fairly easy to get through. But at no time do I remember anyone attempting to teach us what made any pottery into great art. The physical results of that entire semester were a bunch of useless items of little interest to anyone – nothing was done to expand the artform, or to even try to achieve a level of art. In the case of music recording, why is it that we jump into the technical end without studying art – the recordings that people love?
You want to make great recordings? Study great recordings: How they were made and how they ultimately “sound.” What do you hear? How does it make you feel? Learn all you can about the rooms, the instruments, and the recording gear. But also look up interviews where artists and producers discuss their intent, their thoughts, and their feelings. There's far more to be learned from the latter.
Then, when you begin recording the project in front of you, use these references as the barometer for what you want to achieve. It’s never simply about getting a “great kick drum sound.” It’s about aiming for, and facilitating the creation of, great art.