Roger started things with a few tips:

• That small microphone movements can make all the difference when it comes to placement.
• Troublesome monitor reflections that lead to poor sound can be checked with mirrors placed in front of the speakers, allowing you to see where reflections of sound can be occuring.
• Standardize equipment interconnect levels so you can patch equipment around and still get good performance.
• EQ last, and do the least necessary. Try other options for changing the sound first, such as changing the instrument (drum tuning, change strings, etc) or changing mics or mic placement.

The audience began to ask some questions:
Q: Has he used the mirror/reflection trick in front of a musician to look for reflections in the studio? No.

Q: Does he have some tips for checking a room's acoustics? Sure, many people clap their hands or make other noises when entering a room and listen for room character. He also suggested plugging one of your ears and listening to the musicians - this eliminates the brain's stereo processing and can give you a good idea of what the microphone will pick up. For controlling bad reflections he recommended ASC Tube Traps.

Q: Does he use binaural recording techniques? He doesn't do dummy head recording, and he cautioned about getting unnatural total sound if binaural tracks are used in a mixdown style project.

Regarding drum recording, he likes to set up all the drum mics and listen to the whole mix, making small alterations to the individual mics. Many people like to solo each mic and adjust that way, but he prefers to hear the whole result as he adjusts. He suggested using a shotgun mic above the drummer aimed at the snare instead of the close mic above and below the snare. This should be in conjunction with a recorder that allows time shifting the snare track ahead of the others to compensate for the arrival time delay.

He cautioned against the overuse of effects such as limiting and reverb. This seems to stem from inexpert listening to the final result.

Roger likes the Calrec Soundfield mic for orchestral recording, citing the versatility of the adjustable matrixing system.

Q: How does electronic reverb affect imaging? Most reverbs are fake stereo, but a few are true stereo and sound more realistic, such as the Sony MUR201. Also, using different reverbs on different instruments can help imaging.

Q: How can I best make 4 string players sound like 40? Some tips: make each of the 10 passes a fairly dead recording; move the musicians around each pass, or try to have them swap instruments, or even tune a bit off sometimes. In other words, make them sound more like 40 different people playing, rather than 4 people playing exactly the same way each time. He mentioned that one way he learns a lot is to use the collective experience of the musicians. If one musicians says he recorded something in a certain way and it worked, try it and file it away!

Q: Favorite microphones? He is very impressed by many of the new Audio Technica mics, especially for their value. He often will not worry if a favorite mic is not available at a session, since there are many that will work fine.

Q: How about tube equipment? He does not use a lot of tube mics generally. He feels that some of the popularity of tube equipment stems from the retention of compensation techniques used to make up for analog recording losses. With digital, those losses are not there, so analog compensation techniques sound harsh. Tube equipment likely helps soften these analog compensation habits, making the sound better. However, he feels that he can get excellent, warm recordings with solid state and digital equipment. Sometimes though, a piece of tube gear does just sound better. He related his experiences recording the recent Frank Sinatra sessions. They had maybe 1/2 of the first take, first song to decide which vocal mic they wanted - it was an AKG tube.

Q: Any favorite vocal recording rooms? He mentioned several, the common characteristics seeming to be fairly big, somewhat dead, and usually older and designed for musical acoustics. He cited Studio Bau:Ton as being good at designing good acoustical spaces today.

Q: What about recording in the control room? Sometmes it works, sometimes it's not practical. Be careful of noise in the room. Sometimes, it just works better with a separate room, both acoustically and politically/socially. Also, for real low budget projects, he suggested renting a "real" studio to record the tracks, doing the time-consuming overdubs and fixes at home, then using the real studio for the mixdown.

Q: How about monitoring levels? He does not monitor loud - maybe 85 dB. He likes the Meyer HD-1 speakers, and generally doesn't use the big monitors. One check for the mix is to turn the volume WAY down. It should sound good at low levels, too.

Q: Metering? He suggests checking your DAT recorder, since they all have different metering systems - some meter from the analog section (not too accurate) and some meter from the digital (preferred). He uses a Sony DMU30 digital meter for accuracy. He mentioned that he mixes to 3 machines: an AKAI optical recorder, a Marantz CD-R and DAT. For 20-bit mixes he goes to a Sony PCM9000, SADIE, and a DA-88 with RANE PaqRat.

Roger went on with some more tips:

• Use a new tape for each copy of your mixdown for safety. Don't just record it several times on the same tape.
• Rewind each DAT after use to the beginning before ejecting it. DATs get eaten more frequently when ejected in mid tape.
• Leave plenty of blank at the head of DATs before your music starts. He leaves 3 minutes blank before his masters.
• Use the blank search function of your recorder to make sure its cued up for continuous A-time.
• Don't try to edit on DAT recorders by start/stop/pause buttons. It just doesn't work accurately enough. There is the story of a musician who lost out on a record contract because he made his tapes on a portable DAT without much leader at the beginning. The producer's machine needed more leader, and he couldn't hear the start of any of the songs. The producer got disgusted and didn't sign the musician.

Q: Shipping tapes? Roger likes FedEx the best.

Q: Favorite brands of tape? He did use data DATs for his mastering, but has since changed to Apogee DATs. They both seem to have very low error rates. He also uses Ampex and 3M for general recording. He cautioned against using data DATs longer than 60 meters. Data DATs are listed by length of tape rather than time, like audio DATs. No audio DAT recorder has the sensors for DATs longer than 2 hours or 60 meters, so don't use 90m or 120m data DATs. For optical media, he uses Sony.

Q: Has he tried the new Apogee converters? He hadn't tried the newest yet, but uses their other converters.

Q: What about DCC and Minidisc? He points to the market failure of DCC, and allowed as to having a minidisc unit and liking it for casual listening.

Q: What do you see in the data compression field? You may see products for getting more than 8 tracks of data compressed onto your 8 track digital recorder.

Q: Any quick fixes for poor sounding vocal recording rooms? Some tips: Use lots of baffles to cut the reflections; try asymmetrical positioning; try opening a door to create a different acoustic; try recording in the control room.

Chair Tom Stiles closed the meeting. Our thanks to Ironwood Studios of Seattle for the meeting space.