SIDE BAR: Com Mic Etiquette for the Recording Engineer

The talkback mic is one of the most important pieces of gear you will use on a recording session. Make sure you know how to use it as well as you know how to use the tape deck, the console or the SPX-90. No other piece of equipment can do more to keep the session moving and the atmosphere positive.

The Ten Commandments of Studio Communication begin with:

1. LISTEN!

and end with:

10. LISTEN!!

So obviously talkback is a misnomer. Think of it as listenback. If you simply focus on listening, the session will go smoother.

But listening ain’t easy. Whenever the talkback switch is pressed, the console wisely dims the control room monitors to prevent feedback. Unfortunately this makes two-way communication difficult. When the talkback button is engaged, the control room cannot hear the studio (due to the dimming just described). When the talkback button is not pressed, the studio cannot hear the control room (because, well, the button isn’t pressed). The deadly “failure to communicate” occurs when you get in the habit of using the talkback switch as an interrupt switch. Whenever you press the button, you, the engineer, are heard and the players are not. If a player in the studio wants to be heard, you must allow her to be heard by not pressing the button. During the points of confusion and disagreement that will come up during a session, you must not abuse this power to interrupt. This whole routine is exacerbated by the producer yelling over your shoulder, usually just as you lift the button, so that the artist just hears “Tell her to get . . .”

So you have to emphasize the basic conversational courtesies, being mindful of the “one-way-at-a-time” constraints imposed by the talkback system. Allow sentences to be finished. Allow others to lead the conversation. Resist the “I know what you’re going to say” urge to finish other people’s thoughts. If people on the other side of the talkback feel listened to when they speak, they will feel better, they will work better, and they will be more likely to knock it out on the next take. Squelching their creative input, intentionally or not, weakens their musical performance.

Some of the fancier consoles help by offering variable dim. The monitors needn’t be completely muted to prevent feedback through the com mic, so if the dimmed level is raised, the control room can probably hear most of what’s being said in the studio even while the talkback button is down. Voila! Two-way communication. When you work on such a fancy board, take advantage of this feature.

Another handy trick to help with this two-way-ness is to wear a set of headphones patched into the cue system, and get the producer to do so as well. Now you are hearing the same things as the performers, and there is no muting effect on the phones. I find an oddly intimate sense of studio community builds up on the cue network during long overdub sessions. Usually, the issues of sonics have been settled and you are all focusing on performance and musical note values, which can be dealt with easily over the cue system. Also, you are in a much better position to hear problems in the cue mix and fix them.

Beware of control room noises while talking to the studio. The person in the studio wants to hear the person talking instead of the talk of vacation plans in the back of the control room, the tapping of the assistant’s pencil on the meter bridge, or the giggling of the assistant producer’s Significant Other.

Make eye contact with as many people in the studio as you can. By listening with your eyes, you can hear their facial expressions and gestures while you are talking, and they can read yours while they talk.

One final handy trick has to do with general communications from the studio to the control room. Often, instrumentalists are off-mic or can’t be heard very well by the mics near their instruments. The fix for this is to set up a generic omnidirectional communications mic in the studio, get the level up pretty high and make sure it isn’t assigned to any bus or track. When you want to hear anybody in the studio, just solo (Pre Fader Listen is best) the communications mic and you will be able to hear everybody in the studio.

You can also use this mic to hear the studio during playback by adding it to the monitor mix (be sure to mute it the rest of the time). There are few things more demoralizing for an artist than to be trapped in the vocal booth and forced to listen, in muted silence, to their own bad take as it is played to a control room full of Significant Others. Allow the artist to speak during playback, as in “We don’t need to listen to the rest of this. I know what to do now, and I can get it much better. Roll it!”