ABSTRACT
A very important aspect of any recording studio is its monitoring environment, as this is the means by which all the studio proceedings are ultimately judged. However, it should not be forgotten that there is another very important monitoring environment; the foldback system. When musicians are using foldback, it is their world. The acoustic sounds of the studios, the real sounds of the instruments, or the sounds as heard by the recording engineers in the control rooms are all only peripheral concepts to a musician wearing headphones. What is of utmost importance to a performance at the time of recording is the ambience created for the musicians in the foldback systems.
In large studios, ‘tracking loudspeakers’ are sometimes used, as shown in Figure 24.1, but only certain types of room lend themselves to being optimally usable with this form of foldback. The system has always been popular because many musicians prefer not to use headphones if they can avoid it. Some of this is no doubt because our perception via headphones is different to our perception via our pinnae (outer ears), and musicians tend to like to perform in a familiar world. However, it could well also be that many musicians have shunned the use of headphones not only because they find them to be an unnatural ‘world’, but also because they have too often had to endure some pretty appalling foldback mixes. To an alarming number of recording personnel, foldback is something
via which a musician keeps in time and in tune to a backing track, and little else. To musicians, the foldback is their creative space. Badly balanced foldback will distort the musicians’ perception, and nobody can be expected to perform with appropriate expression and feeling if they are not hearing a balance which is conducive to such a performance. A musician cannot be expected to build up a feel for a track if levels are going up and down, and instruments are cutting in and out as recording engineers adjust their balances, while hoping that the musicians can use such run-throughs for their own rehearsals. Musical performances can be fragile, and this fact should be taken into account before any atrocities are committed via the foldback.
