{"id":79912,"date":"2022-01-20T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=79912"},"modified":"2022-02-11T14:36:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T20:36:06","slug":"no-more-flying-blind-how-indie-rock-producer-beau-burchell-consolidated-20-years-of-tracks-and-takes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/79912-no-more-flying-blind-how-indie-rock-producer-beau-burchell-consolidated-20-years-of-tracks-and-takes\/","title":{"rendered":"No More Flying Blind: How Indie Rock Producer Beau Burchell Consolidated 20 Years of Tracks and Takes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Beau
Producer, engineer, and musician Beau Burchell<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Described by Spin <\/em>magazine as \u201cpulse-pounding and hypnotic,\u201d Newport, California-based rock band Saosin<\/a> has helped define the post-hardcore scene since its founding in summer 2003. Saosin lead guitarist and founding member Beau Burchell<\/a> has also pursued a parallel career as a record producer, audio engineer, and record label owner. Burchell\u2019s production credits include more than 30 punk, emo, and post-hardcore albums for artists across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though he might be reluctant to describe his band or record label as \u201cinstitutions,\u201d serving as producer or engineer on so many albums means safeguarding a great deal of institutional memory. Beau has spent two decades building up a massive archive of masters, alternate takes, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping track of all those tracks can be a logistical nightmare, even in the age of digital storage. The sheer amount of storage required to archive a complete recording session can run into the tens of gigabytes. After years of struggling to respond quickly to requests to retrieve one archived track or another, Beau realized it was time to get serious about file management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We caught up with Beau recently and learned how OWC\u2019s Thunder Bay RAID systems<\/a> have proven instrumental in taming his massive and unruly audio archive. They’ve also helped ease his recent transition to streaming video with a popular Twitch channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A passion for production<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Beau Burchell\u2019s early experiments with multitrack production were primitive to say the least\u2014crudely layering recordings on a dual-cassette boombox by playing along to tracks he\u2019d already created. If the technology wasn\u2019t exactly state-of-the-art, the technique still provided a way to hone his skills and demonstrate his talents as a guitarist and producer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more I started recording my own stuff,\u201d Beau recalls, \u201cit started sounding better. From there, word of mouth spread, and I started recording real bands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a studio perspective, one of the things that I wish I would\u2019ve done sooner is to get into file management when making a record.<\/p>Beau Burchell<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Covering his tracks<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Twenty years down the line, Beau has much to show from his work in recording studios. Behind all that public product is a vastly larger collection of unused takes and tracks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beau\u2019s passion for perfecting a sound, experimenting, and getting a take just right has often taken precedent over logging and organizing those experiments in an effective way. \u201cFrom a studio perspective, one of the things that I wish I would\u2019ve done sooner is to get into file management when making a record,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s so easy to get excited about the part that you’re recording that you forget to actually label the file.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 50 or 100 takes of a single guitar part, a producer is left with a morass of recorded material that might not be so easy to sort through after the fact. And typically, there\u2019s little time to worry about carefully organizing the stored recordings all those takes\u2014particularly for a producer or engineer juggling multiple projects and deadlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter you finish a record, the label says, \u2018Okay, great. The record\u2019s done\u2014hand it in,\u2019\u201d Beau explains. \u201cThen you have another band that\u2019s supposed to start the next day.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the label calls you ten years later and says, “Hey, we\u2019re gonna do a re-release of this album,” you have to sift through twenty hard drives. That, for me, has been the tipping point where I\u2019ve said, “I really need to get everything organized.”<\/p>Beau Burchell<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hard drives everywhere<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When most musicians talk about gigs, of course, they\u2019re referring to live shows. But for Beau Burchell as a producer and engineer, the word also refers to the multi-gigabyte storage requirements of accumulated tracks and takes. \u201cOne of my sessions might actually be ten gigs,\u201d he says. \u201cMultiply that by ten songs, and now I have a hundred gigs of unused stuff.\u201d When a typical project ends with taking out a hard drive and setting it aside, \u201cit\u2019s totally not consolidated. It\u2019s a big mess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After twenty years of producing albums, Beau estimates that he has accumulated roughly twenty hard drives. \u201cI\u2019ve tried to label drives by number, and then create an Excel sheet that says, \u2018Drive number one has this.\u2019 But then over the years, you run out of space and you say, \u2018Drive number two might have some space on it. I\u2019m gonna back up more stuff to that.\u2019 And then you forget to update your Excel sheet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, just knowing all that material is backed up\u2014however haphazardly\u2014is good enough. \u201cBut when the label calls you ten years later and says, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re gonna do a re-release of this album,\u2019 you have to sift through twenty hard drives,” Beau says. “That, for me, has been the tipping point where I\u2019ve said, \u2018I really need to get everything organized.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thunder Bay RAID to the rescue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Thunderbay\"
OWC Thunder Bay RAID<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When Beau finally embraced file management and consolidated his stored recordings using an OWC Thunder Bay RAID system<\/a>, his only regret was that he didn\u2019t do it sooner. \u201cThe thing I\u2019m most excited about with a Thunder Bay is having everything in one spot,\u201d he says. \u201cFor so long, I just had to sift through\u201d all those hard drives. \u201cI felt like one of those guys on a beach with a metal detector, trying to find the song. I was flying blind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also had to worry about actually retrieving the song if he was lucky enough to locate it. \u201cI would have huge anxiety because it\u2019s like, \u2018I hope that this old drive that\u2019s sitting in a plastic container still works when I fire it up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cites reliability and redundancy, as much as consolidation and organization, as the key benefits of a RAID solution. \u201cIn the past, if I plug in one of the drives and it doesn\u2019t work, I\u2019m out of luck. With RAID, I have this peace of mind knowing that if one of the four drives goes down, I\u2019ll get an alert in the software that says, \u2018Hey, this drive is down, replace it,\u2019 and then it\u2019ll rebuild everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt like one of those guys on a beach with a metal detector, trying to find the song. I was flying blind.<\/p>Beau Burchell<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Upgrading to RAID has also proved advantageous as Beau has moved into the video world with his Twitch channel. Capturing three separate video feeds for each show, Beau is producing enough footage that he estimates his storage needs have grown tenfold over his audio-only days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was just storing video on individual external hard drives, \u201cmanaging all that data really sucked,\u201d Beau says, \u201cby the sheer space that it takes. So the Thunder Bay is just great.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

View the complete OWC interview with Beau Burchell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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