Re: Every live sound engineer should spend a little time in a recording studio.
It wasn't until I started learning about RT60 impulse responses-how they are read-what the different "parts" are etc, that I fully understood how to program a digital reverb to get the sound I want.
People often think that a long reverb time is what makes people think they are in a large room. But you can have long reverb times is kinda small rooms as well. It is the ITG (initial time gap) that gives the impression of a larger space-along with the overall tone of the reverb. You simply won't have a lot of highs in the reverb in a large space. A smaller space will have a lot more highs for example.
So while not learned while doing studio time-it was a real eye opener as to how to achieve the different sounds coming from a purely acoustic perspective.
So yes-you can learn from other areas things that will help understand.
I wonder how many "live guys" have actually taken something like a gate and played with it in a controlled situation-not studio-but just in the shop with a normal speaker at a normal level and see how it really performs?
"playing" with gear can teach you a lot. Somethings the manufacturers don't want you to know--------------------------------------
