Myths

[Fletcher]

This response came up yesterday in the thread "Recreating a classic album???"... and while I was kind of unnecessarily harsh in my original response... it was because it struck a nerve.

There are so many myths and so much bullshit that flies around, especially in the "Home Recording" areas that it just kinda got to me.

I started this thread with the hope that other "myths" could be discussed and put to sleep once and for all [like the bullshit myth that you can't plug a ribbon mic into anything running phantom power or the world will end]...

After you get done skipping over my diatribe from hell... maybe y'all could come up with some of the other mythological crap started by some of the half trained idiots of our industry and we can put some of them to bed.
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Originally Posted by Rico 52

Seems to me that Beggars Banquet was made in the prime of tube recording era. If I were to try and get that sound I would drive tube pres pretty hard on the drums.............leave the acoustics nice and full and warm.I remember a clip where I saw a Senn 441 dynamic on the acoustic. Everything............... big and fat and in your face.The recordings are dark and murky for the most part but not in a bad way!!!!!!. If you are limited with your pres try getting a couple of GT Bricks and tube compressors and run through them at mix down. I assume you are using computer based recording and these records were made on tape machines and probably mixed on a tube 1/2 track Ampex. All that comes into the equation. Although it may sound lo-fi now..........it was not then. The Stones were rock royalty and recorded with the top stuff at the time. To me it is still a great sound!!!!!!!

With all due respect Rico you haven't got the remotest clue of what the fuck you're talking about.

Beggar's Banquet was made in Olympic Studios in London on the second deck made for Olympic by their tech at the time; Dick Swettenham. Dick Swettenham was subsequently bankrolled by Chris Blackwell [Island Records] to start the console manufacturing company called "Helios".

The desk at Olympic was 24 channels with 8 busses. The equalizer was a 3 band that featured a 10kHz shelf boost only, 6 selectable midrange frequencies [which were also boost only but switchable between "peak" (additive EQ) or "trough" (subtractive EQ)] with a 50Hz boost only feature on the low end or a stepped 12db per octave hi pass filter that had half a dozen positions and started as high as 400Hz [this is all from memory... I haven't seen one of these damn things in well over 10 years].

I actually owned the console for a while. Jimmy Miller was actually at my house when it showed up. There I was all proud of my latest purchase... and as we were rolling it off the truck Jimmy looked at me and said "that's my desk!!". I smiled and said "yes it is". He scowled and said "that thing was a piece of shit in 1968, what the hell would you want with it now?".

The desk ran on negative 24volt Germanium transistors and was quite noisey. Jimmy was right, the desk was a pig... and my options were to restore it to it's original glory or break it up and sell it for the bits. Part of the frame is holding up the pile of fire wood behind my house so I guess you can figure which direction I took.

Now... with all that nostalgia bullshit put to the side... let's talk about this horseshit toob fetish especially as it applies to the cheap toob crap you can find in your local Banjo Mart for mere pennies of what it should cost. OK, the Brick is somewhat of an exception as it's low price is a direct result of it being built where you could blindfold the assemblers with dental floss... but there's more to this "cheapassed tubemania" than using Chinese factories.

First... you guys need to understand that the people building "tube" stuff back in the day were going for the highest possible fidelity attainable... they were going for the lowest distortion possible, they were trying to get the stuff to sound "neutral". They were not going for the "toob" sound, they were trying to get away from the toob sound.

Now one of the nice things about tube circuits is that if they're designed well they'll have headroom for days [things that the cheapassed shit with glowy things inside... even "the Brick" doesn't have]. You're into D.W. Fearn and Thermionic Culture and Pendulum Audio and even Manley Labs before you're talking about real tube equipment... that TL Audio bullshit doesn't make the grade.

One of the other things that you really have to understand about tube equipment is that the majority of "the sound" was created by the 'phase shift' as well as the 'ringing and overshoot' of the transformers involved in the circuits. It wasn't necessarily the tubes [though they did add some musically pleasing distortions and a little natural tube compression when driven... but I'm not writing 15,000 words on the subject so let's just leave it at most of "the sound" you're hearing is transformers... not the tubes].

Desks like the Olympic desk were also chock full of pretty cool transformers [which they haven't gotten close to recreating in the current "Helios reissue" crap]... as was Neve stuff from that era, and Raindirk stuff from that era, and MCI stuff from that era, and API stuff from that era, and Sphere, and even Soundcraft [who at one time made a pretty outstanding sounding console called the Series One which is about the last desk they built that was actually worth a flying fuck from a sonic perspective].

Yes, the Stones could afford whatever they wanted from a technical perspective... which is why they had state of the art stuff like this custom Olympic desk [which just happened to be attached to one of the coolest sounding rooms in London that just happened to be in Olympic Studios]... and 3M M-56 16 track machines [also transistor machines... but 'class A/discrete' and also full of (gasp) really good sounding transformers].

Look Rico... I know it looks like I'm ragging on you a bit... probably because I am, but really I'm ragging more on the bullshit half truths and horseshit myths that incompetent know nothing jag offs who write for jag off magazines because they can't get a real gig or worse work as a floor mook in the local Banjo Mart so they can use their employee discount to buy themselves some of that there cool assed toob gear so they can sound just like that Lenny Kravitz fellow.

Dude... don't believe the bullshit... believe your ears. Learn basic electronic theory, learn music theory, learn about rhythm and harmony... learn about harmonic structure and phase shift and shit like that and all of a sudden you'll find yourself making way better recordings than if you listen to some fucking moron who can spew dumbass hype about some cockamamie half truths he learned from someone only slightly less dumb than him.

Best of luck with all you do... and please pay the morons no mind. Listen for yourself and the world will really open itself up to you in ways you never imagined.

Peace.

[Farview]

I don't know if this qualifies as a myth, but it will qualify as a rant.

Nobody really wants John Bonhams drum sound. They want the feel. That is 98% the drummer.

The drums sounded different on every Zepplin album, sometimes they sounded different from song to song.

It doesn't matter how many room mics you set up in which castle/stairwell/whatever, if you don't play like Bonham, it won't have that 'sound'.

If the engineer had nothing but $99 condensers and SM57s plugged into a Roland VS-2480, it still would have had that 'Bonham sound'.

[lucky13]

Smoking does NOT make you look cool.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

As far as other myths, I bitched about a couple of them over the past couple of days, so I might a well put them here too: they both deal with loudspeakers in the home recording marketplace.

Myth #1: A "studio monitor" is better than a "stereo speaker".
The truth is - especially in the lower price ranges usually bandied about in ths forum - the term "studio monitor" has far more to do with marketing strategy by the manufacturer than it does with any necessary meaning of quality of sound reproduction. Most $150ea "studio monitors" are little more than glorified bookshelf speakers in both physical design and quality of sound reproduction, and one can find just as many good and bad quality loudspeakers in that price range at their local Tweeter as they can in the Sweetwater catalog.

If one can only afford $300 or even $500 for a pair of "nearfields", go with what works for your ears and your acoustic environment and don't worry about whether it's a "studio monitor" or not.

"But", you say, "what about the hyping?" Well, that's the second myth:

Myth #2: The difference between "studio monitors" and "stereo speakers" is that "stereo speakers" are "hyped" on the low and and the high end whereas "studio monitors" are flat and accurate.
Consumer speakers are not generally purposely designed to be "hyped" in such a way. Sure some designs deliver heaver-than normal bass (remember the old Realistic Mach One's with the 15" woofers?), others are hyper-crisp on the high-end (some overly-priced "audiophile" speakers), and so forth, but in general, the manufacturers are trying to design a relatively flat loudspeaker that they can build and sell with the materials they can find for a profit at a desired price point.

If you want proof of the myth, just listen to your average consumer speaker yourself, or for those tin-eared home "engineers" out there, look at their printed response pattern charts. Not only are they not hyped on the low and high ends, but more often than not they are extremely loose and lacking on the low and high ends.

Hyping on the low and high end is the job of the preamplifier's "Loudness" button, not of the loudspeaker.

Which brings up another myth buried inside of this one, that "flat" speakers sound accurate but unpleasant. This is a bunch of hooey as well. All "flat" means - and there is no truely flat flat - is that it's not adding extreme coloration to the signal. If the signal happens to be a Telarc recording of the New York Philharmonic, it's going to sound damn good thorugh a speaker as flat as Iowa, and will to most sound worse, not better, though an allegedly "hyped" speaker.

And as far as "studio monitors" in the econo price range being more acurate than their "home stereo" bretheren, I'd have to say that there are so many exceptions to the rule on both sides of that equation as to be able to declare that battle a washout for both sides.

Finally, for anyone who thinks that any of the mid-to-low end "studio monitors" are all that flat - or if they are that that really means what you thnk it means - let me ask you one question: why the hell do you get into such arguments on this board over how different the Tannoys sound from the Wharfies, the Yorkvilles from the Events, the M-audios from the Samsons, etc. etc. etc. If there was such a striving for accuracy and and if that accuaracy was anything close to the perception in reality, these loudspeakers would all basically sound pretty much the same, right? But they don't. And they don't for many different reasons.

In some ways loudspeakers are similar to microphones, but in reverse. Now, one looks that the frequency response characteristics of a Neumann LDC and those of an Audio Technica LDC and to the eye they will be different, but the differences look relatively minor with deviations of only a half-dB here or a dB there. Yet very few would argue that the two mics sound all that similar or that they act the same way as one matches them with assorted different preamps. It's not much different with loudspeakers on the other end.


And just a remark about Fletcher's toob rant and the Stones:

The big irony to me is that if anyone submitted a mix to these forums for evaluation that had similar sonic qualities to the original production release of "Street Fighting Man", they'd be ridiculed right off this board for things like lack of frequency spread, poor dynamics, lousy noise floor, and an amateur sound to the guitar. And the very same people who look at the old Stones stuff through the sticky, brown sugar-tinited glasses of nostalga and say it sounds great would be the same ones leading the parade of ridicule.

G.

[soundchaser59]

First myth that ever made a fool of me:

"You'll play a lot better an hour after you take three of these little beauties!"

Related myths that actually hinder the quality of music:

"You need another hit!"

"Have another bong!"

"Have another shot!"

"Have another beer!"

"She'll be gone by morning!"

[Ethan Winer]

Fletcher,

> the people building "tube" stuff back in the day ... were not going for the "toob" sound, they were trying to get away from the toob sound. <

Thank you!

--Ethan

[Creamyapples1]

Great read, keep it up!

[j-boy]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

The big irony to me is that if anyone submitted a mix to these forums for evaluation that had similar sonic qualities to the original production release of "Street Fighting Man", they'd be ridiculed right off this board for things like lack of frequency spread, poor dynamics, lousy noise floor, and an amateur sound to the guitar. And the very same people who look at the old Stones stuff through the sticky, brown sugar-tinited glasses of nostalga and say it sounds great would be the same ones leading the parade of ridicule.

G.

Actually, AFAIK the main rhythm (acoustic) guitar part on "Street Fighting Man" was recorded by Jimmy Miller on a cassette deck, hence the lo-fi quality. Whether it was done intentionally for effect, or just happened to be 'of the moment'... I don't know.

[BitchyKitty]

Behringer Tube Ultragain MIC100

Price: $36.95 - $70.07

Description from Studica: The TUBE ULTRAGAIN MIC100 is a vacuum tube mic/line preamplifier with integrated limiter for studio, live and hard disk recording applications. It features a carefully selected 12AX7 vacuum tube with UTC technology for exceptional warmth and lowest noise. Thus, the MIC100 can be used to eliminate the dull sound of standard digital recorders and sound cards. Also, it perfectly complements studio-grade condenser microphones.

I dont even know hwere to begin.....

[famous beagle]

Originally Posted by southside glen

And just a remark about Fletcher's toob rant and the Stones:

The big irony to me is that if anyone submitted a mix to these forums for evaluation that had similar sonic qualities to the original production release of "Street Fighting Man", they'd be ridiculed right off this board for things like lack of frequency spread, poor dynamics, lousy noise floor, and an amateur sound to the guitar. And the very same people who look at the old Stones stuff through the sticky, brown sugar-tinited glasses of nostalga and say it sounds great would be the same ones leading the parade of ridicule.

This is ENTIRELY subjective and a complete pile of dogshit (and/or bullshit). Who the hell are you to tell others what they think truly sounds good? I don't give a shit about nostalgia, but I do know that "Tumbling Dice" is some of the most gorgeous sounds I've ever heard recorded ... be it digital, analog, or whatever. Sure you can hear a little tape hiss, but who gives a fuck? The tones are absolutely gorgeous. And I don't care what the hell they were recorded on. All I know is that most (MOST) newer recordings don't sound as good to me. I like that sound ... period.

The bigger irony to me is that the same snobby-ass know-it-alls like yourself are the ones that can rarely produce anything that's worthy of a listen.

[FajitaTone]

Originally Posted by BitchyKitty

Behringer Tube Ultragain MIC100

Price: $36.95 - $70.07

Description from Studica: The TUBE ULTRAGAIN MIC100 is a vacuum tube mic/line preamplifier with integrated limiter for studio, live and hard disk recording applications. It features a carefully selected 12AX7 vacuum tube with UTC technology for exceptional warmth and lowest noise. Thus, the MIC100 can be used to eliminate the dull sound of standard digital recorders and sound cards. Also, it perfectly complements studio-grade condenser microphones.

I dont even know hwere to begin.....

start with "it's not even plughged in the circuit. it gets the warm toob glow from lights just behind the tube, but please don't open the unit to see such atrocities."

it is true.

[foreverain4]

96k sounds better when you are mixing ITB down to 44.1. this is a huge myth that has people using up TONS of hard drive space. now, if you are bussing out and mixing analog, different story..

[JeffLancaster]

And just when I think I can't possibly love this place any more, along comes an interesting thread like this. Right on!

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by famous beagle

This is ENTIRELY subjective and a complete pile of dogshit (and/or bullshit).

I'm somebody who can read a post and understand it's meaning before I reply. Did I say ANYTHING about the quality of a Stones recording? No, I didn't. Go back and read it again.

What I said was was that if somebody without a famous name submitted a recording to this forum that sounded like something from Beggar's Banquet (which is the album that was being talked about, of which "Tumbling Dice" is not a part), trigger-fingered folks like yourself would ridicule the quality of the sound of that stuff as being inferior instead of hailing it as sounding like a Stones recording.

You want to honestly stick to your guns and say that if you submitted something that sounded like Keith Richard's guitar in "Street Fighting Man", that there wouldn't be more than one response saying that it sounded like it was recorded through a cheap-ass amp or direct through a Pod (god forbid) and that it sounded thin and amateurish? That's not a dig on the Jim Miller recording, that's a dig on the fact that Jim Miller could get away with that sound because he's Jim Miller and because he's recording Keith Richards, but the like of you wouldn't let that pass on this board for a second.

When the Stones do it, it's not "thin", it's "inspired". It's not amateurish that it may or may not have been recorded by a cassette, it's "kewl". But if you or I tried doing that on this board we'd get lambasted for running our gits direct through a Behringer and remping on a Pod.

I'm pointing out the irony, if not the outright hypocracy, of such thinking which is so rampant on this board.

G.

[XLR]

I believe a principle source of misleading information for newbs is merchandising copy from retail catalogs and sites... things like tube warmth, mic diaphragm size, the C1000... gotta laugh sometimes. Thankfully some retailers are above hype, but most are not. It seems most newbs come here having already pretty well memorized the catalog hype.

Re Southside Glen's comments about attitudes on this board being oriented excessively towards recording fidelity to the neglect of expressive performance... my experience here would cause me to disagree, respectfully.

Tim

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Timothy Lawler

I believe a principle source of misleading information for newbs is merchandising copy

You are right, that is the source of a vast majority of the myths. Salesmanship has never had more than a passing acquaintenace with actual truth.

The cause of the spread of these myths is another story altogether.

G.

[famous beagle]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

I'm somebody who can read a post and understand it's meaning before I reply. Did I say ANYTHING about the quality of a Stones recording? No, I didn't. Go back and read it again.

What I said was was that if somebody without a famous name submitted a recording to this forum that sounded like something from Beggar's Banquet (which is the album that was being talked about, of which "Tumbling Dice" is not a part), trigger-fingered folks like yourself would ridicule the quality of the sound of that stuff as being inferior instead of hailing it as sounding like a Stones recording.

You want to honestly stick to your guns and say that if you submitted something that sounded like Keith Richard's guitar in "Street Fighting Man", that there wouldn't be more than one response saying that it sounded like it was recorded through a cheap-ass amp or direct through a Pod (god forbid) and that it sounded thin and amateurish? That's not a dig on the Jim Miller recording, that's a dig on the fact that Jim Miller could get away with that sound because he's Jim Miller and because he's recording Keith Richards, but the like of you wouldn't let that pass on this board for a second.

When the Stones do it, it's not "thin", it's "inspired". It's not amateurish that it may or may not have been recorded by a cassette, it's "kewl". But if you or I tried doing that on this board we'd get lambasted for running our gits direct through a Behringer and remping on a Pod.

I'm pointing out the irony, if not the outright hypocracy, of such thinking which is so rampant on this board.

G.

Your last sentence (in the first post) about "sticky, brown sugar-tinted glasses" certainly implied a certain disdain for the quality of the Stones' recordings.

I don't have Beggar's Banquet, and I'm not familiar with the guitar tone you're referring to on "Street Fightin' Man." I've only heard the song a few times, so I can't really comment on whether or not I think it sounds amateur. I certainly don't deny that there's plenty of hypocrisy on this board.

But it irks me when I hear people say that the only reason those older recordings sound good to some people is because of nothing other than blind (or in this case deaf) nostalgia. I honestly think those old Stones and Beatles recordings sound great, no matter what they were recorded on. It was your nostalgia comment that I found offensive.

[JeffLancaster]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

You are right, that is the source The cause of the spread of these myths is another story altogether.
G.

Probably caused in part by people who hear things and repeat them, without having actual experience in the matter themselves, just because they want to have something to say. I suppose I may have even been guilty of this at times myself, but am trying hard to keep it in check. If we could all just stick to speaking on technical subjects based on our actual knowledge and experience, instead of based on what "some guy in another forum said", I'm sure we'd all be better off.

[XLR]

Originally Posted by JeffLancaster

Probably caused in part by people who hear things and repeat them, without having actual experience in the matter themselves, just because they want to have something to say. I suppose I may have even been guilty of this at times myself, but am trying hard to keep it in check. If we could all just stick to speaking on technical subjects based on our actual knowledge and experience, instead of based on what "some guy in another forum said", I'm sure we'd all be better off.

I think that's the real issue re spreading myths. At HR there's a constant influx of newbies, only SOME of whom recognize that they don't know much. The rest often assertively regurgitate merchandising copy just to have something to say.

I agree that it's a critical factor for posters in any thread to ONLY cite their own experience with gear and techniques. I'm not naive enough though to think that's going to happen. The writings of Balthazar Gracian help me deal with it.

Tim

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Hey, beagle, I'm an old man who grew up on 60's music, I have no problem with nostalga. I'll get pissed off every time I hear a live band play "The Letter" and attribute it to Joe Cocker . The original Box Tops version is so incredibly better to my personal tastes, even though the sonic quality is a magnitude more primitive. You misunderstood me.

My comment about looking at the Stones' recording through tinted glasses was not meant as a sign of disdain, it was meant as a sign of bias in those wearing the glasses.

I was actually thinking about this very thing by pure happenstance starting just a few days ago, before it came up in the thread (I swear this is true on anything you want me to swear upon). I just so happen to have stared last week building and practicing a blues harp accompaniment to the song "Brown Sugar" so that I can sit in for one song with one of the bands I do sound and tech work for (they've been trying to drag me up there for a long time now.)

Anyway, what I've done is ripped the song from CD and dumped it into my editor so I can record harp parts to it on a seperate track and be able to play the comglomeration back and see if I am playing anything worth letting other people hear yet. And so I happen to be listening to this Stones recording really critically from a technical standpoint, ignoring the fact that it's a classic song from what I consider to be the penultimate rock and roll band of all time, that I love and have loved for every bajillion times I have heard them. And I'm listening with fresh engineer ears and I'm thinking to myself, man this really sounds asphyxiated; what a relatively bad recording this really is. If I submitted this to HR, they'd laugh me off.

I'll grant you some of that may have been a poor job in the CD mastering of the Greatist Hits CD that I ripped it from. But my ears are good enough to know that there were layers of trouble below the remastering fog that contributed to the sound that I was hearing, that - due to the original tracking and mixing alone - there was definite sonic shrapnel in the mix that just would not pass the metal detectors of the MP3 forum today.

This is all part of a much larger syndrome, and maybe something that I should offer as another myth: the general myth that just because something is done by pros, that it automatically sounds good.

Not talking about the Stones now, so don't get on my case , but, you know there is a lot of real crap engineering-wise that passes for Top40 and goes gold or platinum. But we don't DARE say that the engineering emperor has no clothes because he is name is on the album and ours is not. There are a whole lot of somgs and albums out there that have made a ton of money that I am very happy to not have my name on as engineer, thank you very much.

G.

[jonnyc]

I was exposed to a few myths when I first started recording. I had a friend that had a pro tools rig so I assumed he knew what he was talking about. Everything I learned from him was before I ever got on these boards so please forgive me for believing most of them. Here we go.

1. ALWAYS eq before compression.

2. Duplicating a track makes it sound fuller.

3. Presonus is the best pre you can buy.(He actually believed this).

4. Direct in guitars is a more pure sound.(He only records direct in)

5. Mastering is just mixing really good.(I actually told him what mastering really is so of course he's a mastering engineer now)

6. Studio Projects is owned by Neumann.

7. He claimed he could "hear" pro tools and could tell when it was used vs. tape or something else.

8. Nothing's better than pro tools

9. Realverb is the best reverb available(to him this isn't an opinion but a known fact)

10. I think the biggest myth he ever fed me was that he was "the greatest audio engineer in the world" he actually said and still believes that. Oh and the fact that he can make anything sound better than anything you've ever heard.

This guy is a total whacko, yet he can make a song sound decent. Makes me scratch my head everyday. BTW he's actually taken advice I've gotten from here and put it to use and I almost have him out of the eq before compression thing.

[lpdeluxe]

As the renowned Fletcher himself has said, it ain't the pristine sonics, it's the overall expression of emotion. It's easy to get caught up in "...I gotta have a better mic > I gotta have the BEST mic > I gotta get everybody in PERFECT time > ooops! Where'd the music go?"

We listen to Beggar's Banquet (the first record I copped a slide part from, BTW) because it reeks attitude, because we want to BE the Rolling Stones badasses, and all it takes is to learn some of Keith's heroin solos or some of Mick's scowls and there we are!

Engineering has nothing to do with it.

[famous beagle]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

Hey, beagle, I'm an old man who grew up on 60's music, I have no problem with nostalga. I'll get pissed off every time I hear a live band play "The Letter" and attribute it to Joe Cocker . The original Box Tops version is so incredibly better to my personal tastes, even though the sonic quality is a magnitude more primitive. You misunderstood me.

My comment about looking at the Stones' recording through tinted glasses was not meant as a sign of disdain, it was meant as a sign of bias in those wearing the glasses.

I was actually thinking about this very thing by pure happenstance starting just a few days ago, before it came up in the thread (I swear this is true on anything you want me to swear upon). I just so happen to have stared last week building and practicing a blues harp accompaniment to the song "Brown Sugar" so that I can sit in for one song with one of the bands I do sound and tech work for (they've been trying to drag me up there for a long time now.)

Anyway, what I've done is ripped the song from CD and dumped it into my editor so I can record harp parts to it on a seperate track and be able to play the comglomeration back and see if I am playing anything worth letting other people hear yet. And so I happen to be listening to this Stones recording really critically from a technical standpoint, ignoring the fact that it's a classic song from what I consider to be the penultimate rock and roll band of all time, that I love and have loved for every bajillion times I have heard them. And I'm listening with fresh engineer ears and I'm thinking to myself, man this really sounds asphyxiated; what a relatively bad recording this really is. If I submitted this to HR, they'd laugh me off.

I'll grant you some of that may have been a poor job in the CD mastering of the Greatist Hits CD that I ripped it from. But my ears are good enough to know that there were layers of trouble below the remastering fog that contributed to the sound that I was hearing, that - due to the original tracking and mixing alone - there was definite sonic shrapnel in the mix that just would not pass the metal detectors of the MP3 forum today.

This is all part of a much larger syndrome, and maybe something that I should offer as another myth: the general myth that just because something is done by pros, that it automatically sounds good.

Not talking about the Stones now, so don't get on my case , but, you know there is a lot of real crap engineering-wise that passes for Top40 and goes gold or platinum. But we don't DARE say that the engineering emperor has no clothes because he is name is on the album and ours is not. There are a whole lot of somgs and albums out there that have made a ton of money that I am very happy to not have my name on as engineer, thank you very much.

G.

Fair enough. I apologize for coming off as a jerk. It was a knee-jerk reaction to seeing words like "nostalgia," "sound good," and the like all together.

I agree that there are albums done by pros that don't sound good (to me at least). I think Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is an example of this. I liked the sound of Summerteeth (their previous album) much more. Both albums were produced by the band, but YHF was mixed by "wunderkid" Jim O'Rourke, while Summerteeth was mixed by some guy I'd never heard of. YHF sounds dull and lifeless to me, regardless of how good Jim O'Rourke is supposed to be.

Anyway, to each his own. Music is such a subjective art that eventually discussions like this become pointless. If it sounds good to you, it's good. It's as simple as that when you're looking at it from a personal standpoint. When you're talking about commercial pop music, then obviously other things come into play. I honestly don't understand how anyone can listen to the production of a Celine Dion song (the theme from "Titanic" especially!) and say that sounds "good." But ... apparently millions of people do think so.

Sorry for hijacking the thread Fletcher.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by lpdeluxe

Engineering has nothing to do with it.

Not sure whether your behest for me to keep pumping the bullsht in here was honest or sarcastic but I'll only say that Fletch has it exactly right. Or, as I like to put it, "It's the content, stupid."

Personally I think my sig line says it all.

G.

[Reggie]

Originally Posted by Fletcher

OK, the Brick is somewhat of an exception as it's low price is a direct result of it being built where you could blindfold the assemblers with dental floss... but there's more to this "cheapassed tubemania" than using Chinese factories.

I'm thinking this is a bit racist, or racially offensive.....but luckily there are no asian sound engineers around here to take offense.
And I think we can let it slide for posting such an awesome, uh, post.

People who think stuff has to have toobs in it to be the sh** need to try out some Neve/API/etc stuff. Now THAT is where a lot of good classic "warm" sounds came from.