Dr Zee
Hey Dr ZEE, i have seen your site and i have seen your devotion to what it is you do. You definitely do know your stuff when it comes to tubes and reels and all that. Im sure when people who know tubes and reels come around they think you are the shit. They most likely feel like they are among others like them. To them you probably seem like you "get it".
But try to see it this way. No music fan gives a shit. The only people you will ever impress is your peers. That means other guys who are into tweaking reels and tubes. All the attention you pay to the equipment side of it goes over the heads of 99 percent of people listening. And that is no crime on your part whatsoever. To each his own and variety is the spice of life.
But heres the real truth, anyone trying to make songs for people to hear and enjoy is absolutely wasting their time and money chasing those things (analog reels, hi-fi shit). If i came on here and some kid was asking advice about how to record some tunes he was working on id be a complete and total asshole and a liar if i told him the promised land was in analog reels. That individual can for a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time and a fraction of the tech skills do an endless amount of creative things in the realm of even the most modest digital setup. Is it the best sounding? Who knows. Is it the classic method? Probably not. But this shouldnt be the concern of a musician/recordist on a limited budget who works a normal day job and who probably has some incarnation of a girlfriend.
People who record self written songs at home have 3 major hurdles. Time, money, artistic ability. It takes next to no time to record something on a digital setup and hear it back in any number of ways in any number of arrangements. Creative decisions can be made quickly. Time is saved at every turn, something that any non pro has very little of dealing with lifes other responsibilities. As far as money is concerned... you tell me what is better for a working class guy, buying a Minimoog for 3 grand or downloading a cracked plugin that sounds exactly the same to 99.9 percent of listeners. Only an asshole would tell that kid in his room he doesnt have shit until he spends the 3 grand. Its also a lie. Fuck man id love to have the real thing. I HAVE had the real thing. And you want to know what, its all the same to the listener man.
Im really not for or against either format really. Everything has its place and its own glory. But id rather empower the home recordist/songwriter rather than tell them they wont ever be doing shit until they have 40 grand worth of equipment and 25 years tech experience behind them. Man, i personally know like 10 musicians who loved analog and who went down that road initially and didnt get hardly shit recorded cause everything was always taking too much time or breaking. All they wanted to do was express themselves and record themselves to hear it played back. And in a year of recording on reels they had maybe a handful of decent sounding tracks. And once those people switched to digital they had nearly full albums of polished, listenable, fully realized songs that pushed the limit of what they had ever done artistically in a couple months. I dont know what other peoples results are, but i have seen this take place with many people i know. They all express a bit of sadness switching over to something thats 1s and 0s rather than something more "real" like tape, but who cares man. Songs are songs. I know a thousand fuckers who spend all day getting pro guitar sounds with thousands of dollars whos songs suck ass and are artistic desolation. I know who id rather be.
, so...
