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What he said

Good points, for sure! I was thinking more along the lines of technical perfection, not so much artistic perfection, if that makes sense. I like the 'goosebumps' test. When I get goosebumps, I know it's right, even if there are things I might like to fix. Something about the way it sounds at...

I agree with what you're saying, that nobody in 1965 was intentionally making sub-par recordings. But, I think that the great recordings are from people trying to squeeze a little too much out of the gear. I guess part of what I'd call character is taking chances. It's the Peter Gabriel/Phil...

It is hugely subjective, of course. I think that a lot of us get caught up in trying to think about what press, radio, other engineers, record label folks, etc are going to think about the recording quality, while forgetting that the fan wants something that sounds cool, unique and more than...

I wasn't speaking so much about correcting big problems, those should be corrected of course. I was saying removing the room to the point where it's a void. Classic jazz recordings are mostly quite ambient, with a lot of room sound. Not acoustically dead or neutral. As to what 'character'...

Yeah, I wasn't sure whether what I was trying to say was coming through... My point was that technically perfect, sterile, neutral sounds are the goal for a lot of engineers. We try very hard to neutralize the room, perfect the pitch, get a guitar sound that is direct, etc. But in many cases...

I just posted a new article on my site about Character in recordings: http://suitcaserecordings.com/character-in-recordings.html I'd be curious to hear others' opinions on the issue. Do you try to create technically perfect, acoustically neutral recordings? Or do you make recordings that try...

What was the hangup with the Alesis? They're not the best out there, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't make a decent recording with one. Unless you're having technical issues?

My dog likes to hump her dog bed. She's a big dog, too. There's another element to gut decisions, which is in terms of buying gear, a very complicated thing with many variables, where we often attach too much importance to one thing or another; price, looks, name-brand, etc. How many times...

I am a believer in selective recall for explaining a lot of things, but in this book, he features a lot of controlled experiments taht show how our brains work differently when going with the gut feeling rather than consciously working things out. The gut thing is more important when dealing...

Not sure about pro-tools, I use cubase. I have an older 1.8 ghz Intel imac and haven''t had any problems with firewire throughput. I think it's a non-issue for most. I regularly record 18 tracks of 24bit/44.1 audio to an external firewire (or usb 2.0) drive with no issues. The iMac is a really...

Chess is an example used in the book, too! He gives the example of computers vs. people, and why a computer has such difficulty beating a grand champion (not that they can't of course, but the computing power thrown at the problem is just huge!) A grand master's brain is able to parse the...

The Mackie Onyx mixers have independent channels, if you get the firewire card. I haven't seen a usb mixer with outputs for every channel, though there may be some nowadays. The Mackie is supposed to be quite good. I had an Onyx 800r for a while, it sounds good, clean.

The book I referenced makes the case that we use our whole brains to make decisions, but when we try to consciously analyze a situation, we tend to get overwhelmed or give too much weight to one factor or another. It should be noted that following your gut isn't a magical solution. A novice at...

Not sure, but it may be possible to lock a track or event. try to highlight them, then check the edit menu. Every version of Cubase is different, and I'm not in front of my computer just now...

Ditto! It seems our subconscious is sometimes more knowledgeable than we think!

I was recently reading 'How we Decide' by Jonah Leher, in which he makes the case that complex decisions (ones with more than say 4 variables) are best made by going with our gut. I was thinking about this in regard to recording. Often, when I am recording a band, I don't try multiple set-ups...

Pawn shops can have some great deals! It seems around here the pawn shops think everything old is vintage, and therefore gold! I've seen old peavey amps with higher prices than when they were brand new!

It's definitely a time of great change! Business models tend to adjust, given enough time. I think there will be professional musicians for a long time!

I don't know about selling music to fans, etc. I think there will always be fans who pay for music, both to get higher quality recordings (rather than ripped files which may have been doctored or poorly encoded) and fans who pay because they feel it's the right thing to do, to help out artists...