Home Recording's Dirty Little Secret

[NL5]

In my example, I put arrangement/performance/instrument sound into one lump of "the band".

 

[Bob's Mods]

You are completely ignoring 500+ years of musical history. I recommend a music history book, seriously. Very interesting stuff: lots of composers dealt with the same stuff we do today. Handel was caught up in publishing lawsuits, most of them were.

EVERY generation falls into the same trap that you do. The piano was going to kill music, so was the invention of recording. People in 1820 thought Beethoven Symphony #9 was a piece of crap. The critic at the premiere of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto said " This is music that stinks to the ear".
As I said earlier, Bach was completely forgotten until the mid 1800s. Umm, he was born in 1685.
The golden age of Television? Seinfeld is as good as all the shows, whether one sees it or not. There will always be good Movies, Music, Artists, plays, musicals. From now until the end of time. The older generation HATED Elvis and the Beatles. They thought it was the death of music and nobody could hold a candle to Sinatra. They were wrong. They always are.

David,

My time horizon is looking forward to the time I've got left on this island in space called Earth. Anything is possible when you jump throught time 500 years into the future. I agree, its not dead forever. Things work in cycles. We'll see great artists again. I'm not encouraged it will be in my life time though. Generations into the future will enjoy the next great act to come along under the shielded domes they will need to survive from run away green house gases. Buts thats another story.

Bob

 

[Bob's Mods]

In order of importance (IMHO), more or less, from most important at the top to least important at the bottom:

1. The performer/performance quality
2. The quality of the engineers/producers
3. Acoustic quality of the recording spaces
4. Microphone quality/selection
5. Preamp quality/selection
6a. Recorder quality (if going analog)
6d. Converter quality (if going digital)
7. Monitoring chain quality
8. Everything else

YOMV

G.

Now we're getting somewhere. Gear is not in the top three. Thats interesting. Why all the facination with those Neve and SSL consoles and having every studio toy under the sun if they are of lesser importance?

Bob

 

[TerraMortim]

because people like their toys... either that or they are too lazy to figure out how to make reasonably priced gear sound great.

 

[Bob's Mods]

Then all this mud slinging about a digital or analog medium (my dogs bet'er en your dog) really isn't at the core and was much a do about nothing. Its down there. For shame beatin' up on poor ol Beck like that. Some guys like their beer in a bottle, some like it in a can.

I got reasonable gear. I do got a lousy room. Its a small, untreated second bedroom.

Bob

 

[TerraMortim]

that's what I've been saying this whole time.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Bob,

Here's a few ways to think about it:

Who'd win in a driving competition: Michael Andretti driving a Chevy Impala, or a student driver in an Indy race car? The student driver might make it to either the service garage or the hospital first.

Which recording would you rather listen to: Luciano Pavoritti recorded on a portable recorder like those newspaper reporters use, or some American Idol 1st round loser recorded on a Neve console?

Which would you rather have run your production: Sir George Martin with a home studio, or some newb with the keys to Abbey Road?

Gear is important, and makes a difference to those who know how to use it, and when used on someone/something worth recording. But if the performance sucks or the engineer thinks that gear flies itself, then it doesn't matter much how good the gear is, the result is not going to be very good. OTOH, if the performer is worth listening to and the engineer knows how to MacGuyver the best sound he can out of the circumstances around him, the result will probably go to the top of the charts regardless of whether the board said Mackie or Neve.

Beck may wax evangelisic on the religion of analog, but he's a smart man nonetheless. And back when we had signature lines in this forum, his was a quote that said something along the lines of, "If you can't make a hit record with a Portastudio, you'll never make one with a Studer." I agree with that completly.

G.

 

[Bulls Hit]

"When you are able to A/B analogue and digital, which we could do in this case, there's simply no comparison. The top end is so sweet and beautiful. I've never heard anyone say about digital, even at 24-bit/96kHz or 192kHz: 'Isn't the top end as sweet and beautiful as you've ever heard?' You don't because digital just doesn't sound that way." [/I]
--Elliot Scheiner - Sound on Sound Magazine, Aug 2003[/B]

Interesting quote. But all they're saying is they prefer the sound of the recording after it's been coloured by tape. The digital recording is a more accurate representation of what came through the mics & pres. You gotta colour in in yourself

 

[MCI2424]

Yeah, there's a level playing field all right, but not in the way you probably mean. The bar was lowered to level the field. It’s pretty much the way Walter Sear says it...

"As the professional studios switched to digital recording, the sound got so bad that anyone could do it as badly at home using the same equipment or the newer, cheaper home digital multi-tracks. They got the same terrible,unmusical results. Why spend money on a professional studio if you could do the same thing at home."
- Walter E. Sear
What have They Done to My Art?

About Walter Sear, this comment is about the dumbest thing I have read in a loooooong time. Whatever studios he is working in could use a good engineer. In all the so-called istening tests conducted by longtime engineers have pretty much proven that analog or digital recording can get the same results to the point that a handfull of each, mixed up, can not be identified. Too many people hang the "shitty sounding recordings" done today on the digital format. There are just as many bad sounding analog recordings done by the same bad engineers.

 

[DavidK]

Interesting quote. But all they're saying is they prefer the sound of the recording after it's been coloured by tape. The digital recording is a more accurate representation of what came through the mics & pres. You gotta colour in in yourself

I also dont think/know if these are actually "Blind" tests, and even if they were, someone who works in a studio extensively will know the sound of his equipment. He will know its the analog deck playing because of familiarity with it.

A good, BLIND test would really be the only meaningful one.

 

[mshilarious]

Who'd win in a driving competition: Michael Andretti driving a Chevy Impala, or a student driver in an Indy race car? The student driver might make it to either the service garage or the hospital first.

Years ago in one of the car rags, the author had a Supra on a Toyota test track, and I believe it happened to be Dan Gurney on the track the same day in a Corolla.

Gurney passed him

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Years ago in one of the car rags, the author had a Supra on a Toyota test track, and I believe it happened to be Dan Gurney on the track the same day in a Corolla.

Gurney passed him

There ya go! Hmmm...is that an example of life imitating Internet?

G.

 

[TerraMortim]

Life IS the internet. *har har har*

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Life IS the internet. *har har har*

That's like saying sex IS watching bad porn on VHS .

G.

 

[Bob's Mods]

That's like saying sex IS watching bad porn on VHS .

G.

I think Beta was better because it was.

Bob

 

[robin watson]

Exactly!

If some dork wants to tape his farts and sell it on CD baby, more power to him. He's not gonna be cutting into my Classical crossover-Stravinskyesque audience one bit. He's gonna press 500 CDs and keep 490 of them in a box under his bed.

What compression settings would you recommend for a 9am beer fart? I feel one coming on, and I'm standing in the control room.

 

[DavidK]

What compression settings would you recommend for a 9am beer fart? I feel one coming on, and I'm standing in the control room.

Unfortunately I dont know much about compression, sorry. However, it is crucial that you use analog tape. Digital wont capture the warmth and moisture of the aforementioned anal vapor.

 

[TerraMortim]

That's like saying sex IS watching bad porn on VHS .

G.

sarcasm IS humour

 

[TerraMortim]

What compression settings would you recommend for a 9am beer fart? I feel one coming on, and I'm standing in the control room.

normally beer farts are compressed with a slow attack and long release, just to get the initial thunder and draw it out a bit. try 3:1 with a soft knee (unless you really have to push that sumbitch out in which, a hard knee will clean you out quicker'n a priest on sunday) ... just plug one end into your asshole and the other end up one of your nostrils and you'll do swimmingly.

 

[TerraMortim]

Unfortunately I dont know much about compression, sorry. However, it is crucial that you use analog tape. Digital wont capture the warmth and moisture of the aforementioned anal vapor.

BAHAHAHAHA!