The Secret To Great Recordings

[TeyshaBlue]

I can accept that definition. I can also accept that a good recording is a gestalt of many flaws. Let's say That perfect room is captured by a sweet vintage Neuman... whose tube pre intentionally loads the signal with soothing even order harmonics. It sounds really good. It's also really flawed.

 

[kcearl]

wrong






yeah it feels good





wrong wrong wrong

 

[jeff0633]

It makes perfect sence fred, and I appreciate the kind effort. The problem is i am not seeing that the others just said what you said. I NEVER claimed I would RATHER listen to a crappy performance in a great room over a good performance in a bad room. Not once. here's the original post. let's look at it.

here is the title of the post. very revealing and says nothing about preference of songs

The Secret To Great Recordings

here's the first line


"After 30+ years, I finally rediscovered the secret to good recordings"

Now, this to me says "GOOD RECORDINGS" Not good songs, or 'what i would rather hear between a good song in a bad room or a bad song in a good room. What he says is fairly obvious--he has discovered the secret to *good recordings*.

And next we have his statements of facts.

"It's not the gear (duh!)
It's not the engineer (wha?)
It's not even the room (heresy!)"

I claim that he is absolutely wrong about number three. It's that simple. I completely agree I would rather hear a good song in a bad room than a man taking a dump in a great room, who wouldn't? But that WAS NOT the original posters meaning. He clearly says "good recording"

So, it looks like we have some misunderstanding here. It is clear that a recording can be of any sound source, and it can be good or bad. This has nothing to do with whether a song is a goode song, or a musician is a good musician. if he had asked "would you rather hear a great song in a bad room over a bad song in a grea room, I would agree with you, but not if someone were to ask me which one i would want to hear IF I were judging the best RECORDING. If I wanted to hear the best recording, I would choose the man taking a dump. A good song doesn't equal a good recording, and a good recording doesn't equal a good song. It looks to me like my interpretation of what the original poster said is more correct. I appreciate your good nature and kindness, however.

Jeff,

I think what some of the group is trying to get across to you is that the majority would tolerate awesome talent recorded in a mediocre way as compared to a techinically flawless recording in a perfect room of a mediocre singer, band, or what have you.

I happen to be in that camp also, which is why I wanted to offer you a really brief paragraph hoping to convey the idea a little kinder and simpler. It's easy to get carried away here for sure. Seemingly a lot of us (myself included) get a dickhead momentum going and there's no turning back sometimes ha ha.

Anyway, producing an album from an idea has many steps - songwriting (music and lyrics), setting up musicians and vocalists, recording them, mixing them, finalizing the mixes, mastering the mixes into the medium to be used for duplication, producing the artwork, color scheme and font choices, manufacturing and duplication, then finally distributing and marketing. Often this is followed with live performances to produce awareness and market hype. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good concert?

What you're hearing is that many of us believe a good recording starts in the very beginning of the process, and what happens afterwards, while important, is not as important as the songwriting, composing, and performance that is to be captured.

After all, a flawless recording of a tone-deaf trio of chimps in a $1m sonically beautiful room with 1/2 a mil worth of 192K protools gives you what? A flawless recording of a tone-deaf trio of chimps.

While the membership here would actually appreciate the effort, technique, and detail in the "technically flawless" recording because we're all into recording as an art in one way or another, NONE of us would want to listen to a trio of tone-deaf chimps while driving to work on our car stereo.

Does that make better sense?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

More great recordings made in non-"pro-quality" environs:

David Bowie - "Heros"
Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life"
Talking Heads - "Stop Making Sense"
Bob Dylan and the Band - "The Basement Tapes"
Most recordings made for "MTV Unplugged"
Pete Townsend - "The Secret Policeman's Ball"
Most "Soundstage" recording releases
Most stuff recorded at Chess records
The field recordings of Alan Lomax
Various Newport Jazz and Folk festival recordings
And, speaking of field recordings, there was that little one in that cornfield in northern New York state in the late 60s...

As far as your comments re "Exile", why does not hearing bass (or any other) problems automatically make it a pro or a great-sounding room? It was a mostly un-treated basement of a French castle. Hardly the definition of a great-sounding "pro" room.

The fact is, there are a lot of more-than-adequate-but-not-necessarily-great rooms in which great recordings can be made that are not necessarily something that anybody would consider to be "pro quality". And that's even if one ignores my personal definition of great recording and just looks at the technical aspects of the recording.

Look, friend, we can go round and round on this and get nowhere, because we have two different definitions of "great recording". You have the ability to separate the sonic quality from the content and consider a recording great based solely on the sonic clarity. I am unable to do that. I view a "recording" as the total of it's parts and am unable to separate the sonic quality from the content. For me the original recordings of Robert Johnson sound a lot better than your average modern day Ry Cooder recording (with some exceptions).

Which one of us is right? We both are. You're right for your definition, and I'm right for mine. The OP opened this thread by positing what is basically the same definition as mine. I and others agreed. You and others disagreed. Let's move on, shall we?

I don't care how good a recording you make of someone vomiting, I'm not a foley artist, nor is this a foley/sFX board. And even if I/it was, is a sonically pure, perfect recording of someone spewing in a great live room really what the foley artist wants? Not if the scene he's trying to dub is of someone yawning outside or in a tiled bathroom or in a million other locales that are not the live room of an L.A. studio. Either way it's something that'll never make my list of "great recordings", because the content is simply not enough to push it that high, no matter how great the tech aspects of it may be.

G.

 

[jeff0633]

Nice post, and yes, we simply have different defrinitions. See my post above. For instance, I love Bob Dyland and the band basment tapes. Great songs, not great recordings. To me great songs do not equal great recordings just like to you a man puking doesn't equal a great song or recording. Love the song Don't ya tell henry" great song, but I would much rather have heard it in a great studio, it would just be that much better.

More great recordings made in non-"pro-quality" environs:

David Bowie - "Heros"
Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life"
Talking Heads - "Stop Making Sense"
Bob Dylan and the Band - "The Basement Tapes"
Most recordings made for "MTV Unplugged"
Pete Townsend - "The Secret Policeman's Ball"
Most "Soundstage" recording releases
Most stuff recorded at Chess records
The field recordings of Alan Lomax
Various Newport Jazz and Folk festival recordings
And, speaking of field recordings, there was that little one in that cornfield in northern New York state in the late 60s...

As far as your comments re "Exile", why does not hearing bass (or any other) problems automatically make it a pro or a great-sounding room? It was a mostly un-treated basement of a French castle. Hardly the definition of a great-sounding "pro" room.

The fact is, there are a lot of more-than-adequate-but-not-necessarily-great rooms in which great recordings can be made that are not necessarily something that anybody would consider to be "pro quality". And that's even if one ignores my personal definition of great recording and just looks at the technical aspects of the recording.

Look, friend, we can go round and round on this and get nowhere, because we have two different definitions of "great recording". You have the ability to separate the sonic quality from the content and consider a recording great based solely on the sonic clarity. I am unable to do that. I view a "recording" as the total of it's parts and am unable to separate the sonic quality from the content. For me the original recordings of Robert Johnson sound a lot better than your average modern day Ry Cooder recording (with some exceptions).

Which one of us is right? We both are. You're right for your definition, and I'm right for mine. The OP opened this thread by positing what is basically the same definition as mine. I and others agreed. You and others disagreed. Let's move on, shall we?

I don't care how good a recording you make of someone vomiting, I'm not a foley artist, nor is this a foley/sFX board. And even if I/it was, is a sonically pure, perfect recording of someone spewing in a great live room really what the foley artist wants? Not if the scene he's trying to dub is of someone yawning outside or in a tiled bathroom or in a million other locales that are not the live room of an L.A. studio. Either way it's something that'll never make my list of "great recordings", because the content is simply not enough to push it that high, no matter how great the tech aspects of it may be.

G.

 

[kcearl]

leave the Jeff alone...he is consistent...and this is his belief..I applaud him

from February this year (emphasis added)

Most are disappointed because they think, and are told that equipment, better, is where pro sounding recordings come from, and they never learn that 75 percent of the great sound is the room, the recording space. Many check out with never learning this, the ones who stay long enough eventually figure it out. The room is the big secret. ......


snip

....If you have a good room, then you can learn to get semi pro recording fairly quickly. Good equipment and engineering are icing on the cake and they make you one of the big boys, but having a proper sounding room is most of the battle. If you don't have one, you will surely never be really satisfied.

god bless Jeff and all who sail on him

 

[Nakatira]

Yeah I heard Nakatira's album.....once.

Still saving it I see, Dont worry about wearing it out, I'll send you a new one for the price of 17$

 

[jeff0633]

lol, I appreciate that.

leave the Jeff alone...he is consistent...and this is his belief..I applaud him

from February this year (emphasis added)




god bless Jeff and all who sail on him

 

[jeff0633]

Gotta go guys, enjoy the popcorn and tune in tomorrow for more. Remember, a good song doesn't make a good recording.

 

[Wish]

here's the first line


"After 30+ years, I finally rediscovered the secret to good recordings"

Now, this to me says "GOOD RECORDINGS" Not good songs, or 'what i would rather hear between a good song in a bad room or a bad song in a good room. What he says is fairly obvious--he has discovered the secret to *good recordings*.

It's pretty obvious the OP was talking about "recording a song" vs. "recording a pristine signal" unless you are a semantics douchebag.

 

[jeff0633]

It's pretty obvious the OP was talking about "recording a song" vs. "recording a pristine signal" unless you are a semantics douchebag.

Disagree, his meaning was very clear. Secret to good recordings. That's not good songs. A good recording and a good song are two different things. Good songs don't even have to be recorded to be good. I could see your point if we weren't on an actual site that talks about RECORDING. If he meant a good song he would have said so. There are many good songs that are recorded badly, that doesn't make them bad songs, same is true in reverse.

 

[guitaristic]

It's pretty obvious the OP was talking about "recording a song" vs. "recording a pristine signal" unless you are a semantics douchebag.

I was thinking more along the lines of a "Word Nazi"...

 

[kcearl]

I was thinking more along the lines of a "Word Nazi"...

Godwin's law

 

[Wish]

This is a "Home Recording" forum. Don't you think most of us are recording songs, not sound effects?



You are persistent, I'll give you that.

So carry on.

This is the most excitement HR has seen in weeks.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

To me great songs do not equal great recordings just like to you a man puking doesn't equal a great song or recording.

No, not great songs, necessarily; there are plenty of hack covers of Dylan tumes out there that would never make my playlist. Great performances is what I'm talking about. Put in my own not-meant-to-be-insulting-but-usually-mistakenly-taken-that-way-anyway way, "something worth recording". If it's not a performance pretty much worth recording, by my definition, it can never be a great recording.

I would much rather have heard it in a great studio, it would just be that much better.

With some small exceptions not worth going into, I don't think there's anybody here who would disagree with you on that. Sonic quality is part of the equation, no question, and the better the sonic quality, the better the recording.

We just seem to differ on the relative importance of content quality vs. sonic quality. I just believe that if the content quality isn't there, that the sonic quality is fairly irrelevant.

OK, I know, I'm back to repeating myself. What can I say; my recording is stuck in a loop and my content is boring .

G.

 

[miroslav]

Great recordings aren't always about great audio quality.

I don't think the OP was specifically talking about audio quality...he was talking about elements that add up to produce a *great recording*.

Pristine audio is one of those elements...though certainly not the most critical, IMO...but always a benefit when it is part of a great recording.


Ask 10 people if a recording sounds good...and I can guarantee 9-out-of-10 are probably NOT going to be answering about the sonic quality (whether they say YES or NO).

 

[true-eurt]

After 30+ years, I finally rediscovered the secret to good recordings.

It's not the gear (duh!)
It's not the engineer (wha?)
It's not even the room (heresy!)

It's the players.

This may seem obvious, but I swear, older recordings I made in shitty rooms with shitty equipment sounds better than newer recordings I made in a nice room with boutique equipment and better engineering skills with less than kick-ass players.

Now, either flame away in disagreement, or pummel me for my grasp of the obvious.

A years supply of popcorn and beer, says Toddzilla was talking about recording a song..

Of course, when he said shitty rooms and shitty equipment, maybe he meant exactly that...recording in the bathroom with one of the these...

Course, if he had recording skillz, it'd work..right Glen?...oh wait, I was corrected on that one already..

 

[philbagg]

One can ABSOLUTELY judge the recording as great while not caring much for the sound.

That sentence is either an oxymoron, or you're referring to mentally-hilarious people.

here is the title of the post. very revealing and says nothing about preference of songs

The Secret To Great Recordings

here's the first line


"After 30+ years, I finally rediscovered the secret to good recordings"

Now, this to me says "GOOD RECORDINGS" Not good songs, or 'what i would rather hear between a good song in a bad room or a bad song in a good room. What he says is fairly obvious--he has discovered the secret to *good recordings*.

You're either nitpicking on every single letter of every single word here because you simply can't admit that you're wrong, or because you didn't know what he meant, in which case you're also mentally hilarious.

HOME RECORDING GENIUS DISCOVERS GREAT RECORDINGS CAN BE MADE IN SMALL BEDROOMS WITH NO TREATMENT!

They can. Visit the mp3 mixing clinic. There's tons of em there.

And this is a good argument by you? Come on bud, this is laughable. just get it over with and tell the world that these multi thousand dollar rooms are meaningless, all they needed was good musicians with good songs, and good mixes. You could be rich selling this incredible info. How dumb all these engineers are for spending thousands on good rooms.

So, if they had the good musicians, the good songs, but they didn't have the good room: How did they make the good mixes? You need a good recording to make a good mix... but they didn't have a good room How did that happen Jeff?!?!

What a tool. I'd expect "simple troll" if he hadn't been around for what, 8 years? But I guess he's just simple.

 

[frederic]

RECORDING. If I wanted to hear the best recording, I would choose the man taking a dump. A good song doesn't equal a good recording, and a good recording doesn't equal a good song. It looks to me like my interpretation of what the original poster said is more correct. I appreciate your good nature and kindness, however.

Fair enough, we are using somewhat different definitions and that's AOK.

But honestly, would a man taking a dump, regardless how perfect it was recorded, be in your playlist?

Probably not, right?

Anyway, I personally don't think the OP was actually saying recording equipment, rooms and technique matters naught. I think he was just sharing an enlightening moment which for him which, was how important the performance of the musicians being recorded is compared to everything else, and I think there is merit to the idea.

I can also personally relate to this because back in the late 80's, early 90's when I owned a pro studio, most of the garage bands that came in to record were astoundingly terrible. But, they paid by the hour and by the foot, so if they want to come in and play out of tune, argue with each other, and throw pizza slices at each other while throwing a fit, by all means, feel free and the clock is ticking.

I see where you're coming from, and hopefully you see where I am coming from as well. I think we just interpreted the OP's intention differently, and in my book that's fine.

 

[Wish]

I'm leaning towards internet semantics douchebag myself.