Toys R Us plastic Drums, recorded in garage on analog tape - Win a Grammy? Yep.

Well it was recorded, old school, as compared to most recordings today, but yea there is nothing lo-fi about it when compared to like early black keys stuff. But you can certainly here the analog realm of the recording and the grit of the api console they used.

It is what it is, a record recorded to tape without the use of a computer's or pro-tools. With the best gear possible, with a great producer and engineer and good performances and songs. Thats a recipe for success no mater what you record too i suppose.
 
leaningpine said:
It's incredible nowadays because no one does it anymore. Everything on the radio is auto tuned, copy and pasted, loop beats, drum samples, etc..... It's not a band playing in a studio anymore recording takes.
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I think a lot of that has to to do with the evolution (or revolution) of the "solo artist". When you work alone or with a "core" duo/trio partnership...you end up using the tools a different way, and/or you change how to get from point A to B.
I don't much care about processes, if the end-product is very good and as long as there isn't like a "Milli Vanilli" total fake to the end product.

What can come off as "suck" is when there is a full-tilt band of musicians who are capable (or incapable)...and then a cut-n-paste approach is used in the digital studio by engineers and producers to generate a "band" album because the "band" wouldn't or couldn't pull it off on their own. The digital medium alone doesn't cause that. You CAN track the old school way and still do it with digital...but like I mentioned, there's a "dark side" to working ITB that can easily take things over if you let it. Maybe the FF felt that's what was happening to *them*...but I wouldn't specifically blame the digital gear/process.
 
Gosh, the dudes in here that are saying "Oh the computer makes the music! It's all the computer's doing!" need to get real! Just because you record digitally doesn't mean you're going to autotune the sh!t out of your vocals or anything else for that matter. There's plenty of people here at HR who record straight-up with no trickery in a digital format. The whole mindset is like the recording snob's version of stereotyping lol.

The whole "Oh I use analog to track because I don't want the computer to make the music" thing just reeks of a Kurt Cobain try-hard attitude to me! I mean...come on! :laughings:
 
guitaristic said:
There's plenty of people here at HR who record straight-up with no trickery in a digital format.
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Right.

You can't blame the format...and you can't blame the process. You can get lost in a process, but that's your own doing.
Like I said, digital can suck you into the dark side, but it's mostly just those people who go willingly! :D
 
Lt. Bob said:
I believe it ..... but I don't get why it seems incredible to anyone.

An awful lot of the worlds best recordings were done with no computer edits or automation. Probably a majority of them.
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I believe it too. It was an interesting article but like I said earlier, it's nothing new. It only seems innovative because there appears to have been a large scale abandonment of that way of recording so if someone does it, it's like "Wow !".
It reminds me of maggots and leeches {not the band !}. Back in the day, when people in hospital had weeping sores and leaky flesh wounds, hospital staff would put maggots or leeches on the arm, leg or whatever, of the patient. The little critturs would eat the loose skin and gorge on the blood, thus cleaning the wound and promoting healing to the affected areas. Then as medicine "progressed", new drugs were synthesized and technology began to make it's presence felt, it was felt that we could do away with all those primitive, outmoded forms of medicine so the leeches and maggots were consigned to history, looked upon with a laughing looking back at how ridiculous things once were {like dentists giving cocaine to patients, or boffing people on the head with a hammer/giving lots of whiskey in the days when there were no anasthetics}. Fast forward a couple of centuries to sometime around the early 1990s and some doctors found that actually, the maggots and leeches had their place after all and began using them again and there are those that breed them exclusively for this purpose. And news reports at the time hailed this as a new wonderful innovation, thus causing it to look like the triumph of organic nature over soulless, impersonal modern techhnology.
The Foo fighters are simply the maggots and leeches of now.
 
There's nothing special about editing tape with a razor blade. That's how everyone spliced tape in the analog days because there was no other way to do it. Anyone who does it when they don't have to, while claiming there's some sonic benefit to doing it, is a fool.
 
grimtraveller said:
I believe it too. It was an interesting article but like I said earlier, it's nothing new. It only seems innovative because there appears to have been a large scale abandonment of that way of recording so if someone does it, it's like "Wow !".
It reminds me of maggots and leeches {not the band !}. Back in the day, when people in hospital had weeping sores and leaky flesh wounds, hospital staff would put maggots or leeches on the arm, leg or whatever, of the patient. The little critturs would eat the loose skin and gorge on the blood, thus cleaning the wound and promoting healing to the affected areas. Then as medicine "progressed", new drugs were synthesized and technology began to make it's presence felt, it was felt that we could do away with all those primitive, outmoded forms of medicine so the leeches and maggots were consigned to history, looked upon with a laughing looking back at how ridiculous things once were {like dentists giving cocaine to patients, or boffing people on the head with a hammer/giving lots of whiskey in the days when there were no anasthetics}. Fast forward a couple of centuries to sometime around the early 1990s and some doctors found that actually, the maggots and leeches had their place after all and began using them again and there are those that breed them exclusively for this purpose. And news reports at the time hailed this as a new wonderful innovation, thus causing it to look like the triumph of organic nature over soulless, impersonal modern techhnology.
The Foo fighters are simply the maggots and leeches of now.
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Perfect way to put it. Absolutely true too. Maggots are actually really common in medicine too. More common than most people would think. Leeches not so much, but they do indeed still have their uses. I think it's certainly a great way to compare the digital/analogue debates too.
 
Does anyone realize that what they did, was create 'THIS' conversation? Talk about a promotion technique.......

It sounds good. Dave got people like us interested in the controversy. Albums/downloads sell. Dave is the new Madonna it seems.
 
Except that I haven't got the slightest intention of buying it, much less listening to it !
But heck, I'll even talk about Syria ! :D
 
I got to hear him talk about it toward the end of the documentary they did on Gorhl recently...
...so yeah, I'm not running out to buy the album just the hear the so-called "Ultimate Garage Record".... :D
 
They all seem like cool enough guys.
It's pretty sweet that they made it in Dave's garage/home studio type set up...
but as I've said before. I'd be really impressed if they made it in my set-up :D
with my gear.
 
And as far as the whole "digital=too perfect. fake sounding."... fucking listen to my digitally recorded demos
I challenge you to find more imperfect shit sounding recordings on the planet
 
personally, i'm surprised to read the negative replies to dave grohl's message at all. i think it's really cool that he tried something different and it worked. if he wants to tell people that he recorded it in a garage and with 2inch tape, he should. especially on a nationally recognized stage, that is so often celebrating a popularity contest. -- how many people on this site love to talk about what they've done with their recording projects?

i really appreciated the effort in this foo fighters project. they decided to do it.... did it as they said they would... and were recognized for their efforts... seems like an all around home run to me.

i haven't followed dave grohl's career closely but i would say that what he has done is worth listening to and provided inspiration to a lot of people.

s
 
haymedic said:
personally, i'm surprised to read the negative replies to dave grohl's message at all. i think it's really cool that he tried something different and it worked.
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Most of the "negativeness" is aimed at his "garage" studio comments...he's so full of BS, as that setup is so far from a "garage" studio... :D ...it's funny that he even believes what he is saying and that he's selling an album based on some "revolutionary" process (which is not a new way of recording)...instead of just letting the album sell itself with the music.

Recording to tape and primarily with analog gear has been done a gazillion times and is still being done by a lot of folks. Grohl selling it like they discovered something new, and that they did it at a lo-fi, "garage" level...is pretty silly.
I guess for the younger gadget geeks out there who only know digital and iPods...it's like this huge "EUREKA!" moment or something. :)

Now if all the young geeks could hire Butch Vig and all that *top-of-the-line* analog gear....they too could do a "garage" album just like the FF. ;)
 
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