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Author Topic: Perfection... really?  (Read 6717 times)

Bob Olhsson

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Re: Perfection... really?
« Reply #15 on: May 05, 2004, 11:23:02 AM »

First off, the classical folks have always made those of us in pop music seem pretty honest by comparison. 1500 edits has not been uncommon since the introduction of recording tape.

The original idea behind perfection in a recording was the fact that people used to listen to most records they bought over and over. When top-40 radio came in, singles were played a great deal. Small mistakes were magnified way beyond what would ever be important live.

I think ultimately what we used to try and accomplish was to reproduce the experience as opposed to the physical sound of a great live performance. Where a lot of the problem today lies is that younger people no longer have great live performance as their point of reference. Rap music is an exception to this and I'm certain this is a lot of why it has become so dominant.

Loco

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Re: Perfection... really?
« Reply #16 on: May 05, 2004, 07:05:32 PM »

Bob Olhsson wrote on Wed, 05 May 2004 11:23

 Where a lot of the problem today lies is that younger people no longer have great live performance as their point of reference. Rap music is an exception to this and I'm certain this is a lot of why it has become so dominant.


It may be actually the other way. What you hear in concert in rap is way too different from what you get on a CD from the studio. Like two different persons.

Or you may not even hear them live.....
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Carlos "El Loco" Bedoya

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Bob Olhsson

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Re: Perfection... really?
« Reply #17 on: May 06, 2004, 10:09:40 AM »

The experience is mostly related to the artist. Rap is an improvised form so legitimate rap artists will probably never do the ssme thing twice. Their audience buys their recording as a means of hanging on to that experience.

ted nightshade

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Re: Perfection... really?
« Reply #18 on: May 06, 2004, 12:09:35 PM »

I think a big thing with rap is that everyone has heard the human voice talking, so everyone can use that as a psychoacoustic reference to fill in the blanks from a mediocre playback. Not many youth have heard a lot of real instruments. The combination of synthetic sounds tailored to lo-fi and the human voice is just more available to the listener with crap quality playback and little musical experience.
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Ted Nightshade aka Cowan

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lpdeluxe

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Re: Perfection... really?
« Reply #19 on: May 06, 2004, 12:44:45 PM »

A virtual $.02, and worth every penny: recording is the process of making sure Picasso's paintings are framed behind clear & clean glass, not that of changing the brush strokes.
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Vertigo

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Re: Perfection... really?
« Reply #20 on: May 06, 2004, 04:04:31 PM »

The first Korn album is a great example of the power of imperfection and its relation to performance. You have a drummer playing with no click and a singer that does everything wrong from a technical perspective - improper breathing patterns and enunciation so jumbled it sounds like he's singing in Japanese. Add to that sloppy over-effected (and sometimes slightly out of tune) guitars and bass and you somehow have a product that is raw, out of control, emotional, and darkly beautiful.

No performance is perfect, and tiny imperfections caused from an energetic and emotional performance can add a level of impact to the music that all of the gear and editing in the world won't give you. Ross Robinson created a masterful work of art by finding and enhancing those small, interesting flaws in the performance and turning them into hooks. He amplified and enhanced things like the "whooshing" background noise from an MXR P90 through an unplayed Marshall head (listen closely to the left channel during the middle of "Blind"), ground loop hums, and the sound of cables being unplugged. And he managed to do it in a musical manner. Awesome stuff.

Performance truly is everything.

My .02$

-Lance
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