Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[breathe]

I'm so glad I live in an era where someone like Christopher Walla is producing new recordings, and has the technology (cough, iZ, cough) to make it sound different (in the best possible way) than anything that has happened before.  I am totally on Christopher Walla's jock right now.  I toot my own horn way too fucking much, but when I see someone else doing it right, it's clear as day to me.

Nicholas

[breathe]

This was discussed/trashed recently, but I just listened to Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" for the first time since probably it came out, and I can't believe people bought that record.  Its sound literally makes me physically ill.  I guess people like working with Glen Ballard, but Jeez, shouldn't a producer take some accountability for the sound of what they work on?  Or is it one of those things where the creative mind is spiritually above being concerned with something technical?  What's the deal with sound quality?  Is this like something only a select few with unusual hearing ability give a fuck about, and no one else does?  Or some guy who just got divorced and now wants to really improve his home stereo?  If sound quality is only something an insignificant minority actually cares about, why even bother?  Is this just a big waste of time?

Nicholas

[Otitis Media]

You're asking what are essentially existential questions.

Compare Jagged Little Pill to other stuff of its time. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it certainly stands out among a graduating class of SSL-and-tape productions.

If you think JLP sounds bad, you really ought to give a deeper listen to the back-catalog of '50s '60s and '70s albums. There's some phenomenal sounding stuff, and then there's some totally  woolly releases, as well.

[breathe]

There are tons of political analogies to this problem.  I'm just getting really jaded.  Even if I did something unconditionally great I'm not sure I'm confident enough as a person to be able to be the only person or at least one of a tiny minority to appreciate it.  The loneliness of getting good at anything is deafening, and I'm not saying I'm even close to getting there, but I don't understand how a person can thrive emotionally when any emotional support for their work is at best totally blind to why their work actually has value.

Nicholas

[MI]

 

What if......Glen Ballard turned around and said, "Actually the ADAT thing was BS, we just said that because we wanted to"...you know kind of like for marketing....

What if.....a recording you love so much and was told was done on the best discreet technology etc etc etc...but then told a year later was recorded with a 1st gen Pro Tools....would you care? Would you feel robbed?

When you see a magic show, do you analyze how it's done. or just enjoy the show?

What if....ALL THAT REALLY MATTERED WAS THE SONG, AND THE MESSAGE....

If I start thinking about how an album was recorded in total detail....I've missed the point.



Good luck with it all.

MI

[breathe]

Or is the greatness of anyone's work by definition conditional on an audience's capacity to appreciate it?  You see?  THAT's what I'm talking about.  The world should be run by a benevolent elite, not douchetard puppets appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Nicholas

[marcel]

MI wrote on Fri, 26 November 2010 10:18

If I start thinking about how an album was recorded in total detail....I've missed the point.

Unless it's a Rush record...

[Otitis Media]

Or you could just do YOUR best work and not worry what anyone else thinks about it. Put it in front of people you respect and see what they have to say about it if you're looking for trustworthy opinions. Otherwise, I don't see what you're on about. If the bands you work with are happy and you can stand behind what you've done, then you've accomplished something. If you learn and grow from those experiences, you've also accomplished something.

[seedyunderbelly.com]

Glen Is awesome regardless of his recorder...   That Wilson Phillips stuff is great!   Why Bag on him?  He can actually make music... I did not buy the AM record but it spoke to lots of kids I remember...   whatever

[QUEEF BAG]

yeah chris does some nice stuff
a pretty chill guy too.

you might wanna check out the work of a good
friend of his, tucker martine.
the  laura viers record saltbreakers is very nice.

[jonathan jetter]

+1 for Tucker + his work on Laura Veirs "Saltbreakers"

one of the only really wonderful new albums i've heard in the past few years.

i don't even like her previous work all that much.  but the stars really aligned for this one.

i remember going through a severe bored/jaded/not-listening-to-much phase, and then hearing "Drink Deep" over the speakers at a Borders bookstore and having to stop and ask the clerk what song was being played.

[CWHumphrey]

breathe wrote on Fri, 26 November 2010 09:53

This was discussed/trashed recently, but I just listened to Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" for the first time since probably it came out, and I can't believe people bought that record.  Its sound literally makes me physically ill.  I guess people like working with Glen Ballard, but Jeez, shouldn't a producer take some accountability for the sound of what they work on?

I can't let this go.  So many urban myths have been built around this record, it gets hard to separate fact from fiction.

But here are the facts as told to me by Francis Buckley, the guy who engineered the record.

The ADAT stuff were demos, nothing more.  Then, the record co. decided to run with it.  They were intending this all to be re-tracked in the future.  There's more, but out of respect for Francis, I'll leave it at that.

Go listen to Glen Ballard's total body of work.  Then give me a critique of his work.

If you're going to trash someone publicly, I suggest you get straight on the facts.

Cheers,

[breathe]

Tucker is awesome.  I know him reasonably well from living in Portland.  He loaned me an Apogee Rosetta 800 of his on two occasions.  Incredibly nice person and I love his work with Laura (and they just got a rad son).  A co-conspiritor of theirs is Karl Blau who I am very close with and may be the best music producer in the NW but Karl's music production taste is totally hippie which he needs to watch out for.  There's kind of this mafia of NW music producers (Karl, Tucker, Phil Elverum, Chris Walla) who kind of have a monopoly on "honest" sounding records.  A total counter to "Cristal" and coke-drenched hip-hop which directly replaced 80's hair bands in the shockingly full of shit music category.  It's kind of unfair actually.  With any of these guys I'm like, "Hey, I'm honest.  You think you're the only one with the courage to make an honest record?  Fuck you."  But someone needs to make an honest record now and then to put some perspective on the endless stream of TOTAL CRAP coming from the major labels.  The advantage in production capability with the big labels re big studios doesn't even apply anymore.  Major labels have absolutely no relevance anymore.  The last ten records I bought off of iTunes.

Nicholas

QUEEF BAG wrote on Mon, 29 November 2010 21:33

you might wanna check out the work of a good friend of his, tucker martine. the  laura viers record saltbreakers is very nice.

[breathe]

I probably need to further review Glen's catalog, but it seemed at least in the 90's he was trying to prove you could make commercially successful records that sounded horrible (like No Doubt's "Return of Saturn") via the well-publicized use of cheap very modern technology.  When PTHD came out he switched from ADAT XT20's to Digi 192's.  He seems to be a really talented "songwriting"-style producer, so for me that's not the issue.  I'm dissing him because the records of his which I have heard that he made after he could afford anything he wanted sound bizarrely horrible, almost as if he personally was vigilantly ushering the popular music making industry out of an era where good sound quality was expected to be an attribute of a major label record.  This UNDENIABLE reality of the current popular music industry has been a WONDERFUL boon to the independent music industry, which is now the only commercially available source for high fidelity recordings.

Nicholas

CWHumphrey wrote on Tue, 30 November 2010 15:24

If you're going to trash someone publicly, I suggest you get straight on the facts. Cheers,

[Seb Riou]

Man, I loved Return from Saturn !

[marcel]

breathe wrote on Tue, 30 November 2010 22:42

I'm dissing him because the records of his which I have heard that he made after he could afford anything he wanted sound bizarrely horrible, almost as if he personally was vigilantly ushering the popular music making industry out of an era where good sound quality was expected to be an attribute of a major label record.

Perhaps he simply realized that getting great performances of great songs was far more important than any technological choices, and used 'whatever was simplest' in order to better focus his and the artists' attention on the important stuff.  As Carter has pointed out, the JLP situation was probably not what he would have chosen anyways.

[seedyunderbelly.com]

Yeah Marcel,

My thoughts exactly,  he probably used what was there...  Without plotting to alter the course of recording history haha

Who knows.  But odd to saddle the  fellow with the responsilbility to make something "hold up the industry" _____
 Talented cat regardless.
The gentleman was just living his life...  Perhaps we all should __

As Oscar Wilde said   "Be yourself,  Everyone else is taken"

j