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[Bodyslam]

I seem to remember reading a post by a former Motown employee reminding us that even back in the 60's, the idea of a consumer playing a record on a cheap record player using a $10 cartridge caused their engineers to ask the same type of "Why do we go to some much trouble ?" question that Klaus posed in his original post.

In the LP era, there was only one format and everyone just tried to make it sound as good as possible, with full knowledge that the consumer would choose his sound quality level by the choice of playback equipment. Now that we have release formats at different quality levels, unfortunately I hear people asking, "why should we engineer our recordings for any quality level better than MP3 since that's how (almost) everyone will hear it?"

I think you can see (hear) where that has led us.

[Deuce 225]

And, just by sheer coincidence, right before I wrote this, I sat down with my son (12) and we listened to three versions of Mingus's "Good Bye Pork Pie Hat" - the original, then Jeff Beck's George Martin-produced version on vinlyl (Thorens-EAR-Allen Organ Amps with 6550s-Tannoys), finally the new Tobias Hoffmann Trio's version on CD*

Very cool Klaus! Like the MasterCard advertisement tag line goes..."a hour spent listening to music with your son...priceless".
Cheers,
Tim

[boz6906]

Do we know any details of the recording chain used on the Tobias Hoffmann Trio recording?

Here's a studio video showing them positioned very close together with close-miced gtrs and drums.

There does seem to be a SM69/USM69 in the center of the trio...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpwy9ggrqMo

[klaus]

All it says on the liner notes is that all songs were played live, in one take, and without overdubs. I will find out the rest and post it here. But the absence of digital icebox is quite noticeable- despite the fact that the release format is CD (and those post-CBS Fenders used here are not exactly tonal softball territory either!)

[boz6906]

Thanks!

Their one room, close arrange makes overdubs very difficult because of gtr amp bleed into the kit mics.

I do favor this type of recording, it seems more 'live' and the musicians don't need headphones which makes them more comfortable.

In the YouTube video you can see a small monitor on a atand, maybe to help the drummer hear the amps.

[polypals]

The frustration of putting in so much energy and money to do a good job is understandable.

Makes me remember the point of view from an executive at a well known recordlabel.
"Why are we discussing ultra low distortion results in analog equipment when we judge this gear using speakers with at least 1-2% distortion"

The answer is our ears are still able to distinguish different kinds of amplifiers although we are using "poor quality" speakers to judge these amplifiers.

Wellcome to the complete nonlogical world of audio engineering.