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[maxim]

bob wrote:

"When I quit Motown in 1972, I was dying to work where there was an unpressured vibe."

why was that?

" I've always found that unpressured generally means unproductive and self-indulgent."

always or generally?

bitchslap haven't even set up the drums yet after one week in an analog studio

it's not the fault of digital (or the glory of tape), that people can't get their shit together

it's the producer's fault

the pressure i'm talking about comes from within

i, certainly, see what you're saying, and it's one of the first things i learnt about producing

we're here to make music or die trying

i wasn't joking about sweat

it's just that i, and the musicians i ask to play with me, are driven and are pressured already by a 'higher' power

and not by the clock or the bank manager or the bunch of people in front of the stage, waiting to be entertained

we'll entertain, but on our terms

which is exactly the kind of thinking that made me think that a label contract would be untenable in my position


"Sorry if that sounds harsh but I've seen it happen over and over. We aren't making art or writing a novel, we are recording musical performances."

what's the difference?

"Performance is frequently lots more about turning off one's brain"

my point exactly, and how easy it is to do that with your money running out at the speed of $2-5/min, some hungry a&r blokes/chicks hanging out behind the glass and a $10000 microphone hanging precariously in front of your face (that would come out of your pocket if it breaks, coz you get too close)

and there's still no guarantee, you're gonna make a good record

[maxim]

steve also wrote:

"I quite agree that sentiments, such as "recording is about NOW!" are unhelpful in recording. I think, by definition, recordings should last. Not "the music," whatever that is in the abstract, but the recording -- the thing we're hired to make -- that should last. Otherwise, it isn't part of a permanent record, but part of a temporary magic show. However pleasing it is to the sentimental at the time, it may not be there in the future, and that makes it an unsuitable method for anything of value."

i just realised that i (conveniently) missed that point, but i've got something to say about the also, now that i'm on a roll

first, tape isn't foolproof, and manuscripts burn very nicely, thank you

i grew up in soviet russia in the 70's when writers and musicians had no way of being published or distributed

yet, people around the country, at the threat of 20-25 in the slammer, continued to diligently type out the novels and copy 15th generation cassettes, in order to keep the art alive

furthermore, at the moment, even as i type these words, i am in an australian aboriginal community

this culture has had no way of recording their stories and their songs for 40 000 years

and yet, the songs are alive and well, and, perhaps, improved by the lack of recording facilities

art is as fragile as a snowflake, yet tougher than the toughest gaffer tape

herupon, i complete my sermon

amen

[cgc]

I hesitate to go through the debate with Steve again, but I think there is a very valid counterpoint to the archiving issue.  

Yes, it is true we know that analog lasts longer than digital.  The simple fact is that we have recordings from the 50s (maybe the 40s) that still play.  The oldest digital recordings are from the 70s or so.  

However, Albini's point about having some sort of bulletproof master ignores an essential method of preservation of information: the elimination of scarcity.  Let's go back to painting for a second.  How many here have stood in front of the Mona Lisa?  How many of you know what it looks like?  Mechanical reproduction of that image has spread the information across the planet and it is improbable that every last copy of the image will ever be destroyed.  That my friend is preservation in the extreme.  

Digital's promise has never been about the quality of the initial recording, but the ability to make bit exact duplicates over and over again.  Not realizing this point means you do not understand why digital exists.  With the possibility of exact duplication on massive scale, scarcity can be eliminated.  If you want your digital work to last, make as many copies in as many formats as possible.  

The tape machine is an industrial age device, and the digital file is of the information age.  The first has 'generational' concerns while the latter can eliminate them.  The former builds value through the object while the later places value in content.  Which is better suited to music and art?

Enforced scarcity has to stop in order for our species to continue.  That is not opinion.

[Rob Darling]

Regarding Bob's discussion of the value of a deadline and pressure:

I couldn't agree more.  But I don't think tape necessarily has to be used to create this.  My favorite deadline is a player who has to leave to do a gig.  Then the energy is all in them, not coming from a big chunk of metal that keeps making everyone stop and wait.

As for anyone saying any DAW isn't professional, I'd say you have to be out of your mind.  What is the difference between Bob Clearmountain strapping a 3348 onto a pile of Apogees or Protools/Nuendo/Logic/Cubase/Sonar/Cakewalk onto a pile of Apogees?  Absolutely nothing.

[Bob Olhsson]

maxim wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 02:50

...we'll entertain, but on our terms "Performance is frequently lots more about turning off one's brain" my point exactly, and how easy it is to do that with your money running out at the speed of $2-5/min, some hungry a&r blokes/chicks hanging out behind the glass and a $10000 microphone hanging precariously in front of your face (that would come out of your pocket if it breaks, coz you get too close)

The ONLY way people make a living in music is working for the FAN'S terms, not "ours," not the label's and not anybody else's. This is utterly basic to success and true in every genre I've ever worked in.

The typical scenario I've seen great records made under have included:

1. Being out of town with no way for anybody to reach the artist other than by way of the studio receptionist.

2. NO visitors

3. State of the art gear in a legendary facility so there are NO excuses.

4. A serious deadline that limits experimentation.

Take away any of those elements and the chances for success decline significantly.

[Bob Olhsson]

electrical wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 01:43

...I think, by definition, recordings should last. Not "the music," whatever that is in the abstract, but the recording -- the thing we're hired to make -- that should last.  Otherwise, it isn't part of a permanent record, but part of a temporary magic show. However pleasing it is to the sentimental at the time, it may not be there in the future, and that makes it an unsuitable method for anything of value...

This is absolutely true. Making a record is a significant investment of time and money that ought to be preserved.

The digital apologists need to do their homework. We can play Edison's first recordings but we can't play Steely Dan's first digital album. DAT and everything that came before it is dead and the parts supply is dwindling fast. Metal particle digital tape still has a huge self-erasure issue that nobody has solved and optical media haven't proven to be completely bulletproof.

Digital is REALLY CHEAP up front but really expensive over time. 99% of what I do is digital but I'm not willing to kid myself about what the issues are.

[cgc]

Bob Olhsson wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 08:59

The digital apologists need to do their homework. We can play Edison's first recordings but we can't play Steely Dan's first digital album. DAT and everything that came before it is dead and the parts supply is dwindling fast. Metal particle digital tape still has a huge self-erasure issue that nobody has solved and optical media haven't proven to be completely bulletproof. Digital is REALLY CHEAP up front but really expensive over time. 99% of what I do is digital but I'm not willing to kid myself about what the issues are.

You are still focusing on the 'scarce master object' form of archiving.  Digital provides a way to get beyond that.  

Are you guys museum curators or producers of consumable mass media?  The attitudes and ideas I see here are more in line with the former, which I find very odd.

All of these issues have been discussed for DECADES in every other form of media with mechanical reproduction.  Why is this such a difficult set of concepts for audio engineers to even start thinking about?  Do you people not actively look at other forms of media or culture as a whole?

[natpub]

why do i keep feeling the "feeling" and "meaning" of the music is getting eclipsed by layers upon layers on mook-dom, followed closely by production-glitz, oogles of letsJustadd mixing, ages of wishIhad engineering, and a tweak of guessIbetter mastering?

I just spent 2 hours skipping among my iTunes, and i find, hmm...8 or 9 songs that really HIT me with meaning, out of...2500 or so? I mean, it is a really good collection of all-time hits. But "Meaning?...Purpose?...Spirit?"   hmmm...nope, just 8 or 9. Sigh, and some of them are quite new, all digital, and mastered/squished into a literal horror.

On the other hand, the few that are deliciously recorded, on TOP of being deeply passionate..ahhh...it is like a sudden relief.

[Lee Flier]

natpub wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 10:25

I just spent 2 hours skipping among my iTunes, and i find, hmm...8 or 9 songs that really HIT me with meaning,... the few that are deliciously recorded, on TOP of being deeply passionate..ahhh...

Would you mind clueing us in on what those songs were?  I'm not even sure I could find 8 or 9, at least not in the last few years!

P.S.  I'm going back to analog from now on myself.  I'll still engineer other people's stuff digitally if they want me to, but as far as my own music, for the foreseeable future I don't want it touching a converter anymore until it gets mastered to CD.  Not only for all the reasons you mention, but for the sound, too.

[Rob Darling]

[quote title=Bob Olhsson wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 14:59]

electrical wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 01:43

...I think, by definition, recordings should last. The digital apologists need to do their homework. We can play Edison's first recordings but we can't play Steely Dan's first digital album. DAT and everything that came before it is dead and the parts supply is dwindling fast. Metal particle digital tape still has a huge self-erasure issue that nobody has solved and optical media haven't proven to be completely bulletproof. Digital is REALLY CHEAP up front but really expensive over time. 99% of what I do is digital but I'm not willing to kid myself about what the issues are.

I won't dispute that much has to be established in our community about how to properly preserve digital recordings, but there's a big logical failure here.  Sure a Steely Dan digital recording has gone awol, but so did one of their analog recordings.  And sure an early Edison recording is there, but so are a lot of early digital recordings.  Likewise, huge swaths of analog recordings from the early days of both tape and vinyl are gone.  It has to be worked out, but it doesn't mean that digital has inherent storage issues that can't be resolved.

[electrical]

cgc wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 10:20

You are still focusing on the 'scarce master object' form of archiving.  Digital provides a way to get beyond that.

If you mean continuously copying and recopying everything you do as technology and data formats and software make the old copies obsolete, then it is possible for a single recorded item. As a plan for everything (the thousands of masters generated over the course of a career, spread out all over the globe), it is a preposterous impossibility.

If you mean make a bunch of copies today on today's data formats, for today's drives, on today's software with today's hardware, then forgive me, I want tomorrow as well. While computers might be okay for "NOW!" there is a history of digital recordings becoming unplayable as the technologies progress, and ignoring that history is irresponsible.

And besides, the "Multitude" of formats available now are pretty few -- CDR, DVDR, pull-out hard drive, and whatever the Borg are using at Sony in that wicked cool Borg photo George Massenburg posted last year.

And besides, there's nothing wrong with tape -- nothing that would outweigh its advantages, certainly -- and I have never been unable to do something a client wants because I was working on tape. I honestly see no limitations on the recording that I can attribute to tape itself.

[electrical]

robdarling@mail.com wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 11:15

Sure a Steely Dan digital recording has gone awol, but so did one of their analog recordings.  And sure an early Edison recording is there, but so are a lot of early digital recordings.  Likewise, huge swaths of analog recordings from the early days of both tape and vinyl are gone.

I'm not aware of these "lost" analog recordings, other than acetate tapes that have sloughed-off their oxide. Is that what you mean?

Anything else you can bring by our place and I will play it back for you. Honest, anything else.

Quote:

It has to be worked out, but it doesn't mean that digital has inherent storage issues that can't be resolved.

I have given the digital paradigm 30 years to "work it out," and it has failed. I've reached the only conclusion I can: That it can't be worked out.

[natpub]

Lee Flier wrote on Thu, 07 April 2005 09:31

Would you mind clueing us in on what those songs were?  I'm not even sure I could find 8 or 9, at least not in the last few years!

Lee, ya know we love ya, so I will post some.

Here is a quick selection that makes me feel joy, sorrow, passion, new and old, regardless of recording.


1. Fleetwood Mac - Gypsy
2. Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly
3. B52's - Roam
4. Beatles - early rough draft - Hide Your Love Away
5. Beatles - You're Gonna Loose That Girl (original, including all the pitchy and tape speed problems)
6. CSNY - Southern Cross (original rough) (I could listen to this song 100 times in a row and never tire)
7. Eagles (Hell Freezes Over) - Hotel California--perhaps the best large live rock recording I've ever heard.
8. Peter Gabriel - Here Comes the Flood (original piano version, minimal Fripp).
9. Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights (the origianl, as produced by David Gilmour).
10. Queen - Who Wants to Live Forever.
11. Simon & Garfunkle - America (as released) stands on it's own...meaning, passion, drama, has it all. A really neat old recording.
12. System of a Down - Chop Suey
13. Todd Rundgren, Acapella, - Johnee Jingo.
14. honorable mention: Sheryl Crowe - Safe & Sound----anyone who saw the live solo version of this at the 911 Tribute knows what I mean. Alas, the recording never achieved her intentions....


[Edited for length and sappiness--K]

KT

[Lee Flier]

Well gee, Kurt, thanks and I agree with many of your choices... but uh... none of them are from the last few years now, are they?  Have any of them been recorded/mixed completely digitally?  I don't think so.

[natpub]

better check on system of a down, and foo fighters.

also pretty sure Safe & Sound was done on PT, may wanna check

Besides, why are you questioning me for format? My thread is about a format schizm and desire to find some kind of middle ground. I am really exploring it for the sake of those I hire to record us, as I am sure some are tired of my uninpressed looks:P

In any case, my addendum here isnt about media, but content and how it can transcend media.

The solution seems easy to me--just use both.