I have spend many long hours in recording studios and have sat next to some of the greatest producers/engineers of our day. To paint a soundscape with 48 tracks is an art that is all but dead. Modern recordings are done on laptops in the first class sections of Airplanes.
The other part is that most live shows these days are mixed with the kick drum and the bass. I don't want to pay 100.00 bucks to have my head assaulted with with a kick drum that is sequenced to a digital sound into a 5 thousand watt system.
If you have ever had the chance to hear a playback with 2" Ampex 499 tape (analogue) in a studio, you be as infected as I have been with the quest of great sound. The sound of a vinyl on a mid-priced system kills any digital playback that I have ever heard.
I think the waveforms of With Or Without You on the RS site is very informative to what producers are doing to music today. How can you not feel assaulted when everything is loud.
I have spend many long hours in recording studios and have sat next to some of the greatest producers/engineers of our day. To paint a soundscape with 48 tracks is an art that is all but dead. Modern recordings are done on laptops in the first class sections of Airplanes.
That says it all, I think.
I remember when INXS released the first all-digital record. It sounded really punchy and crisp, but after a couple of decades of this, that organic texture of the 70s is hard to come by.
You are correct about the “art” of recording being all but dead. This is an excellent article.
I will add one more dimension to the battle. The improvement of the gear means that you don’t have to know what you are doing to use it. Therefore, many many many (did I say many?) musicians feel that they can do great work in their bedrooms and save oodles of money on studio costs.
They can. But they lose the dimension that a real engineer brings to the project. Mr G has been told on more than one occasion that he is as important to the project as any of the musicians are.
And so many of these young musicians have never *really* used their ears. They have only listened to the crummy stuff that is out there, and figure if they can get “almost as good” by themselves, they will be doing great. Thus begins the downward death spiral of the quality of music.
Mr G was just involved in the rerelease of a truly classic project he recorded 30 years ago. The recording was done on 24 track analog tape, and mixed without automation. (This was before there was automation, or auto tune or digital editing or any of the fun stuff kids use now to create perfection) The recording is still awesome, and the sound beats the snot out of most of what is released today.