frankly, the whole industry is keyed to & zoomed into the is whole 'stats & levels' bollox to a overzealous degree imo - people talk too ften on hibrow forums in an almost clinical way, as if we were discussing technical measureing equipment for a lab... Over at SOS they had this thread runnning for ages about '24/96 is it better' - and it was like 'an atom width = a step in digital at xx resolution - the emphasis of the conversation like most of those on that subject was about the ability to capture a more 'real' sound, more accurate... I mentioned 'weighting' in terms of this 'supposed' accurate representation of the sound, & the fact most contemporary music only uses the last 10bd of dynamic range with a silent room having about 30db of background noise above theoritcal zero, and how did they think of all that?.. and the conversation died like a dead parrot...
Sure, everything has it's place, but I like the analogy with rock music sometimes... what is it about rock that I like?.. it's the energy... the power, when a full-on band lets rip and it's all humming... if in those circumstances one was to remove the drummer you'd hear all the kit drums resonating in sympathy with the guitar & bass cab frequencies, the snare wires buzzin' away like crazy etc.... that power for me does also arrive in dance music, especialy in a more lo-fi underground setting without 'the best' amps & cabs & where the speakers are really being driven hard... you get that 'hum'
to use an analogy, Templeman never got that sound with subsequent albums that he acheived with VH1
what was that?.... There was something in the 'live' setup they used to record... everything driven to hell with Eddie moving within the studio space to achieve harmonic feedbacks and overtones etc... and in dance it's the same... Initialy one is impressed with an all digital mix when it comes jumping from the speakers from dead silence with alot of dynamic range, but after a while it can be tiring because it lacks those empathic frequencies somehow... and i'm NOT talking about 'analog V digital' synths here.... the combination of frequencies results in the creation of sympathetic harmonic's in upper & lower registers which whilst not 'audible' in the strictest sense, (certainly not when masked by the overall mix), do contribute to the overall sound.
My personal thoughts on the whole subject is that in the end, it's that combination of the whole, the sum of the parts which is important, whereas with digital there is an over-emphasis sometimes on concentration on the individual components.
I dont care wether i can hear a part i wrote in the mix if the whole is 'humming' - in fact often this is the case, some parts dissapear completely in terms of 'being audible' as distinctly discerable parts... and you get an added phenomenon too - when you drive a mix really hard you start to hear 'ghost' parts... distinct pattern/melodies which appear in the mix created by the combination of the empathic working overtones... these ghost parts are distinct patterns/melodies which you have not actualy written, and bare No relation to any of the patterns you DID create - THAT is awesome!... new lines suggest themselves to you and the more you listen to a looped section, the more these 'ghost patterns' start to cry out until you can actual learn them and sequence them in!
- then you're REALLY rocking because those patterns will NEVER be something you'd actualy think of, they are created by the track!! - and when you hear them, they are so harmonious with the whole but in totaly unexpected ways! - very odd phenomenon that is.
if the whole is working all in sypathy as a total empathy, to me this sounds ideal... and i find this happens more organicaly with analog boards... This is especialy true with mixing, and the bane of the commercial studio engineers life is those blasted bands who all vy with each other at mixtime to 'hear' their own parts... At that point, the band ceases to be 'a band' and turns into a monster of vying ego's, each listeing soley to their own part played and wishing it to be discernable & distinctly audible, often and usualy to the detriment of the entire mix.. I've seen countless excellent tracks ruined this way at mixdown time.
I think in that situation they are trying to perceive the parts as it is when they are actualy playing them... at that time one does hear ones own part sometimes in seperation, but this I think is a psycho-acoutic phenomenon - i think as one plays, one knows what one is playing, and a person THINKS they can hear it clearer and more distinctly than it actualy is appearing to the casual listener, this I think is because they are psychologicaly fooled into thinking their part is more distinct & seperate because they are also 'hearing it' in their conciousness of recollection, & recognition of what they are playing.
Anyways, hands on with analog boards does have alot to be said for it, if nothing else, the ability to sum signals on a molecular level rather than as a collection of stepped digital signals mebbe... I think the resulting empathy of the collectivising whole is enhanced somehow that way.
On the other hand while imo you CANNOT beat a 1" 8 track with no NR for bass sounds for example, digital can be wonderful added into an analog mix, for vocals especialy, & other tracked instruments, and the ability to copy & paste constructions & remixes and alternative arrangements is great if you ever had to edit with a blade & block !! - add that to into an analog board and you're in heaven!.
However, that ability to always change things creates new problems, because it encourages people NEVER to make any descisions!!!- everything is left open ended which in itself can be rubbish... you NEED to make descisions about the sounds and the structure, because a sound will effect the other sounds added to it and within which it is set SO MUCH... change it and the whole thing is different... so that's worth thinking about VERY much... if a mix is humming, change your kickdrum sound and the whole mix can go to fuck because that empathic relationship WAS there, between the kik and the synthline, even tho you might not think it was because they don't even live in the same frequency range!
heh heh - Honestly, if i had my own recording school I think i'd give the students a simul-sync 1/2-track and a 2 channel mixer or 2 rows/modules of 4 band decent eq and that's ALL they'd use for the first year.... making 4, 8, 16 & 24 track mixes in mono by layering bounces from left to right track... Then they could move on to the next stage, and if they didnt like it they could fuck off and go to SAE heh heh
You could sorta fit that perfectly into that old Sufi story about the kid wanting to learn alchemy... how to make gold from base metal
The kid goes to learn recording & production with some 'ye olde arcane' engineer... every day he's pestering & asking about when is he going to get to use the protools and the top end analog & digital gear in the huge main studio, but the old boy just refuses & keeps him recording production multitracked bounced-layered mixes in mono with a two-track, a 2 channel eq and no fx at all....
One day after alot of time has passed the old boy goes to the kid and says;
"ok... I think today you can finaly go and work in the big studio with the neve automation & pro-tools & all the rest of the top-end fancy kit"
and the kid, without even looking up from his mix says..... "er... not now, I'm busy"
ha ha ha
aight!!
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I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!