patternagainstuser wrote:
and then these "demos" get distributed to "teenagers" who listen to them and feel "emotions" so deep and powerful that it shapes the way they think for the rest of their lives. meanwhile that major label piece of shit gathers dust as the next big thing hits the air. my favorite songs are by a local band who recorded them in their basement on a truly shitty roland digital 8-track.
these format wars are moot.
for the record, i record on digital and analog (mediocre digital adat xt-20's and truly shitty 1/4" 8-track) and i like them both in their own way (it doesn't hurt that i run through an old soundcraft mixer). i think the very best sound comes from professional 2" tape machines, but what's the point if the musicianship or mic technique sucks? also for the record, i am not a teenager. but i work for them, and if they think it sounds good, then everyone is happy.
anyway nathan no disrespect to you because you obviously know your shit very well. just trying to put a perspective on why we're all doing this in the first place. and i'd like to see the major labels go bankrupt, their ceo's burn in hell, and pro studio rates drop to reasonable rates. until that happens, people with money, not talent, will rule the industry.
I don't care about the politics of the biz. Of course it doesn't matter if the song or musicianship are bad either. I "work" for teenagers sometimes too, you make it the best you can for them with their budget. When I have the engineer hat on, it's my job to make the sonics as good as I possibly can. If I was recording for an independent jazz label that sells 20,000 CD's a year, my principles of sound would be the same. To make it as sweet and bigger than real, as the gear and skill level of all involved can achieve. Call it elistist or whatever, I started from dirt in the back of another guys garage with HIS gear on a 1/2" eight track and little 12 channel Teac console. My first upgrade was to a 1st revision Mackie 16 channel 1604 on a student loan.
If I recorded a band on that machine in 2004 it would sound a lot better than it did well over a decade ago due to skill level...but there is a point of musicality, fidelity, etc that setup cannot surpass regardless of the skill level of the engineer. Eventually I was adding so many rentals of high end gear (i.e. Neve, Neumann, API, etc) per session (on my dime) that it was costing more to record than I was making at the hourly rate. Hell, on my 23rd birthday I wanted to record a band on Revelation Records (they were called Mourning Again) so bad I put up with doing it for free, all the while I had the flue so bad I had to go and puke my brains out every 20 minutes. Fuckers didn't even use the recording. So I feel I'm entitled to sling a little personal subjectivity around.
My goal since I started is to improve my end results through any means available to me, through honest evaluation and scrutinization of those various pieces of gear and techniques. I don't disagree that it's not necessary to hone your skills on whatever machine you have. Slow growth as an engineer is the only way to get better properly. Throwing a 1st year engineer in a $200,000+ room isn't going to do anything for him. But for anyone to tell me that a small format, probably -10 unbalanced, uncalibrateable, Japanese machine is going to sound as good as a Class A 2" 16 track or the like....I'm sorry if it offends, but I can't believe it from my own first hand experience. It took me 12 years to own a pro analog machine, and it wasn't anything to do with elitism or vanity. It was for the SOUND...that's why I thought we "were all doing this in the first place".
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