Steve Albini Recorded All Wave Movement

[akg414]

I wish people would stop giving-a-shit what format the song ends up on, and concentrate on writing a good song.

While at the same time, playing their instruments (straight through) and not using samples.

I hope that's tongue in cheek.

It was...

There will always be great songs written. Hell, I do it all the time when nobody is home and I slip into something comfortable, light up some candles pour some wine...

It's just a shame that record companies push out the crap, and don't let alot of the quality music reach the people. On video, they focus on the artists' flat stomach or tattoos, lots of bright colors and these ridiculous big-budget epic-mini-movies...

And on the record, they shove it in your face with compression and digitally-perfect samples that have been grid-edited and auto-tuned to the 10th degree.

Ahhhhhh.... Sorry for the rant. Niothing that hasn't been discussed before.

[cgarges]

Are there delayed room mics on those records?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Nick Sevilla]

I came across this on a blog

"Along with producer Steve Albini, Kim Deal from the Breeders has been at the forefront of designing a forward-thinking, punk-ethos upholding concept pertaining to the recording of their (and hopefully more artists') music in the years to come: The All-Wave Recording Movement.

Their creed is loosely stated as "everything should be an analog sound recording of someone playing or singing, rather than using a computer to generate or digitally manipulate sounds separated from the dimension of time in which they were performed. In short, to record All Wave one must use no computers, no digital recording, no auto-tuning, or any other mainstays of contemporary production. A parallel drawn with the realist film movement . . . is not inappropriate." The 2008 Breeders album Mountain Battles was recorded using All-Wave philosophy, and Deal has even designed a pretty kickass logo (above) to shine as a beacon from the cases of those albums that would choose to adopt this philosophy as well.

The goal, Steve Albini writes, is to create a movement that is "at least as significant as the Ska revival, or perhaps the WNBA." Ooh, godspeed with that one."

Then they should mix it right when they are tracking it as well... no overdubs at all, and do it onto vynil, or better yet, Wire recorder.

In other words... go "old school"

I have news for them... I use ProTools like that. Complete takes until the group / artist gets one that they really feel is the best representation of their performance.

Then we do fix a few things, but no more than two to three notes here and there.

It is much more satisfying, oh, and the band does not have to wait for the tape to rewind.

Cheers

[;ivlunsdystf]

Wait, I'm confused. My DAW interface and software record into "wave" files - are these kosher per Albini and Deal? It seems to me that one "wave" should be as good as any other, eh?

I just watched Kim Deal recording cassette 4track demos on a tour bus (in the pixies reunion documentary) - that was kind of neat to see. She does the one-ear headphone trick when she sings.

[RefD]

the band does not have to wait for the tape to rewind.

see, i kinda MISS that part.

[tdbajus]

i don't get why you can't put these same limitations on a daw, or a radar

limiting yourself when you could simply discipline yourself is asinine. I would embrace new tools, and use what works, and leave out what doesn't; not throw out an entire method of working for the sake of a "movement"

Depends how you limit yourself- we just limited ourselves in my band to using only a microKorg for the keyboards. Best, most creative things we've done- it's funny, but using just the one, crappy $300 keyboard, and really getting deep into it, has given some of the stuff we do far more personality that with the 3 zillion fantastic sounding software synths in Logic.

Wealth is poverty. Truth is falsehood. Strats are teles.

[JGriffin]

I came across this on a blog

"The goal, Steve Albini writes, is to create a movement that is "at least as significant as the Ska revival, or perhaps the WNBA." Ooh, godspeed with that one."

Wait, which ska revival? I've lived through at least three.

[Corey Y]

How about this ethos:

Make the best recording possible with what you can afford.


I can't figure how recording through all vintage/boutique analog equipment is either "punk" (whatever that means) or forward thinking. If they're against manipulated and manufactured product that's one thing. I'm with them on the capturing a performance as naturally and truly as possible, that's been Albini's thing for a long time. I don't really see how it relates to "realism", as if something recorded by a process of converting sound to electronic signals and back through one process as opposed to another is any more or less "real".

I use a digital HDD recorder, but I still go along with Albini's "engineer not producer" approach to recording. Considering the room, getting the tones and performances how you want them IN it and going live with as little overdubs as possible. I'm flexible depending on what the project is (I'm not a pro anyway, it's all for my own fun and practice), I've recorded some "bands" that are only one person who plays every instrument...so there must be overdubs in that case. One approach doesn't work for everything in life, there's got to be some adaptability and room for growth.

That's cool though, fundamentalism and extremism always seem unreasonable when everyone else does it and "pure" when you do it yourself. Albini and Deal are entitled to their opinions, I still enjoy their output even if I don't agree with every point.

[AstroDan]

I just watched Kim Deal recording cassette 4track demos on a tour bus (in the pixies reunion documentary) - that was kind of neat to see. She does the one-ear headphone trick when she sings.

...but when they were rehearsing 'Hey', she didn't ask the guy at the board to "rewind the tape".

To echo everyone:

a) It's just a silly thing to get behind when there are plenty of great sounding records made with digital equipment.

b) It's expensive and discourages poor folks.

c) Everything is eventually going to be dumped to .wav - even if you go from studio directly to vinyl, radio stations and Pixies' mixing board dude is going to dump it into ones and zeros.

But I love Kim Deal to death.

[Jay Reynolds]

I came across this on a blog

"The goal, Steve Albini writes, is to create a movement that is "at least as significant as the Ska revival, or perhaps the WNBA."

=piss take

[johnnydove]

so they don't want to be manipulating anything at all right? well, wouldn't the use of mics with non-flat freq response be manipulating it? i mean, maybe they should throw up a few earthworks in the room and just record those. then again, everything else is manipulating the sound in some way too.

i'd also like to know if there were any outboard effects involved.

i'm behind their idea of the no autotuning and constructing songs, anyone that i record (including myself) i try to get the best take instead of getting one part and then copying and pasting later in the song if the next time they play wasn't as good. it just seems like they're taking it too far. i dunno.

[Spindrift]

This should not be construed as a call to arms, but could become at least as significant as the Ska revival or perhaps the WNBA.

? Steve Albini

While I appreciate the humour (and attempted publicity grab) here, it's ultimately just boring. Artificial limitations are a great tool, but espousing these particular methods as something novel is kind of ridiculous.

Matthew Herbert was far more interesting with his PERSONAL CONTRACT FOR THE COMPOSITION OF MUSIC [INCORPORATING THE MANIFESTO OF MISTAKES]. His ideas were actually well formed, thought provoking and (for me) inspirational. Rather than being an all or nothing concept with little content, one could take individual elements of Herbert's ideas and apply them as appropriate (or desired). More like following Oblique Strategies.

Definitely worth checking out:

http://www.matthewherbert.com/pccom.php

Keep in mind that he is an electronic artist.

Adam

[electrical]

albini likes tape for all the cool, trendy reasons. It is almost a parody of the format to have him advocate it.

Blow me. Do your homework.

[electrical]

For what it's worth, Kim came up with everything about the "All Wave" idea herself, and as far as I know she is the only person to subscribe to it.

The only association I have with it is that I worked on a record where the idea was publicly articulated in the annotations.

I think it is an interesting set of parameters in any case.

[themagicmanmdt]

having probably the closest studio to steve (by coincidence), and walking by his place all the time en route to Hot Doug's, I've also pondered the scenario, which is in essence keeping audio real, without approximations.

a physical thing to note is that we, as humans, trick ourselves already into a series of approximations due to limitations of neuological processes. for example, our eyes - there is a 'relax' time after rods and cones 'fire' or react to light. our mind smooths all of these out. we are, by nature and physical makeup, already never viewing a pure world, but are sampling through our sensory converters.

the same argument goes into sample rate. 44.1 or 96 or 192? who can tell? does at some point the speed of the computer go faster than the mind? dealing with the higher frequencies, does rupert neve's idea of 'perception of non-audible frequencies' take place?

wouldn't tape be less accurate in conveying these frequencies than a 24/192 recording?

i'm a believer that the sound of 'tape' comes from the physical interation of the machine's electronics, the conversion to magnetism, and the back conversion. that's the sound of a tape machine and analog tape - not the sound of a pure unsampled wave.

it's a great thing in theory to believe in, but to *encourage* all others to do projects due to the the idea of complete reality instead of making a tonal choice sounds like following a religion of audio.


-mt