? BULLSHIT ?

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:28 pm

Coming in a bit late, but...

I agree with the initial post - most of what's marketed to us is basically BS. Yes, there can be improvements with things like converters, clocks, microphone preamps, but there's a very tiny return on your dollar for the average non-professional recordist. Once you've got even a Mackie board, some kind of reasonable recording medium, and a small collection of passable mics (you shouldn't need to spend more than $350 for even your best mic), you're set. Spend 9 out of every 10 dollars after that on acoustic treatments, guitar lessons, vocal lessons, books, knowledge.

Here's the history from somebody who started fooling around with home recording back in the 80s: Back then we would have killed for a Mackie board, and would have killed again for some of the cheap condensor mics currently flooding the market. Oy, and even 16/44.1 digital recording, compared to those cassette multitracks which had bad pitch and other sonic problems. Yes there was better stuff, but we couldn't afford it. Like home computers nowadays, current technology has reached a "good 'nuff" point for most of us. But the companies have to keep selling, so in comes the hard sell for stuff we don't really need.

;ivlunsdystf · Post by **;ivlunsdystf** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 8:32 pm

The early days of basement recording for me: As our bass player answered to the question of what kind of mics we use to record vocals: "Whichever one we step on first as we walk around looking for a mic"

Fletcher · Post by **Fletcher** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:28 am

Scodiddly wrote:Spend 9 out of every 10 dollars after that on acoustic treatments, guitar lessons, vocal lessons, books, knowledge.

I have to disagree with this to a slight degree... "knowledge" comes from 'book learning' combined with experience. Hence, you should spend $0- on "knowledge"... but you might have to spend a couple bucks on books as well as the time to read [and comprehend] what is being said in those books... and quite a bit of the commercially available "acoustic treatments" are also horseshit.

Lessons are good, books are good [deveoloping your chops in general is good... be they playing OR engineering chops], sometimes a "studio bottle" of Jim Beam is good... time "in the chair" is good... occasionally, getting out of your room and listening to your product on foreign systems is good... stepping outside of the genre in which you work most often is VERY good... after that... things like hardware additions have to be made because you can hear a palpable difference in your audio... not for fashion, not for "shwing factor"... but because they help you enjoy your music to a higher degree [which they can't until you have the experience to appreciate them].

Peace.

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:26 am

Oops - while in rant mode I temporarily forgot about the whole "studio foam" hype, so thanks for correcting me.

I should have said something more along the lines of "cost-effective acoustic treatments (not that voodoo foam BS)".

SirDonut · Post by **SirDonut** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:32 am

nakedemperor

When you say 'most of the world's most beloved music was recorded with little fidelity and gear' what recordings are you referring to?

Sorry but I think you're very wrong.

However, I do believe that not all good recordings need great gear/techniques. Let's take the stones' "Honky Tonk Women" as an example. Have you heard "Country Honk" off of let it bleed? There's a farking car horn at the beginning and end of the song. It was obviously recorded in like a damn hotel room...It sounds like crap, all the levels are off, and yet it sounds great!

the stones had the foresight to take the song and turn it into a proper single in Olympic studios. "Honky Tonk Women" was released in the summer and "Country Honk" was released in the Winter so the two songs never duked it out for lo-fi ; hi-fi supremacy...but I'm going to guess that 'Country Honk' would not have been the smash #1 hit that "Honky Tonk Women" was....

2c,
AS

Knights Who Say Neve · Post by **Knights Who Say Neve** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 10:16 am

SirDonut wrote:
However, I do believe that not all good recordings need great gear/techniques. Let's take the stones' "Honky Tonk Women" as an example. Have you heard "Country Honk" off of let it bleed? There's a farking car horn at the beginning and end of the song. It was obviously recorded in like a damn hotel room...It sounds like crap, all the levels are off, and yet it sounds great!

That car horn is way too loud to be bleeding in through a hotel window...and the same car horn just happens to honk again at the end of the song? I don't think so. That car horn was overdubbed.

But I pretty much agree with your point. Performance rules; fidelity is a bureaucrat.

[edited to edit out repetition]

east3rdst · Post by **east3rdst** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:16 pm

everyone should spend a little time here.

http://www.skepticforum.com/

I've never posted, I'm scared to, but some of it is fascinating. A few cool audio points are made. Don't bring up the analog debate.

Start here, and work your way the second page where "JJ"starts to get going. It's intense audio debate

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1082

Some of the most time tested item we use (cough medicine, knee scraping surgery, cold remedy's) turn out to perform no better then their placebo partners. You can't trust peoples convictions or even your own, unless it's gone through the rigors of a scientific double blind test. Im sure this applies to our discussion somehow.

KennyLusk · Post by **KennyLusk** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:14 pm

Everything you do makes a difference. Whether it's improving your technique, your monitoring environment or your gear. It does all add up in one way or another. A $24.00 pair of NOS JAN Philips tubes makes my $200/2 channel POS cheapie mic pre sound like a dream. Couple that with new mic techniques I learned from reading stuff here at Tapeop (including threads like this) and my little home engineering world is 1000% happier that week and my recordings are a little more interesting (at least to me).

A $35 pair of foam isolators for my nearfields prevents my desk from "assisting" in the amplification of my mix. This helps my mixing overall.

Some of it's BS and some of it's not, but like most "myth's" there are usually some truth's that helped create that myth. As consumers we pick and chose what's important to us and what's not; what's affordable for us and what's not.

Like any recipe, there are modifications that work and some that don't. I'm cooking at high altitude BTW. 7,000 ft. above sea level baby!

SirDonut · Post by **SirDonut** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:24 pm

Knights Who Say Neve wrote:
That car horn is way too loud to be bleeding in through a hotel window...and the same car horn just happens to honk again at the end of the song? I don't think so. That car horn was overdubbed.

absolutely overdubbed. I didnt mean to imply that the car horn was an indicator that it was recorded in a hotel.

I've been thinking about the original post today and .... Look, I think for a lot of 'fucked up' music out there, guerilla techniques work great. The broken mic into a screwed up preamp into a radioshack equalizer bombed to maximum output through a 3630 smashed to bits is exactly what someone who listens to a lot of modest mouse wants on their vocal sound. They dont want something clean and nice. They want something fucked up. But for some of us that just ain't it...To each his own.

Scodiddly · Post by **Scodiddly** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:27 pm

east3rdst wrote: Start here, and work your way the second page where "JJ"starts to get going. It's intense audio debate

http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1082

Wow! Tusen takk for the link - extremely interesting stuff.

Knights Who Say Neve · Post by **Knights Who Say Neve** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:13 pm

SirDonut wrote:
Knights Who Say Neve wrote:
That car horn is way too loud to be bleeding in through a hotel window...and the same car horn just happens to honk again at the end of the song? I don't think so. That car horn was overdubbed.
absolutely overdubbed. I didnt mean to imply that the car horn was an indicator that it was recorded in a hotel.

I've been thinking about the original post today and .... Look, I think for a lot of 'fucked up' music out there, guerilla techniques work great. The broken mic into a screwed up preamp into a radioshack equalizer bombed to maximum output through a 3630 smashed to bits is exactly what someone who listens to a lot of modest mouse wants on their vocal sound. They dont want something clean and nice. They want something fucked up. But for some of us that just ain't it...To each his own.

Very true. But Modest Mouse has the choice ($$$). Smashed vocals on that kind of pop record come across (IMO) as a gimmick. It's like branding a big "I" for indie on their foreheads. Very different situation from kids in a garage with a tape deck and a pair of 58s. Then it's more a struggle for useability than an aesthetic choice. A forced aesthetic choice if you will. Under those circumstances I'll applaud successful guerilla recording technique even though I'd rather listen to Rudy Van Gelder. Even the Stones tried to sound good...but they understood that the performance was what mattered. If they got a great performance in a hotel room or a basement, so be it. They dubbed on a car horn and made it work.

SirDonut · Post by **SirDonut** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 6:54 pm

Knights Who Say Neve wrote:Very true. But Modest Mouse has the choice ($$$).

But they didn't when they started and they've done pretty well for themselves.

joelpatterson · Post by **joelpatterson** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 6:09 am

I've only heard Modest Mouse once, it was a profile on NPR or something, and I went away with the impression...

"Somebody has GOTS to be kidding me. This is lame to the lamest degree of the lame universe."

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:36 am

joelpatterson wrote:I've only heard Modest Mouse once, it was a profile on NPR or something, and I went away with the impression...

"Somebody has GOTS to be kidding me. This is lame to the lamest degree of the lame universe."

naa joel, you're just an old hippy.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:41 am

Scodiddly wrote: Here's the history from somebody who started fooling around with home recording back in the 80s: Back then we would have killed for a Mackie board, and would have killed again for some of the cheap condensor mics currently flooding the market. Oy, and even 16/44.1 digital recording, compared to those cassette multitracks which had bad pitch and other sonic problems. Yes there was better stuff, but we couldn't afford it. Like home computers nowadays, current technology has reached a "good 'nuff" point for most of us. But the companies have to keep selling, so in comes the hard sell for stuff we don't really need.

Amen.

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