Science vs Magic

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I'm in the midst of recording new versions of songs from an old album of mine for use in a film and it's been a huge eye opener.
The original recordings were done about 10 years ago on a Tascam 38 and used lots and lots of tape loops and found sounds. Some of the tracks were bounced down 2 or 3 times and the degeneration is a huge part of the sound. There's also a ton of veri-speed going on (we would pitch the tape to get our found sounds in tune with the band) and lots of crazy tape editing tricks.
I still think it's a great sounding record (if I do say so myself) but I have no idea how we did half of it. These days I'm working in Pro Tools and have years more experience and skill and much, much, much better gear but I have to say that trying to recreate these tunes is like using science to explain magic. It has less to do with tape vs digital and more to do with method. At the time I couldn't make a good sounding "band in a room" record to save my life but I could make a really good crazy fucked up sounding record. These days it seems like the other way around.

It's also strikes me that new technology means I can do so much more now than I could do 10 years ago but none of it is as impressive (to me at least).

Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this thread. Just wanted to share.

[Professor]

That's an interesting observation and a pretty good statement on recreating the past in any sort of way, not just your own music. I'm sure there are plenty of guys who would be quick to jump on the 'analog vs. digital' thing, but that's like saying what made the 2-week college road trip from ten years ago so special was that the car was a stick-shift, and nothing to do with the travelling companions, the spontaneity, and the process of discovery that can't be duplicated when you know you're trying to recreate that event.

At the AES convention in October there was a presentation I caught of George Martin playing some of the BBC documentary he did of recreating the Beatles for the 40th anniversary of 'Sgt. Pepper's....' They had a bunch of current bands come in and each spend one full day in the studio recreating the music on an original console & 4-track Studer. Sure, the mics and console and tape machine were the same in many cases, but the instruments, the players, the arrangements and the sensibilities were different. There were lots of cool things to see in each part of the documentary, but one thing that I think really stands out relative to your story here was this: He said that the American bands tried really, really hard to do a perfect recreation of the original works, while the British bands felt better giving their interpretation to the originals, paying respect, but making them their own.

Which are you trying to do with this project?

For that matter, what was it about the originals that appeals to the audience anyway? Was it the guitar tone, or the notes that were played? Was it the 'thickness' of the tape sound, or the choice of notes in the harmony? Was it the compressor on the vocal mic or the words being sung?

If your current task is to recreate the past so that it could be used in a film project, then I would hazard a guess that you are meant to recreate it and make it better. Part of making it better may be found in cleaning up noise, tightening up rhythms, making cleaner pitch changes, etc. I don't know, really, because of course I haven't heard the material. But if you are feeling a detachment from the project because you can't recreate some of the cool tricks and spontaneity then it seems to me the answer is to either keep the original (and maybe just clean it up as best you can) for maybe just a couple of the tracks, or you can approach it from the idea of creating a new work that pays respect to the best parts of the old project and really showcases the fabulous things you can do now. I'll bet that doing the latter would be more inspiring to you because it will return you to the creative driver's seat, making the most of this new road trip, with this new companion, seeing these new sites. The towns might be the same, the sites, the restaurants, who knows, but now the car is an automatic that gets much better gas mileage, so you can relax a bit more, and explore some of the spots you might have missed the first time around.

-Jeremy

[A.David.MacKinnon]

The film-makers really connected with the original record but wanted some flexibility making it work with the scenes in the film. I was going to do some remixes and edits for them but the tapes are really shot (they were used to start with and have gone gummy). Because of that and some record company legality we decided it was easier to do new recordings.
I knew going in that it would be impossible to recreate the original so I'm not even trying. The new versions are more like the way the songs were played live. The hardest thing has been matching the tone and feel of the originals. It was put together in such a seat of the pants kind of way that the flaws end up being a big part of the charm.

Anyhow, I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. It's been a fun and enlightening experience revisiting this stuff. It's like a window into my brain 10 years ago.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

At the time I couldn't make a good sounding "band in a room" record to save my life but I could make a really good crazy fucked up sounding record. These days it seems like the other way around.

man. to-tal-ly.

i can't think of anything constructive to add right now. i just had to agree with you on that one.

i have been feeling recently that the times when i record just for the fuck of it and don't bother tuning the drums, measuring the mics, checking phase or doing anything at all...that stuff always seems to come out sounding cooler than when i do things correctly.

[cgarges]

Listening to old stuff can be so eye-opening. I just sold a ton of old cassettes to a guy here on the board, but before I sent them to him, I went through them to make sure I kept some of this old stuff I had either played on or recorded. It was really funny. Some of that stuff I hadn't heard in like 20 years.

A friend of mine (who's a really excellent guitar player and recording engineer) recently ran across some older recordings he had done back in the 70s and gave them a listen. He was really bummed out to hear that he was still playing some of the same licks thirty years later!

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[dave watkins]

great post. i've been think about a lot of this kind of stuff recently, mainly because of this board. doing the "stupid stuff you did in high school comp" made me go back and listen to a lot of very interesting things, there were times when i was sifting through recordings where i was blown away by some of the sounds. and with a lot of them i can now sit and explain "well that happened because the mic was there, and the gain was there, and it hit the tape really hot". but then sometimes, i'm just can't even figure out how those sounds came into existence and there is no way i could recreate them. a lot of it was the luck that goes along with not knowing a thing about what was going on at all.

now that i know a bit more about what is going on in the world of audio, i feel like i start off with "tried and true technique #1" too much because that's how you are supposed to do it. and luckily i usually start thinking that it sounds like everything else ever and then start approaching things like someone who has no idea what they are doing again, and that's when the fun starts. doing things the right way all the time is overrated. i've made a point to gain an understanding of technique and the physics of sound and so forth, just as i spent a long time studying music theory years ago. i have found myself not forgetting these things, but rather just keeping them in some distant corner of my head as an influence. most of the time i can't tell anyone what chords or time signatures i'm playing (i'm really the most irresponsible musician ever), or how i went about getting to the mic placement or gear choice i ended up with to record the song. i think it really just ends up that the song gets what the song needs at the time. some of it is luck and some of it is guided by knowledge, but whatever it is sometimes i find i just need to get out of the way and let it happen, and there's not a damn thing wrong with not being able explain or understand it fully as music transcends all that.

now (also because of this board) i'm diving head first into the rpm challenge, and i am finding myself less concerned with just recording a bunch of shit in a month that sounds good, and more concerned with actually ending up with something at the end of the month that is an interesting auditory experience with sounds that i couldn't get if i did a record in a more proper manner, that's not to say it'll be unlistenable, i really don't know what it's saying. i guess it'll either be mind blowing or really suck we'll see...

[Corey Y]

I've listened to recordings I made almost 10 years ago with a mishmash of crappy gear and thought "If only I could record that now", but then I listen a little longer and start to realize there are also qualities I like about it that I can't seem to reproduce now, probably because I achieved them by doing things "wrong". I actually think preconceptions about what gear and what processes are "good" are a bad influence on engineers sometimes. Some people get hung up on trying to make their recordings sound like something else they've heard said is "better" instead of making it sound good to themselves. If I could show the quickest most slapdash recording I made last week to myself 10 years ago I would be floored. To me last week it's just crap I barely made an effort on and I'm still striving to make it sound like some other reference I have in my head as "good". I guess you try to get rid of the mistakes, but stay open to happy accidents.

The original post reminded me of the Arthur C. Clarke quote regarding advanced science being indistinguishable from magic. Which reminded me of another quote of his:

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."

Maybe this post is more on topic in spirit than practice, but this seems like a good thread for stream of consciousness reflection anyway, heh.

[;ivlunsdystf]

I listened to an Allen Ginsberg lecture (at Naropa in the 1980s, found at archive.org) where he put forth the concept that a truly [intelligent? enlightened?] person will see both sides of any dichotomy as being equal. This is either aging beatnik mishmash or a useful concept - decide for yourself. Anyway, these posts remind me of that part of his talk, which I heard while mowing the lawn (on earbuds) - not sure why I remember that fact.

[Professor]

Yeah, I guess it is fair to mention Clarke's third law...

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I'm sure from reading many of my posts that it probably seems like I must be one of those guys who is edlessly checking & rechecking the microphones with rulers and protractors, and taking meticulous notes. Really it's quite the opposite. Sure, I know those rules, and they are in my head as I am planning a session, or positioning players around the room, or selecting the microphones for an instrument I just listened to, but I have incorporated those concepts deep enough that they as automatic in my mind as looking both ways before crossing the street or locking the door behind me as I leave the house. To those who are watching me, it probably looks like I'm grabbing a mic seemingly at random, placing it relatively quickly, then setting a level and hitting record. It does seem like magic to some of the people who see it (I've heard them say so), because it seems so non-technical, but the sound always works. (Or at least if it doesn't work on the first try, it's usually there within one or two more trips to the live room, and rarely more than a couple minutes.) I'm not measuring for the >3:1 placement, and they don't know what polar patterns I'm using, or why I've placed the instruments & mics where I have in the room, or what the acoustic treatments around them are doing. They don't see the science on the surface so it appears natural, spontaneous or even magical.

I know that doesn't really seem to immediately relate to the original post about mating new copies of old songs with the film project, but it seemed to suit the tone of where we've been going.

Either way, as for rebuilding those old tracks, I'm sure that if you listen deeply enough there will be as many things you dislike about the tracks as there are things you like. It's easy to get caught up in the nostalgia, but important to stay comfortably objective about the material. There must be something that really stands out as an area that needs improvement. Maybe that's your best bet on a place to start. Use the 10 years of experience you've earned since then to really blow away that particular flaw in the original. Then use that as your frame work to build from. The vibe is a tricky thing to recreate especially since you are also trying to conform it to the timing requirements of film. So getting you mind off of that vibe, and onto something that really could be done much better might get you into the mindset to really make this project completely blow away the old one. Try to convince yourself that the goal is to make this one so much better that the old one seems kitchy, quaint, childish, amateur, whatever seems appropriate. And that's not to say that the new one necessarily should be super clean, polished, or sterile. Rather it should be the older, more mature you nodding approvingly to the younger you and saying, "alright there youngster, now lemme show you how us big boys can do it".


-Jeremy

[joel hamilton]

Creative mayhem, informed by learning and experience = my favorite records.

Both the ones I have made and the ones other people have made that I hold dear.

Too many engineers seem to want to be the audio equivalent of a sign painter.
Perfectly straight lines, perfect this perfect that... the "best pre for hi hat" type of bull crap that just makes me weep for the ART of recording.
My favorite records sound like something was broken, but someone who knows what it sounded like before it was broken was running the show...

[centurymantra]

The original post reminded me of the Arthur C. Clarke quote regarding advanced science being indistinguishable from magic. Which reminded me of another quote of his:

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."

Maybe this post is more on topic in spirit than practice, but this seems like a good thread for stream of consciousness reflection anyway, heh.

Or...in the words of the somewhat notorious and occasionally amazing beat-era writer/artist, Brion Gysin - "Magic calls itself the other method for controlling matter and knowing space"


A huge part of any form of artistry and the creative processive is the ability to recognize and embrace happy accidents. As one becomes more technically adept and aware of the "right" way to do things, I think it is easy to lose sight of this very important idea.

[chris harris]

I started out, feeling my way around in the dark, trying to make things sound "cool".
This was followed shortly by an obsession with making things sound "good".
Now, I'm much more concerned with making things sound "cool" again.
Knowing how to make things sound "good" can be both a help and a hindrance to the current goal.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

For me it's not about knowledge vs art of feel or what-ever.
It's more about making a record that's a snapshot of a performance vs making a record that is 100% a studio creation and could never exist in the real world.

The interesting and un-recreatable thing about the original record was that the recording and songwriting were the same process. There were no songs when we started and when we were done there was a complete record. Everything was tracked piece by piece so every new sound was tailor made to fit with what came before it. The rhythm tracks are built out of ticking clocks and other non musical sounds and the rest of the songs are written around them. It's a very different thing when you start with the weirdness and work around it than when you write a regular song and try to make it weird. In the end there's no way to separate the songs from the production. They're one thing.

I still work this way on lots of my own stuff but there is rarely the time and budget for me to do this with clients. it's also hard to find people willing go into a recording session with no songs or plan and just see what happens.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

Maybe the heading of this thread should have been Photography vs. Painting.

[lyman]

This all makes me re-think my notions of what is "good" and "right" when it comes to recording, gear, and creative processes in general.

There are an infinite number of paths to go down: whether you have a certain destination in mind, or you're just letting go of the reigns and seeing where the moment takes you, or any combination of the two approaches. And over time, your map changes because you have different tools or a change in taste or whatever. You can't always recreate what you made 10 years ago any more than you could have done what you do now. As the old timers up here in Maine would say: "Can't get theyah from heah." And that's true in a way.

I guess the moral is that you should learn to embrace the moment, don't get too hung up on anything (good or bad) because the next moment or a moment 10 years down the road, you might end up liking/disliking that very thing.