Re: Beer Budget CD Release Strategy as an Alternative to The WayIt's Normally Done

[kkissinger@kevinkissinger.com]

I guess I will offer a dissenting voice here.  I am 52 years old and I  
NEVER, EVER, EVER want to go back to the days of tape and vinyl.

Tape was expensive, noisy, and limited to just a few tracks.  Except  
for the musical elite, no one had access to multi track recording  
equipment.  About the best one could do (at least, one in my financial  
situation) was to scrimp and save for an A3340S (four channel, quarter  
track) and you had to run it at 15ips so that the wow and flutter  
wasn't too noticeable.

I mixed with a homemade mixer because decent mixing desks cost tens of  
thousands of dollars.  Balanced lines and +4dbv levels?  Forget it --  
you were stuck with -10dbu (consumer) signal levels through unbalanced  
lines.  Consumer equipment worked as if it was designed to capture  
more noise than signal.  (When Mackie came out with the CR1604, it was  
like a dream come true -- a great mixer for less than $10K).

The only way to release an album was to get signed (as a practical  
matter).  And the commercial equipment (lathes and such) was designed  
for half-track stereo masters -- and who had access to THAT outside of  
commercial studios?  Consumer and commercial formats were NOT  
compatable.

In other words, to do electronic music was a lot of work in those days  
-- a labor of love that, in the end, was always compromised because of  
inferior equipment.  The noisy equipment and limited tracks made a  
track bounce difficult -- and any more than one generation of bouncing  
was interable.  With only four channels, most tracking had to be done  
in mono -- to record a stereo track tied up half the channels.

The reason that some digital recordings sound "bad" is the way they  
are recorded and mixed (often over-compressed).  This has nothing to  
do with the medium but rather with the skill/artistry/decisions of the  
producer.  Vinyl may hide the deficiencies of such mixes and give the  
illusion of better sound.

We now live in a time wherein we can choose to have "lo-fi" equipment  
just for the fun of it.  However, in the not-so-distant past one had  
no choice other than lo-fi.  "Lo-fi" (or tape, or vinyl) may be fun  
when it is done by choice but was not fun when one wanted to make a  
clean recording.

There is a part of me that wants to look back on the old days with  
affection and nostalgia, however I don't.

I will take a digital recording environment over tape and vinyl any time.

-- Kevin

Quoting "L.Angulo" <labaloops@yahoo.com>:

> It doesnt really surprise me,i just saw on TV that 78s are going to   
> be re-released as well!
> Tape still rules (unless you go back further to beat tape,to those   
> 78´s and the magic needle!;-)
> But u know,i read somewhere that since the 80´s the whole sound   
> quality has gone down and the whole digitalizing concept has bee   
> implanted in our heads,and the irony of the whole thing is that   
> records did sound better than all the junk today.Even all that   
> recording equipment that was digitalized between 1980 is being   
> redigitalized because it wasnt even at consumer level   
> electronics.Who made the decision that it was good enoguh,certainly   
> not musicians!
> The reason why studios started using pro tools is mostly because of   
> the editing capabilities and not the quality of sound,and because   
> the converters began to get good enough to actually use them.You   
> cant blame people for not buying CDs anymore because they arent as   
> valuable as records were, and they cost more.Records simply sounded   
> better,a CD or MP3 is like taking a picture fo the real thing just   
> like a lot of this virtual craze.The truth of the matter is probably  
>  that quality has gone bad and now people dont want to pay for it,   
> and not just records!
> I heard there are already plans to finally bring out hi-resolution   
> vinyl,high resolution CDs and even hi-res files,so all those mp3   
> records you are buying through i-tunes might already be outdated.
>
> www.myspace.com/luisangulocom
>
>
> --- On Wed, 1/7/09, Stefan Tiedje <stefantiedje@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Stefan Tiedje <stefantiedje@googlemail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Beer Budget CD Release Strategy  as an Alternative to   
>> The Way It's Normally Done
>> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
>> Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 11:41 PM
>> Krispen Hartung schrieb:
>> > But then again, I just saw an article that vinyl sales
>> are up, and CD sales down! Crazy. Wouldn't that be cool
>> if we went back to vinyl. I would love to have that much
>> space for artwork, etc.
>>
>> Art Simon schrieb:
>> > Is anyone out there doing vinyl releases? What would
>> it take to do a
>> > small vinyl production run?
>>
>> http://www.vinyl-on-demand.com/
>> You'd just need some dj friends to buy them (It's
>> not cheap at all...)
>>
>> Stefan
>>
>> -- Les Ondes Mémorielles---------x--
>> --_____-----------|-----------|--
>> --(_|_ ----|\-----|-----()-------
>> -- _|_)----|-----()--------------
>> ----------()----------TJ Shredder
>
>
>
>
>