Re: Live Looping: it pops up everywhere

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Erdem wrote:
*/"i have just listened to the new juana molina tracks on her myspace 
site. is it just me who thinks the tracks sound very bad.
i am talking about the quality of recording, mixing and mastering. it 
sounds like everything was recorded with a cheap
dynamic mic and not eqed at all. eq, compresion problems all over the 
place. is this a new trend to have your recordings
sound bad to make it indie? i am hearing this kind of sound engineer 
problems on many new indie albums. i do not think
this trend helps the artists or the industry in general. your opinions?" /*

Honestly,  Erdem,   when I hear her new album I just hear music.

The longer I have played music in my life and the more music I hear, I 
have to confess,  the less I really care about fidelity.

My wife just recorded some lead vocal tracks for her next record on an 
ancient and very heavy cassette player that
has noticeable warble in it.................it's as lo fi as you can get 
and the vocals are magical to me..............noise and all.

The reason is because that incredible music has been recorded poorly and 
incredible music has been recorded fantastically
but if I were to eschew the music that was recorded poorly (or usually 
on a much smaller budget),  then I would
have lost a good half of the things I love most dearly in my recording 
collection and the enjoyment that has come from it.
I have some Somalian pop recordings that have despicable sound recording 
quality,  hiss and noise..............I love them dearly
and their poor audio quality just doesn't bug me.     Lately, I've even 
gone back and started listening to some of my old
Reggae recordings on cassette tape...............there's something 
charming and funky about it.

In the late 70's and early 80's  one had to be very wealthy (or 
extremely popular with the backing of someone really wealthy)
to make really pristine audio recordings but now we live in an age where 
anyone with $250 USD  can record things with condenser microphones in 24 
bit/96 khz.

I think it is legitimate to try for the very best of audio recordings 
but the bulk of the worlds population are starting to listen
to recording in mp3 format which is awful by contrast to well recorded 
vinyl or CDs.

So, in conclusion,  between you and me,   I didn't have a single thought 
about the quality of the recording.
For the most part,  I've never had the money in my life to do things 
that were state of the art so the fact that
I can record music now with decent preamplifiers and high resolution/bit 
rates makes me happy as hell.

Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics made his first album with a cheap 4-track 
reel to reel, a guitar, a cello, a cheap drum machine,
some cheap stomp box effects pedals and one cheap microphone (I think it 
was an SM58 Shure).......................................I adore that 
record! 
8888888888888888888888888888

That's just my take on it,   but to me.....................the music 
(and it's spirit) always trump the equipment used to record something.

That being said,   your recordings are beautiful and pristine and I 
salute you for them.

Respectfully,   Rick Walker