Mark@Quad

I will be folding this blog into Quad's blog by some time next week. Please join us at http://quadstudiosnashville.typepad.com/quadstudiosnashville/ for a more lively interaction!

Formats and the Annoyance Factor

About 5 years ago I decided to jump in and rip all of my CD's into iTunes.  I did a few casual listening tests to determine the rate for my new AAC files, and proceeded to feed CD's into my computer while I worked or surfed.  I'm now up to about 25 days of music, if played front to back, and the convenience is amazing.

However, I was recently forced to rearrange my listening setup as I loaned my computer audio interface to a client for a couple of weeks.  I went back to listening to CD's off of my 5-disk changer and it was enlightening.  Not overwhelming.  But a much better experience.  I had done quick A/B listening tests to determine how much audible quality I would be losing by compressing my audio, but I hadn't gone back to evaluate the overall effect until now.  It's hard to quantify, but I believe the CD's to be less fatiguing.  When I listen to the CD and the compressed file side by side, there is very little perceived difference, but I can't stand to listen to a whole album from a compressed file.  My mind wanders and I'm ready to move on after a couple of tracks.

I am concerned that as we have "progressed" from vinyl to CD to compressed files, we may have introduced an annoyance factor that inhibits the enjoyment of listening to music for any extended period of time.  Certainly, music has had plenty of competition for the attention of the public since vinyl was replaced by CD's, but if we can't offer a noticeable improvement in quality, should we expect an improvement in market share?

"Good Enough" and "I Can't Tell The Difference" could be the death of us.

Sequencing

What comes first?  The guitar, the drums, the vocal, the chorus, the verse, the uptempo, the ballad, the chicken, the egg?

An interesting notion that putting the same elements together in a different order can yield different results.  I read an interview with Andy Partridge of XTC in which he said that, when producing his own records, he cuts bass last, a technique he picked up from Paul McCartney.  A standard Nashville workflow (if you're not cutting everyone at once) would involve getting drums and bass, at least, and then filling in parts- from the ground up, I suppose- until we put the keeper vocal cherry on top.  The question then arises; if we took the same song, same people, and the same instrumentation and built it top-down, or sideways, even, would we get the same result?  I think not.  

Better or worse would be a personal call, but if you're looking for a different result, try a different workflow. 

Limitations

My wife and I were watching some friends kids about a month ago and, while they were at our house, I invited them to play the drums I have at home.  I also put up 2 mics (one on kick, the other overhead), so that I could give their parents a recording of their talented children.  The end result was amazing!  The performances were good for a first time 4- and 7-year old, but the drums sounded fantastic!  It made me question the way music is recorded these days.  If drums can sound this good with 2 tracks (they could have been summed to 1) why do we care about the latest, highest track count and the processing to put 3 plugins on each track.  I believe the answer is that we have become addicted to options.  Keep every take, manipulate every nuance of every instrument, recall the mix an infinite number of times.  This ability has led to the proliferation of homogenized, perfected recordings that sound great and feel bad.  Most of the humanity and emotion is combed out in an effort to remove anything that would be objectionable, but the result is often a recording that is unremarkable.

I experienced the opposite of this the other night in the Neve Room here at Quad.  A client had booked a 6 hour session to track, overdub, and mix one song, using the 16 track/2 inch tape machine.  Drums, bass, 2 guitars, piano, B3, vocal and background vocals, all on 16 tracks.  Minimal punching. No editing. No tuning.  Mixing while the song is still fresh.  The final product was a wonderfully human, gorgeously imperfect record that reminded me of my favorite sixties and seventies cuts.  

This is probably not the solution to the Music Business's problems, and it's not a workflow for every type of music or musicican, but it forced me to reevaluate how I look at limitations.  If you take what appears to be a handicap (or create your own artificial limitations) and use them to an advantage, you may create something that is unique, something that you wouldn't have achieved otherwise.

Phases on stun.

I recently attended a panel discussion of successful Producer/Engineers.  A question of phase was asked of the group and one of the panelists responded by saying something like "oh yeah, you have to check phase.  You can buy the little boxes relatively inexpensively that you use to click out your mics, but when you track drums you have to check to make sure the mics are "in phase".  While this is accurate as it applies to Absolute Phase  (is the microphone in phase with the speaker, or, when you kick a drum does it move the woofer toward me or away from me), it ignores the more interesting question of determining Relative Phase (when you have multiple mics that can all "hear" a source, how is the phase in one mic related to the phase of the same sound in the other mic). Please Ms. Bernardi, don't make me diagram that last sentence.  

The more times a single source is picked up at different distances (and therefore different phases), the more difficult it is to maintain coherent phase.  One mic on drums?  If you're not the mix guy on this one, he/she is not going to be happy that you tied his hands on the drums.  Two mics and a tape measure?  Eighteen mics and time alignment in a DAW?  I would welcome any comments on multiple micing and phase, particularly in attempting to maintain coherency.

Welcome to my new blog!

I hope to entertain and inform all who have an interest in recording music.  I welcome comments and criticism (please try to keep it constructive) and I hope to have some interesting news and events at Quad that you might want to know about.

Here we go.