Saturday, January 12, 2008

when shit isn't bad enough

Articles like this one in Rolling Stone Magazine, who have always been known to be really "with it" speculate about the so called volume wars.

These "wars" that producers and labels are supposedly in to fight for our attention are causing mastering engineers to squeeze out much of the sonic detail and frequency content by over using compression. This "battle" that is raging is apparently due to the fact that so many people are downloading their music as MP3 files and the file format has a limited bandwidth.

O.K. so we're all clear on this concept that is being put out there just as we are all clear that the MP3 is the devils tool, blah blah blah.

So what I don't understand is why the fuck anyone would even care when the standard for compact discs hasn't improved since they introduced it in 1982 (yep nineteen eighty two) -check wikipedia and see what they say.

16 bit is shit, it wasn't good sounding when it came out and the only reason people aren't complaining now is that their fucking ears have been scared from listening to music in this crumpled up tin woodsman kind of way.

-Generations of mutants can't tell that they aren't hearing most of what they paid for and should be hearing.

So next time some duche bag brings up your stolen MP3s or how loud the new TJ Blowyouz disk is, you just tell em that you are waiting for a higher bit rate before you commit to dancing.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

studios?

I will pretty much use any excuse to record with my band. Since we don't leave anywhere near each other it is only an occasion that can bring us together. My upcoming 40th birthday is just such a thing.

Once I got a sense that my somewhat unwilling comrades were willing to indulge my artistic fantasies once again, I began to look into studios.

With the proliferation of cheap studio gear filling people's homes and the real studios needing work I was pretty convinced the minimal requirements that I have to cut the basic tracks would be easy to meet and I would have a number of studios to choose from.
-Hell no!

Amazingly concepts like live drums, isolation and decent mixer are just old fashioned. I was picturing bringing in a portable set up, using their space, drums and montoring -nope.

O.K. Now bare with me for a moment.

All I want to do is record three people. One playing bass, one playing guitar, one playing drums (small kit -two mics). So if my math is correct that would be four tracks plus a fifth as a guide vocal.

I would like to record straight to PT (Mac) with a safety two track mix going to DAT or something and maybe have everything bussed to 8 Track half inch (as if that was even an option)

Somebody send me a sign.