cali damage

It’s weird.  Since the 60’s, recording studios have made HUGE  advances.  You used to have a giant mixer that cost as much as a house and weighed twice as much. Now you can make a professional-quality album with a laptop and a microphone. Plus all the ‘digital hard-disk recorders,’ ‘keyboard workstations,’ and software that allows you to edit out mistakes, correct vocal pitches, and sample any instrument.  And yet, the actual RECORDINGS sound JUST AS CRAPPY as they did in the ’60s. I’m not even talking about crap songs. I’m talking about “Hey, it sounds like the drums are basically nothing but a hi-hat, which must be 18 feet wide, because it is louder than the guitars, which were I guess using walkman headphones as speakers in lieu of an amp.” I’m talking about, “Hey, the bass was apparently recorded through a cement wall, or perhaps several buildings away.”  I’m talking about, “I surmise that the vocalist is inside the kickdrum, and they are both 3 inches away from the microphone, while the rest of the band (including the other drums somehow) is 40 feet away inside a shoebox.” 

Why is this? Why have huge advances in recording technology not resulted in huge advances in recording quality? Because, in recording technology, like in every other field (medicine, computers, porn)– when someone makes an advance , the new tech becomes industry standard: EVERYONE ELSE COPIES IT. It’s ONLY dumb musicians who try to re-invent the wheel every fucking time despite a success rate of less than 10%.  I’m talking about setting up, micing, and tuning the equipment. The fact is, making guitars distorted but you-can-still-hear-what-notes-they’re-playing is DIFFICULT. and making drums sound like what they sound like (as opposed to bubble-wrap-popping kickdrums and tupperware-sounding snares) is hard as hell, PLUS you have to actually make it so that no one drum dominates over the others. This happens very rarely, even with professional engineers. And yet, when they finally get it right, they tear it down and the next band comes in and sets up THEIR equipment and try to start from scratch.

 
I SAY FUCK THAT!!! When I’m president, anyone that gets lucky enough to record a good guitar tone or drums-that-sound-like-drums, they will have to put HUGE LOCKS on all the microphones, and weld covers over the amps and guitars, so that no one can mess with any of the knobs.  Anyone lucky enough to stumble on a drum submix that you can actually hear everything, should call the cops who will come and put barbed-wire fences around the mixing board so no one is tempted to fuck with it.  Bands who want their equipment back will be given drugs until they shut up. It belongs to history now. 

Bands can moan about, oh man, what about our creativity? what about our unique style? shut up. If you try to use your own equipment and own tones,  90% garunteed no one will even be able to HEAR your unique style.  Because your guitar will sound like it was recorded inside a Jacuzzi, and the kickdrum will be louder than the vocals.    Besides, your ‘unique style’ is a rip-off of your favorite band’s sound. And guess what? your favorite band HATES the way they sound!  They are like, “Fuck! That album sounded terrible.  We were too broke and inexperienced to make it sound good.”  Look, dude, I know you want to rock, but you have neither the time or the money to make a good sound from scratch. Plus your equipment is crap and you are stoned.  Just concentrate on making good songs, and use the studio equipment.  I mean, do you insist on bringing your own digital recording hardware, made of twigs and berries and duct tape, to the studio? “Dude, we won’t use your big old mixer made by The Man.  We have creativity and integrity!  Use this Fisher-Price tape recorder we tricked out with pot leaf decals!”  NO, no one does that. So why not think of the equipment the same way? . End of fatwa.
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, my band. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

It’s weird.  Since the 60’s, recording studios have made HUGE  advances.  You used to have a giant mixer that cost as much as a house and weighed twice as much. Now you can make a professional-quality album with a laptop and a microphone. Plus all the ‘digital hard-disk recorders,’ ‘keyboard workstations,’ and software that allows you to edit out mistakes, correct vocal pitches, and sample any instrument.  And yet, the actual RECORDINGS sound JUST AS CRAPPY as they did in the ’60s. I’m not even talking about crap songs. I’m talking about “Hey, it sounds like the drums are basically nothing but a hi-hat, which must be 18 feet wide, because it is louder than the guitars, which were I guess using walkman headphones as speakers in lieu of an amp.” I’m talking about, “Hey, the bass was apparently recorded through a cement wall, or perhaps several buildings away.”  I’m talking about, “I surmise that the vocalist is inside the kickdrum, and they are both 3 inches away from the microphone, while the rest of the band (including the other drums somehow) is 40 feet away inside a shoebox.” 

Why is this? Why have huge advances in recording technology not resulted in huge advances in recording quality? Because, in recording technology, like in every other field (medicine, computers, porn)– when someone makes an advance , the new tech becomes industry standard: EVERYONE ELSE COPIES IT. It’s ONLY dumb musicians who try to re-invent the wheel every fucking time despite a success rate of less than 10%.  I’m talking about setting up, micing, and tuning the equipment. The fact is, making guitars distorted but you-can-still-hear-what-notes-they’re-playing is DIFFICULT. and making drums sound like what they sound like (as opposed to bubble-wrap-popping kickdrums and tupperware-sounding snares) is hard as hell, PLUS you have to actually make it so that no one drum dominates over the others. This happens very rarely, even with professional engineers. And yet, when they finally get it right, they tear it down and the next band comes in and sets up THEIR equipment and try to start from scratch.

 
I SAY FUCK THAT!!! When I’m president, anyone that gets lucky enough to record a good guitar tone or drums-that-sound-like-drums, they will have to put HUGE LOCKS on all the microphones, and weld covers over the amps and guitars, so that no one can mess with any of the knobs.  Anyone lucky enough to stumble on a drum submix that you can actually hear everything, should call the cops who will come and put barbed-wire fences around the mixing board so no one is tempted to fuck with it.  Bands who want their equipment back will be given drugs until they shut up. It belongs to history now. 

Bands can moan about, oh man, what about our creativity? what about our unique style? shut up. If you try to use your own equipment and own tones,  90% garunteed no one will even be able to HEAR your unique style.  Because your guitar will sound like it was recorded inside a Jacuzzi, and the kickdrum will be louder than the vocals.    Besides, your ‘unique style’ is a rip-off of your favorite band’s sound. And guess what? your favorite band HATES the way they sound!  They are like, “Fuck! That album sounded terrible.  We were too broke and inexperienced to make it sound good.”  Look, dude, I know you want to rock, but you have neither the time or the money to make a good sound from scratch. Plus your equipment is crap and you are stoned.  Just concentrate on making good songs, and use the studio equipment.  I mean, do you insist on bringing your own digital recording hardware, made of twigs and berries and duct tape, to the studio? “Dude, we won’t use your big old mixer made by The Man.  We have creativity and integrity!  Use this Fisher-Price tape recorder we tricked out with pot leaf decals!”  NO, no one does that. So why not think of the equipment the same way? . End of fatwa.
 

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 15th, 2006 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, my band. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.