How to make record albums

I'll jump in here as a rock producer who started at the end of the analog age, and was lured into digital work stations in the early 90's. I simply didn't understand why I could not get a sound I was happy with. I would take digital tracks and then re play them through tube amps, re mic, and blend the tracks together to try to PUT BACK into the recordings what should have been there in the first place.

Jimmy Page once said that if you record things properly you don't need EQ. I could not agree more.

Digital recording will always be more like filling a glass with marbles rather than water. As long as there is as sampling rate, there will be a point to where the music disappears if you get close enough to it. There are holes and those will be exposed the better your stereo playback set up.

Why do you think all the obsession with the low end powered subs? To try to fill in the holes.

A classical orchestra developed centuries ago based upon the overall sonic soundscape of frequency understanding.. It was intuitive and it worked.

We are now in the age of manipulation, where a band with two guitarists, and a keyboardist all want equal presence in the mix.. so you have to use compression to give that illusion. It's all smoke and mirrors now.

Groups now are more concerned with how they will sound on an ipod than a real system. It really is a horrific situation.

What I am finding (probably no surprise to posters here) is that new vinyl releases are simply CD's pressed on vinyl. There is no advantage to vinyl at that point. What is gone is gone from the get go..

I have been manipulating and faking my way through recordings for years to try to "Get" a more real sound through much difficulty. Some applaud me, others send me to hell in the hundreds of reviews I have received. Most don't get it.

I have no problem compromising some "hiss" for warmth and something that sounds more organic to the ears.. but mass market listeners have ZERO idea what a proper recording should sound like.

If you look at painters.. they all should have become obsolete with the invention of the photo camera, but there is still something in the ability to BLEND the paint.. into something that does NOT more precisely represent reality.
This is really the argument for multitracking. Some like it and some don't. But it does offer the producer a lot more production options. And this is what has led up to the homogenized production values we see today in popular music.

People are not used to listening to natural..

As a lot of you know, a great system is not always a mind blower.. often this can expose the short comings of a recording. But with a great recording, only then can your proper set up really shine. And this takes us back to the golden age of recording.. and playback.

It's not going to happen again. Enjoy your tube amps, vinyl and just thank heaven it happened in the first place.

Humans are lazy if given the chance, and I don't see the old time producers sticking up for the analog age like they should.. maybe their hearing is not what it was.. but I don't see anyone wanting to splice tape anymore, and I don't see musicians really shedding to become excellent when they know that a studio can fix anything in the digital realm. I am speaking more to the young kids here.

Everyone wants something for nothing, and unfortunately I don't see it changing anytime soon...

Now we are at the mercy of economics. Even if you invested in the old gear, you might have a hard time finding people who can work on it. Also it is hard to find talent.. real talent..

In the old days, musicians didn't have 700 cable channels, and the internet.. and all the other distractions.. AND girls are impressed with DJ's more than musicians.. and don't think this isn't a factor.. it is. It's a HUGE factor.

A site like this gives a glimmer of hope.. but it will take more than just Jack White to do it.

If you do give validity to the multitracking culture of the 1960's, you still had bands that felt a responsibility to reproduce those recordings as faithfully as possible. Not all the bands did this of course, but some made very concentrated efforts to do so. The British Progressive or Art Rock bands seemed to take this seriously, probably to their detriment. Some of this music was very complex, and difficult to perform, and there were some serious musicians who prioritized their execution over the spectacle of visceral showmanship. Others combined both of course. However, this led to a rebellion from the counter culture creating the Punk Rock movement, and on the other side of the coin you had the invention of fake bands and experiments in marketing empty talent shells, lip syncing and so forth.

Anyone who was around in the days before digital work stations and even better, drum machines, knows that DRUMS on any kind of rock or fusion record are the most difficult things to record. Not only are many drummers not proficient, but their kits are not tuned or miked properly. Once the cold starkness wore on peoples ears, real drums were then sampled using midi technology, or triggers, and now programs that read the sound file, and replace the peaks with samples of well recorded kick and snare drums. Other programs quantitize the kick and snare hits or even the hats or ride cymbals to the nearest 8th note, or quarter note which really sounds contrived. Can you really buy an honest recording these days?

The point is.. the entire stream of consciousness has moved in this direction, from public listener.. to band... to record company and promoters. Bands now take this onto the stage with loads of technology masking their inabilities to perform.. in fact if you don't do this.. you are not likely to get very far.

At this point, the public ear has been programed to believe that real sounds bad..that excessive compression is a good thing, bass rules, and music is better played through ear pods than tube amps and large properly designed speakers.

No label is going to invest in proper recordings to "a market" that is about as big as this chat forum.

I did work with tape machines early on, just long enough to know how bad things are now. But what are we really going to do?

You could make the greatest record of all time and it could easily go completely unnoticed.

The industry is so dead and stagnating artistically.. I mean there are still singers sounding like Eddie Veder 20 years later thinking that's cool, and getting signed.. look at American Idol... that's the biggest thing in the country, and it is simply a karaoke contest.

Everything is about smoke and mirrors.. and moving further and further from the truth... or a real natural truth.

Not sure what would have to happen to turn the ship around.. but I don't see it happening. I am just thankful I have a mountain of clean vinyls and a nice restored vintage tube amp, and a wall of speakers that make listening to music a proper experience.

I think bands putting stuff out on vinyl these days is simply silly... as they are just pressing their CD onto black plastic... makes no sense other than somehow marketing "cool".

Anyone who invests in a studio, and can press to Vinyl correctly.. do let me know..

Thanks for the tip on Joe Jackson.. I learn something on here everyday.

I agree about Martin also. The mixing console is whole other story.

And again you can look at tube based vs solid state studio gear. I know this forum is more for "The Listener" but we have to remember that no matter what you have invested in "audiophile gear", we are always limited by the source recording.

There is no such thing as mixing for universal sound across all speakers.

I used to do mixes for my own personal system that would never be released to the public. Why? because it would sound horrible on a car stereo or boom box.

Again I am talking rock records here, where there are too many instruments sharing the same frequency bands.

The old timers knew what they were doing.

A drum kit, upright bass, piano, and a horn or two, and you have a natural separation of frequencies that don't need manipulation in post production.

That's a big reason why that stuff sounds so good.. just common sense.

If we look back in time, there certainly has been a shift in the ideology of the recording process. In the old days, recording was about just that recording. The final sound developments basically came from the instruments themselves. The concept of simply getting a natural or more "real" reproduction of that recording was the highest ideal.

Once the 60's arrived, musicians started manipulating the sound of the acoustic instruments not only with "The Electric" instrument, but then with the amplifier and finally adding effect pedals and so forth.

The next evolution was to then manipulate the recording even further in the mixing room, all in the name of "for the good of the art". This of course has now become common place for the majority of commercial releases. Finally we arrived at playback units that are manipulating the sound and this is now standard protocol for the digital age, and "digital" is the ultimate manipulation back and forth between digits and analog converters, sampling and bit rates and other (dare I say it, lol) nonsense.

Love it or hate it.

I suppose many feel that all this has gone too far, and now we have things like Apple's "Garage Band" where our youth culture is making music without real instruments, just using samples to be tracked virtually. This is nothing really new and started way back with things like the mellotron synth, and I think there was a predecessor to that also using analog samples.

If you think the studio is a legitimate venue for artistic manipulation and should be justifiably linked to the musical creative process, there is little arguing that the digital age is truly the pipe dream of the 1960's.

I would argue that manipulation comes with a sonic cost. As soon as you start manipulating, you start loosing what is natural. Although adding compression and reverb and so forth has it's glittering audio spectacle, it is leaving the world of reality.

As much as some might love a gorgeously produced rock album like Steely Dan's "Asia", there's a lot of manipulation going on there as well. Certainly a textbook use of compression to get everything smoothly into the sonic teacup. Not an easy task I might add.

This is why many audiophiles are likely to gravitate toward Jazz and Classical music where "honestly" is promoted more than would be found in the rock world or post rock recordings.

Having some kind of benchmark for natural is the easiest way to evaluate your stereo system.. hence "The Stereophile"

How can you really know where "truth" is if you are only listening to heavily produced or over produced recordings.
What can be the true point of reference for "dance remix #35?"

Getting back to the point of this thread, where are the real recordings? and can someone do it again the right way? and if so, is there a substantial enough market out there to support it to rationalize the initial investment? Or does it simply become an act of audiophile philanthropy?
How much longer before it is too late? and knowledge becomes lost on how to manufacture tape machines and so forth?