It finally occurred to me why this Stereophile cover is true. Music reproduction is art. There is no right or wrong. Chasing technical accuracy is just another type of artistic presentation.
This seems rather silly. I can have more than one amp that I like, many Agoners own several. It’s not “right or wrong” but simply Preferences. Substituting like/dislike with right/wrong can be misleading.
Production is an Art, primarily, but there are non Art tasks like accounting, ordering supplies…
Reproduction is Not an Art, primarily, but visual design and component voicing are.
Don’t believe everything you read
Basing truth on a sample of one, or any insufficient sample size, is usually considered foolish. However if the voice(s) have demonstrated expertise then their opinion has more weight in leading to truth. Otherwise the OP should stay away from MAD magazines;)
@snif - I write and record music so I'm reasonably familiar with the creative process involved. Secondly, the "whole cloth" reference is yours and was not stated or implied by me and, as such, is irrelevant in response to my post. Lastly, you are confusing the production of a recording - which is a creative process - with its reproduction i.e. the playback of the recording. The former involves artistry, though whether is is art is debatable. The latter is categorically not art.
"The essence of art is the creative production of something. Ipso facto, reproduction is not art." (@yoyoyaya). But a recording IS "the creative production of something." You need to consider Eisenberg's argument, cited above. A recording is not merely a "reproduction" of anything, but rather, is very much the creative product of the producer, recording engineer, and so forth, in very many really interesting ways.
For that matter, the original "artwork" is not merely "the creative production of something," if you mean that this "creation" is out of whole cloth. Art is always produced in the context of other art; sometimes (as with much "modern" art, for instance) it cannot even be construed as "art" at all except insofar as it engages a tradition of art production. Are Warhol's silk screens of other people's photographs or his Brillo Boxes or Campbell's Soup Cans "the creative production of something" in the sense you seem to mean?
Eisenberg goes on to compare the role of the recording producer to that of a movie director. Live recordings are analogous to filming a stage play, while studio recordings are “like movie making as we usually understand it”
Who is this guy Art everyone is talking about? I know Matt the doorman, Bill at the bank and Sandy at the beach, but no Art. Couldn’t resist the cheesy jokes!
I would think listening to mixed music (rock, pop, hip-hop) versus live recorded music ( jazz and orchestra) would require a different type of stereo. Just not sure in what way.
Check out Evan Eisenberg's book The Recording Angel (much admired by John Atkinson of Stereophile, among others). Eisenberg's thesis is that the recording engineer or producer is very much an artist, and the recording is indeed a work of art. A sampling:
“The word ‘record’ is misleading. Only live recordings record an event; studio recordings, which are the great majority, record nothing. Pieced together from bits of actual events, they construct an ideal event.”
“One is supposed to judge a stereo system by comparing its sound to live music. If the music one listens to is pure phonography—a pure audio product—that is impossible.”
“Even in the classical sphere, live music is only one touchstone of recorded sound. Fidelity itself is a vexatious concept.”
Eisenberg goes on to compare the role of the recording producer to that of a movie director. Live recordings are analogous to filming a stage play, while studio recordings are “like movie making as we usually understand it”: an art in its own right, a way of “exercising artistic judgment.” The first half or so of the long central chapter on "Phonography" focuses on giving examples of this art from classical music (some of which really amazed me—for instance, that in the recordings of the very famous Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad, the most beloved Isolde of all, her “top notes” were actually sung by Elizabeth Schwartzkopf and dubbed in!); the latter half offers examples from jazz, blues, rock and pop music.
I would like to hear from people who mix tracks and recording engineers. This group of people have so much influence on what we hear
They have better than "audiophile" ears.
All mics are noisy (veiled & bright). It can be an art that recording engineers have created many beautiful music with these noisy mics. I wonder what they will do with a new technology clean natural sound mic.
I’ll be meeting recording studio people from Hollywood area with my clean sound microphone next week. The question is "will artists record again" for a clean natural sound recording. I guess they are forced to record again. More job for recording studios and REs. That will bring a new wave for recording and audio industry. alex/WTA
Art, craft. style, design, technologies....fortunately, 'umans are still involved....
...for now. ;)
Back in SF, spouse 'n self were peeling layers of paint off of plaster walls in our '09 Vic bungalow.....admiring the mottled pattern of colors, textures, and the ragged edges that it now wore...then had it mudded over and painted.
Not long after, we discovered that walls with 'That LOOK' had become very popular in NYC...
"'Peel it, clearcoat it, and be an 'It'! "
Timing is all, sometimes....*rue L*
@cdc...I'd be interested in that....could hold my keys in pause for the cause... 👍
I would like to hear from people who mix tracks and recording engineers. This group of people have so much influence on what we hear but are never seen on audiophile websites. As end users, we are just picking up the pieces.
They have many rules such as reverb on no more than 1 track. Legend has it, they have better than "audiophile" ears.
I have a CD recorder, and I mix various songs onto, (remember mix tapes) CD's for the car.I strangely feel artistic in selecting songs that can flow or shock, in equal measure. I am not an artist but it pleases me, anyhow.
While I agree that there's no absolute "right" or "wrong," I do not think music reproduction is art. Creating music can be art. Reproducing it is science. To the extent that judgment and experience improve the result, that's really a craft, not art.
You could compare music reproduction to photorealism in painting. Even within that genre there is variance between artists in their approach and abilities.
Do you prefer oil, pastels, watercolor, pencil, chalk, certain film stock, digital or just slapping some stains on a cave wall? It’s all art and, as the saying goes, beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.
Sorry to sound so cliche but there’s more than a large kernel of truth in that old maxim. Another way to say it is, to each, their own. Even Burger King has their own take on it. 🍔 👍
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