[Marc Wielage[_2_]]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:56:47 -0800, William Sommerwerck wrote
(in article ):

The problem, as I see it, is that most "popular" music has no meaningful
acoustic equivalent. The mics' outputs are simply raw material to be altered
however the producer cares to. This is not seen as a creative option, but an
unalterable necessity.
------------------------------snip------------------------------

The answer to that is... it depends. I can think of certain pop recordings
(even on vinyl) that had very wide dynamic range. Michael Martin Murphey's
"Wildfire" (a #3 hit from 1975) would be one of them.

But dynamic range alone is no determination of sound quality. Sometimes,
emotion, feel, and melody are more important. I can think of tons of major
Motown hits going back to 1961 that have maybe 5dB of dynamic range at best,
even on the original vinyl... but it doesn't matter, because they're great
songs, absolute classics that will last for decades. (Note that these are
not slammed, hard-limited, digitally-compressed productions; they're done
with all analog gear, often tube gear, 40 or 50 years ago.)

Many, many pop songs were never intended to work in an acoustical setting,
nor do they sound good that way. Pop and rock production merely present
other creative choices from real acoustic music. It's no worse than
synthesized music, which goes back to the 1940s (at least).

Note also that there have been "unplugged" versions of many pop and rock hits
over the years, presented live in concert, on radio, and on TV. Those are
just as musically valid, but I don't think they're necessarily better than
the "electric" originals. I would agree that the modern production trend of
*perfecting* studio performances -- infinitely comping vocals, making
thousands of edits, using Auto-Tune, and on and on -- tend to make them less
human. Sometimes, the "flaws" are what make rock & roll what it is. Perfect
sound quality is the last thing you want if it overwhelms and undermines the
song's humanity.

I haven't received my (old, archaic, analog, paper) copy of the new issue
yet, and can't find the Guttenberg column in question on the website, so I'll
hold off on further comment until I read it. What I will say is: I've
generally found almost no audiophile writers who've ever worked in a modern
recording studio or have any concept of how hit music is actually recorded in
2012. Saying that they're "out of touch" is being kind. I agree with you
that many of them are woefully ignorant as to how music has been recorded,
even going back a couple of decades.

--MFW