I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:


The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming. In some senses it's opened up
recording to more people because digital equipment is so cheap, like
computers. The problem is, they have such incredible limitations and are
fraught with such added complication, anybody that's opened up their
notebook knows how maddening it can be."



All-analog recording

"There is no such thing as analog recording anymore. You can make an analog
record but there is no analog delivery means. Sooner or later in the process
you have to match up with the rest of the world. In my case, I stay analog
until the mixdown. What I do basically is do a setup in analog mix, and then
I break that down to separate sort of premix bunches, separate out the
guitars, separate the vocals and the drums and mix each of those separately.
Then I'll run it off in enormous painstaking complication on digital
equipment that can track analog."





Time between failures

"Tape is far faster with far less difficulties, in real time. I'm not one of
these people who makes a silk's purse out of a sow's ear in the studio.
Obviously as we all know there are a lot of performers who wouldn't be in
business if not for all the corrective digital devices out there, and Boston
is still a totally live band, and all the studio performances are real. All
the parts are still punched in and out - by me. The old stuff that was
designed 20 or 30 years ago, those things are workhorses. They are amazing.
The time between failures as compared to my Digidesign Pro Tools - that dies
every couple of hours. I won't even run that system myself. I won't do
anything involving a Pro Tools session without having a dedicated engineer
there who deals with the stupid software and all the trouble that comes with
it. The tricks that it allows you to do as far as fooling with the actual
sonic result are great fun. The problem is, the reliability is so poor and
the actual basic things that it needs to do are so bad."



Hand and mouse movements

"The other problem is that with digital recording, aside from the harassment
and the complication, there's the problem of not having dedicated buttons,
you have to pushing a button and recording a track and pushing another
button and recording another track. Looking at the screen, moving your hand,
looking at the mouse and watching it. When I'm using the 24 track machine, I
never look at it. I actually punch in and out with my foot. I've been doing
it for 24 years. "



Double-tracking

"It isn't just that the sample rate is too low, it's the phase angler that
drives me crazy. You record a vocal track on a good 24-track machine and
what it spits out afterward, the wave forms match exactly. There's a little
bit of distortion which usually is considered a benefit, but the actual wave
form is true. You can take a before or after. you make an analog onto your
computer and then play it back, the wave form is completely different. The
reason is the high frequency and the low frequency are no longer in correct
timing with each other. It actually causes a shift. It's very significant.
For my purposes, where I double-track a lot of things, I double-track
vocals, lead guitar and all the rhythm instruments. As I'm playing I lay
down the original track, and as I lay down the double, I am listening to the
way to the two tracks play against each other in the phase cancellation.
That's what really creates the magic with double-tracking. When it's going
the way I like it, I keep going. When it's not I stop and go back and do it
again. You can't do that in digital because the basic digital signal plays
you back a signal that has been phase-shifted. The live guitar or vocal
combined with the recorded one sounds a lot different - the live track and
the played-back track are not the same. Very few people know that. Anybody
can do that experiment by recording on both a good old analog machine and on
their computer at the same time and then playing the computer track back to
the tape. You can't get it to match up. With a tape machine, it'll either
reinforce and be twice as loud or you can put it out of phase and it'll
disappear."

_______________________



Comments?

James Scott wrote:

I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:

The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming.

Uh ? It's simpler than *ever* IMHO.


In some senses it's opened up
recording to more people because digital equipment is so cheap, like
computers. The problem is, they have such incredible limitations and are
fraught with such added complication, anybody that's opened up their
notebook knows how maddening it can be."

All-analog recording

"There is no such thing as analog recording anymore. You can make an analog
record but there is no analog delivery means.

Uh ?

Idiotic comment.

The guy is clueless.

Graham

Sigh . . . well, I guess it's a new year so we have to go through this
yet again, with comments from yet another semi-famous person.

Little new here. The most significant point is that [inexpensive]
digital recording equipment has opened up recording to people who, in
the past, would never get into the door of a studio. It leads to the
recording of bands that don't exist and there's no interaction between
musicians.

If ProTools cost $150,000 and Cubase LE didn't come free with a $200
interface into which you can plug in a $100 microphone, sure, we'd
probably miss out on one or two really brilliant works. But we'd not
have so much bad music to sort through to find the gems.

It's not about the technology. It's not about the maintenance. It's
about the people (on both sides of the microphone).

James Scott wrote:

Comments?


Most of these are complaints about DAWs and not actual digital recording.

I think it's important to break these up into two sets of issues:

1. Complaints about digital vs. analogue
2. Complaints about DAW production versus recording together
(ie. process issues).

I agree completely about the second, and disagree mostly about the first.
But, there's nothing to _force_ you into changing your process. It's very
tempting, but you _can_ treat a digital system like a tape machine.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Pooh Bear wrote:
James Scott wrote:

I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:

The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming.

Uh ? It's simpler than *ever* IMHO.

It's simpler than ever. But you used to just go into the studio and play
and make a record. Now you have the freedom to spend forever dinking with
trivial things, so most people do. People make the process difficult and
time-consuming for themselves.

It's just more of the case of "how can we be finished yet, we still have
three tracks we haven't used?" If you have an infinite number of tracks
available.... you will never finish.

I don't think it's fair to blame the technology for this, though.
---scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:

James Scott wrote:

Comments?

Most of these are complaints about DAWs and not actual digital recording.

I think it's important to break these up into two sets of issues:

1. Complaints about digital vs. analogue
2. Complaints about DAW production versus recording together
(ie. process issues).

I agree completely about the second, and disagree mostly about the first.
But, there's nothing to _force_ you into changing your process. It's very
tempting, but you _can_ treat a digital system like a tape machine.

Furthermore, nobody's stopping you using 1 or 2 inch tape anyway ! Analogue
recording has never been more affordable too.

Graahm

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Pooh Bear wrote:
James Scott wrote:

I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:

The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming.

Uh ? It's simpler than *ever* IMHO.

It's simpler than ever. But you used to just go into the studio and play
and make a record. Now you have the freedom to spend forever dinking with
trivial things, so most people do. People make the process difficult and
time-consuming for themselves.

Damn musos ! ;-)


It's just more of the case of "how can we be finished yet, we still have
three tracks we haven't used?" If you have an infinite number of tracks
available.... you will never finish.

Some ppl *excel* in that regard.


I don't think it's fair to blame the technology for this, though.

I wholly agree.

Graham

The time between failures as compared to my Digidesign Pro Tools - that
dies
every couple of hours. I won't even run that system myself. I won't do
anything involving a Pro Tools session without having a dedicated engineer
there who deals with the stupid software and all the trouble that comes
with
it.

Com'on, grandpa, it's 2006!!!!

I run PT TDM on a G4, OS 9.1
In 5 and a half years I only had one crash!

I'd fire your "dedicated engineer" if I were you.....
F.

I gotta say I think he's a genius, but he's totally and completely wrong

He strikes me as another one of those guys that is afraid of the change, had
a bad experience 10 years ago, and refuses to take another look at it


"James Scott" wrote in message
. ..
I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:


The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming. In some senses it's opened up
recording to more people because digital equipment is so cheap, like
computers. The problem is, they have such incredible limitations and are
fraught with such added complication, anybody that's opened up their
notebook knows how maddening it can be."



All-analog recording

"There is no such thing as analog recording anymore. You can make an
analog record but there is no analog delivery means. Sooner or later in
the process you have to match up with the rest of the world. In my case, I
stay analog until the mixdown. What I do basically is do a setup in analog
mix, and then I break that down to separate sort of premix bunches,
separate out the guitars, separate the vocals and the drums and mix each
of those separately. Then I'll run it off in enormous painstaking
complication on digital equipment that can track analog."





Time between failures

"Tape is far faster with far less difficulties, in real time. I'm not one
of these people who makes a silk's purse out of a sow's ear in the studio.
Obviously as we all know there are a lot of performers who wouldn't be in
business if not for all the corrective digital devices out there, and
Boston is still a totally live band, and all the studio performances are
real. All the parts are still punched in and out - by me. The old stuff
that was designed 20 or 30 years ago, those things are workhorses. They
are amazing. The time between failures as compared to my Digidesign Pro
Tools - that dies every couple of hours. I won't even run that system
myself. I won't do anything involving a Pro Tools session without having a
dedicated engineer there who deals with the stupid software and all the
trouble that comes with it. The tricks that it allows you to do as far as
fooling with the actual sonic result are great fun. The problem is, the
reliability is so poor and the actual basic things that it needs to do are
so bad."



Hand and mouse movements

"The other problem is that with digital recording, aside from the
harassment and the complication, there's the problem of not having
dedicated buttons, you have to pushing a button and recording a track and
pushing another button and recording another track. Looking at the screen,
moving your hand, looking at the mouse and watching it. When I'm using the
24 track machine, I never look at it. I actually punch in and out with my
foot. I've been doing it for 24 years. "



Double-tracking

"It isn't just that the sample rate is too low, it's the phase angler that
drives me crazy. You record a vocal track on a good 24-track machine and
what it spits out afterward, the wave forms match exactly. There's a
little bit of distortion which usually is considered a benefit, but the
actual wave form is true. You can take a before or after. you make an
analog onto your computer and then play it back, the wave form is
completely different. The reason is the high frequency and the low
frequency are no longer in correct timing with each other. It actually
causes a shift. It's very significant. For my purposes, where I
double-track a lot of things, I double-track vocals, lead guitar and all
the rhythm instruments. As I'm playing I lay down the original track, and
as I lay down the double, I am listening to the way to the two tracks play
against each other in the phase cancellation. That's what really creates
the magic with double-tracking. When it's going the way I like it, I keep
going. When it's not I stop and go back and do it again. You can't do that
in digital because the basic digital signal plays you back a signal that
has been phase-shifted. The live guitar or vocal combined with the
recorded one sounds a lot different - the live track and the played-back
track are not the same. Very few people know that. Anybody can do that
experiment by recording on both a good old analog machine and on their
computer at the same time and then playing the computer track back to the
tape. You can't get it to match up. With a tape machine, it'll either
reinforce and be twice as loud or you can put it out of phase and it'll
disappear."

_______________________



Comments?

Is there any validity to any of this? For instance, are good 2 inch
machines really more accurate than good digital? That's certainly not
what I hear in my studio. I thought, at the least, that the head bump
on tape decks would constitute inaccuracy. What about tape hiss, and
tape saturation (distortion)?

His old style studio might seem simple - one assumes that he had a crew
of guys wiring up his hundreds of thousands of dollars of studio
equipment. For the real world, opening a laptop, unwrapping a good
interface, and installing some simple hardware is enough to get you up
and running with enough equipment to make a high quality recording.

I too have struggled with my computers and software (trying to get
Digital Performer 2 to sync up with my mix-to-pix studio was a 2 year
trial - which wasn't ever successful until DP 3 came out). But things
have gotten quite mature in the last few years.

Scholz's advice seems as bad as his music.

wrote in message
ups.com...
Is there any validity to any of this? For instance, are good 2 inch
machines really more accurate than good digital? That's certainly not
what I hear in my studio. I thought, at the least, that the head bump
on tape decks would constitute inaccuracy. What about tape hiss, and
tape saturation (distortion)?


You replaced them with software and still can't live without them.

Predrag

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Pooh Bear wrote:
James Scott wrote:

I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree
with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:

The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the
recording
process so difficult and so time consuming.

Uh ? It's simpler than *ever* IMHO.

It's simpler than ever. But you used to just go into the studio and play
and make a record. Now you have the freedom to spend forever dinking with
trivial things, so most people do.


IT was that way for the rich guys like Scholz in the 70s. These guys used to
spend months and months in the studio. I know 'cause I worked for 'em.

"James Scott" wrote in message
. ..
I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree
with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:


The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming. In some senses it's opened up
recording to more people because digital equipment is so cheap, like
computers. The problem is, they have such incredible limitations and are
fraught with such added complication, anybody that's opened up their
notebook knows how maddening it can be."

bull. Sounds like he simply has trouble understanding it all.




All-analog recording

Then I'll run it off in enormous painstaking complication on digital
equipment that can track analog."

see above.

The time between failures as compared to my Digidesign Pro Tools - that
dies
every couple of hours. I won't even run that system myself. I won't do
anything involving a Pro Tools session without having a dedicated engineer
there who deals with the stupid software and all the trouble that comes
with
it.

see above



Hand and mouse movements

When I'm using the 24 track machine, I
never look at it. I actually punch in and out with my foot. I've been
doing
it for 24 years. "

Hence his problem using a mouse.



Double-tracking

"It isn't just that the sample rate is too low, it's the phase angler that
drives me crazy. You record a vocal track on a good 24-track machine and
what it spits out afterward, the wave forms match exactly. There's a
little
bit of distortion which usually is considered a benefit, but the actual
wave
form is true. You can take a before or after. you make an analog onto your
computer and then play it back, the wave form is completely different.



This guy ahs no idea what he is talking about. Period.

Amen. More importantly it's about people with talent.

I cant' tell you the number of people that I've observed since the
advent of the Porta-Studio (okay, so chronologically I'm a geezer, but
I've operated a recording facility for about 25 years) who have no
reason to try to create music other than they want to. Not that
there's anything wrong with wanting to do something. But, there's a
serious disconnect in some folks about the presence of talent - or even
anything interesting, not to mention saleability (sp?) - in what they
are attempting to do. (Let's not get into the 'art for art's sake'
thingy, 'k?)

I know lots of bands and musicians have gone into the studio and
overdubbed and triple tracked their way to notoriety, no offense to Mr.
Scholz, a talented individual. But, the plain truth of the matter is
that if you have talent and a good song it shows up from nanosecond
one. So, in that case the extensive production can be icing on the
cake.

But, I truly think that a whole lot of folks today use the awesome
capabilities of the digital domain to basically polish turds.

And, unfortunately, with everyone and their brother thinking that
buying a computer and some software makes them an
engineer/producer/artiste, etc. and more importantly gives them access
to getting their material 'out there', there are now exponentially more
turds in need of polish.


Mike Rivers wrote:
Sigh . . . well, I guess it's a new year so we have to go through this
yet again, with comments from yet another semi-famous person.

Little new here. The most significant point is that [inexpensive]
digital recording equipment has opened up recording to people who, in
the past, would never get into the door of a studio. It leads to the
recording of bands that don't exist and there's no interaction between
musicians.

If ProTools cost $150,000 and Cubase LE didn't come free with a $200
interface into which you can plug in a $100 microphone, sure, we'd
probably miss out on one or two really brilliant works. But we'd not
have so much bad music to sort through to find the gems.

It's not about the technology. It's not about the maintenance. It's
about the people (on both sides of the microphone).

wrote:
Is there any validity to any of this? For instance, are good 2 inch
machines really more accurate than good digital? That's certainly not
what I hear in my studio. I thought, at the least, that the head bump
on tape decks would constitute inaccuracy. What about tape hiss, and
tape saturation (distortion)?

What is accuracy? For some things, analogue tape might be more musical,
even if it's less accurate. I use analogue tape for a lot of stuff and
enjoy it a lot, whether or not it's more accurate. I use digital systems
for other stuff, too. I think there is a place for both.

The real issue, though, is the change in production methods that has
come along with the digital revolution. I think that's a terrible
thing, but I can't blame the DAW so much as the people using them.

His old style studio might seem simple - one assumes that he had a crew
of guys wiring up his hundreds of thousands of dollars of studio
equipment. For the real world, opening a laptop, unwrapping a good
interface, and installing some simple hardware is enough to get you up
and running with enough equipment to make a high quality recording.

I am skeptical, because the hard part of making a high quality recording
has nothing to do with the recorder. Setting up either an analogue or
a digital machine is the easy part.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Isn't this the guy that took so long making one of his albums, that
after 8 years the band had to sue him?



Nappy wrote:
"James Scott" wrote in message
. ..
I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree
with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:


The recording process today

"It's a lot different. So-called modern technology has made the recording
process so difficult and so time consuming. In some senses it's opened up
recording to more people because digital equipment is so cheap, like
computers. The problem is, they have such incredible limitations and are
fraught with such added complication, anybody that's opened up their
notebook knows how maddening it can be."

bull. Sounds like he simply has trouble understanding it all.




All-analog recording

Then I'll run it off in enormous painstaking complication on digital
equipment that can track analog."

see above.

The time between failures as compared to my Digidesign Pro Tools - that
dies
every couple of hours. I won't even run that system myself. I won't do
anything involving a Pro Tools session without having a dedicated engineer
there who deals with the stupid software and all the trouble that comes
with
it.

see above



Hand and mouse movements

When I'm using the 24 track machine, I
never look at it. I actually punch in and out with my foot. I've been
doing
it for 24 years. "

Hence his problem using a mouse.



Double-tracking

"It isn't just that the sample rate is too low, it's the phase angler that
drives me crazy. You record a vocal track on a good 24-track machine and
what it spits out afterward, the wave forms match exactly. There's a
little
bit of distortion which usually is considered a benefit, but the actual
wave
form is true. You can take a before or after. you make an analog onto your
computer and then play it back, the wave form is completely different.



This guy ahs no idea what he is talking about. Period.

I'd agree that it isn't for the better that we're a digital world now
(it's true you can't deliver to analog to the duper. Somewhere along
the line it goes to numbers), but I'm very much more in line with
Rupert Neve's wonderful explanation of why digital recordings have been
the cause of the world's ills, which has to do with listening to
numbers being converted back and forth and not DAW interfaces that we
don't like.

Scholz is a smart and interesting guy but a horrible crank. Funnily
enough, I've been triggering ProTools with my feet for years. Not much
of a deal breaker.

What keeps him in a different camp from other audio philosophers for me
is that no one piddles around for more years, missing more deadlines
and finally releasing albums of drearier, shlock parodies than TS. At
least he's a doer and not just a talker, but what he does is
unlistenable, IMHO.

And it goes without saying (well here I go saying it) that our three
workstations, for better or worse) have crashed insignificantly for the
past fifteen years, except for maybe a handful of times. Sure, why
not have an assistant to run it, Tom? I was a tape op 25 years ago.
Maybe if you didn't insist on not letting anyone else touch anything
(or could keep an assistant for a week before cranking him out) life
would be easier.


V.

The real issue, though, is the change in production methods that has
come along with the digital revolution. *I think that's a terrible
thing, but I can't blame the DAW so much as the people using them.

No doubt there has been a major change in production methods, but I
think most musicians benifit and appreciate the changes.

No longer does the musician have to have major record label support to
do a high quality recording (or a ton of money of his own). We have
often dispensed with producers, engineers, drum and guitar techs,
account payable personel, and a raft of support staff. All the good
musicians I know used to feel that this crew often got in the way of
their creative efforts. Certainly freeing musicians from the control
of record labels has been a good thing.

As everybody here agrees, it's the music and the musicians that make
great music. Excellent studios and technicians can be a great benifit
in getting that music recorded (or a giant impediment), but it was
available to so few artists. The new production methods are much more
democratic, allow for musicians to work (usually in their home studios)
as much as they want, and are available to almost everybody. Certainly
there has been an increase in the amount of bad recordings that come
out of this system, but I think there has been plenty of good stuff as
well.

I think it's hard for engineers and studio owners to accept the fact
that nobody else really cares about audio production. 99% of the world
is listening to recordings through crappy headphones, through lo-fi
MP3's, in their Delco car stereos, in their 30 dollar boom boxes, or in
their multi thousand dollar home theater systems with the bass jacked
up to 11 and two of the 5 speakers out of phase.

Personally I most enjoy listening to pre- electric gramaphones on my
1924 wind-up Victrola. I also listen to any period of Latin music,
Drum and Bass, traditional African field recordings, and contemporary
"avant guard" music. It's not about the recording, it's about the
music.

wrote:
I'd agree that it isn't for the better that we're a digital world now
(it's true you can't deliver to analog to the duper. Somewhere along
the line it goes to numbers), but I'm very much more in line with
Rupert Neve's wonderful explanation of why digital recordings have been
the cause of the world's ills, which has to do with listening to
numbers being converted back and forth and not DAW interfaces that we
don't like.

But it IS for the better, because today you can choose between digital
and analogue systems. You have a much wider palette of sounds and
working methods available to you. Nobody is forcing you to build songs
out of loops... there is no reason you can't just stand up the band in
front of a microphone and record full-track to a Nagra III.

The low end solidity and accuracy of digital recording is one of the
best things to happen to classical music recording. It turns out that
it can be one of the best things to happen to jazz as well, if the
engineer knows how to deal with it. It seems to be a disadvantage
for rock, where the head bump and head raggedness can be a good thing.
So, we use one machine for one thing, and another machine for another.

Now, digital _distribution_ is another thing altogether. But digital
distribution seemed like such a good idea... it had the promise of much
higher fidelity than the LP. Unfortunately, it wound up getting abused
and too many CDs had worse rather than better sound, entirely for social
reasons rather than technical ones. And then MP3 came along, which I
think is a total disaster from the standpoint of audio quality.

Scholz is a smart and interesting guy but a horrible crank. Funnily
enough, I've been triggering ProTools with my feet for years. Not much
of a deal breaker.

What keeps him in a different camp from other audio philosophers for me
is that no one piddles around for more years, missing more deadlines
and finally releasing albums of drearier, shlock parodies than TS. At
least he's a doer and not just a talker, but what he does is
unlistenable, IMHO.

That's fine. I don't like the vast majority of music being produced
today, but that means I don't go out and buy it. And I have some good
friends whom I like, who make some music that I can't stand.

And it goes without saying (well here I go saying it) that our three
workstations, for better or worse) have crashed insignificantly for the
past fifteen years, except for maybe a handful of times. Sure, why
not have an assistant to run it, Tom? I was a tape op 25 years ago.
Maybe if you didn't insist on not letting anyone else touch anything
(or could keep an assistant for a week before cranking him out) life
would be easier.

chuckle
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Pooh Bear wrote:

?

Idiotic comment.

The guy is clueless.

Tom Scholz is clueless? All-righty-then.

Mike Rivers wrote:

Sigh . . . well, I guess it's a new year so we have to go through this
yet again, with comments from yet another semi-famous person.

Scholz is semi-famous? Mike, how many 10's of millions of albums have
you sold?

MC wrote:

Isn't this the guy that took so long making one of his albums, that
after 8 years the band had to sue him?

The difference is that they were spending time honing the performances,
not figuring out a way to "fix" the performances in a computer.

"Dr. Dolittle" wrote in message
...
MC wrote:

Isn't this the guy that took so long making one of his albums, that
after 8 years the band had to sue him?

The difference is that they were spending time honing the performances,
not figuring out a way to "fix" the performances in a computer.



There is absolutely no good reason to spend 8 years on any album. Not even
if you have to hand make the instruments.

will wrote:

there's anything wrong with wanting to do something. But, there's a
serious disconnect in some folks about the presence of talent - or even
anything interesting, not to mention saleability (sp?) - in what they
are attempting to do. (Let's not get into the 'art for art's sake'
thingy, 'k?)

Well, why the hell not? What should music be other than expression?

Also, what do you have against people who just want to write and record
for fun, as a hobby?

There are many different reasons to make music. The "making money"
reason isn't any more or less valid then the "artistic exploration"
and/or "just for fun" reasons.

wrote in message
ups.com...
The real issue, though, is the change in production methods that has
come along with the digital revolution. I think that's a terrible
thing, but I can't blame the DAW so much as the people using them.

No doubt there has been a major change in production methods, but I
think most musicians benifit and appreciate the changes.

No longer does the musician have to have major record label support to
do a high quality recording (or a ton of money of his own). We have
often dispensed with producers, engineers, drum and guitar techs,
account payable personel, and a raft of support staff. All the good
musicians I know used to feel that this crew often got in the way of
their creative efforts. Certainly freeing musicians from the control
of record labels has been a good thing.


**
Where are the results of that liberation that could support your claim?
Where's all that great music that finally broke free?

Maybe freeing musicians from any type of control isn't such a good thing for
music after all.
**



As everybody here agrees, it's the music and the musicians that make
great music. Excellent studios and technicians can be a great benifit
in getting that music recorded (or a giant impediment), but it was
available to so few artists. The new production methods are much more
democratic, allow for musicians to work (usually in their home studios)
as much as they want, and are available to almost everybody. Certainly
there has been an increase in the amount of bad recordings that come
out of this system, but I think there has been plenty of good stuff as
well.


**
There was always plenty of good stuff, certainly no less than today. That
leaves the increase in the amount of bad music/recordings as the only real
and obvious result of democratisation that you're talking about.
**



I think it's hard for engineers and studio owners to accept the fact
that nobody else really cares about audio production. 99% of the world
is listening to recordings through crappy headphones, through lo-fi
MP3's, in their Delco car stereos, in their 30 dollar boom boxes, or in
their multi thousand dollar home theater systems with the bass jacked
up to 11 and two of the 5 speakers out of phase.


**
It's nothing new. Nothing has changed in that respect compared to 10, 20 or
30 years ago, except that the MP3s superceded the compact cassette as the
lossy delivery medium of choice.

What's changed is the perceived value of music. It has become free and
disposable. It no longer has the social influence it used to have,
especially in creating the youth subculture.

Predrag

Nappy wrote:

There is absolutely no good reason to spend 8 years on any album. Not
even if you have to hand make the instruments.


They didn't have to make any more albums at all. Did they "owe" it to
somebody to put out an album at a certain time?

I think after the first:

The fastest selling debut album for any American group, and the most
total sales for a debut album by a group with over 17,000,000 units
sold to date.

They could have easily called it quits. The second album was put out 2
years later.

b.t.w. I would put a little more faith in Mr. Scholz' opinion of making
music than yours.

"Dr. Dolittle" wrote in message
...
b.t.w. I would put a little more faith in Mr. Scholz' opinion of making
music than yours.

Well.. good for you.

I was wondering who the first person would be to respond with that kind of
irrelevant crap.

This guy is obviously afraid of technology and probably ought to have
retired long ago. I never liked his music one bit. But that's beside the
point. He made a statement in print and parts of it were quoted here. I
responded. When I write an article you can bash me all you want.

It's not about me.

"Dr. Dolittle" wrote in message
...
Mike Rivers wrote:

Sigh . . . well, I guess it's a new year so we have to go through this
yet again, with comments from yet another semi-famous person.

Scholz is semi-famous? Mike, how many 10's of millions of albums have
you sold?

allrighty then.. we have a Tom Scholz fan ! And apparently he has made some
connection between intelligence and album sales. A rather interesting theory
of evolution I would say.. Of course that leaves out quite a few people. The
list would be so long that it would encompass most of the music industry.
With the exceptions being those who were so smart they OD'd or sucked the
lead out of the end of a shotgun.

He's certainly semi-famous. And even that is fading.

On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 08:17:11 -0500, James Scott wrote
(in article ):

I was reading an interview with Tom Scholz (Boston) and he made, what I
consider, some very valid critiques of digital recording. Do you agree with
his assertions?

Here's a transcript of the applicable parts of the interview:


Time between failures

"The old stuff that was
designed 20 or 30 years ago, those things are workhorses. They are amazing.
The time between failures as compared to my Digidesign Pro Tools - that dies
every couple of hours. I won't even run that system myself. I won't do
anything involving a Pro Tools session without having a dedicated engineer
there who deals with the stupid software and all the trouble that comes with
it. The tricks that it allows you to do as far as fooling with the actual
sonic result are great fun. The problem is, the reliability is so poor and
the actual basic things that it needs to do are so bad."


This hasn't been my experience. Something must be wrong with Tom's PT setup.
He likes analog. There's no crime in that, but punishing digital because he
can't operate Pro Tools' "stupid software" speaks for itself.

Hand and mouse movements

"The other problem is that with digital recording, aside from the harassment
and the complication, there's the problem of not having dedicated buttons,
you have to pushing a button and recording a track and pushing another
button and recording another track. Looking at the screen, moving your hand,
looking at the mouse and watching it. When I'm using the 24 track machine, I
never look at it. I actually punch in and out with my foot. I've been doing
it for 24 years. "

Again, an old argument. I came from knobs and faders and once I got to
software automation and realized I could pretty much mix with automation as I
recorded --- and how much time that saved me-- I was very happy. Besides, Pro
Tools now has a number of hardware surfaces. This must be an OLD Scholz
interview.

Double-tracking

"It isn't just that the sample rate is too low, it's the phase angler that
drives me crazy. You record a vocal track on a good 24-track machine and
what it spits out afterward, the wave forms match exactly. There's a little
bit of distortion which usually is considered a benefit, but the actual wave
form is true. You can take a before or after. you make an analog onto your
computer and then play it back, the wave form is completely different. The
reason is the high frequency and the low frequency are no longer in correct
timing with each other. It actually causes a shift. It's very significant.
For my purposes, where I double-track a lot of things, I double-track
vocals, lead guitar and all the rhythm instruments. As I'm playing I lay
down the original track, and as I lay down the double, I am listening to the
way to the two tracks play against each other in the phase cancellation.
That's what really creates the magic with double-tracking. When it's going
the way I like it, I keep going. When it's not I stop and go back and do it
again. You can't do that in digital because the basic digital signal plays
you back a signal that has been phase-shifted. The live guitar or vocal
combined with the recorded one sounds a lot different - the live track and
the played-back track are not the same. Very few people know that. Anybody
can do that experiment by recording on both a good old analog machine and on
their computer at the same time and then playing the computer track back to
the tape. You can't get it to match up. With a tape machine, it'll either
reinforce and be twice as loud or you can put it out of phase and it'll
disappear."

_______________________
Comments?

I'd say that was more due to latency issues than phase issues. You can't
really compare the two because while you can see the waveforms on a digital
system (in however they are represented on the timeline), you can't do that
with analog tape. He's hearing one track and playing the other. Phase wiggle
is part of his effect. Any sort of latency is going to mess with that wiggle.
Not knowing what his setup is/was puts me at a disadvantage as to how to
solve the monitoring/latency problem, but I'm sure it can't be done.

Using someone else (Tom in this case) to pit your argument against digital
recording and Pro Tools is a weak effort. I wonder if he would appreciate it.
Regards,

Ty Ford



-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

Oops! Make that I'm sure it CAN be done.

Ty




-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

Nappy wrote:


This guy is obviously afraid of technology and probably ought to have
retired long ago.

Maybe he is afraid of it, but he also made some very valid comments on
what this technology has done to the art of making music.

I never liked his music one bit.

Rather obvious..

"Ty Ford" wrote in message
. ..
Using someone else (Tom in this case) to pit your argument against digital
recording and Pro Tools is a weak effort. I wonder if he would appreciate
it.
Regards,

Hang on a minute, friend. You presuppose I have a problem with digital
recording. For the record, I don't. In fact, I rather like the freedom I
feel I have with my current setup. However, I respect Tom Scholz and have
always admired his early work. I was curious how others, who work in the
industry, view his sentiments.

--JS

On 2 Jan 2006 05:37:38 -0800, "Mike Rivers"
wrote:

Sigh . . . well, I guess it's a new year so we have to go through this
yet again, with comments from yet another semi-famous person.

Little new here. The most significant point is that [inexpensive]
digital recording equipment has opened up recording to people who, in
the past, would never get into the door of a studio. It leads to the
recording of bands that don't exist and there's no interaction between
musicians.

This is ironic. It seems I've read a good bit about Scholz'
production methods, both here and in an article or two in the late
90's EE Times. It seems he was for the most part a 'one man band' with
an analog multitrack recorder. I should google it, but I recall a post
about a window edit to shift the bass drum track on the tape (!).

In article ,
" wrote:

will wrote:

there's anything wrong with wanting to do something. But, there's a
serious disconnect in some folks about the presence of talent - or even
anything interesting, not to mention saleability (sp?) - in what they
are attempting to do. (Let's not get into the 'art for art's sake'
thingy, 'k?)

Well, why the hell not? What should music be other than expression?

Also, what do you have against people who just want to write and record
for fun, as a hobby?

There are many different reasons to make music. The "making money"
reason isn't any more or less valid then the "artistic exploration"
and/or "just for fun" reasons.

I agree with Mark. If we didn't have the legions of hobbyists, the tools
themselves would be as expensive as they were back in the days of
precision tape machines and consoles. The software would not progress so
fast. Just think of the hobbyists and "artists" as beta testers who
ensure that the tools we want are stable!

Edwin
Who much prefers the current mid level digital studio to the mid level
analogue studios of yesteryear. We can't all work in state of the art
facilities.

wrote:
will wrote:

there's anything wrong with wanting to do something. But, there's a
serious disconnect in some folks about the presence of talent - or even
anything interesting, not to mention saleability (sp?) - in what they
are attempting to do. (Let's not get into the 'art for art's sake'
thingy, 'k?)

Well, why the hell not? What should music be other than expression?

Sometimes music is a small part of a larger work, and that could be
anything from a commercial jingle to a movie score. In that case it
_is_ expression, but it's not necessarily expressing the idea of the
composer strictly.

There are many different reasons to make music. The "making money"
reason isn't any more or less valid then the "artistic exploration"
and/or "just for fun" reasons.

Absolutely.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Dr. Dolittle wrote:
Nappy wrote:
This guy is obviously afraid of technology and probably ought to have
retired long ago.

Maybe he is afraid of it, but he also made some very valid comments on
what this technology has done to the art of making music.

That's okay, I don't much like technology either.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Chel van Gennip wrote:
On Mon, 02 Jan 2006 20:54:39 +0100, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Dr. Dolittle wrote:
Nappy wrote:
This guy is obviously afraid of technology and probably ought to have
retired long ago.

Maybe he is afraid of it, but he also made some very valid comments on
what this technology has done to the art of making music.

That's okay, I don't much like technology either. --scott

What is wrong with digital technology? New recorders like the MT2496 or
the HD-P2 brings recording within reach of many musicians. A lot of music
is not made by technicians on mixers, but by musicians with instruments.

I'm not sure I approve of _any_ recording technology, digital or not. It
never gets the actual concert experience properly. For the most part,
I approve of actual instruments although you can make a pretty good
argument for a cappella....
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On Mon, 2 Jan 2006 13:51:50 -0500, James Scott wrote
(in article ):


"Ty Ford" wrote in message
. ..
Using someone else (Tom in this case) to pit your argument against digital
recording and Pro Tools is a weak effort. I wonder if he would appreciate
it.
Regards,

Hang on a minute, friend. You presuppose I have a problem with digital
recording. For the record, I don't. In fact, I rather like the freedom I
feel I have with my current setup. However, I respect Tom Scholz and have
always admired his early work. I was curious how others, who work in the
industry, view his sentiments.

--JS



Oh. OK. never mind.

Ty

-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at www.tyford.com

Dr. Dolittle wrote:

Scholz is semi-famous? Mike, how many 10's of millions of albums have
you sold?

And just when was the last Boston record and how well did it sell?
Sorry if it just came out last week and it's Volume 24. I don't keep
close tabs on million-sellers. For the most part they don't interest
me. My musical tastes run in other directions. I remember the hubhub of
the first Boston album and have heard nothing about him since that's
caught my attention.

Now if Eddie Kramer had made the statement in question . . . but then
he pretty much did in the current issue of EQ.

wrote:
The real issue, though, is the change in production methods that has
come along with the digital revolution. ?I think that's a terrible
thing, but I can't blame the DAW so much as the people using them.

No doubt there has been a major change in production methods, but I
think most musicians benifit and appreciate the changes.

You're missing the subtle point - DAWs have made it possible for people
who aren't naturally musicians to create mediocre music. And the low
cost has meant many more are now doing this than when they had to pay
$$/hour to go to a studio or buy $$$$$ worth of equipment.

The equipment, even cheap equipment, in good hands, can record good
musicians.

As everybody here agrees, it's the music and the musicians that make
great music.

But can there really be that many good musicians capable of making
great music? Do you have ANY idea of how many recordings are out these
days? And do you realize how few of those get the attention of more
than a handful of people? Major labels, ane even serious independents
still look for talent, but they don't look for it among the thousands
of home-produced records that grace our landfills every week, they send
out feelers, they talk to publishing houses, they go to clubs.