[Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!]

On Jun 12, 6:07*pm, ScottW wrote:
On Jun 12, 2:13*pm, "Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!"





wrote:
On Jun 12, 11:26*am, ScottW wrote:

On Jun 11, 11:38*pm, Jenn wrote:

In article ,
*George M. Middius wrote:

First, let me assure you that I am not stoned. Or drunk or high in any
way. This is just a question I ran across that I can't answer.

For the purpose of home audio, which is more important: the musician or
the recording engineer?

My first response, of course, was the musician. How can anybody who
contributes after the music is played originally outrank the performer?
But then it was suggested that the agency of recording can elevate or
destroy the quality of the performance as it's heard on your home
system. I had no answer for that.

What is the answer?

IMO, the answer is obvious: *If your question is interpreted as "Whom
can you least do without", then it's clearly the musician. *There is no
music to record with the musician. *Someone like me, who has minimal
recording experience and training, can set up the mics and set the
levels, and then play.

*That's just you doubling as musician and engineer.
*Good musician/amateur engineer.

*Now, before someone makes up some story about me
discounting the engineer's role, I'm doing no such thing. *To make a
GOOD recording takes an engineer's experienced/trained hand. *But I'd
much rather listen to a recording performed and engineered by a
professional/good amateur musician (presuming no engineering experience)
than I would a recording performed and engineered by a professional/good
amateur recording engineer (presuming no musical experience)!

*Where does Alan Parson's fall?

That said, great recordings are obviously a collaboration between the
two.

I have to break it into 3 parts.
Songwriter, musician/singer collaborating with a producer (some of
which have as much influence on the outcome as the musicians), and
engineer.

They are all capable of breaking the result. None can make it on their
own.

Tell that to Bruce Springsteen.

"Mr. Springsteen recorded the songs for ''Nebraska'' in his bedroom,
using a four-track tape machine. He assumed that those versions were
merely demos, that he would soon flesh the songs out in a proper
studio with his band. When he tried to do that, he ended up feeling
that he was losing the essence of his original vision. He then
recorded versions of the songs solo in a studio, and the results were
similarly sterile. So 10 of the performances on Mr. Springsteen's
bedroom tape, which he had carried around in his pocket for months,
became ''Nebraska,'' and the album's quality of being ''not really
finished'' became part of its mythology, a crucial reason why it holds
such a revered place in the lore of popular music."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...1338F932A05751....

*No accounting for taste. *I have no doubt Springsteen sounds better
recorded on a piece of crap machine in his bedroom.
If he did it in the shower it might have gone down as the greatest
album of all time for some.

Did I say I liked it? I made no critical comment at all.

I merely pointed out that your comment "None can make it on their own"
was in error, as is most of what you say on virtaully *any* topic.