After all this talk of Donald Fagen's Nightfly, recording techniques,
and live performance, I googled away for more info, to find help in
evaluating the assumption that digital recording was chosen because
"Mssrs. Nichols et al. obviously thought the digital chain sounded
more like the *band playing live at the same time*..."

I found a useful resource he

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/bp/hits/inside.php

For those recently arrived on the planet, Steely Dan is notorious for
their use of the recording studio. From the website above:

.... Fagen and Becker locked horns with the studio for months or even
years at a time, amassing huge bills in the pursuit of the perfect
rhythm tracks, vocals, and solos. Each spent weeks working with
expensive session players or whole groups... Track by track, they
built each album like architects working on the Pharoah's pyramid.
Everything must be flawless, costs be damned.

End quote.

Fagen was no different in recording his solo album. Indeed, there was
speculation that some Steely Dan albums were virtually solo works.
How about the 'sound of a band playing live'? While Steely Dan had
toured, for much of their career they did not. Recording, not live
performance, was the essence of the band. This doesn't preclude using
a live band in recording or to test recording equipment, of course.

Here's something in the article (by Wade Wadhams) I found illuminating:

Roger Nichols developed a sampling device (affectionately named
Wendel) that enabled him to replace each beat drum of the live
drummers performances with perfect snare, kick,
tom-tom, and other sounds. The samples were recorded
in a separate session, with each drum played solo and
micd perfectly, eliminating leakage from other drums and cymbals.
When drummer James Gadson played the drum part straight through,
Nichols recorded each drum and cymbal onto a separate tape track, as
is normal in rock production.

During playback, for example, he fed Gadsons snare drum track
into Wendel to trigger his snare sample. Thus, each snare hit played
by Gadson was replaced with the better sounding snare, each kick drum
hit with its sampled cousin, and so forth. The outputs from Wendell
were simply recorded onto blank tape tracks in parallel to their real
counterparts...

End quote.

This doesn't answer whether digital recording was chosen because it
was most like the band playing live, but this shows that in this
specific case, the sound of the performance was *not* the sound
intended by Fagen and Nichols. While an overdub is still the sound of
a performance, a sample is by definition not the sound of the
original performance.

Stephen

Stephen McElroy wrote:
After all this talk of Donald Fagen's Nightfly, recording techniques,
and live performance, I googled away for more info, to find help in
evaluating the assumption that digital recording was chosen because
"Mssrs. Nichols et al. obviously thought the digital chain sounded
more like the *band playing live at the same time*..."

I found a useful resource he

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/bp/hits/inside.php

For those recently arrived on the planet, Steely Dan is notorious for
their use of the recording studio. From the website above:

... Fagen and Becker locked horns with the studio for months or even
years at a time, amassing huge bills in the pursuit of the perfect
rhythm tracks, vocals, and solos. Each spent weeks working with
expensive session players or whole groups... Track by track, they
built each album like architects working on the Pharoah's pyramid.
Everything must be flawless, costs be damned.

End quote.

Fagen was no different in recording his solo album. Indeed, there was
speculation that some Steely Dan albums were virtually solo works.
How about the 'sound of a band playing live'? While Steely Dan had
toured, for much of their career they did not. Recording, not live
performance, was the essence of the band. This doesn't preclude using
a live band in recording or to test recording equipment, of course.

Indeed, as in the quote above where 'expensive session players or whole
groups' were mentioned. Which would come in handy if , say, you want to
compare the sound of a live feed of a musicians or band playing in the
studio, to a recording of same.

That SD was a creature of hte recording studio is news to no one who has
ever investigate dtheir music -- or anyone who reads this thread by now,
I'd think. They were famous for endless retakes and overdubs in search of
the 'perfect' track.

This doesn't answer whether digital recording was chosen because it
was most like the band playing live, but this shows that in this
specific case, the sound of the performance was *not* the sound
intended by Fagen and Nichols.

So? Nichols conceicable wasn't going for a 'live' sound for the final
recording in question. He could still prefer the *recording equipment*
that give the subjectively most *accurate* performance -- using a live
sound as the standard.


While an overdub is still the sound of
a performance, a sample is by definition not the sound of the
original performance.


? No, that's not *by definition* true. A snippet of a perforance
constituting a sample, can still of course be the sound of the original
performance -- a human being playing an instrument. Or it can be heavily
processed so that it sound little or nothing like the original
performance.

All of which is quite beside the point, choosing recording equipment
in 1983 that was most 'faithful' to the sound it was recording -- in this
case a live band.

Please read again what Nichols himself wrote:

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2001_08.html

"We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut tracks for Nightfly and
decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a Studer A-80 24-track
analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test. After the band laid
down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The analog and digital
machines were played back in sync while the band played along live. We
could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and the live band.
The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We
re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear
winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding) and did
the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came time to
mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine."


--

-S
"You know what love really is? It's like you've swallowed a great big
secret. A warm wonderful secret that nobody else knows about." - 'Blame it
on Rio'

In article ,
Stephen McElroy wrote:

After all this talk of Donald Fagen's Nightfly, recording techniques,
and live performance, I googled away for more info, to find help in
evaluating the assumption that digital recording was chosen because
"Mssrs. Nichols et al. obviously thought the digital chain sounded
more like the *band playing live at the same time*..."

I found a useful resource he

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/bp/hits/inside.php

For those recently arrived on the planet, Steely Dan is notorious for
their use of the recording studio. From the website above:

... Fagen and Becker locked horns with the studio for months or even
years at a time, amassing huge bills in the pursuit of the perfect
rhythm tracks, vocals, and solos. Each spent weeks working with
expensive session players or whole groups... Track by track, they
built each album like architects working on the Pharoah's pyramid.
Everything must be flawless, costs be damned.

End quote.

Fagen was no different in recording his solo album. Indeed, there was
speculation that some Steely Dan albums were virtually solo works.
How about the 'sound of a band playing live'? While Steely Dan had
toured, for much of their career they did not. Recording, not live
performance, was the essence of the band. This doesn't preclude using
a live band in recording or to test recording equipment, of course.

Here's something in the article (by Wade Wadhams) I found illuminating:

Roger Nichols developed a sampling device (affectionately named
Wendel) that enabled him to replace each beat drum of the live
drummers performances with perfect snare, kick,
tom-tom, and other sounds. The samples were recorded
in a separate session, with each drum played solo and
micd perfectly, eliminating leakage from other drums and cymbals.
When drummer James Gadson played the drum part straight through,
Nichols recorded each drum and cymbal onto a separate tape track, as
is normal in rock production.

During playback, for example, he fed Gadsons snare drum track
into Wendel to trigger his snare sample. Thus, each snare hit played
by Gadson was replaced with the better sounding snare, each kick drum
hit with its sampled cousin, and so forth. The outputs from Wendell
were simply recorded onto blank tape tracks in parallel to their real
counterparts...

Ugh. I can't imagine that sounding any way but bad, vis-a-vis the sound
of an actual drum. I've yet to meet the drum sample that sounds like a
drum.

Thanks for the post; very interesting.

"Stephen McElroy" wrote in message
...

This doesn't answer whether digital recording was chosen because it
was most like the band playing live, but this shows that in this
specific case, the sound of the performance was *not* the sound
intended by Fagen and Nichols. While an overdub is still the sound of
a performance, a sample is by definition not the sound of the
original performance.

Right. They were looking for a "great" sound. But that means there's no
way you can really judge it in absolute terms. You don't really need to,
because if you think music sounds "great" through your stereo, then search
over. It's only when you go off trying to reproduce the absolute sound of
acoustic instruments playing in real space that things get tough. That
sound and that space may or may not even be to your liking, but at least you
can judge the system in absolute terms. Whether or not that's worthwhile I
can't say.

In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Stephen McElroy wrote:
After all this talk of Donald Fagen's Nightfly, recording techniques,
and live performance, I googled away for more info, to find help in
evaluating the assumption that digital recording was chosen because
"Mssrs. Nichols et al. obviously thought the digital chain sounded
more like the *band playing live at the same time*..."

I found a useful resource he

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/bp/hits/inside.php

For those recently arrived on the planet, Steely Dan is notorious for
their use of the recording studio. From the website above:

... Fagen and Becker locked horns with the studio for months or even
years at a time, amassing huge bills in the pursuit of the perfect
rhythm tracks, vocals, and solos. Each spent weeks working with
expensive session players or whole groups... Track by track, they
built each album like architects working on the Pharoah's pyramid.
Everything must be flawless, costs be damned.

End quote.

Fagen was no different in recording his solo album. Indeed, there was
speculation that some Steely Dan albums were virtually solo works.
How about the 'sound of a band playing live'? While Steely Dan had
toured, for much of their career they did not. Recording, not live
performance, was the essence of the band. This doesn't preclude using
a live band in recording or to test recording equipment, of course.

Indeed, as in the quote above where 'expensive session players or whole
groups' were mentioned. Which would come in handy if , say, you want to
compare the sound of a live feed of a musicians or band playing in the
studio, to a recording of same.

That SD was a creature of hte recording studio is news to no one who has
ever investigate dtheir music -- or anyone who reads this thread by now,
I'd think. They were famous for endless retakes and overdubs in search of
the 'perfect' track.

This doesn't answer whether digital recording was chosen because it
was most like the band playing live, but this shows that in this
specific case, the sound of the performance was *not* the sound
intended by Fagen and Nichols.

So? Nichols conceicable wasn't going for a 'live' sound for the final
recording in question. He could still prefer the *recording equipment*
that give the subjectively most *accurate* performance -- using a live
sound as the standard.


While an overdub is still the sound of
a performance, a sample is by definition not the sound of the
original performance.


? No, that's not *by definition* true. A snippet of a perforance
constituting a sample, can still of course be the sound of the original
performance -- a human being playing an instrument. Or it can be heavily
processed so that it sound little or nothing like the original
performance.

All of which is quite beside the point, choosing recording equipment
in 1983 that was most 'faithful' to the sound it was recording -- in this
case a live band.

Please read again what Nichols himself wrote:

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2001_08.html

"We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut tracks for Nightfly and
decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a Studer A-80 24-track
analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test. After the band laid
down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The analog and digital
machines were played back in sync while the band played along live. We
could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and the live band.
The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We
re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear
winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding) and did
the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came time to
mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine."

Well, there it is! The band evidently WAS playing live at the time, so
the point is moot; Nichols preferred the digital sound. That is, IF the
listening test was valid due to blind testing and level matching! :-)

Jenn wrote:
In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Stephen McElroy wrote:
After all this talk of Donald Fagen's Nightfly, recording techniques,
and live performance, I googled away for more info, to find help in
evaluating the assumption that digital recording was chosen because
"Mssrs. Nichols et al. obviously thought the digital chain sounded
more like the *band playing live at the same time*..."

I found a useful resource he

http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/bp/hits/inside.php

For those recently arrived on the planet, Steely Dan is notorious for
their use of the recording studio. From the website above:

... Fagen and Becker locked horns with the studio for months or even
years at a time, amassing huge bills in the pursuit of the perfect
rhythm tracks, vocals, and solos. Each spent weeks working with
expensive session players or whole groups... Track by track, they
built each album like architects working on the Pharoah's pyramid.
Everything must be flawless, costs be damned.

End quote.

Fagen was no different in recording his solo album. Indeed, there was
speculation that some Steely Dan albums were virtually solo works.
How about the 'sound of a band playing live'? While Steely Dan had
toured, for much of their career they did not. Recording, not live
performance, was the essence of the band. This doesn't preclude using
a live band in recording or to test recording equipment, of course.

Indeed, as in the quote above where 'expensive session players or whole
groups' were mentioned. Which would come in handy if , say, you want to
compare the sound of a live feed of a musicians or band playing in the
studio, to a recording of same.

That SD was a creature of hte recording studio is news to no one who has
ever investigate dtheir music -- or anyone who reads this thread by now,
I'd think. They were famous for endless retakes and overdubs in search of
the 'perfect' track.

This doesn't answer whether digital recording was chosen because it
was most like the band playing live, but this shows that in this
specific case, the sound of the performance was *not* the sound
intended by Fagen and Nichols.

So? Nichols conceicable wasn't going for a 'live' sound for the final
recording in question. He could still prefer the *recording equipment*
that give the subjectively most *accurate* performance -- using a live
sound as the standard.


While an overdub is still the sound of
a performance, a sample is by definition not the sound of the
original performance.


? No, that's not *by definition* true. A snippet of a perforance
constituting a sample, can still of course be the sound of the original
performance -- a human being playing an instrument. Or it can be heavily
processed so that it sound little or nothing like the original
performance.

All of which is quite beside the point, choosing recording equipment
in 1983 that was most 'faithful' to the sound it was recording -- in this
case a live band.

Please read again what Nichols himself wrote:

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2001_08.html

"We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut tracks for Nightfly and
decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a Studer A-80 24-track
analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test. After the band laid
down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The analog and digital
machines were played back in sync while the band played along live. We
could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and the live band.
The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We
re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear
winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding) and did
the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came time to
mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine."

Well, there it is! The band evidently WAS playing live at the time, so
the point is moot; Nichols preferred the digital sound. That is, IF the
listening test was valid due to blind testing and level matching! :-)

Note that Nichols and company were in a much better position to judge
the quality of the sound from the recorders. They can A/B with the live
band, and certainly they did not have to rely on some distant memory of
what the music was supposed to sound like. Unlike in the case of
comparisons where the listener has no idea what the original sound was
supposed to sound, and yet somehow he/she claims that vinyl is more
"life-like"...

You should really read the Lip****z article, where the test was "valid"
due to blinding and level matching. That provides an even stronger
indication that digital recording was very accurate even back then.

Chung wrote:
Note that Nichols and company were in a much better position to judge
the quality of the sound from the recorders. They can A/B with the live
band,



Yes they were. Does that matter to you? Would you feel the same way
were the results different?


and certainly they did not have to rely on some distant memory of
what the music was supposed to sound like.




That's no big deal. It is not hard to distnguish between live acoustic
music and playback. So mere memory is at least good enough for he most
par.




Unlike in the case of
comparisons where the listener has no idea what the original sound was
supposed to sound, and yet somehow he/she claims that vinyl is more
"life-like"...



If it were supposed to sound life like then the listener, if he or she
is experienced with live sound, should have a very good idea what it is
supposed to sound like within reason. But, alas that is not an issue
with The Nightfly. It is not terribly life like in either format and
the preference is pretty subjective.





You should really read the Lip****z article, where the test was "valid"
due to blinding and level matching. That provides an even stronger
indication that digital recording was very accurate even back then.



Why should anyone read it?




Scott Wheeler

In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Me:
While an overdub is still the sound of
a performance, a sample is by definition not the sound of the
original performance.


? No, that's not *by definition* true.

By the definition implied by "Wendell," yes, it is. The sound of the
original performance is replaced by the sound of another performance.

A snippet of a perforance
constituting a sample, can still of course be the sound of the original
performance -- a human being playing an instrument.

But only once! Like a stopped clock, the sample would be correct only
at the point of the performance at which it was sampled. After that,
the intent and nuance of the performance is lost. I suppose one could
get philosophical and muse that playing a mellotron or a sampling
instrument somehow restores the sound to performance mode, but in
general replacing the sound of a performance with another sound after
the fact obliterates the original performance.

Or it can be heavily processed so that it sound little or nothing like
the original performance.

These samples were different.

Stephen