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I don't believe it's any of those things. Though, certainly the ergonomics of a traditional studio, and the equipment therein, works best for engineers who lear
by SwellJoe 10y ago
I don't believe it's any of those things. Though, certainly the ergonomics of a traditional studio, and the equipment therein, works best for engineers who learned in those environments and using those tools. Those engineers happen to be the most experienced engineers working, so they are probably, on average, better than most younger engineers with much less experience.
However, the reason some of the classic records sound amazing today is because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, in a time when hundreds of thousands of dollars was a lot of money. This is reflected in the rooms where they recorded. The quality of the studio itself is every bit as important, maybe even more important, than the equipment within it.
When recording live musicians, a bad room literally cannot be overcome with good equipment. And, thus, simulating a great room with equipment is harder than simulating a great console, or a great EQ, or a great compressor. Digitally removing the room "badness" and putting in "goodness" isn't something that people have even really tried.
Records made at Abbey Road studios sounded great because the room sounded great, the microphones sounded great, the board sounded great, the EQs and compressors sounded great, and, the musicians sounded great playing through their great sounding instruments. They had everything working in their favor, and that moment of everything coming together nicely was captured by excellent engineers.
So...the reason most records don't sound as good as Dark Side of the Moon is not merely that there aren't a lot of consoles comparable to this one. You could probably find something that would be a sufficient substitute (and maybe even a laptop with a very good AD/DA could substitute for much of the equipment in a studio). But, any mediocre piece in the chain, starting with the musicians and the room they're playing in, will make a mediocre recording.
Pink Floyd, a very talented bunch of musicians and songwriters, had a massive budget, a truly inspired bunch of songs, and a lucky bunch of connections in the industry to get them the best people and the best gear all in the best studio in the world, and the result is a classic that sounds better (by some definition of "better") than 95+% of big budget records even made today. There have been similarly high quality recordings made, but it's rare...and I don't think a specific set of equipment can do it (after all, lots of other records were recorded in the very same studio and didn't sound that amazing). A lot of stuff has to come together for it to work out that way.
- 1_2__3 10y agoNot to be glib, but why not both? Are you a recording engineer and capable of speaking to the points he makes, or is your entire counter-argument "I don't believe that"?
- SwellJoe 10y ago"Are you a recording engineer and capable of speaking to the points he makes" Well, yeah. I went to college for audio recording, and worked professionally in the field, in television and in recording studios, for several years. It's been a hobby of mine for most of my life, and I've always had a pretty competent home studio and I pay attention to the industry even today.
- elmar 10y agoA great studio or alternatively a great bathroom :) Jim Morrison’s Bathroom Vocals On “LA Woman” At The Doors Workshop http://www.feelnumb.com/2009/07/03/jim-morrisons-bathroom-vocals-on-la-woman/ http://www.feelnumb.com/2009/07/03/jim-morrisons-bathroom-vo...
- SwellJoe 10y agoWhile I like DIY stories a lot, I will mention that LA Woman has never once been mentioned as a recording of comparable quality to Dark Side of the Moon. There have been some great records made in weird places, including some of my favorites. The Band recorded Songs From Big Pink in a big old pink house in Woodstock, NY. Springsteen's Nebraska was a super cheap home recording; effectively a demo. The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street was recorded in a mansion in France. Radiohead recorded OK Computer in an old house (and that's a great sounding record, though not as good as The Bends that preceded it). Many of my very favorite records are 80s punk rock records, and nearly all were recorded in extremely suboptimal conditions (nearly all engineered by a guy named "Spot"). All that said, it's clear when a recording is of the caliber of Dark Side of the Moon and it's extremely rare. It doesn't mean we can't love less amazing recordings. Just that there is an artistry and science to audio recording, on top of the artistry of the music being recorded. And, it's usually a major undertaking to achieve something like DSOTM. The pantheon of god tier records, where literally everything came together in a near-perfect work, is pretty small. I'd probably include some of the following (for reference): Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, The Beatles' Abbey Road, Peter Gabriel's So, Bjork Post, Michael Jackson's Thriller, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Steely Dan's Aja, Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. There's more, of course, and it's debatable what qualifies...the more live instruments and musicians on the record, the harder it is to make it perfect, but all of those are worth a listen for their production qualities alone, IMHO. Most impressive may be artists that make amazing sounding records with very limited resources. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is perhaps the archetypal example of this. Recorded in a cabin by one dude with very limited equipment, but it sounds incredible and holds up very well to repeated listens. I could ramble for days about production quality and my favorite records...