I am only acknowleging the fact they couldn't achieve what they did in a single take.
Can digital get to vinyl sound and at what price?
- Thread starter ScottK
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I am only acknowleging the fact they couldn't achieve what they did in a single take.
the Beatles commonly did dozens, up to 100 takes. not real world for d-t-d.
agree all other things being equal that we would all appreciate if those optimal performances might have been recorded d-t-d.
OTOH i view them as absolutely perfectly imperfect.
Its always amusing to see how people presenting themselves as "experts" on music think this is going to give them authority when it comes to "audio". I suspect in your case it's just a posture.
I would put money on a good result from Van Morrison, he never disappoints live !
You seem to be new here. My audio expertise has been documented in this very forum.
I would put money on a good result from Van Morrison, he never disappoints live !
If any band could have done it, Rush would have been at the top of the list.
Lol. Musicians have been recording "direct to disc" from the 1920s to the 1950s before recording to tape. So all of a sudden, because of a technical innovation, musicians somehow became "less talented"? This is absurd and makes no sense. Stick to audio...
This exactly. I would say, a lot of analog tape still sounds better than a number of DSD capable ADC/DAC chains. But it's the closest, and least lossy way to get the sound of the original analog input, without the noise and character of tape. It's the only digital format that feels like analog, retains the same depth, and a satisfyingly complete level of detail.
But even if we had way more 2x and 4x DSD recordings/transfers, the greater problem today is lower engineering standards, lower performance standards (reliant on digital editing), and the demise of big studious with good acoustics and high end microphones.
Pretty tough place to be, esp for new music that general sounds polluted with the grain/haze of DSP plugins. For old tape recordings, and direct recordings of acoustic instruments, you can't do better than a high quality DSD.
Consider what can be done with endless punches/edits/comps, autotune, grid alignment, drum replacement etc etc, MIDI instruments, there is definitely a lower expectation of technical performance than in the era of tape.
I get that - it makes things easy for some. But has the proportion of bad musicians risen? The bad ones recorded then too - we simply don't listen to them today, they are forgotten. Technology offers opportunities as well. If an instrument is not recorded well, it can be overdubbed. Charles Mingus famously overdubbed his bass on an album (I forget which one) for that reason.
Vis a vis being able to record in a single take, I don't know how meaningful that is. Even in the "old days" bands rehearsed, and did several takes in the recording studios. It was also a creative process.
I was reading this wikipedia entry recently about this Dylan song:
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again - Wikipedia
There were 20 takes... I don't think anyone would call the session musicians "untalented".
"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" was written by Dylan,[5] who sang and played harmonica on the song, with Kooper on organ, and members of the A-Team of studio musicians that had been engaged for the album sessions: Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss and Joe South (guitars), Hargus Robbins (piano), Henry Strzelecki (electric bass) and Kenneth Buttrey (drums).[6] All 20 takes of the song were recorded in the early hours of February 17, 1966, at Columbia Records's Studio A. Dylan reworked the song in the studio, revising lyrics and changing the song's structure as he recorded different takes. According to Clinton Heylin, most of the revisions were to the song's arrangement, rather than to the words. Eventually, after recording for three hours, a master take, the twentieth and final take, lasting seven minutes and six seconds, was chosen.[7][5] It was released as the second track on side two of Dylan's seventh studio album, the double album Blonde on Blonde, on June 20, 1966..."
Edit - found the reference to Mingus overdubbing his bass. He did it first on the 1953 Massey Hall concert:
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This is definitely true. But consider...a Billie Eilish song has around 100 edits, often for each syllable of a word, just for the lead vocal, and potentially dozens to hundreds of vocal tracks. This has become very common in pop music, numerous takes per syllable. For instruments, maybe 1-2 bars max (if there are real instruments) between punches. Songs now have hundreds of total tracks. In 1966 Dylan had...3 tracks.I get that - it makes things easy for some. But has the proportion of bad musicians risen? The bad ones recorded then too - we simply don't listen to them today, they are forgotten. Technology offers opportunities as well. If an instrument is not recorded well, it can be overdubbed. Charles Mingus famously overdubbed his bass on an album (I forget which one) for that reason.
Vis a vis being able to record in a single take, I don't know how meaningful that is. Even in the "old days" bands rehearsed, and did several takes in the recording studios. It was also a creative process.
I was reading this wikipedia entry recently about this Dylan song:
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
There were 20 takes... I don't think anyone would call the session musicians "untalented".
"Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" was written by Dylan,[5] who sang and played harmonica on the song, with Kooper on organ, and members of the A-Team of studio musicians that had been engaged for the album sessions: Charlie McCoy, Wayne Moss and Joe South (guitars), Hargus Robbins (piano), Henry Strzelecki (electric bass) and Kenneth Buttrey (drums).[6] All 20 takes of the song were recorded in the early hours of February 17, 1966, at Columbia Records's Studio A. Dylan reworked the song in the studio, revising lyrics and changing the song's structure as he recorded different takes. According to Clinton Heylin, most of the revisions were to the song's arrangement, rather than to the words. Eventually, after recording for three hours, a master take, the twentieth and final take, lasting seven minutes and six seconds, was chosen.[7][5] It was released as the second track on side two of Dylan's seventh studio album, the double album Blonde on Blonde, on June 20, 1966..."
Edit - found the reference to Mingus overdubbing his bass. He did it first on the 1953 Massey Hall concert:
I'm not specifically talking about single take recording, or recording without editing. I worked as an intern and assistant engineer in what were the last days of analog 24 track "rock" studios. The work load, and pace where far higher in Pro Tools projects, as where the number and pace of edits, often leading to very much homogenized performances that didn't really breathe. And we weren't even snapping instruments to a tempo grid, tuning the vocals, or replacing things with samples.
Bands that would come in and record to tape would have more preparation, a slower and less frantic tracking process, and far, far, far fewer edits. Often without a click track. And this also weighted towards instrumentalists, with multiple microphone recordings, whereas today most of the instruments are likely to be MIDI sequenced virtual instruments or samples.
There were people like Butch Vig who would track the Smashing Pumpkins drums two bars at a time, and then manually align the kick and snare drums with razor blade and tape on the multitrack. But this was so prohibitive to do, there was a huge incentive not to overdo it.
What you see is that popular artists are more studio workhouses than old-fashioned performers, and their contribution is intimately tied with the digital composition and editing process. And not surprisingly, their live performances rely heavily on backing tracks, effects/autotune, and often lip-sync.
Even 12bit delta-sigma SAR ADC's in some mobile phones seem to do a better job of capturing the analogue signal...
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