olafpfj wrote:Gone are the days when the Beatles called the label to say they were ready and proceeded to record a hit album in 2 weeks.
But I can't help but think that is largely due to the fact that we now have a generation of so called "artists" who've never known any other way of doing things than of just showing up, and putting their fates in the hands of a skilled engineer. They are being packaged for their appearance and dance moves and hair style more than their sheer singing abilities. The Beatles were massively talented. Yes, they wore fashionable clothing and hair, and located themselves at the cultural edge; but none of that matters in the studio. When the artist is massively talented, and the engineer has a much easier job. In fact, he doesn't even need those technologies like autotuning. I would go so far as to say that the rise of these recording technologies is a response to fixing lack of talent. You don't need to adjust pitch if your singer sings on pitch. When you get fed a steady diet of pitchy singers, you develop a technology to deal with it.
I am the owner of a very rare bootleg album of the Beatles live at the Hollywood Bowl circa 1963-64. It is completely un-engineered, other than the fact that it was recorded on a reasonably good tape recorder with not more than two microphones, maybe only one (I haven't played it in a while, but it might even be recorded in mono rather than stereo). The screaming girls are nearly as loud as the band, so the mics were located somewhere in the audience, not in front of any speakers. The boys were
pretty much pitch-perfect through the whole show, including those parts where they were deliberately "bending" notes as part of their singing technique. I say "pretty much" because they sounded human, not mechanical. In fact,
one of the reasons that I can't stand modern hip-hop and R&B is that the voices are so heavily filtered that they no longer sound human. To my mind, the very BEST that an engineer can do is to avoid "over-producing" a voice so much that it loses its humanity. When the artist performs live, they should be no "better" than they are in the studio. If an artist can't sing on pitch on stage, then they have no business in a studio to begin with. The engineer shouldn't have to compensate for an artist's lack of talent, trying to turn a toad into a prince. Rather, the engineer's job should be to guild the lily.
One of the reasons that old Marshall and Fender tube amps are still in use and old Acoustic Control solid state amps are not so much is that the latter were so clean back then (relative to the older tube amp designs) that they actually lacked the "warmth" of tube amps. The tube amps were preferred by guitarists and audiences alike back then. Nowadays we have amp modeling in solid state electronics. What are they modeling? Tube amps.....with all their imperfections. I have nothing to base this on, but it is my belief that this is simply because whenever a tonal sound approaches absolute perfection, the less the human psyche is able to relate to it. If this were not true, then all human music would sound like digital beeps, which we are certainly
capable of reproducing. But we don't, because nobody would buy it.
Or, maybe I'm crazy. The last time I was in a studio was about 8 months ago or so. I had a guitar part on two songs. Did about 2-3 rehearsal runs for each song, and then nailed the final take........not because I'm a superb guitarist, but because I didn't try to play anything beyond my capabilities. Some singers would do well to sing the same way. If you don't have it in you to do one of those de rigeur gospel vocal runs that are so popular (and over done and boring) these days, then leave that stuff at home and bring your A game to the studio. If you don't
have and A game, then you don't belong in a studio......OR on stage.
The very best artists never try to do something that isn't in them from the get-go. That is what made the Beatles so great, and so many of the schlocky "artists" today so mundane and forgettable. The Beatles were able to reproduce their studio performances in a live show, without filtering. Whoever decided that lip-synching a live performance was the right thing to do ought to be taken out and shot, by the way.
The partnership between a great artist and a great engineer is a thing of beauty. Whenever a great engineer get's paid to make a mediocre performer tolerable, it's a crime against nature. On the one hand, thank God for good engineers; they make
my life more bearable. On the other hand, if there were fewer of them, there would be fewer bad "artists" foisted off on the music buying public.
I gotta go take a shower and get ready for church.
