TMTYL

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On 20 Jun 2008, at 04:59 , iain ferguson wrote:
> I like rather a lot of it, but like yourself find some too Digital  
> - maybe because this was recorded on a MAC using Logic I believe,  
> which
> the band had to learn how to use, and have commented on the whole  
> process.
> working in the analog world you add Dirt and warmth throughout the  
> recording, mastering and pressing  proccesses, giving you a warmer  
> sound, recording in the digital world you have to add that dirt  
> back in or it sounds clinical, harshly bright etc, maybe what you  
> hear in parts is where not enough dirt was added back in.


I am a musician (though not a drummer ;) -- albeit a very amateur one  
-- and most of my home recording is on a Mac using GarageBand, which  
is basically Logic's little brother.  And I think that the digital  
vs. analogue issue to which you refer is not the "problem" in the  
production on Hawkwind's recent recordings.

Honestly, the whole analog vs. digital recording (or playback) debate  
is a bit silly these days; with the right equipment and (perhaps more  
importantly) skills one can make extremely good recordings on either  
analogue or digital equipment.  Much of the perceived "analogue is  
better" argument, I think, goes back to the early days of digital  
recording when people simply weren't used to it.  They are different  
beasts, and if you spent all your life engineering analogue  
recordings, you could easily run into some difficulties if you  
expected digital to act like analogue (the famous example are a  
suppose the differences between what happens when you overload the  
signal on an analogue medium like magnetic tape, which tends to  
produce a sort of natural compression effect, and what happens when  
you overload signal to a digital medium, which tends to produce an  
awful noise :).  But since digital recording was introduced in the  
late 70s, the cumulative benefits of more experience and better  
equipment have lead to progressively better digital recordings.   
(And, actually, one of the criticisms in early digital recordings was  
that _more_ "dirt" in the form of ambient background noise, etc. was  
being picked up than was typically with analog recordings.)

So I don't think the perceived problem in Hawkwind's case is  
necessarily that of digital vs. analogue, even though surely Brock &  
Co. probably have more years of experience in the analogue realm than  
the digital.  I think it's more that recording with a system like  
Logic makes it incredibly easy to apply fantastic amounts of tweaking  
and processing to everything, to add new layers than then tweak and  
process them into the middle of next week as well.  This is an  
awesome temptation for the musician!  And I think this is what  
results in the kind of "muffled" sound Mike refers to -- it's  
something I've noticed more an more of over the last decade or so of  
Hawkwind records, particularly in the most recent studio outputs.  I  
think they (or Dave anyway) are just overcooking everything,  
producing everything to death with piles of tweaking and effects.   
When you've been working on a track for a few months and have become  
way to familiar with every part in it, you adjust a few extra things  
here and there and slip some new bit in -- and suddenly it sounds  
great to you again .... But to the casual listener who never heard it  
before, and may never hear it until they buy the disc, rip the song  
to some relatively low bit rate MP3 and crank it through their iPod  
earbuds ... it just sounds glossily muffled.

'Course, this is _all_ subjective.  If one thinks that TMTYL is the  
greatest thing ever, then "right on"! :)  But IMO Hawkwind have been  
progressively overcooking their recordings.  If I were ruling the  
world, I'd inflict a producer on them who would get them back to  
basics -- or rather take away their control over the sound. :)

It's certainly possibly to use a zillion ingredients in the  
production of an awesomely subtle curry that balances fire and  
flavour on that scintillating knife edge of perfection.  And it's  
also possible to end up with a mess of confused ingredients -- in  
which case, you may be better off just chucking a steak on the grill  
(or, if one prefers, the vegetarian equivalent of such simplicity)  
and having done with it. :)

But, ya know, mileage varies!

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/