Recording Traditions

Today we live in the age of lightning fast technology. It seems as though with each passing day yesterdays tools become the dinosaurs of today. In many areas of industry and entertainment the newest, fastest device is just the cutting edge tool we need to give us both the edge and satisfaction we strive for....or so it seems. For years now I.ve watched the new aspiring crop of young hopeful budding producers and engineers charging onto the scene eager to get their hands on all of this totally new recording technology and begin their push of a digital button rise to the platinum heaven of hittmaking infamy. Surely, it all boils down to computers, which they were expert game wizards and internet porn browsers at scince the age of eight...Child prodigys all. Truth be told...you were lied to, and very missinformed.

The art of contemporary or Pop recording is a tradition that began better than fifty years ago, and much to our youngins' surprise much of the equipment used on todays records was made that long ago as well! "Good God say it isn't so. Our local music chain stores brought down to us the ten commandments of product line, surely they have shown us what the recording Gods on high use"......wrong again. Lets start at the begining.

Many years ago all audio devices, be it microphones, radios, televisions, recording mixing boards, were all made with "tubes". Yes when the cavemen went to their friday night "club your date" dances they boogied there bear dirty feet to the beefy sound of tube circuitry, and life was good. Tubes and genuine tube circuitry creates and reproduces sound in a way that no other circuitry can. Most good guitar players of today will tell you that they would rather lick your ashtray than play through an amp that isn't a complete tube amp. Two of the most cherished microphones in recording today, the Telefunken U-47, and Elam 251, both are tube mics. and both were discontinued, about forty years ago. If you would care to purchase a vintage Elam-251 today, it will cost you around $15,000.000. Probably the most famous of all recording limiters would be the Fairchilds. For the stereo (tube) version of this vintage jem I recently saw a bid of 30,000.00. What's more surprising than the costs of these devices is that almost none of our crop of up and comming hopefuls seems to know what they are! Onward shall we.

Somewhere around the late 1960's a new type of circuitry came along called Solid State or transistor electronics. This new transistor based technology could do what tubes did but at a fraction of the size, and cost, with less noise. Throw away the horse we're buying a car Martha. Many people in recording dove head long into this new technology believing that their old tube stuff was now obsolete junk. Countless pieces of todays most sought after audio devices ended up in dumpsters, greatly limiting the numbers of them in existance today. As everyone bought this new technology they marveled at what it could do. They also began to notice that still there were some aplications were the old tube gear sounded much better. Each of these technologies had a nitch. They each did incredible things, but in different areas...so both are good....both are nesassary.

A decade or so later came the third electronic revolution...the "Integrated Circuit", or as the youngins' call it, the "Computer Chip". IC technology like it's predasessors brought it's own form of magic and possibilities to the sonic table. This time however the industry did not throw away all it's old horses, but many, many other fools mistakenly did. The minds in the industry learned their lessons and instead embraced this new thecnology, worked with it to see what it could actualy do, and then added it to all the other solid state, and tube equipment that had earned their rightfull places as well. Much to the horror of today's hopefuls the "Chip" did not take over the world of modern Pop recording. Although it may have done wonders for the quality of your video games, the world of audio is a very different beast.

Heading backwards a bit, more than fifty years ago the "Tape recorder", was invented. In time through various evolutions came the two inch multitrack reel to reel tape machine. This machine is a major hallmark in the world of recording. To this day nothing has come along that can match the tone that these goliaths produce. Especialy in "Pop"/ "Contemporary" recording, producers have always reached for this as their first choice when their name is on it. Thick, warm, fat, is the order of the day here. Now kids some geeky looking guy who builds didital equipment in his garage will tell you that with his very sensative digital Oopa-Loopa meter, that he has measured a nanopoop coeficient of noise in this "tape" medium, to which we all say....WHO CARES. In the world of music tone is what it's all about. It amazes me how many of the up and coming hopefuls don't even know what these are!! Perhaps one of them will be making your next record...sure as hell not mine.

This brings me to the most recent inovation...The Hard Disc Recorder. Better known as a Computer. Yes, these are ordinary computers, just like yours that can record, play, but most importantly EDIT music. Now the editing capability is amazing in this format. The tone is not upto tape machines but when recording artists who do not posess the ability to play their instruments or sing this is clearly the way to go. Hard disc recording can take the guy next door who you always hear singing flat, and with some effort you can correct him into perfect pitch. You can take most instruments chop them into pieces, replace them, move them, quantize them, reorder them to such clinical perfection. Yes indeed, but what does this have to do with music? What does this have to do with art, hence the term "artist". Recording, and production are here to serve the music. Good music, and great artists pocess the ability to not only perform there music in front of you, but to reach you deeply with it. I for one am glad that knowone ever computered Aretha Franklins recordings. It inspires me to this day that what you see is what you get with her performances. Today you really don't know what you're hearing. This is the contribution of hard disc recording. Is this a step forward or backward?

Enough ranting. This article has primarily focused on the equipment, or hardware of recording. Every bit as important in this tradition are the techniques developed, and passed down . They too are the evolution of many years of pioneering, that have not been replaced by something new, but that's another article unto itself.