Friday, May 15th, 2009
Call me a patriot. As much as I bitch and moan about outrageous Canadian content regulations, I still get a little spark of excitement when a new Canadian global music release appears in my mail box. And, equally sharp is my disappointment when it just doesn’t measure up.
I’ve been reading an amazing journal of studio notes, first-hand impressions and photographs compiled by EMI on the Apple Years of the Beatles. Did you know that according to Geoff Emerick (engineer) and Sir George Martin (producer) the only true version of the historic Sgt. Pepper’s album was still in marvelous mono? There are bits of sound effects and such missing from the stereo version. Apparently, there were two speakers on the mixing desk but they only listened through one of them because the stereo was reserved for symphonic projects in 1967. Nevertheless, it was in that antiquated environment that the Beatles and aforementioned Emerick and Martin pioneered many of the studio techniques that have been adopted or adapted in today’s digital recording world.
My much-belabored point is this: when, because of this monumental achievement in sound recording, today, anybody with ProTools and a modicum of talent, can create sonically excellent recordings in his/her basement, there is no excuse for tinny, crappy sounding CDs. The album I’m speaking of was touted as being recorded “live off the floor” in some studio, which tells me the band couldn’t afford to rent the studio long enough to do a proper job. Sgt. Pepper’s took four months. That doesn’t sound like an unreasonable amount of time spent in the pursuit of excellence. I have an inkling that some players see live in-studio recordings as testament to their immense playing abilities. But seriously, if you create a CD, we have to assume you can play and/or sing. If you can’t pull that off on stage, you’ll wind up with lots of copies of that CD in boxes under your bed. The fact is many of your first listens will be through earbuds wedged into your potential fans’ heads. There’s no room for sketchy sonics between the ears. Make it big or make your living doing something else.