Fl-fl-fl-fl-flex!

I'm pretty openly a post-punk, new wave kid, as well as a fan of well aged cheese. This morning I found this Sound on Sound article about the recording of Duran Duran's hit "The Reflex", which seems to fit both bills!

The track was originally set for production by Ian Little, who was replaced by (then kind of rehired by) the late Alex Sadkin. It was then remixed famously by Nile Rodgers, which gave the band the huge hit it would become (which also started my ridiculous obsession with them).

My favorite part of this particular article talks about Raphael DeJesus creating some pretty cool percussion instruments on the fly. I won't ruin it for you...but vegetables may be involved.

It's just a big lesson in why it's best to keep an open mind to any possible method. It's the end result that you're going for, and it doesn't always matter what hot new piece of gear you're using to create it. That's not going to be what your listeners remember. The song is, if you do your job right.

And just for fun...

I wonder I'll meet my ears in the afterlife.

My ears are dead. Working on an audio restoration project from very, very old vinyl. I'm not calling them the original acetates, only because I've got a 1% shot of thinking I'm wrong on that, and I'm a perfectionist. They were definitely pressed from a home tape job in 1958, and are thicker than dinner plates, so do with that knowledge what you will.

I'm actually very lucky that the underlying recording is in far better shape than it should be for the source. I'm imagining it was one of those old reel-to-reels that everyone's grandma had at one point, which only recorded through a tiny mic and generated the motor noise of a small helicopter.

Album noise = gone. Motor noise = mostly gone. Mic issues = I'm coping with them. They were muffly and weird and I'm trying to get as much natural speech out of what I've got as possible, but see the 'perfectionist' thing above--it will just never be good enough for me until it sounds like they're all sitting in my head.

I think the biggest issue is the residual motor noise, which was picked up by the tiny mic, but wants to either a) swallow everything into a muddy pit if I leave it, or b) leave a nasty little layer of high frequency artifact if it stays. Yes, there is middle ground. Yes, it is ok, and no doubt, my client is going to be satisfied.

But will I? Time to either find a medium to channel my ears back, or try to animate the zombies I've got.


For those curious, I digitized the audio with the aid my AIWA turntable, ART preamp into my board, into my M-Audio Quattro, into my big hunk o' Sony. I'm using Sound Forge 9 with a bit o' Izotope Ozone 4 on the software side. Absolutely no noise added due to any gear (in fact, I minimized a bit by rolling off the highs on my board at capture, and adjusting the pre- settings. Go team me.

Good News for Low Fidelity!

Before even hitting the end of this article from Digital Music News today, I could think of nothing but the velvety album noises and squealing and hissing cassettes of my youth (who am I kidding--I liked them last week, too).

This is the point the music industry has been missing for a long time: Audiophiles want fidelity. Listeners want heart.

Give them something they can care about in substance, and they'll play it, even if it comes wrapped in egg whites and old chewing gum. Not that you shouldn't strive to sound the best (I mean, that is my job, here), but it's not the disqualifier. Not by a long shot.

Think Music Fans Want Quality? One Stanford Professor Disagrees...

It sounds perfectly reasonable. Music fans want superior sound quality; they want crisp cymbals and rich bass instead of muffled or over-compressed files. Sounds logical, right?

According to one Stanford professor, the answer is 'not exactly'. During a recent panel in Mountain View, Stanford professor of music Jonathan Berger shared an interesting takeaway from years of ad-hoc listening surveys involving his students. In 'blind' listening tests conducted by Berger, students often express a preference for lower-quality MP3s, even against high-fidelity, superior versions of the same music.

That was relayed by Dale Dougherty, publisher of technology blog Make, and a participant in the discussion. "Students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality," Dougherty relayed. "[Berger] said that they seemed to prefer 'sizzle sounds' that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with."

The finding raises some truly thought-provoking questions, and recasts the sound quality question. "Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records - the crackles of that format," Dougherty said. "It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?"

Permalink: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/030409stanford

Old school...or not?

Earlier this week, my partner Paul posted over at his blog about Gene Simmons from Kiss' new Simmons Records project. Paul suggested Gene should maybe experiment a little more with a new industry strategy, rather than what seemed like the same old route in the dying industry.

Now, don't tell anyone this, but I like Gene. I'm not the stereotypical Kiss fan, but then again, I'm not really the stereotypical anything. What I like most is the 'entrepreneurial spirit' he's always carried with him (and Destroyer is a guilty pleasure). I was confused when I saw the details of this deal, too: how could one of the foundation layers behind the first and best Street Team marketing/fan organization that is the Kiss Army be ignoring the social networking direction that all business, not just music, is going?

How could I have doubted him? Today, Gene made sure I knew he was still in the game. Paul's article is on the front page of the Simmons Records site, along with several other articles that Gene is also commenting on. The site also features staff blogs, candid photos, interaction...yep, he's getting it. He's celebrating his mentions (good and bad, yay and nay) in a Viral way.

It's not the contest, it's the connection. That's what we all need to see. Make it an experience, make it one-on-one, make it community...and we all win the contest.

You've not let me down, Gene. Now all you need to do is Twitter your plans for world domination. That's a feed I'd follow.

Music is a Moment.

So many times, as musicians, composers, and producers, we view ourselves alongside painters and sculptors as artists who create something out of nothing, who organize the junk from the ether into audible form.

Sometimes that's true. But I say we're more inline with photographers. We capture moments. Moments for individuals, moments for ourselves, moments for our society.

No one who listens to an oldies station is just hearing the songs.

My father is a huge fan of classic rock, not just because it's mind-blowingly awesome, but because he doesn't just hear the music when he listens to it.

If you ask, a Chuck Berry song will get you a tale of the various sock hops and dance halls in the Kansas City area circa the late 1950's/early 1960's. Probably one night in particular will stand out, where a friend got drunk at one of the hidden underage speakeasies and said something to a girl that sent all of the guys home in fits of laughter. Or you might hear about a brother's car, or an old girlfriend, or the pants he bought the week before.

All of this will lead into a "where are they now" tale of the friend, the girlfriend, the pants...you get it. It's not just a memory, but a memory box, with a never-ending timeline of facts, emotions, and connections.

When I first started recording as a 6 year old child with my tiny beige tape recorder (broken, stained, and not worth the $2 at a garage sale that my meager pocket change paid for it), music wasn't the only thing on my mind. I loved creating little 'radio plays' starring my favorite celebrities (which were really whoever I could imitate), jingles and commercials.

But one of my other favorite activities was just to...hit record. If I was in a packed room, I secretly hit record, and saw what I could come up with. I loved candidly capturing life, sometimes even narrating it as I went, creating an archive of various moments in my little existence.

I'm sure the many family members, slumber party friends, and neighborhood buddies would be curious as to just what I have! But what I have is my life, my archive. What went on around me, from my vantage point. Just like a photographer.

So as a producer, it's great to sometimes get the 'artistic shot', with your subject poised in frame just as you've posed them, with perfect makeup, lighting, wardrobe, and technique. But most times, it's just my job to be the photojournalist.

Remember this when you think about your listener. Are they looking through your scrapbook, or their own? What's your place in it?

Fifteen Years Ago Today....

...the world became a little less poignant of a place without Frank Zappa in it. He was (and still is, I think), my biggest never-met-'em mentor.

It seemed fitting to start this blog posting about him today, from my own Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. Here's lookin' at you, Frank.