FUGITIVE SOUNDS

Gotta love this…

Tchad Blake, in the old days

“If I have to flip flop more than three times in an A/B test to figure out what the difference is, I lose interest in that difference.”

— Tchad Blake

“Let’s start with a proposition…High-quality recording is style-agnostic.”

— George Massenburg

Abbey Road Underground Station

I’m confused. Apparently EMI did not intend to sell Abbey Road. Hmmm….

BBC: Abbey Road studios ‘not for sale, says EMI

In any event, I’ve compiled here a number of photos fellow engineers have posted on the web from sessions at the famed studio over the years. Enjoy.

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OK, sorry for the hyperbole. And, in truth, we don’t yet know if it’s the end of Abbey Road. But it doesn’t look good, no matter which news outlet you follow.

CNN: EMI to sell iconic Abbey Road studios

Guardian UK: EMI puts Abbey Road studios up for sale

MSNBC: Beatles’ Abbey Road studio on the block

NPR: EMI Seeks Buyer For Abbey Road Studios

Gearslutz debate incessantly whether Abbey Road will close

My buddy Keller Glass recently posted an amusing reaction on his blog to a December NPR piece on the Loudness War. In his post, Keller offered a succinct differentiation of dynamic-range compression and digital compression—two often-confused audio concepts. (The part where he compares encoding MP3s to excoriating flesh is especially nice.)

I’d actually heard the NPR essay and had planned on writing something in response. What follows, then, might be considered a companion piece to Keller’s writing, and perhaps the beginning of a friendly dialog between blogs on this and other subjects.

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There is a penchant in popular discourse for using language of conflict to characterize our reaction to any pervasive cultural affliction. It’s a tendency shared by politicians, pundits,  and common individuals. We’ve embarked famously on a “war on drugs,” a “war on poverty,” a “war on terror,” and now (with appropriate anticlimax) a war on…“loudness”?

Such phrases are supposed to be inspiring, as they tacitly cast us in a heroic struggle against an insidious—if frustratingly abstract—foe. The problem with such rhetoric, however rousing, is that it isn’t particularly useful: How exactly do you wage a war on poverty—or loudness for that matter—anyway?

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This is hilarious—although I’d thought all A&R guys had been canned in the destabilizing of the recording industry.

WARNING: There’s ample profanity in this video, so put the kiddies to bed before watching.

Enjoy.

In today’s music-making climate, to suggest that the recording studio should be considered an “instrument”—no less a compositional tool than the piano or guitar—is a bit like saying the world is round, digital files will supplant CDs, and the demise of the traditional record industry is imminent. It’s one of those blithe claims someone makes at a cocktail party—like “isn’t it cold of late”—to which everyone within earshot inanely nods.

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What follows is a rather lengthy preamble to an amusing video. If you’re not feeling the rant, skip ahead to the link and circle back for my discursive remarks.

If you’re a recording engineer, mixer, producer—or even hobbyist—you’ve almost certainly been involved at one point or another in the mother of all music-production debates. No, I don’t mean Beatles or Stones, Les Paul or Strat, Neve or API, or even (for you real geeks) U47 or Tele 251. I’m talking about a dispute far more divisive, far more inflammatory, and far more prone to bluster and propaganda: Digidesign or, well…every other gear manufacturer.

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