Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
How come it takes everybody else so long to get things done and the results don't sound this good?
Define "everyone else". ? I don't think you can compare: different methods of making music, different styles of playing, different music. "Good sound" is also a subjective term.
Point taken. Though I do find a lot of recordings these days to be superficially impressive and clear but lacking in depth. Maybe I am old and set in my ways ?.
I think there is too much of an emphasis on perfection these days (beats absolutely constant, vocals perfectly in tune) and that that kills vitality. There is an over-reliance on hi-tech tools. Too many a lot of vocals, and especially harmonies, sound very similar these days - and I suspect it's because they are tweaked or even generated by the same software.
And I don't hear a lot of air and ambience in recordings any more.
OK... I started paying serious attention to music in the early 70s. Back then different studios had signature sounds. And engineers knew about how different microphones sounded and how placement could change sound. I think that especially acoustic guitars have suffered at the hands of engineers and technology, though that situation is improving.
One of the consequences of the tools available now is that you can make things sound like other things. In the late 60s a young Dave Mattacks, then the newest member of Fairport Convention, told engineer John Woods that he wanted his drums to sound like Levon Helm's drums on the first Band album. Woods replied that players got the sounds that they deserved and that if he wanted to sound like Levon he'd have to play like Levon. The flip side of this is that each player's individualism shone through.
I must concede that most of my experience of listening to albums cut in the last few years has been on mainstream radio, so I tend to hear whatever some big label is churning out at present. Discs cut on independent lablels for niche markets may sound better or at least more interesting.
But I still contend that the guys behind Transatlantic Sessions did a remarkable job. Not every record takes as long as Rumours to make, but still, for them to learn, arrange and then record that many songs in that time is remarkable.
In this situation the players (other than vocalists) are not doing much of their level control by dint of movement towards or away from the mikes. They are often sitting and generally don't have enough room to do that. The fiddlers have little mikes clipped to the bridge. THe guitar players are miked, and some plug in as well. Drums, accordeons, pipes, piano etc are all miked and in the same room.
I may have overegged my cake a little, but I still believe that the recording here is remarkable.
