Great Book on the History of Recording

[joshnich]

Just

started reading, "Perfecting Sound Forever...An Aural History of Recorded

Music" by Greg Milner. Reads like a novel! I am just through the

Thomas Edison phonograph versus the Victor Gramophone and the initial

differences between cylinders and disks and how despite inferior sound the disk

won out. On to acoustic versus electronic recording when the goal went beyond

recording and reproducing live performance to something different.

The

book continues on through the history of the recording arts and pulls apart the

question: Should a recording document reality or should it improve upon the

music? Interesting in that original goal was to reproduce a live performance.

If you think about it now, very very few recordings are a record of something

that actually happened. They are put together with various pieces to make

something far removed from a live performance. In fact the first step was to electronically

rather than acoustically cut the first records.

Very

good read and although I just started it, I can recommend it.

Josh

[joshnich]

Not sure what the gobbity **** is in front of my post. Tried to edit it out but it doesnt show up when I try to edit.

J

[Mallette]

>Should a recording document reality or should it improve upon the
music?

Give us an executive summary of the argument. IMHO, there is none. Of course, I may just be a hard headed ol fahrt who figures doodoo is doodoo even with a truffle on top.

Dave

[Don Richard]

Should a recording document reality or should it improve upon the music?

Depends on what kind of music you are talking about. For acoustically generated music, such as symphonies, chamber music, organ music, choirs and unamplified folk, blues, and jazz, accurate capture of the performance has been proven best. For music with electronically amplified instruments, like rock, most jazz, most blues, R&B, C&W, synth music, techno, and hip-hop for example, multitrack recording with compression, EQ, and effects enhancement is the way to go. The "performance" exists during the mixdown phase of the multitrack process or when playing the recording at home. The performers do not even need to be in the studio at the same time, or these days, even in the same country at any point. Some of the worst recordings I have ever heard were live captures of Greatful Dead shows recorded off of the PA with two mics. Next worse were symphonic works done by multitrack.

[Mallette]

Should a recording document reality or should it improve upon the music?

Depends on what kind of music you are talking about. For acoustically generated music, such as symphonies, chamber music, organ music, choirs and unamplified folk, blues, and jazz, accurate capture of the performance has been proven best. For music with electronically amplified instruments, like rock, most jazz, most blues, R&B, C&W, synth music, techno, and hip-hop for example, multitrack recording with compression, EQ, and effects enhancement is the way to go. The "performance" exists during the mixdown phase of the multitrack process or when playing the recording at home. The performers do not even need to be in the studio at the same time, or these days, even in the same country at any point. Some of the worst recordings I have ever heard were live captures of Greatful Dead shows recorded off of the PA with two mics. Next worse were symphonic works done by multitrack.

I completely agree, Don, but it's apples and oranges IMHO. The things you are talking about are not acoustic space-time events and do not become so until they are played back. If that was included in the books debate then you've already made the point and it is equally undebateable.

Dave

[joshnich]

Again I havent completed the book. In fact I have only read the first chapter! The debate in the book takes place from the begining. When there were Edison "acoustic" recording deciples and those would prefered the electric recordings. Edison believed that that a real performance could be rebuilt to absolute perfection. Today engineers can create the illusion of a performance. Where does the musician start and end?

From reading the jacket and thumbing through the rest of the book the author covers the history of the recording arts and all the good stuff and the failures. From the development of magnetic tape to the invention of the CD and compressed files. From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby. I do not know if he answers the basic question but It looks as if its the common thread throuout.

I heard the author on NPR and he sounded very interesting. Didnt have an axe to grind as far as I could tell. Again the book reads like a novel.

See the NPR site here there is an except from the forward of the book. I think youll find it interesting. As I was reading I thought of Daves recordings.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105762127