Thanks for the illumination and enlightenment about ProTools, Joe. It
all makes sense now.
Joe also wrote:
> No modern artist will allow lousy
> performances out of the studio unless being perverse.
No, but 30 years ago you had all kinds of records coming out with mistakes
in them and who cared? -- because they were damned fine records. Off the
top of my head I'm thinking of old blues or rock and roll examples -- like
early Beatles records or Creedence Clearwater Revival records or Howlin
Wolf records -- so maybe this is one of those things that was once
forgiven in rock or blues but would never have been tolerated in country,
for example. But it may also be because those Floyd Tillman or Lefty
Frizzell or whichever records arent coming to mind.
What you have on the records I'm thinking of are things like a blown
guitar lick here, a warbled vocal harmony there. As Pete Townshend
pointed out in "The Kids Are Alright," if you take those old Beatles
records -- where the vocals were on one channel and the instruments on the
other -- and you turn off the instrumental channel, the harmonies are
sometimes "flippin' lousy." These problems arent bad enough to throw away
the track, but you can hear them if you're listening. On the other hand,
I will forgive these records any day because the overall sound and feel is
so good, so live, unlike a lot of what comes out these days where you can
tell the folks in the band may have never even met each other.
If ProTools helps in making those live-sounding records then, hey, I wont
worry about it.
Will Miner
Denver, CO
