TMTYL

[John Majka]

I would agree with the opinion that Hawkwind recording at home has caused 
them to lose some amount of perspective.  I would like for them to enter a 
real studio, Rockfield or wherever, with a producer, because that would tend 
to introduce some real outside opinions as to whether the material is 
sounding as it should.
John Majka

> On 20 Jun 2008, at 04:59 , iain ferguson wrote:
>> I like rather a lot of it, but like yourself find some too Digital  - 
>> maybe because this was recorded on a MAC using Logic I believe,  which
>> the band had to learn how to use, and have commented on the whole 
>> process.
>> working in the analog world you add Dirt and warmth throughout the 
>> recording, mastering and pressing  proccesses, giving you a warmer 
>> sound, recording in the digital world you have to add that dirt  back in 
>> or it sounds clinical, harshly bright etc, maybe what you  hear in parts 
>> is where not enough dirt was added back in.
>
>
> I am a musician (though not a drummer ;) -- albeit a very amateur one  --  
> and most of my home recording is on a Mac using GarageBand, which  is 
> basically Logic's little brother.  And I think that the digital  vs. 
> analogue issue to which you refer is not the "problem" in the  production 
> on Hawkwind's recent recordings.
>
> Honestly, the whole analog vs. digital recording (or playback) debate  is 
> a bit silly these days; with the right equipment and (perhaps more 
> importantly) skills one can make extremely good recordings on either 
> analogue or digital equipment.  Much of the perceived "analogue is 
> better" argument, I think, goes back to the early days of digital 
> recording when people simply weren't used to it.  They are different 
> beasts, and if you spent all your life engineering analogue  recordings, 
> you could easily run into some difficulties if you  expected digital to 
> act like analogue (the famous example are a  suppose the differences 
> between what happens when you overload the  signal on an analogue medium 
> like magnetic tape, which tends to  produce a sort of natural compression 
> effect, and what happens when  you overload signal to a digital medium, 
> which tends to produce an  awful noise :).  But since digital recording 
> was introduced in the  late 70s, the cumulative benefits of more 
> experience and better  equipment have lead to progressively better digital 
> recordings.   (And, actually, one of the criticisms in early digital 
> recordings was  that _more_ "dirt" in the form of ambient background 
> noise, etc. was  being picked up than was typically with analog 
> recordings.)
>
> So I don't think the perceived problem in Hawkwind's case is  necessarily 
> that of digital vs. analogue, even though surely Brock &  Co. probably 
> have more years of experience in the analogue realm than  the digital.  I 
> think it's more that recording with a system like  Logic makes it 
> incredibly easy to apply fantastic amounts of tweaking  and processing to 
> everything, to add new layers than then tweak and  process them into the 
> middle of next week as well.  This is an  awesome temptation for the 
> musician!  And I think this is what  results in the kind of "muffled" 
> sound Mike refers to -- it's  something I've noticed more an more of over 
> the last decade or so of  Hawkwind records, particularly in the most 
> recent studio outputs.  I  think they (or Dave anyway) are just 
> overcooking everything,  producing everything to death with piles of 
> tweaking and effects.   When you've been working on a track for a few 
> months and have become  way to familiar with every part in it, you adjust 
> a few extra things  here and there and slip some new bit in -- and 
> suddenly it sounds  great to you again .... But to the casual listener who 
> never heard it  before, and may never hear it until they buy the disc, rip 
> the song  to some relatively low bit rate MP3 and crank it through their 
> iPod  earbuds ... it just sounds glossily muffled.
>
> 'Course, this is _all_ subjective.  If one thinks that TMTYL is the 
> greatest thing ever, then "right on"! :)  But IMO Hawkwind have been 
> progressively overcooking their recordings.  If I were ruling the  world, 
> I'd inflict a producer on them who would get them back to  basics -- or 
> rather take away their control over the sound. :)
>
> It's certainly possibly to use a zillion ingredients in the  production of 
> an awesomely subtle curry that balances fire and  flavour on that 
> scintillating knife edge of perfection.  And it's  also possible to end up 
> with a mess of confused ingredients -- in  which case, you may be better 
> off just chucking a steak on the grill  (or, if one prefers, the 
> vegetarian equivalent of such simplicity)  and having done with it. :)
>
> But, ya know, mileage varies!
>
> Cheers,
> Carl
>
> --
> Carl Edlund Anderson
> http://www.carlaz.com/