Re: [ARSCLIST] Pristine Audio (?!)

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's also a whole separate issue of not even knowing WHAT to use to hear things properly.  Notice 
in Mike Casey's report that a few pages are spent talking about "proper listening environment." 
Apparently, a cubicle with a pair of headphones plugged into a Mac is not uncommon! You will not 
hear anything critical or even know if there's a problem under those conditions. You need a quiet, 
well-damped room and real-deal loudspeakers that cover most or all of the audible frequency range as 
honestly as possible (perfect loudspeakers are like unicorns, as are perfect listening environments, 
but there are many degrees of better). Not "sweet-sounding" but HONEST-sounding. And the other thing 
that popped out at me from Mike's report is a the need for a clean and direct signal path. Now, this 
used to all be Audio for Dummies 101, but it's been a long time downhill since that "book" was 
"published" so this seems to have been forgotten.

Bottom line -- if you can't hear well, you can't hear right. And if you can't hear right, you can't 
know what's wrong. By the way, applying many commercially-released recordings to a critical 
listening environment sheds a very harsh light them. It's sad how much great music was poorly 
recorded from the get-go or sabotaged by lousy mastering.

Shameless self-serving perspective: I continue to argue that many if not most archives and 
collections are not equipped or specialized to do analog-to-digital transfers well and they distract 
themselves and their budgets from their primary missions by trying to do so. Much smarter and 
cost-effective in many cases to out-source this work to properly-equipped and skilled experts and 
then they can specialize in digital storage, digital cataloging/access issues and creating a great, 
user-friendly "front door" for your clientele. One man's opinion, etc.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Scott Phillips" <scottp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 12:55 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Pristine Audio (?!)


Tom,

I'd have to agree. I came up the 'old fashioned' way, from the
bottom up. I remember looking for and finding very experienced
engineers, producers, and musicians who were happy to be unofficial
mentors and share anything and everything. One kept one's eyes open, ego
turned down, and just sucked everything you could in. We worked like
dogs just to be a part of it. Pay was lousy but it didn't matter that
much. You could watch a master at work. They would put a microphone in
the same (Almost !) position as you'd seen it a million times, but
they'd get magic in a bottle. If you asked them quietly and
respectfully, they would share that little tiny piece of information
that made it make sense... and that you hadn't thought of. Magic!

I would think any organized efforts that could be put forth to
help people 'get their ears' would be a real blessing. The only reason I
can think of that anyone would make some of the recordings today is that
they actually never learned to hear the difference.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 6:34 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Pristine Audio (?!)

I'm not overly optimistic for a few reasons:

1. as I said in an earlier post -- declining analog knowledge and
equipment condition

2. there's no apprentice system like in the old days. You don't start
sweeping floors and asking a million questions. There are no crotchety
old-timers who pull magic out of their brains every day over whose
shoulder you can look. Most of the experts are one-person operations,
and struggling to survive under that model. So there's no "guild" or
"professional system" in place anymore. An exception might be Hollywood,
although I understand that's getting more decentralized too.

3. what passes for "knowledge" is a giant sludge pool of misinformation
and myths. See any pro-audio oriented web board. Who has the time to
sort out facts from BS in those forums? Also, no high-quality
publications anymore. What takes the place of dB or Recording
Engineer/Producer today?
Mags like Mix are just ego shows and advertiser-testimonials. Very few
nuggets of useful or even interesting information.

4. what would motivate a truly brilliant young man or woman to have
anything to do with professional audio? The music business is
collapsing. There are no more magic mythical "temples" of recording
where you get paid little but have a giant "kewl factor" to working
there, and brush elbows with your favorite musicians. Many of us here
are one-person operations, and some of us even _like_ to work alone, but
would we do this if we were 22 and just out of college? And, as Karl
pointed out, there is little budget or respect for anything approaching
high-quality anymore.

5. the generation coming up, the so-called "millenials" (sp?) are
work-ethic challenged. See the numerous media stories on this trend.
They also seem to think they have little to learn and don't respect
seniority. These are generalizations and I'm sure there are some
wonderful young folks eager to learn and respectful of their elders, but
I sure see and encounter a lot of bad-attitude slackers who have
completely unrealistic ideas of work and wage-earning.

Sorry to rain on any parades, but reality hurts sometimes.

-- Tom Fine

<snip>