Apple Mac as opposed to what other kind?

daychilde: Apple Mac as opposed to what other kind?

A Big Mac. Duh.

Yet with all that technology, you still can't put out music as good as The Beatles did with 2 tin cans and a string.

propasaurus: Yet with all that technology, you still can't put out music as good as The Beatles did with 2 tin cans and a string.

Yeah, three chords and trite lyrics is a tough discipline.

ecmoRandomNumbers:

Yeah, three chords and trite lyrics is a tough discipline.

Seems to be. How many Elvi or Beatles are out there?

Abbey Road was forty years ago.

oldebayer

Abbey Road was forty years ago

Man, does that make me feel old.

ecmoRandomNumbers: propasaurus: Yet with all that technology, you still can't put out music as good as The Beatles did with 2 tin cans and a string.

Yeah, three chords and trite lyrics is a tough discipline.

You've never actually LISTENED to any Beatles song other than I Wanna Hold Your Hand, have you?

Ugh, Beatles thread.

Ok, opinion time!

The Beatles were par musicians. That is it. They were not that great.

Their writing and composing were farking genius. Their songs are amazing and deserve the accolades that are reserved for the band members.

Just about any other artist covering a Beatles song makes it BETTTER. Joe Cocker, Fiona Apple, Jim Carrey (yes, that Jim Carrey, he did an amazing cover of "I Am The Walrus"), Type O Negative, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson (did a good cover of "Come Together"), hell even Patti Lupone and the cast of "Life Goes On" did a better version of "Obla Di Obla Da" then the Beatles.

John Paul Jones: daychilde: Apple Mac as opposed to what other kind?

A Big Mac. Duh.

Also, a Little Mac

You're never going to replicate the expertise of the people that work in those studios with a Mac, and a copy of "Home Studios For Dummies."

It's just a giant karaoke world out there now.

And people still don't know how to sing, or know how to work a microphone, which is why THIS gets turned into THIS.

El Freak: ecmoRandomNumbers: propasaurus: Yet with all that technology, you still can't put out music as good as The Beatles did with 2 tin cans and a string.

Yeah, three chords and trite lyrics is a tough discipline.

You've never actually LISTENED to any Beatles song other than I Wanna Hold Your Hand, have you?

Yes, I have. Pretty much the whole catalog. They're not as good as you think they are. But that's just my opinion. Art is subjective.

Now, Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio" is quite impressive, although he didn't write the whole thing by himself.

i've recorded in large studios and on a mac at home (so i'm getting a kick, etc.). though you can get pretty close on the mac, at the moment, it still won't sound as good as something recorded in a nice big room with vintage tube mics into a tape machine.

and to all you beatle haters:



you don't know what you're farking talking about.

They are referring to Abbey Road Studios, from which many great albums have been recorded.

Yes, The Beatles recorded an album there. A fantastic album.

But the studio and the equipment is the subject, not The Beatles.

CtrlAltDelete

They are referring to Abbey Road Studios, from which many great albums have been recorded.

Yes, The Beatles recorded an album there. A fantastic album.

But the studio and the equipment is the subject, not The Beatles.

I know that. I was just lamenting the sad realization that the album came out forty years ago. And I was old enough to vote when it came out. :-(

ecmoRandomNumbers: El Freak: ecmoRandomNumbers: propasaurus: Yet with all that technology, you still can't put out music as good as The Beatles did with 2 tin cans and a string.

Yeah, three chords and trite lyrics is a tough discipline.

You've never actually LISTENED to any Beatles song other than I Wanna Hold Your Hand, have you?

Yes, I have. Pretty much the whole catalog. They're not as good as you think they are. But that's just my opinion. Art is subjective.

Now, Paul McCartney's "Liverpool Oratorio" is quite impressive, although he didn't write the whole thing by himself.

True enough, it is subjective, but to say that their music was all three chords is well, uninformed to say the least.

FlashHarry: i've recorded in large studios and on a mac at home (so i'm getting a kick, etc.). though you can get pretty close on the mac, at the moment, it still won't sound as good as something recorded in a nice big room with vintage tube mics into a tape machine.

and to all you beatle haters:



you don't know what you're farking talking about.

I would assume that the sound proofing and all that other crap studios have helps.

"Make studio quality recordings for as little as the cost of a Mac and two mics!"

How about: No.

Who wants to book time in a big studio now?
Risk getting shot in the lobby?

Hip Hop ruins everything it touches.

A talented person can do better with Radio Shack mics and an old cassette 4-track than an amateur can do with professional gear. That's just the rules of the game.

GreenAdder: A talented person can do better with Radio Shack mics and an old cassette 4-track than an amateur can do with professional gear. That's just the rules of the game.

That's kind of the point. There's a number of talented people who can use $2000 of equipment to record an album (similar to what many musicians would spend on mics and a 4 track to demo things before) and save themselves $5000 in studio time. Each time they want to record.

Oh, and there's the convenience that a talented person can also record any time they feel like it, and not need to book around other people's schedules, the hours the studio is open, etc. And it comes out sounding nearly as good.

Not to say it couldn't have been done 10 years ago (it was), but it was just a buttload more expensive or you were a lot more limited in tracks and had to wait hours for a simple compression pass (for example) on a recording.

ecmoRandomNumbers: propasaurus: Yet with all that technology, you still can't put out music as good as The Beatles did with 2 tin cans and a string.

Yeah, three chords and trite lyrics is a tough discipline.

try it. we could use more good music.

.spidermann:
Just about any other artist covering a Beatles song makes it BETTTER. Joe Cocker, Fiona Apple, Jim Carrey (yes, that Jim Carrey, he did an amazing cover of "I Am The Walrus"), Type O Negative, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson (did a good cover of "Come Together"), hell even Patti Lupone and the cast of "Life Goes On" did a better version of "Obla Di Obla Da" then the Beatles.

what are you, on crack?

Because people who listen to mp3s using earbuds can't tell the difference between a studio recording and something recorded using a $20 Radio Shack microphone.

the same thing is happening (or has happened) with film. a few years ago, you needed cameras with $100k lenses and a million-dollar AVID system to shoot edit a film. now you can do it with a prosumer HD camera and edit it in final cut, all for less than $10k.

spidermann: Just about any other artist covering a Beatles song makes it BETTTER. Joe Cocker, Fiona Apple, Jim Carrey (yes, that Jim Carrey, he did an amazing cover of "I Am The Walrus"), Type O Negative, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson (did a good cover of "Come Together"), hell even Patti Lupone and the cast of "Life Goes On" did a better version of "Obla Di Obla Da" then the Beatles.

My favourite Beatles cover

Revolution by Nina Simone (new window)

For a good record; you still need good ears and direction; producer/engineer.

Garage Band will never capture the vibe of hanging out in a studio and banging out a record the old fashioned way.

My stupid hobby band recorded some tracks several years ago, and the time in the studio was some of the most fun I've ever had in my life.

This is just an anecdote that means nothing.

I dragged my Squire Telecaster over to the college dorms to hook up with a friend's brother who had rather a lot of sound recording gear hooked up to a PC. He fiddled with a huge mixing board with like 200 sliders, ran cable all over the place, put a nice mike in front of me, etc. I went ahead and crooned some Bob Dylan the way I usually do.

What we ended up with was a couple of MP3s that sounded like shiat. Quiet shiat. And they had mysterious gaps in them. I was sort of unamused, but at least I got high. Later I decided to see if I could do better, so I went to Goodwill and bought a USB mike that was originally part of some speech-to-text kit. The mike was very small and was on a stand that had been stressed and physically snapped. Cost was something like a dollar.

I plugged it in to my "apple mac" and downloading a little program that could record voice straight or with some basic effects, I was off and running, sitting on my little box amp and singing and playing, with the mike about five feet away. Played the file back and it sounded 20,000% better.

The day of recording sound being a skill is over, people.

Terrified Asexual Forcemeat: The day of recording sound being a skill is over, people.

I doubt it sounds better than a million dollar studio with expensive microphones and a professional engineer who knows sound.

I've met mix guys who have been in the audio business for thirty years who insist on mixing on comically cheap speakers.

If it sounds good on a pair of Yamaha MS201's it'll sound good on anything.

That having been said, expensive microphones and preamps are nice.

zvoidx: Terrified Asexual Forcemeat: The day of recording sound being a skill is over, people.

I doubt it sounds better than a million dollar studio with expensive microphones and a professional engineer who knows sound.

A million dollar studio? How about a $1500 (if that) PC tower and a few $100 (if that) USB mikes forming a box around the band? And you can tack some carpeting to the walls if you want to control echoes too.

Gonna hafta call bullshiat on this one.


If this is true, I haven't heard it yet.


Big room = big sound ... period.


Good luck achieving a "When the Levee Breaks" drum sound with mac alone.


I ain't dissing on digital.
Digital is fine as long as you close mic everything.
Use good mics though.
Mic the room and mic the bass amp too.

If the guitar is an open back combo amp--mic the back AND the front and place another mic about 10 feet from the front as well.

If the producer/engineer can't achieve a decent "live" sound in the studio,

LEAVE IMMEDIATELY

you are wasting your money.

Terrified Asexual Forcemeat: zvoidx: Terrified Asexual Forcemeat: The day of recording sound being a skill is over, people.

I doubt it sounds better than a million dollar studio with expensive microphones and a professional engineer who knows sound.

A million dollar studio? How about a $1500 (if that) PC tower and a few $100 (if that) USB mikes forming a box around the band? And you can tack some carpeting to the walls if you want to control echoes too.

I still don't think it would sound as good as an expensive, professional recording studio with non-USB, expensive vocal mics and someone at the helm who knows sound/how to operate everything.

The worst thing about music appreciation right now is the lack of it. I can't imagine anyone, while I was growing up, saying "Oh, that Sinatra guy wasn't so great, he just sang moon, June, spoon crap."

How people can take a band like the Beatles out of context, ignore the unique blend of vocal timbre, revolutionary harmonies, unprecedented application of instrumental sound and the uncanny ability to pre-date the mood of the time, is truly dumbfounding. I would never allow myself to be caught showing such a total lack of understanding.

Oh yeah, that Glenn Miller guy? - just some stupid horns and shiat. Homes had no flow, no'm sain?.

Technology is just the short cut.

I'm a home studio musician, got my start in kindergarten with a glockenspiel, eventually picked up a guitar 14 years ago, broadened my horizons with free "never could've even bought this shiat locally" electronica thanks to Napster and the web, and have steadily invested in gear and supplies to feed my compulsion. Royalty free drum loops, free-ware VST plug-ins for my midi controller keyboards, a couple lucky finds (brand new Line6 KB37 for $56 on a Guitar Center clearance table, a half-price new prosumer audio card that came with decent software), and sure, I'd love to go into a studio and crank up a 2X12 combo to about 7 and run a half stack in tandem at 5, but come on...I can't do that after a long day at the office.

Turn on, plug in, tune up, rock out. Love my Sennheiser headphones, the GearBox software is a pretty good fit, and I can twist the BPM and sequencing with Sony Acid Music no problem. Then go back later and tweak the ins-n-outs of drum loops. Anyway, flat-wound 12s on an twin EMG 81 equipped Ibanez tuned to Db makes for fun riffing & a little free Kore casablanca organ adds some touch...and my eq methods involve headphones, computer speakers, mp3 player + earbuds, and the occasional 'burned to cd and play in car' test. Creativity, especially the self-directed "I want to record things I like, and want to hear" tract, takes work. (new window)

The best musicians I know all have day jobs and different priorities. We jam when we can. Our best bet to get anything done & down on tape will be to exchange high quality digital files and collaborate by convenience. Well, at least on agreed upon tunes.

I don't think any of us doubt the real deal session opportunity with mics and engineers and great acoustics and everything in between when it comes to an album recording. On the other hand, we'll probably go DDD. Call me skeptical, but I thought the era of record companies fronting money for studio time was a scam toward the artists. Now, I can look for two days on local big city craigslist and find competing rates for 3 hour blocks for $200. Another nail in the old model coffin.

The sad part is that there are plenty of hand-to-mouth freelancing engineers here and there. I grew up being able to do chores with Dire Straits 'Brothers in Arms' going in the background. Bring talent to the table, good stuff. Sure, technology can fake some things through sheer horsepower. But you know it when you hear it.

/won't deny the second-rate riffology inspired by dime
//not news

/link is hawt!

barefoot in the head: The worst thing about music appreciation right now is the lack of it. I can't imagine anyone, while I was growing up, saying "Oh, that Sinatra guy wasn't so great, he just sang moon, June, spoon crap."

I'm torn between my desire to flame you and my adoration for both Sinatra and the Beatles.

Eh. I don't think you'll ever have to worry about music like that "going out of style", even if it's more appreciated internationally than it is here in the US.

barefoot in the head 2009-05-17 08:04:48 PM
The worst thing about music appreciation right now is the lack of it. I can't imagine anyone, while I was growing up, saying "Oh, that Sinatra guy wasn't so great, he just sang moon, June, spoon crap."

How people can take a band like the Beatles out of context, ignore the unique blend of vocal timbre, revolutionary harmonies, unprecedented application of instrumental sound and the uncanny ability to pre-date the mood of the time, is truly dumbfounding. I would never allow myself to be caught showing such a total lack of understanding.

Oh yeah, that Glenn Miller guy? - just some stupid horns and shiat. Homes had no flow, no'm sain?.

Geeze, I'm not disagreeing but the Beatles were a POP band when they started; they weren't out to change anything but a few pence quid into a few quid.

What is going on in music these days is music as the marketing of a consumable product; not that it hasn't always been this way but now where is the music from important bands (FF to use whatever definition you want). bands that a most people were waiting to hear to balance out all the Top 40 fodder?

Those days are over

Fark studio recording. Any band can sound like a million bucks when they're taking hours and hours in ProTools, looping the right take of the riff or whatever.

I like to record live gigs. That's where a band proves itself-- no retakes, no hiding behind the studio technology. Yeah yeah I know most live albums are "fixed" and sweetened in post-- but the basic act of performance in front of a live audience can be a bottom line-- magical transformative event, or a death-warrant bore, or somewhere between.

I've gone straight to 4-track cassette with a bunch of my bands, and managed to catch the essence of the night with fidelity matched by 80% of what you'll hear on college Local-Talent-Spotlight radio, bands that booked $50-an-hour studio time.

Lately I've dragged my desktop out with a Delta 1010 and a Mackie board, just to give myself more post-mix flexibility... but, the performance and musicianship still has to be there.

Is it Abbey Road? Fark no. (Nor is it Electric Lady, The Record Plant, Brittania Row, Sun Studios... you get the idea.)

Point is, there's no magical Creativity Fumes that is being pumped into the ventilation ducts of those rooms. There's nothing distinct or special about the desks, or mics. Any n00b engineer could walk into any of those places, with NO IDEA of what to do... and land up with a POS recording that they could have made in their basement for several $K less.

If you don't know how to use your available technology-- whether it be a 64-channel mixing desk, or a pirated copy of Audition-- your recording will suffer. Period.

I knew it was a smallish matter of time before overly obnoxious, self righteous, whiny assed, annoying as all fark Beatles cocksuckers showed up to spout their shiat even though nothing negative was directly said.

Note the "can be" part of the headline.

Well done subby.

I've gone straight to 4-track cassette with a bunch of my bands, and managed to catch the essence of the night with fidelity matched by 80% of what you'll hear on college Local-Talent-Spotlight radio, bands that booked $50-an-hour studio time.

As someone who has worked in $50-a-hour studios recording Local-Talent-Spotlight radio (and I use those terms loosely), that's not giving enough credit to 4 track cassettes.

jpinksto: I knew it was a smallish matter of time before overly obnoxious, self righteous, whiny assed, annoying as all fark Beatles cocksuckers showed up to spout their shiat even though nothing negative was directly said.

Yeah, I don't get the Beatles, either. People continually point out how influential they were, as if that's a reason to require that everyone like them. Their influence can't be denied, but that doesn't compell me to have to like them. They were first of a genre of music. If it weren't for them, there'd be some other band in their place that everyone would be worshipping.

Lately I've dragged my desktop out with a Delta 1010 and a Mackie board, just to give myself more post-mix flexibility... but, the performance and musicianship still has to be there.

Is it Abbey Road? Fark no. (Nor is it Electric Lady, The Record Plant, Brittania Row, Sun Studios... you get the idea.)

Point is, there's no magical Creativity Fumes that is being pumped into the ventilation ducts of those rooms. There's nothing distinct or special about the desks, or mics. Any n00b engineer could walk into any of those places, with NO IDEA of what to do... and land up with a POS recording that they could have made in their basement for several $K less.

If you don't know how to use your available technology-- whether it be a 64-channel mixing desk, or a pirated copy of Audition-- your recording will suffer. Period.

All I can say is *THIS*. Amen, brother. As I also like to say, the musician makes the tool, the tools don't make the musician, but some are too much of a tool to realize it. ;-)

DeathRaySanta: I like to record live gigs. That's where a band proves itself-- no retakes, no hiding behind the studio technology. Yeah yeah I know most live albums are "fixed" and sweetened in post-- but the basic act of performance in front of a live audience can be a bottom line-- magical transformative event, or a death-warrant bore, or somewhere between.

I've gone straight to 4-track cassette with a bunch of my bands, and managed to catch the essence of the night with fidelity matched by 80% of what you'll hear on college Local-Talent-Spotlight radio, bands that booked $50-an-hour studio time.

My mentor always said "If you can't play it live, you can't really play it" when it came to guitar. That went for complexity of performance, effects, whatever. And in that track above that's one straight through guitar take. Split up a bit and volume up/down, but still one take.

And as for recording, our crew has a good old holdover joke. Some of the best sounding takes we captured were from an old boom box with a mic shoved into a closet with the door closed. I think other than the medium, the best lesson was that we had to play the song from start to finish without mistakes if it was going to be a keeper. I still kept all those shiatty tapes from the 4 track and 4 mic years though.

GreenAdder: A talented person can do better with Radio Shack mics and an old cassette 4-track than an amateur can do with professional gear. That's just the rules of the game.

this

the differences between $15,000 $1,500 and $150 microphones aren't nearly as extreme as the differences between good and bad engineers. Not even close.

Yes but can you record it in doubly on a Mac?

Millzners he differences between $15,000 $1,500 and $150 microphones aren't nearly as extreme as the differences between good and bad engineers. Not even close.



NAIL



HIT



ON



HEAD


.....lack of this simple wisdom I am sad to report has cost me more than a few thousand dollars actually.


Phoenix Road Studios
Harry Hines Blvd Dallas,Tx--stay the Hell away from these amateur kids.

Fat Trax Studio
Carrollton,Tx--the recording on your telephone answering machine will sound better than their mix.

FlashHarry: i've recorded in large studios and on a mac at home (so i'm getting a kick, etc.). though you can get pretty close on the mac, at the moment, it still won't sound as good as something recorded in a nice big room with vintage tube mics into a tape machine.

and to all you beatle haters:



you don't know what you're farking talking about.

^Dude knows of what he speaks.

And you don't need a farking Mac or Protools. Cakewalk Sonar FTW.

I need a good mic so I can mic my amp instead of going from my processor -> computer via USB.


Any recommendations?