Would sound quality matter as much if the music didn't suck so bad?

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by The Stranger:

The Dead Kennedys come to mind. I just can't picture

any DK release that would have benefited from better

audio quality. The lo-fi quality is part of the appeal.

Absolutely! But you know what? That's part of what I mean by "quality." It's like the point I made earlier (maybe in another thread) about Autotuning Bob Dylan or soundreplacing John Bonham - if it would actually occur to you to do that as an engineer, you suck. Audio quality isn't just about "sonic perfection," it's about knowing what the right vibe is for the situation, knowing what an artist's strengths are and what makes them unique.

 

I'd certainly never fault somebody for doing the best they can with limited circumstances, I've done that plenty myself and have heard lots of great records done that way. What I find obtuse is the insistence that there's no difference. Analog and digital are the same, cheap gear and expensive gear are the same, none of it matters because "it's all about the music." I just find that a bizarre thing for a supposed audio engineer to say when talking about audio! I can't help but think that marketing hype is the reason, people really WANT to believe you can make "Houses of the Holy" on a $500 computer, so long as the music is great!

 

I also think there are many ways that quality can suck, and some suck worse than others. For example some types of distortion can actually sound cool while others just plain sound bad and will drive the listener to turn it off.

 

It's an elusive thing, this "audio quality" thing, but I think it has a lot to do with intent, with caring vs. not caring, acknowledgement of limitations vs. unawareness.

[Jedi]

Originally posted by Lee Flier

Audio quality isn't just about "sonic perfection," it's about knowing what the right vibe is for the situation, knowing what an artist's strengths are and what makes them unique.

 

This is absolutely brilliant.

[Jedi]

Here's another golden nugget of wisdom from the astounding Lee Flier

 

It's an elusive thing, this "audio quality" thing, but I think it has a lot to do with intent, with caring vs. not caring, acknowledgement of limitations vs. unawareness.

I'm going to print this out and give it to my band, because this elusive thing that Lee talks about in regards to audio can be applied to every aspect of making great music. Intent, Passion, Energy, Vibe are paramount to me. Authenticity is way more important to me than anyone's preconceived notion of what good music is.

[Brittanylips]

Originally posted by Lee Flier:

Interesting thoughts b-Lips. I think you're right insofar as great music doesn't have to have great production/audio quality to be great on its own, and vice versa. But I think the context of the original question was a response to the oft-repeated maxim that "it's all about the music, and the gear/quality doesn't matter if the music is great." This is a statement you just made yourself in fact. So Nathan's question was a logical extension of that - if this is true, then if all music was great would anybody still care about audio quality? And the answer is, yeah, of course we would.

 

I actually think that the statement "It's all about the music," while true so far as it goes, is these days an attempt to be an apologist for the downhill slide in audio quality. And I think that's really disingenous on an audio forum. After all we're supposed to be engineers, it is specifically supposed to be our job to care about the fidelity of the audio, so for someone to say "I don't like the sound of this compressor vs. that one" and the response to be "Who cares? It's all about the music, man! The public doesn't care, it's all going to end up on their iPod anyway!"... well someone who says that is not someone I would want to hire to be my engineer. Know what I mean?

 

So yes, I think the attempt to link the two (music and audio) is disingenuous to the extent that it allows an engineer to shift all the responsibility to the musicians, and/or the buying public. As both a musician and an engineer, not to mention a lifelong fan of music, I believe that a musician should ALWAYS strive for the best performance, and an engineer should ALWAYS strive for the best audio quality and production. Period. It doesn't even matter if you think only 10 people in the world are going to notice or appreciate the effort you put in. Whatever your role is in the music making process, you should not be the weakest link in the chain. So although I can appreciate the sentiment that the engineer is not important relative to the musician or composer, it's not an excuse for the engineer to slack off and pretend their equipment or techniques are unimportant. And I think this sentiment is being abused that way.

Lee.

 

I agree with you on the disingenuousness of its all about the music, but disagree about the reason. I dont see the tenuous link a result of engineers shifting responsibility for failure to the musician, or apologizing for the bad quality of anything.

 

I think the sentiment, uttered here and everywhere, is more psychological than anything else, and is unrelated to the issue of how important audio production is to making great music.

 

The constant harping by audio folks on its all about the music smacks of an underlying field-wide insecurity that burns so hot, it flares up every chance it gets. The truth is, since it is all about the music, audio folks should get over it and worry about producing great audio rather than mooning over a second class status relative to musicians.

 

See, I dont disagree with you one iota about the power of great audio production. That is exactly why I find it so weird that great audio producers constantly undermine the value of their work by couching it as second class music making rather than first class audio production.

 

I disagree, therefore, with the point of view that audio production is about emotion. In my view, audio production is about being invisible. Music is about emotion. And as you say, a seamless continuum between the two.

 

-Peace, Love, and Brittanylips