New Adventures in Hi-Fi

September 10, 2002

Anyone with an interest in the music industry and recording should drop some time into reading The Daily Adventures of MixerMan, a recording engineer's day by day account of working on a Major Label album. His entries are not only coffee-on-the-monitor hilarious, but also very insightful:

If U2 were to put out Boy today, I contend that record would have been a sterile piece of shit. They really weren't great players back then. But U2 had a vibe, and they were innovative, and the fact that they weren't great players made the music all the more alive. Today, a young U2 would have more than likely been destroyed by a Producer and his Alsihad, that is, if they ever got signed at all.

I'm not the only person who questions the usefulness of people like Tom Lord-Alge:

ItÕs really an odd process if you think about it. The Record Company hires Willy Show (for example) to record the record the way he is capable. Willy spends time and money getting everything to have a certain sound that is unique, and consistent with the playing of the song, and the performances. The Record Company then takes it from the ProducerÕs hands (VERY common), and has one of 5 mixers make it sound exactly like everything else on the radio. Then, as-if that wasnÕt enough, they have a Mastering Engineer come in and stomp out the last remaining bit of life out of the production, and make it sound as 2-dimensional and loud as possible.