Question for Vince Maskeeper (or other audio engineer types) (1 Viewer)

[Jason GT]

Vince,

I recently read the Mixerman adventures and they certainly were fascinating. Now I always understood that much of the music out these days was edited and engineered, but is MOST music so heavily engineered (ie, separately recorded tracks that are subsequently mixed, "might as well use a drum machine" drum edits)?

It wouldn't surprise me for pop music, but how does this "recording" compare to say... acoustic music from Miles Davis or Norah Jones?

Thanks!

 

[Justin Lane]

Jason,

You do realize Miles Davis has been dead for quite sometime and is hence not recording music today. Though Miles 80's output (in particularly Tutu) was much more heavily produced then earlier recordings in the 50's and 60's. Of course the same tools were not available for recording at that time. Anyway...

When dealing with Acoustic type music, in general I would say less engineering is applied, but multitracks are still recorded for different instruments and voices and then mixed accordingly to artist/engineer's wishes. "Real" instruments are recorded, but the same monkeying which goes on in pop music, applies to Acoustic music as well.

J

 

[Jason GT]

Justin -

Thanks for the reply. Yes I guessed that Mr. Davis was somewhat dead

Perhaps on the same theme of things, what about an orchestral work or chamber music? It seems that these would be somewhat more difficult to engineer.

 

[Chu Gai]

Some who might've seen Miles towards the end of his career wondered if he was alive even then

I think the mindset and possibly actual experience of hearing live music of those doing the recording for musical pieces is considerably different from pop. That likely translates into more thoughtful and prudent engineering.

 

[John Watson]

Give them technology and they will abuse it.

Music started going downhill when Rudy Vallee started using a megaphone.

So say we luddy duddies

PS : It was interesting to read some thoughts from Jack White regarding today's over-produced music. He has just produced Loretta Lynn's album, and from the comments I read on another site, sounds like his head is screwed on right.