Brian Eno on the dangers of digital
February 25, 2015 2:40 PM Subscribe
Digital technology has enhanced music production, recording and distribution in ways unimaginable just a few decades ago, but are we losing something more essential in the process? Chris May (of The Vinyl Factory) talks to ambient pioneer and friend of technology Brian Eno about the dangers of digital dependence in modern music.
“It doesn’t just apply with African recordings. It’s a problem everybody is having at the moment. Do I resist the temptation to perfect this thing? What do I lose by perfecting it?"
yeah, I'm not a tech person, and I very often think that excessive technology tends to hamper musical creativity...but still Eno's remarks about "look at these great African musicians and how wonderful they are with their primitive stuff that a professional recording engineer would laugh at" sits uncomfortably with me.
posted by daisystomper at 3:06 PM on February 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by daisystomper at 3:06 PM on February 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I count myself among those members whose Mefi Music contributions suggest that digital technology is unlikely to render everything blandly, or even acceptably, perfect in the near future.
More seriously, I think Eno makes some good, balanced and well-considered points here.
posted by howfar at 3:09 PM on February 25, 2015
More seriously, I think Eno makes some good, balanced and well-considered points here.
posted by howfar at 3:09 PM on February 25, 2015
Eno's remarks about "look at these great African musicians and how wonderful they are with their primitive stuff that a professional recording engineer would laugh at" sits uncomfortably with me.
Why? I'm confused on this point. Isn't he talking about that because that is his personal experience of working in technically restricted setups? He could have used a theoretical or historical example from someone else's professional experience, I guess, but I struggle to understand why he should.
Maybe I'm missing something.
posted by howfar at 3:16 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Why? I'm confused on this point. Isn't he talking about that because that is his personal experience of working in technically restricted setups? He could have used a theoretical or historical example from someone else's professional experience, I guess, but I struggle to understand why he should.
Maybe I'm missing something.
posted by howfar at 3:16 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The interviewer explicitly asked him about African records, is why he's talking about them
posted by thelonius at 3:21 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 3:21 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Basically Eno is making a "nobel savage" argument. Not the greatest argument in general.
Not knowing Fela Kuti, I'm going to out on a limb and say he remains Fela Kuti regardless of whether he's on tape or in bits.
posted by GuyZero at 3:21 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Not knowing Fela Kuti, I'm going to out on a limb and say he remains Fela Kuti regardless of whether he's on tape or in bits.
posted by GuyZero at 3:21 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think the point about the virtue of having a small amount of equipment and knowing it inside-out is a really valuable one, and it's something that digital technologies don't help with since there's always something new, always an improved version round the corner. Things tend not to settle down to a state where you can easily gain long-term mastery, and everyone - at least when starting out in any discipline - has to go through that "if only I had gizmo x everything would work out" stage...
posted by sobarel at 3:25 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by sobarel at 3:25 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Brian Eno is held up as a semi-deity of music. Do not believe in this. Brian Eno is a human man. He might say some dumb shit from time to time.
posted by basicchannel at 3:27 PM on February 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by basicchannel at 3:27 PM on February 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
The problem with that argument, sobarel, is that had digital recording not been invented, there would still be massive change and innovation, only it would be analog. It wouldn't have just stopped with, for instance, 16 track recorders.
posted by evilDoug at 3:31 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by evilDoug at 3:31 PM on February 25, 2015
Basically Eno is making a "nobel savage" argument.
Hardly.
He's merely pointing out that musicians (who happen to be from Africa) are able to coax amazing music from equipment that jaded high-dollar audio engineers wouldn't even touch. The musicians could easily have been from India, or Mexico, or even Appalachia. He was asked specifically about African music. It's hardly a "noble savage" comment to say they aren't hindered by their comparatively ancient (by western professional standards) equipment.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:36 PM on February 25, 2015 [14 favorites]
Hardly.
He's merely pointing out that musicians (who happen to be from Africa) are able to coax amazing music from equipment that jaded high-dollar audio engineers wouldn't even touch. The musicians could easily have been from India, or Mexico, or even Appalachia. He was asked specifically about African music. It's hardly a "noble savage" comment to say they aren't hindered by their comparatively ancient (by western professional standards) equipment.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:36 PM on February 25, 2015 [14 favorites]
yeah, I'm not a tech person, and I very often think that excessive technology tends to hamper musical creativity...but still Eno's remarks about "look at these great African musicians and how wonderful they are with their primitive stuff that a professional recording engineer would laugh at" sits uncomfortably with me.
Maybe you missed that the laughing Eno was referring to would have been from a "Western engineer" in 1981.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:43 PM on February 25, 2015 [9 favorites]
Maybe you missed that the laughing Eno was referring to would have been from a "Western engineer" in 1981.
“For instance, I once recorded in West Africa with a Ghanaian band called Edikanfo [on the group’s 1981 album The Pace Setters]. I worked with an engineer there in a little studio that was a joke by Western terms. He had a really random bundle of microphones. One of them was from a Sony cassette recorder, a really cheap mic, but he used it brilliantly. He put it over the drum kit and he got a really vibrant, lively sound from it. If you’d shown that set-up to a Western engineer then they would have laughed at you. And the same with the instruments. Sometimes the instruments the guys were using were really crappy old electric guitars. But they knew how to work with them, how to get something special out of them.”That was him working in West Africa in 1981, referring to how mistaken a Western engineer would have been. Not something he thinks is true and going on in 2015. No noble savagery.
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:43 PM on February 25, 2015 [9 favorites]
Listen to Eno. Even if you hate his music, he gets how accident and noise transcend bedroom tweaking.
This is one of those " you have to know the rules to break them" situations. But even a casual listener can hear the difference.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:50 PM on February 25, 2015
This is one of those " you have to know the rules to break them" situations. But even a casual listener can hear the difference.
posted by clvrmnky at 3:50 PM on February 25, 2015
He makes some interesting points, but unfortunately they were presented on a web page on my computer with digital fonts, and were obviously edited on digital word processors, so the resulting article just seemed so artificial, bland and inauthentic.
posted by rocket88 at 3:58 PM on February 25, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by rocket88 at 3:58 PM on February 25, 2015 [11 favorites]
had digital recording not been invented, there would still be massive change and innovation, only it would be analog
I'm pondering on this, and I'm not sure. My impression is that analogue recording - like analogue photography - has been a fairly mature technology for decades. While I can imagine lots of incremental improvements being made in some alternate non-digital timeline, it's hard to see the rate or quantity of change that the digital age brought along. You're going to replace software more frequently than you're ever going to replace big lumpy pieces of analogue tech.
posted by sobarel at 3:58 PM on February 25, 2015
I'm pondering on this, and I'm not sure. My impression is that analogue recording - like analogue photography - has been a fairly mature technology for decades. While I can imagine lots of incremental improvements being made in some alternate non-digital timeline, it's hard to see the rate or quantity of change that the digital age brought along. You're going to replace software more frequently than you're ever going to replace big lumpy pieces of analogue tech.
posted by sobarel at 3:58 PM on February 25, 2015
I think the argument is more that all the high priced electronic recording gear in the world is still going to create a crap recording if you don't know anything about recording principals.
If you know the limitations of your gear, you know how to compensate for them. If you just buy the latest and greatest, most expensive stuff that everyone thinks it the hot shit, you aren't going to know, without lots of training, how to get it to do what you want.
There is a reason the title is "recording artist". And it's one part the talent of the musician, and another part the talent of the board operator. If your board operator only knows how to slam everything through compression and ride the signals into the red all the time, all you are going to get is clipped, compressed shit. If they know about dynamic ranges, frequency spectrums, signal interference, and how to use a 31-band EQ, parametric or not, then you will get a good recording.
That little Sony cassette mic? Probably amazing high frequency response with a notable drop-off below a certain frequency, giving the recording that "vibrant, lively sound" that you'd have to dump through at least a gate and band-pass to get with something that was full frequency and had a static or flat response across the whole range.
So let's talk about how to be better at recording music, with whatever gear you have, be it the half-million dollar studio or your crappy 4-track that adds a great warm fuzz to everything because the heads are old. But know what is happening first, don't assume that it's some magic of how analog is just "better". It's only better if you know how to use it (or push it to it's limits).
/rant
posted by daq at 4:01 PM on February 25, 2015 [10 favorites]
If you know the limitations of your gear, you know how to compensate for them. If you just buy the latest and greatest, most expensive stuff that everyone thinks it the hot shit, you aren't going to know, without lots of training, how to get it to do what you want.
There is a reason the title is "recording artist". And it's one part the talent of the musician, and another part the talent of the board operator. If your board operator only knows how to slam everything through compression and ride the signals into the red all the time, all you are going to get is clipped, compressed shit. If they know about dynamic ranges, frequency spectrums, signal interference, and how to use a 31-band EQ, parametric or not, then you will get a good recording.
That little Sony cassette mic? Probably amazing high frequency response with a notable drop-off below a certain frequency, giving the recording that "vibrant, lively sound" that you'd have to dump through at least a gate and band-pass to get with something that was full frequency and had a static or flat response across the whole range.
So let's talk about how to be better at recording music, with whatever gear you have, be it the half-million dollar studio or your crappy 4-track that adds a great warm fuzz to everything because the heads are old. But know what is happening first, don't assume that it's some magic of how analog is just "better". It's only better if you know how to use it (or push it to it's limits).
/rant
posted by daq at 4:01 PM on February 25, 2015 [10 favorites]
he gets how accident and noise transcend bedroom tweaking.
Bedroom tweaking does not eliminate accident and noise. At least in my case, it celebrates it (and I know I'm not the only one).
posted by Foosnark at 4:03 PM on February 25, 2015
Bedroom tweaking does not eliminate accident and noise. At least in my case, it celebrates it (and I know I'm not the only one).
posted by Foosnark at 4:03 PM on February 25, 2015
He makes some interesting points, but unfortunately they were presented on a web page on my computer with digital fonts, and were obviously edited on digital word processors, so the resulting article just seemed so artificial, bland and inauthentic.
That doesn't seem, to me, like a very apposite joke, given the querying, thoughtful and nonjudgmental tone of his remarks. And with particular reference to analogue writing, he even said: "I’m not saying there is any advantage in going back to it, it’s just interesting to try it, to remind yourself of how completely you are now part of this new technology of writing.”
Are some people reading a different article to me? Because the one I'm reading seems like just a bunch of interesting musings from someone with lots of experience.
posted by howfar at 4:05 PM on February 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
That doesn't seem, to me, like a very apposite joke, given the querying, thoughtful and nonjudgmental tone of his remarks. And with particular reference to analogue writing, he even said: "I’m not saying there is any advantage in going back to it, it’s just interesting to try it, to remind yourself of how completely you are now part of this new technology of writing.”
Are some people reading a different article to me? Because the one I'm reading seems like just a bunch of interesting musings from someone with lots of experience.
posted by howfar at 4:05 PM on February 25, 2015 [5 favorites]
I love it when people try to argue that analog is better because digital is "too perfect."
posted by Foosnark at 4:05 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by Foosnark at 4:05 PM on February 25, 2015
I, for one, don't miss the problems that came with tape, and the simplicity of backing up my data to the point that I don't have to worry about losing it - like i lost so much of my prior music - far outweighs any sort of "authenticity" that would come from analog equipment.
You can still hook a shitty microphone up to a computer, absolutely nothing is stopping you there, and I'd argue that it happens often.
I think one difference is that the cost of entry has been lowered so that many more people can record - This is a mixed bag. While it brings accessible recording technology to some talented folk who otherwise would have a hard time scrounging for it, it also allows those who are not as talented to produce.
The great thing is - the analog hasn't gone away, and you can find much of it second hand for a steal.
This reminds me so much of arguments I have heard and read on how digital photography has "ruined photography."
We have a great set of tools that have become accessible to many more people than they were before, and have brought what used to be only things that professionals could do into the reach of more casual folk. Someone obsessing over better tools as opposed to learning to use what they have is nothing different, as generation of guitar players obsessing over a better amp/guitar have demonstrated. There are plenty of people that still believe that having great software makes them a great producer, as many have believed that having a telecaster will make them a better guitar player. It's always been more about knowing how to use what you have to the fullest than any particular tool.
posted by MysticMCJ at 4:09 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
You can still hook a shitty microphone up to a computer, absolutely nothing is stopping you there, and I'd argue that it happens often.
I think one difference is that the cost of entry has been lowered so that many more people can record - This is a mixed bag. While it brings accessible recording technology to some talented folk who otherwise would have a hard time scrounging for it, it also allows those who are not as talented to produce.
The great thing is - the analog hasn't gone away, and you can find much of it second hand for a steal.
This reminds me so much of arguments I have heard and read on how digital photography has "ruined photography."
We have a great set of tools that have become accessible to many more people than they were before, and have brought what used to be only things that professionals could do into the reach of more casual folk. Someone obsessing over better tools as opposed to learning to use what they have is nothing different, as generation of guitar players obsessing over a better amp/guitar have demonstrated. There are plenty of people that still believe that having great software makes them a great producer, as many have believed that having a telecaster will make them a better guitar player. It's always been more about knowing how to use what you have to the fullest than any particular tool.
posted by MysticMCJ at 4:09 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The kind of music you're making makes the biggest difference here. African recordings from the 70s? Why would you even think of digital? Jack White pounding out the blooze (boring as hell to me, but whatever floats your boat)? Sure, 60-year-old guitars on tape. Ambient techno dreamscape chillout whatevers? Macbook Pro all the way.
posted by Fnarf at 4:09 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Fnarf at 4:09 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
This reminds me so much of arguments I have heard and read on how digital photography has "ruined photography."
I think the rot set in when we went from glass plates to film personally.
posted by sobarel at 4:12 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think the rot set in when we went from glass plates to film personally.
posted by sobarel at 4:12 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
This Tom Waits story, which has stuck with me for many years, speaks to the issue of reminding yourself of how to use the basic tools that you know well when technology is not at your disposal:
TW: ...I played the Roxy with Jimmy Witherspoon a long time ago, and somebody hit the telephone pole in front on Saturday. Knocked out all the power – this was like 5minutes before we went on. Place was in total darkness. People were lighting candles. Jimmy Witherspoon went and did a killer show. He just put his organist on a piano, and he has this big big, huge voice any way. Got right on the lip of this thing. I was freaked out. I didn’t know what to do. He killed. I guess you have to get reduced to that to find out the origin and basic building blocks of what you do are still in tact. Look under the building, make sure the supports are still there and haven’t been eaten through. (Laughs.) But, yeah, you can do a lot with a bullet mic and a wah-wah pedal. But before that there was changing your voice and raising your volume. I guess we’ve all gotten very lazy with all the toys that are available.posted by MonkeyToes at 4:14 PM on February 25, 2015 [8 favorites]
I think the rot set in when we went from glass plates to film personally.
Bitumen of Judea...SPLITTERS!
posted by howfar at 4:16 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Bitumen of Judea...SPLITTERS!
posted by howfar at 4:16 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
howfar, I'm getting the same thing you are, and think there's a weird collapse/fixation going on in the thread.
This is not an article about how digital technology just sucks or should be universally avoided. It's an article about observing how creativity can work within and even *bloom* with limits, and a little bit about the fact that you can encounter new problems when those limits are removed.
posted by weston at 4:21 PM on February 25, 2015 [6 favorites]
This is not an article about how digital technology just sucks or should be universally avoided. It's an article about observing how creativity can work within and even *bloom* with limits, and a little bit about the fact that you can encounter new problems when those limits are removed.
posted by weston at 4:21 PM on February 25, 2015 [6 favorites]
I guess I think back to when I was doing more active recording in the pre-digital era...
I still fuck up, swear, and overdub as much as I used to - especially if I just get "stuck" on something. The difference is it's a shit ton easier to "punch in" and I'm less likely to fuck something else up.
Now.... If you want to get started on quantizing and pitch shifting, I'll happily pile on the hate.
posted by MysticMCJ at 4:22 PM on February 25, 2015
I still fuck up, swear, and overdub as much as I used to - especially if I just get "stuck" on something. The difference is it's a shit ton easier to "punch in" and I'm less likely to fuck something else up.
Now.... If you want to get started on quantizing and pitch shifting, I'll happily pile on the hate.
posted by MysticMCJ at 4:22 PM on February 25, 2015
Ambient techno dreamscape chillout whatevers? Macbook Pro all the way
Oh, I beg to differ
posted by misterbee at 4:23 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh, I beg to differ
posted by misterbee at 4:23 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The black arts of razor-blade editing of tape are probably gone, which is kind of sad if you've ever seen anyone who could really do it.
posted by thelonius at 4:25 PM on February 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 4:25 PM on February 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
Kind of an ironic argument from the guy who is pushing computer-generated music.
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:28 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by grumpybear69 at 4:28 PM on February 25, 2015
That little Sony cassette mic? Probably amazing high frequency response with a notable drop-off below a certain frequency, giving the recording that "vibrant, lively sound" that you'd have to dump through at least a gate and band-pass to get with something that was full frequency and had a static or flat response across the whole range.
There's also the distribution method: vinyl, then for a much longer period, cassette tapes, which were cheap, easy to duplicate, pretty robust, far from high-fidelity.
This is only a 'noble savage' argument if you think of George Martin's tape-splicing and multitrack redubs in the same terms: limited resources, understood right up to their limits, and pushed beyond their limits. It's ultimately an argument about what recorded music is, how it relates to performance, and how the recording process has itself been a kind of performance. (A path that leads towards something like Bill Drummond's The17.)
All of it becomes somewhat ironic in a context where the most common listening experience in the developed world has become is digital audio fed through relatively shitty speakers or earphones.
posted by holgate at 4:36 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
There's also the distribution method: vinyl, then for a much longer period, cassette tapes, which were cheap, easy to duplicate, pretty robust, far from high-fidelity.
This is only a 'noble savage' argument if you think of George Martin's tape-splicing and multitrack redubs in the same terms: limited resources, understood right up to their limits, and pushed beyond their limits. It's ultimately an argument about what recorded music is, how it relates to performance, and how the recording process has itself been a kind of performance. (A path that leads towards something like Bill Drummond's The17.)
All of it becomes somewhat ironic in a context where the most common listening experience in the developed world has become is digital audio fed through relatively shitty speakers or earphones.
posted by holgate at 4:36 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Kind of an ironic argument from the guy who is pushing computer-generated music.
I disagree; it could be considered another example of how constraints can drive creativity/creation.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:38 PM on February 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
I disagree; it could be considered another example of how constraints can drive creativity/creation.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:38 PM on February 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd take this dude with an branch attached to an oilcan over most of the music being made today...
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:39 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:39 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
But I do realize that without the digital world I would never have heard the branch-can-man.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:41 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 4:41 PM on February 25, 2015
For anyone doubting the power of digital audio, check out the music of Tipper. I have yet to find another artist who can rival his ability to create intricate aural biomes. When you can make sounds like that just with a keyboard, a laptop, and a few plugins, I can only see it boding well for the future evolution of music.
posted by archagon at 5:08 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by archagon at 5:08 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The black arts of razor-blade editing of tape are probably gone, which is kind of sad if you've ever seen anyone who could really do it.
I was thinking about this the other day while listening to Orchid Spangiafora for the first time in a while. It's a one of a kind album, a plunderphonic oddity that combines absurd comedy with a rich deconstruction of the rhythms of speech, inspired by but far exceeding the tape experimental parts of Zappa's Lumpy Gravy. It in turn inspired plenty of later experimental sample based music - it was on the Nurse With Wound list - but nothing I've heard goes for anything near its peculiar vibe. It's absolutely a record whose contours are dictated by limits of tape splicing.
Robert Carey made it in the late 1970s in Hampshire College's music lab. I interviewed Carey in my living room for a school assignment. I was a rather awkward and very anxious twenty year old and he was extremely nice to me. He brought along Byron Coley and the two of them reminisced about Orchid Spangiafora and the wild west days of Hampshire for about an hour and a half. Carey offered to make a cut up out of the interview recording but I never sent it to him, something I really regret.
One of the things that stuck out was how much emphasis he put on how the music was a product of his relationship with the not especially user friendly tape machine. He obviously had a lot of skill with the thing, but it was recalcitrant in a way that traditional instruments are not. People often compare learning an instrument to learning a language. It's a metaphor that works on many levels, but usually I think people who say so mean that at first you stumble and then eventually you learn to express yourself in such a way that you're not constantly being reminded of the limits of your medium. A skilled pianist thinks of a melody, and she can sit down and play it. But certain marginal instruments, the ones that people rarely even consider to be instruments - tape machines, recording tech, and so forth - don't permit anything resembling transparent fluency when you're trying to do something ambitious with them, even if you're a real ace.
The machine is a full and sometimes temperamental participant. It helps in ways you might not think of, too, of course. Carey mentioned that one of the things lost in the released version of the Orchid Spangiafora album was that, when you watched the tape, the back was almost entirely white with splicing tape. The gaps corresponded to the rhythm of the samples. And, as Eno has said elsewhere, difficult mediums encourage serendipity. The last track of the Orchid Spangiafora album, the most traditionally musical, hinges on a part that was created accidentally when one of the mic stands that the tape was looping around fell over. But at the end of the day it's a project that doesn't and couldn't sound fluent, and that's part of what sets it apart from what people do with samples in a digital environment.
This isn't an "analog good, digital bad" thing in the slightest, nor do I think it's impossible to create something similar digitally. However, audio editing software doesn't encourage you to hear in the same way that tape splicing does. Carey's music is about the seams of our speech, and the very process of tape splicing encourages you as a musician to hear those seams. Instead of trying to overcome his medium, he foregrounds it, and the result is wonderful. The medium, in turn, highlights qualities of our speech that are easy to forget because for most of us most of the time it is easy to forget that all speaking is a rhythmic act, and the awkwardness of the tape machine helps us learn how to hear that.
posted by vathek at 6:28 PM on February 25, 2015 [12 favorites]
I was thinking about this the other day while listening to Orchid Spangiafora for the first time in a while. It's a one of a kind album, a plunderphonic oddity that combines absurd comedy with a rich deconstruction of the rhythms of speech, inspired by but far exceeding the tape experimental parts of Zappa's Lumpy Gravy. It in turn inspired plenty of later experimental sample based music - it was on the Nurse With Wound list - but nothing I've heard goes for anything near its peculiar vibe. It's absolutely a record whose contours are dictated by limits of tape splicing.
Robert Carey made it in the late 1970s in Hampshire College's music lab. I interviewed Carey in my living room for a school assignment. I was a rather awkward and very anxious twenty year old and he was extremely nice to me. He brought along Byron Coley and the two of them reminisced about Orchid Spangiafora and the wild west days of Hampshire for about an hour and a half. Carey offered to make a cut up out of the interview recording but I never sent it to him, something I really regret.
One of the things that stuck out was how much emphasis he put on how the music was a product of his relationship with the not especially user friendly tape machine. He obviously had a lot of skill with the thing, but it was recalcitrant in a way that traditional instruments are not. People often compare learning an instrument to learning a language. It's a metaphor that works on many levels, but usually I think people who say so mean that at first you stumble and then eventually you learn to express yourself in such a way that you're not constantly being reminded of the limits of your medium. A skilled pianist thinks of a melody, and she can sit down and play it. But certain marginal instruments, the ones that people rarely even consider to be instruments - tape machines, recording tech, and so forth - don't permit anything resembling transparent fluency when you're trying to do something ambitious with them, even if you're a real ace.
The machine is a full and sometimes temperamental participant. It helps in ways you might not think of, too, of course. Carey mentioned that one of the things lost in the released version of the Orchid Spangiafora album was that, when you watched the tape, the back was almost entirely white with splicing tape. The gaps corresponded to the rhythm of the samples. And, as Eno has said elsewhere, difficult mediums encourage serendipity. The last track of the Orchid Spangiafora album, the most traditionally musical, hinges on a part that was created accidentally when one of the mic stands that the tape was looping around fell over. But at the end of the day it's a project that doesn't and couldn't sound fluent, and that's part of what sets it apart from what people do with samples in a digital environment.
This isn't an "analog good, digital bad" thing in the slightest, nor do I think it's impossible to create something similar digitally. However, audio editing software doesn't encourage you to hear in the same way that tape splicing does. Carey's music is about the seams of our speech, and the very process of tape splicing encourages you as a musician to hear those seams. Instead of trying to overcome his medium, he foregrounds it, and the result is wonderful. The medium, in turn, highlights qualities of our speech that are easy to forget because for most of us most of the time it is easy to forget that all speaking is a rhythmic act, and the awkwardness of the tape machine helps us learn how to hear that.
posted by vathek at 6:28 PM on February 25, 2015 [12 favorites]
The trick (IMO) is to make accident part of your production and composition process. For the album my wife and I just finished tracking, I improvised everything from the very start and went to great lengths to build by layering rather than perfecting. I think the end results are good and polished but still have a certain feeling of danger to them. You can compose in ways no one ever could now. I just don't understand why that's a bad thing, if you can beat the urge to over-massage everything.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:43 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by saulgoodman at 6:43 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think the questions he raises are timeless. Ever since there has been recording, people have worried about too much perfection. A live performance cannot be changed, but even the most primitive recording can be remade over and over until it is more perfect. It's a great question because it focuses on the relationship between the process and the product. The secret that great artists know is that changing up the process can affect the end result in amazing ways. How you get there has everything to do with what happens.
posted by conrad53 at 6:55 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by conrad53 at 6:55 PM on February 25, 2015
This is a never-ending debate.
Improved reproduction and editing technology makes it ever more possible to make something "perfect". But the more "perfect" it can be, the more precious serendipitous errors and reproduction artifacts become.
Some people simply cling to the old methods. Some people find ways to fake them with modern tools - I once spent a couple of hours separating an image into C/M/Y/K channels, half toning with just the right angles, and reassembling them into a simulacrum of an old comic. Add in tape hiss or aliasing, fake film grain, whatever.
And learning how to not get lost in a rabbit hole of Perfection is a major part of any digital craft. I had to train myself how not to get lost in details smaller than a pixel when I'm in Illustrator. The flip side is that the computer can also be an amazing assistant who can do stuff no human would ever want to do.
And of course there is the "digital work has no soul" argument, but that's another one entirely.
Every artist must decide where they are most comfortable on the spectrum between analog and digital processes, and how much noise they want their reproduction processes to add. And be willing to move to a different place in that spectrum for a project that requires it - if you normally do luminous digital perfection, but know that the next piece needs to be A Mess, then REJOICE in that mess, damnit.
posted by egypturnash at 8:35 PM on February 25, 2015
Improved reproduction and editing technology makes it ever more possible to make something "perfect". But the more "perfect" it can be, the more precious serendipitous errors and reproduction artifacts become.
Some people simply cling to the old methods. Some people find ways to fake them with modern tools - I once spent a couple of hours separating an image into C/M/Y/K channels, half toning with just the right angles, and reassembling them into a simulacrum of an old comic. Add in tape hiss or aliasing, fake film grain, whatever.
And learning how to not get lost in a rabbit hole of Perfection is a major part of any digital craft. I had to train myself how not to get lost in details smaller than a pixel when I'm in Illustrator. The flip side is that the computer can also be an amazing assistant who can do stuff no human would ever want to do.
And of course there is the "digital work has no soul" argument, but that's another one entirely.
Every artist must decide where they are most comfortable on the spectrum between analog and digital processes, and how much noise they want their reproduction processes to add. And be willing to move to a different place in that spectrum for a project that requires it - if you normally do luminous digital perfection, but know that the next piece needs to be A Mess, then REJOICE in that mess, damnit.
posted by egypturnash at 8:35 PM on February 25, 2015
This makes a lot more sense if you assume Eno is complaining about recent sessions with U2.
No one else really needs to be reminded that you can do amazing things with low cost gear or minimal process. Or maybe he just wants Bono to buy a $300k analog mixing console for the next album.
Just for reference, This is the 12-track machine Rattle & Hum was recorded on.
I, for one, am glad about the "democratization" part. Being able to haul a Macbook and an 6-track A/D Firewire interface around with me has given me a wonderful mobile audio unit, & mixing in Logic is fucking amazing to someone who used to spend upwards of $60.00 an hour to access the analog equivalent. You don't have to quantize or pitch-correct, or edit flubs - it's a minor miracle in a box just to be able to do the kind of quality capture digital recording affords.
Use the tools judiciously if you're a live ensemble player, & go to town if you're a digital artist building tracks in the box. It's just tools.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:41 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
No one else really needs to be reminded that you can do amazing things with low cost gear or minimal process. Or maybe he just wants Bono to buy a $300k analog mixing console for the next album.
Just for reference, This is the 12-track machine Rattle & Hum was recorded on.
I, for one, am glad about the "democratization" part. Being able to haul a Macbook and an 6-track A/D Firewire interface around with me has given me a wonderful mobile audio unit, & mixing in Logic is fucking amazing to someone who used to spend upwards of $60.00 an hour to access the analog equivalent. You don't have to quantize or pitch-correct, or edit flubs - it's a minor miracle in a box just to be able to do the kind of quality capture digital recording affords.
Use the tools judiciously if you're a live ensemble player, & go to town if you're a digital artist building tracks in the box. It's just tools.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:41 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
TW: ...I played the Roxy with Jimmy Witherspoon a long time ago, and somebody hit the telephone pole in front on Saturday. Knocked out all the power – this was like 5minutes before we went on. Place was in total darkness. People were lighting candles. Jimmy Witherspoon went and did a killer show.
Robert Earl Keen did this at the end of a show at the old Austin City Limits. They unplugged everything, moved the vocal mics out of the way and played a song without any amplification at all. I think it was shakers, guitar, mandolin & upringt bass. Even in a room that held 300 people, it was magic & the difference between that & the amplified "acousttic" set he'd just done was stark.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:54 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Robert Earl Keen did this at the end of a show at the old Austin City Limits. They unplugged everything, moved the vocal mics out of the way and played a song without any amplification at all. I think it was shakers, guitar, mandolin & upringt bass. Even in a room that held 300 people, it was magic & the difference between that & the amplified "acousttic" set he'd just done was stark.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:54 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The black arts of razor-blade editing of tape are probably gone, which is kind of sad if you've ever seen anyone who could really do it.
We took 4 bars out of the middle of a 2-inch 24-track tape once. I nearly threw up with nerves, but was ultimately awed at the skill of the engineer wielding the blade. Black art indeed, but not lost, yet.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:59 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
We took 4 bars out of the middle of a 2-inch 24-track tape once. I nearly threw up with nerves, but was ultimately awed at the skill of the engineer wielding the blade. Black art indeed, but not lost, yet.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:59 PM on February 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of the old blog The Daily Adventures of Mixerman that seems to have become a book (and excluded from the Wayback Machine, dang it)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:46 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:46 PM on February 25, 2015
It's just tools.
Digital isn't great because it makes things "perfect", whatever that is. The great thing is that there are so many amazing sounds yet to be discovered, and so little time for talented people to find them. Digital tools make discovering and sharing those sounds easier than ever. Other than a Western sense of obligation to false or inauthentic nostalgia, there seem fewer reasons to sit at a tape deck for days with a razor blade, editing down to some approximation of the same level of "perfection" that is possible in minutes or seconds with better tools.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:36 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Digital isn't great because it makes things "perfect", whatever that is. The great thing is that there are so many amazing sounds yet to be discovered, and so little time for talented people to find them. Digital tools make discovering and sharing those sounds easier than ever. Other than a Western sense of obligation to false or inauthentic nostalgia, there seem fewer reasons to sit at a tape deck for days with a razor blade, editing down to some approximation of the same level of "perfection" that is possible in minutes or seconds with better tools.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:36 PM on February 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The democratization of recording has its implications. There are people who use digital methods sort of classically, to record, or witness, unique events, and sure, perfect them; there are others who really innovate in sound design and composition with mad tweakery; and a lot who sound (to my ears anyway) more or less like whatever the Ableton packs let them sound like.
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:29 PM on February 25, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:29 PM on February 25, 2015
If you are making tonal music using equal temperament, and you are a human with a pulse and a fluctuating sense of time and consciousness rather than built on an atomic clock, it is never going to be 'perfect' anyway. It's not mathematically possible, and even if it were, your ears wouldn't like it due to how much 'compromise' music they've already taken in.
Some guys only realise when they get into a studio with all these computers that a guitar cannot actually ever be 'in tune' other than 'ears generally like it when the strings are tensioned in this way'.
If your music is structurally innovative musically, at some point you will probably find it 'sounds out of tune' for some reason to your ears at some points. This happened to Paul when The Beatles had finished Revolver and he listened to the tapes on holiday, got depressed, and wanted to can half of them. The (for the time) vast number of cadential and functional flat-7 chords and other developing features of their middle period music actually confused his ear.
Then there's Avicii.
posted by colie at 11:39 PM on February 25, 2015
Some guys only realise when they get into a studio with all these computers that a guitar cannot actually ever be 'in tune' other than 'ears generally like it when the strings are tensioned in this way'.
If your music is structurally innovative musically, at some point you will probably find it 'sounds out of tune' for some reason to your ears at some points. This happened to Paul when The Beatles had finished Revolver and he listened to the tapes on holiday, got depressed, and wanted to can half of them. The (for the time) vast number of cadential and functional flat-7 chords and other developing features of their middle period music actually confused his ear.
Then there's Avicii.
posted by colie at 11:39 PM on February 25, 2015
The trick (IMO) is to make accident part of your production and composition process.
It's funny, because a big part of Eno's public persona has been about accident, randomness, indeterminacy and intuition, but if you actually look closely at his best work, it's very melodic, carefully thought-out and elegantly crafted. I think Eno likes to add a touch of misdirection in how he's perceived, at least in that aspect.
posted by ovvl at 6:52 AM on February 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
It's funny, because a big part of Eno's public persona has been about accident, randomness, indeterminacy and intuition, but if you actually look closely at his best work, it's very melodic, carefully thought-out and elegantly crafted. I think Eno likes to add a touch of misdirection in how he's perceived, at least in that aspect.
posted by ovvl at 6:52 AM on February 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
Monkey Toes' comment above, with the Tom Waits story about Jimmy Witherspoon, reminds me of one of the most compelling live music experiences I have ever had. I may have told this story on MeFi before, if so forgive me, it's so good.
So I was at the old Antone's on Guadalupe in Austin in 1990 or so for a show by Snooks Eaglin (know jealousy, blues fans who never got a chance to hear Snooks live!). Austin's blues royalty were all there, including Jimmy Vaughan, many on stage with Snooks jamming out. It was glorious. If you don't know Snooks, he was an incredible showman and guitarist with a distinctive and driving right hand technique, a guitar player's guitar player. He was elderly, and of course blind, so he was sitting in the middle of the stage on a chair surrounded by the band and sit-ins, and it was fairly late in the show. They were just burning the place down. They launched into Johnny B. Goode and the sound system (which sucked in the old Antone's) gave up and a breaker blew somewhere and the whole club was plunged into darkness, while the band's amps and PA all went dead. Everyone stopped playing except Snooks, who seemed to have no idea anything had changed. He was hitting his old stratocaster hard enough and singing his ass off enough that you could still hear him, and the crowd went completely silent and strained to listen, and just let him finish the song in the pitch dark with no amplification and all the musicians just worshipfully standing where they were (they probably were afraid to move anyway, it was a crowded stage and you couldn't see anything).
The power came on right as he finished, like literally on the last chord, and the place went hog freaking wild. I think we would have carried him out on a throne and marched down to 6th street had it been feasible to do so, because it was absolutely the most rock and roll moment of performance as sublime, ecstatic power I, at least, have ever witnessed.
posted by spitbull at 8:44 AM on February 26, 2015 [8 favorites]
So I was at the old Antone's on Guadalupe in Austin in 1990 or so for a show by Snooks Eaglin (know jealousy, blues fans who never got a chance to hear Snooks live!). Austin's blues royalty were all there, including Jimmy Vaughan, many on stage with Snooks jamming out. It was glorious. If you don't know Snooks, he was an incredible showman and guitarist with a distinctive and driving right hand technique, a guitar player's guitar player. He was elderly, and of course blind, so he was sitting in the middle of the stage on a chair surrounded by the band and sit-ins, and it was fairly late in the show. They were just burning the place down. They launched into Johnny B. Goode and the sound system (which sucked in the old Antone's) gave up and a breaker blew somewhere and the whole club was plunged into darkness, while the band's amps and PA all went dead. Everyone stopped playing except Snooks, who seemed to have no idea anything had changed. He was hitting his old stratocaster hard enough and singing his ass off enough that you could still hear him, and the crowd went completely silent and strained to listen, and just let him finish the song in the pitch dark with no amplification and all the musicians just worshipfully standing where they were (they probably were afraid to move anyway, it was a crowded stage and you couldn't see anything).
The power came on right as he finished, like literally on the last chord, and the place went hog freaking wild. I think we would have carried him out on a throne and marched down to 6th street had it been feasible to do so, because it was absolutely the most rock and roll moment of performance as sublime, ecstatic power I, at least, have ever witnessed.
posted by spitbull at 8:44 AM on February 26, 2015 [8 favorites]
Here by the way are Snooks Eaglin and George Porter Jr. doing Red Beans.
posted by spitbull at 8:51 AM on February 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by spitbull at 8:51 AM on February 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Use the tools judiciously if you're a live ensemble player, & go to town if you're a digital artist building tracks in the box. It's just tools.
Exactly.
Johnny Marr's take on digital pedals.
posted by juiceCake at 11:10 AM on February 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Exactly.
Johnny Marr's take on digital pedals.
posted by juiceCake at 11:10 AM on February 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Spitbull, I'm officially jealous. Mr. Eaglin could do it all.
posted by issue #1 at 4:32 PM on February 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by issue #1 at 4:32 PM on February 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
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