pink floyd

i was looking for something to listen to on the commute home tonight and i picked up a pink floyd compilation cd. (by the way, if you have lost a cd anytime, anywhere in the last ten years, odds are it’s in the office at minna). besides making for a real stony train ride home, it reminded me of why i got excited about music production and engineering originally. the true brilliance is in the drums. the miking, mixing, and tuning of the kit, as well as the powerful and carefully controlled playing of nick mason, combined with an editors discipline in the layering of synthesizers, guitars, bass, and other atmospheric noises, are things that i aspire to when i record. it is so easy to lose control of a recording, become attached to parts that don’t need to be there, drag things down in the mix rather than muting them outright. and of course the egos of those who played the parts are always an issue. “i can’t hear me” etc. etc.
yep. i’m feeling a little itch to record more frequently. big dave and maz and i have been talking about recording bands on monday nights at minna. the 48 channel console is there. i don’t think i want to record to tape though, even digital tape. the process of importing the tape to harddrive gets to be such a fucking chore that it could take the fun out of it. maybe a motu card and a couple of fast drives. have to build some new cables though.
i’ve been surfing around and listening to bands that are performing locally, and listening to bands that are playing at minna, and getting more excited by what i hear. which is good, because i am a pretty harsh critic. ok, well, i am thinking about it and talking about it, and now i am posting about it, which makes it even more a declaration of intent.

UPDATE: i have been working on some stuff in garage band for a while now. and i realized there is one part of the physics/art challenge of sound engineering that i don’t miss: miking a guitar amp. the pod is so much tastier in terms of flexibility. i mean, i have my dream amp, the hiwatt 100. eight fucking tubes. sounds like a fender twin, but twice as loud, and built like a tank, soldered to british military standards. the amplifier of pete townshend. but getting a perfect recording tone out of any amp is an exercise for someone with a large amount of patience and a large bag of weed. the pod is easy, tastier, and NO GROUND LIFT REQUIRED. (also, to get a perfect tone out of the hiwatt usually requires a sound pressure level slightly louder than the space shuttle lifting off).