I get it, and totally agree. The coolest live performance ever was the first minute of Holly Cole at the Showbox. Its a very small venue and she started off with I Am Calling You. Just Holly Cole. No mic. No amp. Just her voice. Now even in that small venue it would be too taxing on her to keep that up for a whole show. But oh my God was it freaking awesome! Friends we were with told me they never heard anything like it, their skin was tingling. Mine too. Tony Bennett did the same for one little bit of Tony Bennett Unplugged and you could tell by the audience reaction they went crazy.
I heard a real live symphony violinist play right in front of me in grade school. Spent 6 years playing live instruments in band. Knowing first hand what these things really sound like is a huge, huge advantage. I read somewhere that Tommy Dorsey (or maybe it was Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman) performed before more people live than anyone ever. Yet the thing of it is, they did this back when it wasn’t tens of thousands in a stadium a couple times a year, it was hundreds in a club night after night every night for 20 or 30 years. Not a one of those people heard anything but the live acoustic instruments. Kinda have to wonder if we would have so much crap SS and digital today if people listened to real live music now as much as they did back then.
None of which is to say the goal is to recreate that live experience. That is like Mike Lavigne said recently a fantasy. What live experience? Virtually every single recording today was done in a sound booth. Are producers and recording engineers trying to recreate the sound booth experience? No way. They are painting with sound the way Picasso did with oils.
There’s no such thing as the perfect speaker because there’s no such thing as the perfect anything. All we can do is try and create a gallery all the art will look good in. The Rembrandt, the Picasso, who knows maybe even the Warhol and the occasional (shudder) Jackson Pollock.
I heard a real live symphony violinist play right in front of me in grade school. Spent 6 years playing live instruments in band. Knowing first hand what these things really sound like is a huge, huge advantage. I read somewhere that Tommy Dorsey (or maybe it was Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman) performed before more people live than anyone ever. Yet the thing of it is, they did this back when it wasn’t tens of thousands in a stadium a couple times a year, it was hundreds in a club night after night every night for 20 or 30 years. Not a one of those people heard anything but the live acoustic instruments. Kinda have to wonder if we would have so much crap SS and digital today if people listened to real live music now as much as they did back then.
None of which is to say the goal is to recreate that live experience. That is like Mike Lavigne said recently a fantasy. What live experience? Virtually every single recording today was done in a sound booth. Are producers and recording engineers trying to recreate the sound booth experience? No way. They are painting with sound the way Picasso did with oils.
There’s no such thing as the perfect speaker because there’s no such thing as the perfect anything. All we can do is try and create a gallery all the art will look good in. The Rembrandt, the Picasso, who knows maybe even the Warhol and the occasional (shudder) Jackson Pollock.