You can be the "devil's advocate" with anything, wth i even do this to myself too. But why bring artistic value versus technical prowess mate. This is not what i did or implied.
I'm adamant that any recording is about the content and not the medium. It all boils down to how good the given artistic material is and not the technology behind it. Just like you mentioned Dylan, i can name hundreds of records with bad recording and/or practically non existing production that contain timeless songs which will always be sung and studied for generations to come. With that said, with each era there come adjustments to the way we make music, especially on a professional level. It has to be mentioned that while music is what counts, musicians and engineers themselves had to adjust their craft and art to what the current technology allowed them to do. To come to your quote, we can only speculate and do educated guesses, what Sgt.Peppers would be if they had 48 tracks avail instead of the two Studer J37 4 tracks which for the time is where the end of the top was. Kinda pointless really.
So no, i am not implying that it would be better, as a piece of art. For all i know, if Dylan sat on that for 18 years till 84, it would probably be worse hehe.
Just to be clear, i referred to the '84 Studer as it is the pinnacle of analog multi-track recording, the last state of art machine built to excellence, to stand the test of time. And because it just sounds better than any multi-track out there, it gets my one and single vote as the best recording medium ever which can also serve to "de-contaminate the waters" of analog vs digital and whatnot. I don't particularly like elegant manoeuvres like the dudes in YT as mentioned. Like, analog is better because the procedure we used to undertake and hours spent and blah. Errr nope. Studer is better than digital because at the end of the day it sounds phenomenally superior. Has happened some years back, engineer with virgin to the "Studer and high end analog sound generally" ears, trained with and used to just digital ws, had his jaw dropped for 6 consecutive hours when we recorded a band's album in Studer 24tr. Console was a late 70s, series 80 Trident. It always gets me giggling -especially if i smoked a blunt or two earlier on- the culture shock i know beforehand that some of these guys will have. And when they do and i get bombarded with all sorts of questions i can't help but rofl all the time.
Cheers
EDIT: I do have an affliction for albums released in '66, as it is the year i was born and for some weird vanity reason they appeal to me more than '65 or '67 releases haha. Speaking about Blonde on Blonde, i cannot help but emphasize the particular record as all records of the era was primarily mixed in mono. Stereo was brand new and engineers only did it (that is when they did it) to please the labels wanting the latest and greatest, but it had very little appeal as the media worldwide in people's homes was mainly monophonic.

 

Last edited: Jan 3, 2025 at 10:42 PM

We see this Digital Trash Problem in my profession too. Because of this I'm usually forced to restart three times, then the fourth attempt is generally where I achieve a satisfying result. Working at my natural skill limit most of the time - often hitting Dunning-Kruger as my hard barrier -, so I learned to soberly admit defeat and strive to create a final result that is merely one notch above mediocre. Then at least I can say I fought with all my strength and avoided publishing bad art.

 

See that's the part that keeps going right over all the 'youngsters' heads.

The studio didn't come up with that song that still rocks today, they just recorded it. The band is the one that practiced their shit and wrote and played that song. The 'studio' just sat there and hit record. That song would've been a hit had it been recorded at the Record Plant, Ocean Way, rented out Headley Grange, hell even if it was done in Abba's studio over in Sweden.

If the band/performer is worth a shit, the engineers job is dead easy. Just point the right microphones in the right directions and hit record. If the band sucks, no amount of 'studio wizardry' will save that. You can't polish a turd.

 

Look Around You was fantastic.

Here's a demonstration of the rare and highly sought after Harrington 1200 Song Writing Computer, which accurately foreshadowed our current all-pervading fears and concerns surrounding AI. Although even with today's massive processing power, AI programs like Suno have difficulty coming up with anything remotely close to the startling realism of the Harrington's "Little Mouse".

Write that down.

 

I find nothing offensive in there whatsoever. I think that may be like a few others here, because we seem to be in a similar age bracket.
The world wasn't as glorious as everyone makes out back then either sometimes. The troubles and issues then may have been alleviated this century but I also agree that they lost something in the process and created issues that did not exist then.

As for some from the 80s spinning BS, I do not disagree but that goes for any age. These days finding the truth can be more difficult than it ever was because too often, nobody can trust what they read, see or hear without doing masses of research. Back then I can say that a lot of music was what you see is what you get and yes, there was some real crap then as sure as there is today. The difference is we now have access to every country in the world's music online where we did not then. Maybe there was as much garbage then? Internet brought the world to your living room so it might be impossible to say either way?

I loved the Studer, Otari and Ampex machines...nearly every studio you went to also primarily used Ampex tapes as well and a large proportion all had a Neve desk of some model as well.

Thanks for your candor

 

I also come from the analogue days, but it isn't the technology that I miss so much as the interaction with other musicians (and an audience when playing live). I think the communication element is absent in modern production, it has nothing to do with the analogue vs digital. The Beatles would have loved the digital world and probably have been even better for having access to everything we have now. Their music was all about interaction, with themselves and with the listener. Whether or not an artiste can perform the same way using a DAW vs an old style studio depends on the musician, not the equipment. In regard to the actual sound, it's almost at a point where nobody can tell if it's analogue or digital, a case of rose-tinted ears.

 

The amount of popular music was much smaller in the 80s than it is today. You had to have learned an instrument or play in a band and then be pretty good to get support or a contract from a record company.

There were also some studio musicians back then who got 4000 DM (2000 EURO today) per recording day or LP.
With pop music you often only saw the singer on TV, the music came from a tape.

There was no such thing as concert recordings back then, you went to the concert and if you had some money left over you bought a record at the stand there, later CDs or a T-shirt.

Many bands that played in our small town and the surrounding area were school bands or other bands without a record deal.
The music came from the radio and YouTube had not yet been invented.

You could record music on the radio or you knew a friend who recorded his record on a tape deck. Money was tight and people invested very carefully in long-playing records, and there wasn't much choice back then.

When you bought a record, you sat at home in your favorite armchair with the cover and listened to the record, looking at the cover or out the window from time to time. You consciously listened only to the music.

 

That's plain factually incorrect. There were literally thousands of live albums released commercially from the 50s to the end of the 80s.

Google it.

 

That is an unproven assertion for now. And it is not a question of Google (counting) but it's a question of statistics.
So, when you know where there is a statistics about it (number of pop music live recordings 1950ies to 1980ies by year), let's see it.
Then you may prove Radios post factual wrong.
Or not.
Otherwise it's just unproven personal feelings as well.

 

Last edited: Jan 4, 2025 at 4:36 PM

Just a few live recordings off the top of my pointy little head

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1960s_live_albums
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1970s_live_albums
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1980s_live_albums

Probably close to 3000 there. Demonstrably disproving "no such thing as concert recordings".


https://www.spin.com/2021/07/best-live-albums-1970s/

"The concert industry exploded in the 1970s, and the live album, a stopgap project once reserved for only the biggest artists, became a compulsory ritual and a pivotal moment for many artists."

 

Even though it wasn't nearly as easy to do as it is now, there were also lots of live bootlegs from the 70s. And I had recordings of concerts by bands like Genesis and Kansas because they were simulcast on FM radio. The BBC and several American stations regularly featured bands performing live on the radio and those were recorded as well.

 

Seems like one of the most important early breakthrough live albums would have been Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison

 

That's right, but I think you and FrankPig misunderstood radio.
That was more of a personal experience, locally.
If you went to a concert somewhere in Germany back then, there was merely no professional recording. You could buy the studio album and that was it.
And in pop music there was practically only full playback.
(btw in Classical music there were plenty)

As in the US and England, it was not the same all over the world. If you compare the number of live concerts and the number of prof. recordings released worldwide, it will look completely different back in the 80ies and today.
Statistics is always a question of the POV

OK.
And today? The last two decades for instance?

 

Last edited: Jan 4, 2025 at 4:22 PM

He wasn't talking about "pop" acts' live albums, he was talking about popular music.

But pop acts? Off the top of my head: Bee Gees, Diana Ross, Barry Manilow, Abba, Jackson 5, Johhny Mathis, The Monkees, Olivia Newton John, Duran Duran all released live albums in the 70s and 80s. (The Monkees might have been 60s)

 

Can Live in Stuttgart 1975
Can - Live In Cuxhaven 1976
pink floyd live wembley 1974
.....

nena first 95

 

Same for me, where I lived. Little to no live music, and ZERO "name" acts, be it pop or rock.

But I'm not going to make a blanket statement like "there was no such thing as concert recordings", just because little me didn't get to experience it locally, "back then". That's the equivalent of rewriting history by viewing the past through turd-tinted glasses.

 

in that age you allegedly were in that time you def didnt sit in a armchair cause you were listining in your room and not in the living room of your parents....
further we all get were you comin from but your storytelling is like from a 4o old living in that time besides the dozens of untrue stuff you spread here again mr foster ....

 

Oh, growing up I absolutely listened in the living room in an armchair. I actually got my own stereo system in my room at a pretty early age, around 11 years old but I was the only kid I knew whose parents were willing to drop that kind of change on a HiFi system for their kid. All my friends listened to their albums in the living room because pretty much all they would have in their bedroom is a little Mickey Mouse thing that played 45s.