PROGRESS

Back in the old days, you made some sound near a microphone, the microphone converted it to electricty, you used this electricity to modify something (like the magnetic particles on a piece of tape), then you reversed the process, substituting a speaker for the mic and putting an amp in line. What you heard was (sort of) what you put it, minus any degradation from the system itself.

If you wanted your cymbals quieter, you didn't hit them as hard. If you wanted your voice to sound in tune, you sang in tune. It was kind of like taking a picture.... if you thought you looked too fat in that photo, you lost some weight and took it again.

To be a musician required knowing your instrument, being able to play a song all the way through, doing the chorus more than once (gasp!). Tuning was important (out of tune? Do it again, learn to tune, or take up a different hobby.) Someone screwed up? Do it again (or live with it).

A lot of great recordings were made. A lot of bands developed, learned how to play, busted their asses, listened to the sounds they were making, adjusted, and did it again, and again. These people were professionals, even if some of them never made any money.

Things changed, slowly. Cutting tape, multitrack, mixers with more channels, effects... all headed toward the big shakeup, digital recording. Suddenly, we weren't modifying magnetic particles on a piece of tape in a way analogous to the sound we were making, we were modifying magnetic particles to create a representation of the sound, something that could be copied, moved, deleted, auto-tuned...

The "musicians" started getting lazy. Why play the song all the way through if we can copy the chorus? Why get the sound right when we can modify it later? Why put everything into the moment when there's another moment just an "undo" away?

Yes, the engineers, producers, equipment manufacturers, share at least some of the blame. But when "artists" just want to get it done, but don't have the talent (or work ethic) to do it right, what should an engineer or producer do? Not use the technology because it's not pure? Tell the artist to tune for the 100th time? If they don't care, why should we?

Well, we want it to sound good. So inevitably we end up fixing shit that the musicians don't even hear, on our own time (read: no charge). We work hard trying to make two half moments sound like one whole moment. Listeners don't say "that bass is 50 cents flat, it's fucking up the whole thing." They say "hmmm, that doesn't sound like something I really want to hear. I don't know why, but I'd rather pay $15 for a Pink Floyd CD than anything for this." So we tweak and tweak, just trying to tidy up what should be right in the first place.

Then someone says "Can you turn that cymbal down," and I reach for another beer.