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The Recording Industry


Diego Sanchez

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So true- the popular music recording industry is 95% bullshit...even the most seasoned "audiophiles" - classical, jazz, whatever- still leave me scratching my head... Why do you need a $25K home playback system to listen to a recording that was produced the way all entertainment is made- within budget, as fast as possible, with whatever available tools... no magic wands or golden ears.

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So true- the popular music recording industry is 95% bullshit...even the most seasoned "audiophiles" - classical, jazz, whatever- still leave me scratching my head... Why do you need a $25K home playback system to listen to a recording that was produced the way all entertainment is made- within budget, as fast as possible, with whatever available tools... no magic wands or golden ears.

Don't forget beats headphones you need quality headphones.............

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Oh, that is so true. Thanks for sharing that, Diego.

We have the same problem in the picture post business: they spent literally millions of dollars tweaking color images just right, plus hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) on equipment, projectors, monitors, and all that... and it boils down to some guy watching the movie via streaming on his iPhone.

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The thing is, that the consumer who listens on earbuds doesn't really care about the quality of the music so much, from a fidelity / audiophile standpoint, so they are not going to be critical one way or the other about how you do your job - strictly from a technical standpoint. The audiophile (not immune to snake oil and marketing B.S. - just like any other consumer in any other industry, really) is a small subset of your audience and it is for them, primarily, and for my peers and clients, that I mix for. Sure, there is a pair of Yamaha NS-10's sitting on the meter bridge of our SSL, the old standard - for doing a confidence check of the mix, but I never really bought that argument. You simply don't make active mixing decisions for a lower form of playback. Mixes don't "translate" differently for lo-fi playback systems - those systems simply don't reveal full range fidelity - where higher end systems do. Mix for the high end system, I'm not concerned about how it plays back on a low-fi system. If it sounds good on hi-fi, it certainly will sound the best it can on a lo-fi system and there is nothing I can do to make it sound better, without over-accentuating something that really shouldn't be over-accentuated. The lo-fi owner isn't going to care anyways, where the true audiophile will.

I don't edit picture, but if I did, I'd likely hold the parallel opinion for that trade too. I've spent some time in my past aligning CRT front projection screens, staring at PLUGE, Snell & Wilcox test patterns, and doing color calibrations for screening systems, and it is for the 1% o the discerning clientele that this is done, even if the other 99% of the viewers would barely notice if you mixed up the component video colorspace cables.

By the way, the recording signal chain is very very close to our chain at the studio, except our highest end mic is a U67, rather the the M147 I presume is illustrated and we don't have a Fairchild, but use standard LA style opto compressors.

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... you finally decided to go for a CMIT 5U instead of a Sennheiser MKH60 cause you like the way it sounds in your headphones.

Then the rushes go into post. They edit video, and at the end depending on time left, they make ''corrections'' to audio. They compress "so everything sounds good".

Then the producer sends the master to the broadcaster, who compresses it before airing.

Uncle Bob and aunt Georgia then listen to it on their tv that stands right in the corner of the lounge (so it doesn't take all the space) via those nice little speakers located behind the screen (no problem, those gyproc walls will wonderfully reflect it back up front).

Bottom line, you do YOURSELF a favor by choosing this or that boom mic, this or that mixer, these or thoses lavs... :D

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... you finally decided to go for a CMIT 5U instead of a Sennheiser MKH60 cause you like the way it sounds in your headphones.

Then the rushes go into post. They edit video, and at the end depending on time left, they make ''corrections'' to audio. They compress "so everything sounds good".

Then the producer sends the master to the broadcaster, who compresses it before airing.

Uncle Bob and aunt Georgia then listen to it on their tv that stands right in the corner of the lounge (so it doesn't take all the space) via those nice little speakers located behind the screen (no problem, those gyproc walls will wonderfully reflect it back up front).

Bottom line, you do YOURSELF a favor by choosing this or that boom mic, this or that mixer, these or thoses lavs... :D

So, with that logic we should all just use crap because everybody else is just going to turn our sound into crap anyway?

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So, with that logic we should all just use crap because everybody else is just going to turn our sound into crap anyway?

Absolutely not. You use the very best tools you can to record, monitor & mix the pieces/parts. It's called pride in your performance and professional ethics. Besides when you play it all back on great monitor system you can feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, get goose bumps on your arms and there's nothing like it.

Eric

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Hum, that was a joke, since it all started with a joke in the OP...

Otherwise I would have included some Azden stuff in my example.

It's those nuances between pro gear that lead our choices I was talking about. So many posts asking for mic comparisons here is an example, always with the ''bottom line: choice is yours'' ending.

And notice the smilie at the end folks, and sorry if that seemed to be pure cynicism.

Ooo la laahh...

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