The Deflavorizing Machine


All of that was running through my head as I made my way through the Audio Engineering Society's annual convention, held last October in New York City. Thousands of engineers and producers attended the show, and when I chatted with some of them one on one, I got the impression that they were committed to making great-sounding recordings. The disconnect between these engineers' intentions and the reality of today's soulless recordings baffled me.

At the "Platinum Producers" workshop, with panelists Steve Jordan (Keith Richards, The Verbs), David Kahne (Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney), and Gabe Roth (Daptone Records), I felt that my concerns were shared—especially when Roth said, "You used to have people together in a room playing a song; now they make records that try to sound like people together playing a song." Jordan chimed in: "I like to hear a performance on a track, and when you have that coupled with analog tape, the music can affect you physically, and you have something. With digital, there are a lot of elements involved, and when you're spending too much time 'perfecting' the music, you're probably going to lose the feel. Human beings' heart rates aren't steady, they go up and down, but that's exactly what's being extracted from a lot of today's music." The deflavorizing machines have taken over.

Of the three panelists, Gabe Roth was the most gung-ho analog guy, but not just because he's in love with the sound of analog. He started out with a four-track recorder, and moved up to eight-track and then 16-track machines. But the 16-track didn't stick around too long—it had too many tracks. Eight was all Roth needed, which means he frequently records more than one instrument on a track: "So if the tambourine isn't loud enough, you ask the player to step a little closer to the mike." The limitations of eight-track recording are very real; if a musician wants to try playing his part again, Roth might have to "lose" the previous take by recording over it. Daptone artists know the drill, but Roth will inform musicians unfamiliar with his working methods that he won't be using Pro Tools to assemble a perfect "performance." Roth's approach puts the players in a different mindset in which it's all about laying down an actual performance. He could use the same working methods with digital recorders to achieve the same end. It's all about how and what the musicians play—not the technology—that makes memorable music.


Perfecting a session's sound isn't a high priority for Roth, who's been known to use RadioShack microphones—for him, the sound mostly comes from the way the musicians play. For example, Roth was lucky enough to work with legendary session drummer Bernard Purdie a few years ago: "His sound is his sound, and you'll never get anything as good as that with the world's best mikes and a lesser drummer." Roth sees the engineer's job as not creating the sound but capturing it.

Steve Jordan agreed. "When you hear people playing together you know it, but that's not happening much anymore." Right, Steve. Maybe that, more than analog or digital or compression, is the prime difference between the sound of classic rock and today's music: People aren't playing together in a room. Jordan: "They were bands, they banded together to get out of where they were. The studio gave them maybe three hours to knock out a tune, and when you can hear that angst, that desperation, you get performances."

Jordan acknowledged that digital recording has its advantages, and he feels its dynamics are more true to life than anything analog can offer. Recording with unlimited tracks on a computer only postpones mixing decisions you'll have to make sooner or later. Roth thinks it's better to work out the musical arrangements in advance; that can take a lot of time, but when it's done, the recording can just flow. And if the flute is a little too loud in the bridge, "Who cares? This isn't brain surgery! There's nothing about perfectly engineered records that makes music great. Most of the best music has mistakes in it." Amen.

One thing's for sure: The aesthetic of recorded sound changes from decade to decade, and today's music is prepared for people who listen to music only in their cars, and/or via computers or iPods. I'm guessing Booker T.'s The Road from Memphis probably sounds fine in a Lexus—but it's unbearably harsh through my Magnepan 3.7s.

When he isn't to be found hanging out on Facebook, Steve Guttenberg contributes The Audiophiliac blog to CNet.

Footnote 1: See reviewer and record producer Erick Lichte's "Inhumanly Perfect Performances," published in April 2008, and John Atkinson's thoughts on this issue.—Ed.
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deckeda's picture

Such an incredible topic. Thanks, Steve.

Seems musicians and performers are portrayed here as guiding the recording session, to their peril. (Or ours.)

I would have presumed this unfortunate phenomenon would instead be due to producers who either don't know any better, or who have other goals.

The magic question is, would a veteran like Booker know what's going on, or would he not care?

To the extent that recording engineers dictate how sessions go, how prevelent is that, really? At what point does a musician say, "who the f*ck are you to tell me to stand over here or do another take with these other people? You got my track, I'm outta here." etc.

andrewm's picture

I recorded with a band in the early 80's in New Zealand in a 24-track (analog) studio with an American-trained producer. Our recordings were pieced together from multiple takes, recorded by solo musicians alone in a studio, down to fractions of a note. I hated it. It was harder then (you needed very nimble fingers and great anticipation on the board) but the same kind of alienating recording method was there, and had been since the early 70s. Digital makes it a whole lot easier, that is all.

Auto-tune is a different issue. I watch Glee, and the people I watch with got very annoyed every time I shouted "autotune." But after a while, they could all do it. There is just that processed sound. (Also - personal peave - they process all the dynamics out of the vocals.)

Tools are just tools, and great art can be produced in many different ways. It's when a set of tools calcifies into a genre or sound, and becomes a crutch, that it gets bad and the mediocrity flows. But people will get bored and move on. It kinda has to happen.

Doctor Fine's picture

1971 was the last year I took seriously for "performed" pop music.  By then the plastic aspects of the business were taking over and all the fun was leaving the room.

Classical on the other hand is a compositional form of music.  It is not tied directly to just one performance by one artist but was "written" music designed to be performed by "new guys."  And so it can be re-invented as performance over and over.

Which is why Classical is all ways an option for me.  It can be performed differently in the hands of each new attempt.  And so it is fresh and the value of the performance is a lot like "jazz."

I forget which old black artist explained what Jazz is.  "I plays the melody once and then the next verse I plays "the performance." 

Yeah man.  And so does Classical. If you get my drift.

For what its worth...  I hear your pain.

thom_osburn's picture

I often tell customers in my record store that IMHO multitrack recording and the flexibility to overdub destroyed pop/rock music.  Your article here parallels my findings!

acuvox's picture

Steve, I have never agreed with you MORE!  Music comes from fingers and lips, you can't find it in a machine or enhance it by pushing buttons.  Even from an ergonomic perspective, players can't get the same feel because great music is a conversation - and overdubbing is one way.

Back in 1978 I built a mobile studio because I hated overdubs and splices.  I grew up on Motown and Stax where the same band plaled together in the same room every day.  I think it was Jim Dickinson who said "A pop band tries to make the stage show sound like the record, but a REAL band tries to make the record sound like the live show."  My favorite albums where always live, whether clean like the Allmans' "Live at the Fillmore East" and J. Geils' "Full House" or dirty like The Who "Live at Leeds" and Cheap Trick's "Live at Budokan".

Today I record classical chamber music out of a backpack - a single pair into a DSD HDR.  I love DSD because you can't splice, mix, overdub, compress, EQ, add echo, etc.  I refuse multi-miking, headphones and isolation too.  AND, it's the closest thing to analog.  

mkrzych's picture


I've been able to find last time many fine performances where music was nice, but recording screwed up everything. As you said, probalby it sounds cool in the car, but over the decent HiFi system is usually unlistenable! No space and air between instruments, clippings and condensed soundstange. Aweful! It's really sad, that the players allow mastering engineers and marketing people to steal the soul from their recordings.

It is also annoying for me, because music is nice, but I cannot listen it with pleasure on my system. This is true for most of the POP/ROCK recordings and even some new jazz ones as well.

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