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Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

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Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#41

Post by bborud »

quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

While a DAW can do everything this console does (and a lot more) and you could model the signal distortion / treatment characteristics accurately so as to recreate the sound, the way you interact with it would be completely different. Which affects almost every aspect in how you use it.

Besides, this thing was used with tapes. Editing when you use tape is an entirely different thing than doing it digitally. It involves cutting, taping, scraping and edits are destructive. Not to mention that you didn't have unlimited tracks on a tape.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#42

Post by JohnBooty »

xxdarrenxx wrote: post #28
JohnBooty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no doubt that the data and measurements would tell us that this analog gear is objectively less accurate than a laptop's worth of high-quality digital gear. What gets overlooked, though, is that analog gear often sounds more pleasing because some kinds of distortion sound subjectively "good" to our ears. The easiest example is electric guitars. They are full of (intentionally introduced) distortion and (when…

I agree. Even top producers plug their ableton track into a nice console after it's done, and directly feed it back again in the laptop, purely for the on-board eq/compression or subjective type off distortion that gets added. One can argue offcourse if it's over the top, but let's be honest, most producers only use 5% off any vst in their lifetime and some don't even venture away from stock presets. For most produce…

Haha, I did not know that!

I think engineer-types like us (meaning all of Hacker News) have a completely understandable knee-jerk reaction against anything "audiophile" that involves anything less than cold, hard numbers.

And actually, most of the time, that knee-jerk reaction is correct. Snake-oil audio cables, "high-def audio" for end users, etc etc etc... there is so much that should be repeatedly and forcefully rejected.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#43

Post by SwellJoe »

1_2__3 wrote: post #27
SwellJoe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe it's any of those things. Though, certainly the ergonomics of a traditional studio, and the equipment therein, works best for engineers who learned in those environments and using those tools. Those engineers happen to be the most experienced engineers working, so they are probably, on average, better than most younger engineers with much less experience. However , the reason some of the classic recor…

Not to be glib, but why not both? Are you a recording engineer and capable of speaking to the points he makes, or is your entire counter-argument "I don't believe that"?

"Are you a recording engineer and capable of speaking to the points he makes"

Well, yeah. I went to college for audio recording, and worked professionally in the field, in television and in recording studios, for several years. It's been a hobby of mine for most of my life, and I've always had a pretty competent home studio and I pay attention to the industry even today.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#44

Post by soylentcola »

cannam wrote: post #39
quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

I wonder how many individuals there are in the world who have sufficient space for this, something to use it for, and the ability to maintain it? A bit like musing about the potential global demand for high-end yachts. It's not on anything like this scale, but I recently acquired (sort of by accident) a Revox A700 reel-to-reel tape deck from the mid-1970s. Even though it works, it could be the most useless object I'v…

> I wonder how many individuals there are in the world who have sufficient space for this, something to use it for, and the ability to maintain it? A bit like musing about the potential global demand for high-end yachts.

I can see someone like Wayne Coyne buying it and getting plenty of use out of it, but I'm not sure if he's got quite "fuck you money" enough to pay the inevitable selling price.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#45

Post by [deleted] »

quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

[deleted]

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#46

Post by SwellJoe »

elmar wrote: post #36
SwellJoe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe it's any of those things. Though, certainly the ergonomics of a traditional studio, and the equipment therein, works best for engineers who learned in those environments and using those tools. Those engineers happen to be the most experienced engineers working, so they are probably, on average, better than most younger engineers with much less experience. However , the reason some of the classic recor…

A great studio or alternatively a great bathroom :) Jim Morrison’s Bathroom Vocals On “LA Woman” At The Doors Workshop http://www.feelnumb.com/2009/07/03/jim-morrisons-bathroom-vo...

While I like DIY stories a lot, I will mention that LA Woman has never once been mentioned as a recording of comparable quality to Dark Side of the Moon.

There have been some great records made in weird places, including some of my favorites. The Band recorded Songs From Big Pink in a big old pink house in Woodstock, NY. Springsteen's Nebraska was a super cheap home recording; effectively a demo. The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street was recorded in a mansion in France. Radiohead recorded OK Computer in an old house (and that's a great sounding record, though not as good as The Bends that preceded it).

Many of my very favorite records are 80s punk rock records, and nearly all were recorded in extremely suboptimal conditions (nearly all engineered by a guy named "Spot").

All that said, it's clear when a recording is of the caliber of Dark Side of the Moon and it's extremely rare. It doesn't mean we can't love less amazing recordings. Just that there is an artistry and science to audio recording, on top of the artistry of the music being recorded. And, it's usually a major undertaking to achieve something like DSOTM. The pantheon of god tier records, where literally everything came together in a near-perfect work, is pretty small. I'd probably include some of the following (for reference): Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, The Beatles' Abbey Road, Peter Gabriel's So, Bjork Post, Michael Jackson's Thriller, The Flaming Lips' The Soft Bulletin, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, Steely Dan's Aja, Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. There's more, of course, and it's debatable what qualifies...the more live instruments and musicians on the record, the harder it is to make it perfect, but all of those are worth a listen for their production qualities alone, IMHO.

Most impressive may be artists that make amazing sounding records with very limited resources. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago is perhaps the archetypal example of this. Recorded in a cabin by one dude with very limited equipment, but it sounds incredible and holds up very well to repeated listens.

I could ramble for days about production quality and my favorite records...

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#47

Post by sjwright »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #38
riprowan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all of those phenomena can be perfectly modelled in the box Nope. How you gonna model the interaction between a microphone and the preamp load it's driving, and the compressor that's driving, and the EQ it's driving, and the nonlinear summing bus that's feeding, when all of these are interacting in a live signal chain, and all entering various forms of nonlinear behavior based on the age of components, their tolera…

This is all true, but there's a point beyond which it stops being musically/artistically relevant. I've probably been doing this stuff as long as you have, and I'm not actually sure where that point is any more. I actually hate the sound of most of the Beatles albums. I think they sound crap by modern standards - tinny, rattly, clogged-up, mid-heavy mixes with no deep bass. Put them up against a modern trance single…

> I actually hate the sound of most of the Beatles albums.

I agree, and I found the 2009 re-releases to be incredibly disappointing given that they didn't even do the most basic repair work on the most obvious glitches and errors. They were marketed as some major improvement, but in reality were a new remastering only. Removing half of a dog turd from my cup of coffee doesn't improve the coffee.

What did you think of the 2015 stereo mixes? (Only on the 2015 re-re-release of "1", unfortunately. If they released a complete box set of new mixes redone in the same fashion, I'd be first in line. And I'm not even a big Beatles fan.)

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#48

Post by Sanddancer »

cannam wrote: post #39
quakeguy wrote: post #5

All the console does can be done with a laptop nowadays, the nostalgic value is of course a big point in purchasing it. Still, who would aquire this monster, if not a museum? I can't see any modern recordings done with it, but solely for the goal of achieving said nostalgia. "It belongs in a museum".

I wonder how many individuals there are in the world who have sufficient space for this, something to use it for, and the ability to maintain it? A bit like musing about the potential global demand for high-end yachts. It's not on anything like this scale, but I recently acquired (sort of by accident) a Revox A700 reel-to-reel tape deck from the mid-1970s. Even though it works, it could be the most useless object I'v…

If you're looking to creates something that sounds like it came from the mid-70s, you can either try to fiddle with a bunch of different settings in your DAW of choice to simulate the distortion that a reel to reel provides, or you get a reel to reel from the 70s and not have to worry about if it sounds right for the era/emotions you're trying to catch.

A console like this? It's probably going to end up as the centerpiece of someone's collection, much like Nathan Myhrvold's Difference Engine. It'll be well loved, admired, but rarely if ever actually used. I'd love to be proven wrong though, and have it end up being used as a console for a boutique studio for its unique sound. There's a ton of studio equipment that's kept around "just in case" because sometimes what you're working on calls for something out of the ordinary.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#49

Post by barryp »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #20
danjambur wrote: post #16

Fun fact, my dad installed this.

Nice. My old boss Mike Grimwood worked for Neve in the 60's and 70's and told us loads of tales about making bespoke desks for the likes of Led Zeppelin etc. Would have loved to have been around then, but I suppose they say the same about the digital era.

I really enjoyed Dave Grohl's documentary "Sound City", a large part of which revolves around his purchase of a Neve console, and bringing together many famous artists who recorded iconic albums on that very console, to relate their stories of recording at Sound City, and record new tracks with Dave and the rest of the Foo Fighters.

Dave's enthusiasm for the Neve and analog recording in general really opened my eyes.

Re: Auctioneer to sell off Pink Floyd recording console

#50

Post by veli_joza »

riprowan wrote: post #22
veli_joza wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can be done with a laptop, but this huge console features fast user interface with great feature discoverability and is arguably much better tool for creating music. If you connected some MIDI controllers to your laptop and spent few days mapping controls to knobs, you'd get a technically better system. Still, if some musicians prefer analog/vintage technology, why is it so important to prove them wrong?

> technically better system Define "better". "If it sounds good, it is good." - Joe Meek

Better in technical terms; better SNR, non-destructive editing, enables remote collaboration, more versatile and flexible.
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