Genuinely one of the most important films I have ever seen. Beautifully shot and about a subject matter I care deeply about. Julie talks such sense and is so knowledgeable, I could listen to her for hours. Bravo Myles, bravo, this film has been utterly transformative for me, thank you.
These comments are lovely! This genuinely brought tears to my eyes. Sums up so many thoughts and feelings I’ve had but haven’t been able to articulate to this degree. I am going to share this with others so they can also be blessed by its wisdom. Thank you!
What a gorgeous film. Stumbled across it tonight and it has made my weekend. A beautiful examination of creativity and the senses. Wonderful, thank you Myles.
This is the art of NOT cutting and scooping out mid range frequencies in tracks so as to make them sound hifi and modern. We need those frequencies, but we need them to be musical and analog has that for DAYS. You don't cut them, if you can the best way to do it is to figure out a way to pick up those frequencies in a pleasing way so things sound great with them in the mix. Al Smidt talked about this and how he didn't usually use EQ with his mixes...just microphones and placement. I was stunned when I first used an analog EQ and I could boost 2k for days without ever feeling like it was wrong or harsh... it was just musical...and strong pleasing tone. There really is an art to music and sculpting tone...we've just been part of a generation that's been giving digital chill and grit and expected to hear that as music...when if you listen to the best analog records of the late 70's and 80's were WORLDS better sonically. 3D ..open...dynamic...musical. Not anymore. Imagine the bodyguard soundtrack being made today. So sad. I've heard it said that F is a twangy note...it always has been always will be. That's it's color/timbre. It's getting the F to sound musical that takes work sometimes, but the right EQ or compressor....microphone etc...has a way of changing the character of notes so they're pleasing all of the time. It's an art...use all of the colors....transformers...capacitors...tubes...etc that you have at your disposal and screw anyone who tells you it isn't "natural" if you use them to get what you want out of the speakers. It's ART! STAR WARS wasn't real...but we LOVE IT! Jack Joseph Puig talks about using all of the colors of the rainbow in your music...so fetchin cool. And he's right. But what do I know. I'm just an old throwback whos been doing this 20 years.
That's because 2K is not harsh with ~any~ half-decently designed EQ. Try boosting ANY equalizer at 5-8kHz and get back to us! There was more than enough bad-sounding analog gear that we grew up with. It's easy to selectively remember the best of it while taking any advances since then for granted. There is no actual competition of 'digital vs analog' in fact. The fact is that much (marketing and folksy) woo-woo remains. Analog IS crucial on the front and back end. Mics, preamps, amps and speakers are **not digital** in their fundamental nature, because digital storage is ABOUT storage _only_ - it is an energy _conversion_ process. Each link in a recording chain is an energy conversion: Air vibration -> mic diaphram -> small amperage ->mic preamp (larger amprage) -> A/D converter (digital info for storage) / conversely / D/A -> small amperage -> power amplifier (wattage = amperage x voltage) -> speaker -> Air vibration -> finally converted into human memory of experiencing sound.
After 2 decades of building studios for other people, I am finally building one for myself, and this wonderful film is helping me reprioritize my design targets; to create a space rich in resource and possibilities where creation can flow at an ideal pace.
Several points that I've been trying to make/prove for years. This woman is an inspiration. I hope to record with her one day. I've been waiting to see this film for some time and it's exceeded my expectations. Great production!
This is inspiring. It gives voice to many thoughts and feelings that have been ruminating in me for years. Ultimately, we must preserve our soulful connection with the tools and machines we use to make our art. Thank you so much for the deep insights.
I came directly (in an analogous fashion) from the August/September issue of Tape Op to this most interesting and inspiring film. It also confirmed many of my longheld notions about music and recording - not that I was a doubter!) I'll soon be replacing the belts on the Tascam Porta 02k I bought for $4.00 at a garage sale.
Thank you so much for making this very informative video on a subject that rarely receives any attention these days. I feel very inspired and less alone in a world dominated by in the box recording combined with too much auto tuning, quantized, and over compressed tracks. Most of the music today doesn't sound musical. Your explanation of the creative process and how our brains perceive music is on point and I wish more of the general audience took an interest in it. I am in the process of constructing my own analog recording studio and your video has reaffirmed that I am not crazy in doing so. Keep up the great work and hopefully one day more people will learn to appreciate the efforts made by those who really understand the craft of audio engineering.
this is so beautifully shot and conceived. McLarnon speaks so thoughtfully and intelligently about her philosophy. utter truth. this gets to the heart of what i love in humanity. thank yoU!
Great film and fascinating topic. It’s also cool to hear that Julie studied with Bill Leader, just like I did. He was my hero in those days because of the Pentangle/Jansch/Renbourn recordings.
just grabbed a Zoom R24 for exactly this reason. this film made me realize i made much more stuff and had much more fun back before I was seduced by DAWs - and the overwhelming / paralyzing infinity of options they offer.
In digital, "happy accidents" are considered "mistakes" and there's a stigma around intentionally not editing it out. People call it "lazy" production. Once the stigma is gone, you can somehow treat the DAW like a normal tape machine and slap on an emulator. Many of us just don't have enough money to get access to a tape machine. But this video gives us access to the idea behind wanting to use it and somehow translate those to the digital bedroom recording space.
depends, if you look into the used market or thrift online shops you can find them for a good price. My reel to reel cost me $65, because it was a local pick up only. :)
@@Brokeninc I guess so. However, the story becomes a bit different when you're talking about the Philippines where these things are rare and convenience is almost a non-negotiable. But the prospect of having to rewind and not seeing where the waveforms are should be fun for many. For sure we have niche analog people doing dumpster diving so that they can record their EP on tape (of any kind), but they're just too far in between. I myself love and grew up on tape, but getting a multitrack rig for it is just not in the peripheral of most of us bedroom producers. Closest I could think of is to "print" the stereo buss on a consumer cassette recorder - and already as a post-processing step. There's a video here of a guy who did it on 4-tracks. But WTH to find it here in good condition is anybody's guess. These days "working and making do with what you have" means doing it on a laptop if not on your smartphone - as we all know.
@@tsdiokno2 this is a weird idea, but have you tried VHS tape? I use a VCR as an output and recording device for my 8bit synth. :) And to watch movies. heh.
Great video ! You have a beautiful studio and ethos to your music production, I’ve learnt a lot just from listening to you. Thank you for the inspiration ! I’m a mature student studying Audio and Recording at Demontfort University. If there was ever a chance to come and visit you and your studio, to learn maybe some of your musical philosophies, that would be a blast. I must admit I do get irritated with DAW’s and computer based recording methods and would love to see the analogue side of life in the studio. You’ve been truly inspiring. All the very best. George
This made me really think about the how and why...as any art should. Always with any M. O'Reilly vid I know that this will be interesting and good for both eyes and ears. Since the Tegan and Sara days of yore, it has always been a pleasure to see a new offering on this tubus...long may it continue!
Love the part re creativity. Constraints promote creativity. Taking people out of their comfort zones allows for this. Recording to tape with no undo option would definitely take me out of my comfort zone 😁
As the owner of a small digital home studio, I find this absolutely fascinating. I'm just a hobbyist and although the idea of a nice big tape machine and analogue miser are really enticing, it's so far beyond my means as to be impossible. I do things though that make my life easier. I have simple templates that I use so that I don't spend much time messing around and can get right to the music. I also use analogue emulation plugins to tame the sound and make it sweeter. At least I hope it is.
You can treat the computer as a tape machine. That's what I do. I if you work on the writing and arranging before you record, you can record through a small set of outboard gear and get that sound as recorded, and stop using plugins at all. I've gone plug-in free in my setup, and it's so liberating. I don't edit, or tune, or record any MIDI. I have the DAW turn off the wave forms most of the time so I can't look at them. I'm trying to get everything sounding right on the way in. It doesn't take a lot of outboard gear to do that. In my opinion, the single most useful thing you can have is one or a couple good outboard EQs that have nice high/low pass filters. You can limit the lows and highs of every track to fit that track into the right sonic space. It's amazing how much cleaner things are when you low pass a lot of stuff. A lot of what you may be using those plugins to tame could just be gotten rid of before it even gets on the disk.
@@deanroddey2881 I sometimes use the EQ of my mixer. I use a Presonus Studiolive 32SC as my input interface. I have several keyboards and I really don't like patching and re-patching. I tend to low pass synths, my guitars and my bass. Don't need unnecessary low frequencies. The plugins that I like in my output chain are usually tape emulations and tube emulations. I just use them subtly to add some harmonic colour and add a minor bit of warm distortion. Not to dirty things up but to warm them up.
100% on point. Ace. Brilliant. Sums up the importance of external environmental variables on an individual/s process and so much more Also the fluid and fleeting nature of “inspiration”….. internal and external energies colliding … Mad respect for her ability to articulate something so complex yet fundamentally core to one’s own approach, outlook, longview, no-view etc.. life, process, intent, proactivity vs reactivity.. im gonna stop here because …… well.. stop it with the masterclass/tedtalksProXpyramidfuckstick etc already! View this excellent doc for free. Eyes closed, ears open,
Yet another treasure. I am slowly digging through your videos, taking my time, and I am just blown away again and again. Thank you so much for what you do. It really helps me to calm down from all the stress and news about the war.
beautiful stuff!! but please remember people, analog is not the answer to everything. you don't have to choose. you can do both. I think she is right about a lot of things but the fact that we can now buy a bunch of budget gear and a decent computer and make decent recordings is a beautiful thing. its what got (starting)musicians away from needing a big label to pay for a professional studio and able to diy their album. not hating here, analog can sound amazing and working with tape and an analog desk is a beautiful craft. but in the last few years of this analog revival I have heard people say that you can't make a good sounding recording when working digital, and that's just not true, there are multiple albums out there that prove that. "we don't have happy accidents in digital" 16:30 erm.. I have nothing but happy accidents when I'm workin digital. again, not hating, I am conviced her studio in that setting wil produce beautiful recordings and all the power to her.
It's very apparent in any recording studio these days. People watch the screen during playback to "see" what the music is doing as opposed to just closing their eyes and listening. They'll see something they don't like and immediately want to fix it whether it needs it or not. I have a home studio and try really hard to not do this but it does happen.
@@jeremythornton433 Yep, and there's the fact that you can't interact with the computer without looking at what you are doing. You can't just close your eyes and find your way around the knobs by feel and listen for what you are shooting for. That's why things like the Raven touch screen mixer makes absolutely no sense to me. It's the worst case scenario. I have gone plug-in free in my little apartment setup. I have to use a computer, but I'm treating it like a tape deck. No editing, no tuning, no plug-ins, no MIDI. It's harder in the sense that you have to actually play the parts and remember the parts. And you really need to WRITE the song before you record it, not the other way around. OTOH, it's SO much simpler because you just arm a track, and hit record. I try to record everything as it should sound. And she'd dead on about analysis paralysis. I used to spend all of my time wondering if I should use this plug in or that plugin or this pre-amp or that mic. Or this other drum synth pack. Way too many choices. Now I worry about the song and the parts and how the parts fit together. NO, my stuff is not inhumanly perfect, but it's real and it's what I can actually do.
@@deanroddey2881 I understand. I try to not keep looking at the screen but it's not easy. I'm currently working on a song that I'm writhing and to my ears, it's just not tight enough. Now I could go and quantize the parts but I really hate that. So I do take after take to get it right. It takes longer but it's real! As for plugins, they're my friends. I use the guitar and bass amp sims all the time as well as the "pedals". I use various EQ's, compressors, delays, reverbs, etc. I've bought a couple over the years but I've stopped wasting my money on them. I've found that if you try hard enough, you can get what you want out of the stock ones. I'm trying to figure out how to get the "tape" controls on my mixer to run my Cubase DAW. I have a Presonus SL32sc. I have several keyboards and I really don't like plugging and unplugging things.
Not to be all negative but the reality of trying to work on that business model today is extremely difficult. Clients expect recalls and automation and demand perfect results. I asked one of my buddies about the possibility of recording to tape and he laughed! No we’re not going there he said! However for me personally I love analog and mixing on a desk. I think I’ll start out with a two track reel to reel and eventually get a 2” like she has. I just want that experience
You are right, some people could not operate with a business model like that. Not all clients expect that, some people are willing to try something different to the modern approach to yield different results and are open to these techniques to get a more characterful sound. Digital recording can be totally fine, but with analog there is commitment to takes to the tape, excitement of only having one shot to do things, and happy accidents. People who have had poor experiences with digital studios or are unenthused by modern radio sounds are chasing these mediums and experiences. There are plenty of studios offering analog recordings with no digital recall here in melbourne and lots of bands are using them here. Studios that try to please everyone these days can end up pleasing no one. If you are an analog service, great. If you are a digital service, thats great too. But its not a poor business model, just an alternative one and you are making a firm decision on what type of clients and music you want to be working on if you go the analog route.
@@jackcrook4435 Well your asking a relatively low income low budget client to spend $25 per minute of recorded audio plus my fees. It’s really hard to get someone to pay $25 an hour and to think they’ll pay $25/min plus a studio rate isn’t going to happen. Back in the day labels would fund albums but today that funding doesn’t exist unless your a superstar to begin with. Self funded bands just can’t afford analog tape.
Not exactly - both studios I have recorded albums in here Melbourne just charged a $50 tape hire on top of the days recording fee. Im sure there is the option of buying the tape (which as you pointed out not many people would do as it’s absurdly expensive )
So once converted to digital your tapes are recorded over by the next band. My friend Richard just buys a new reel every so often once it wears out a bit.
A lot of very interesting stuff here, but there is no strong argument against digital recording, as a medium, or as a practice. Trusting the sound, and not the screen is a discipline. Putting yourself and artists in a creative zone Is great, when you can afford to hire a residential studio in the country… If you can’t, then develop the discipline of putting in hours every day in your bedroom studio… As regards happy accidents, nobody is forcing you to go into Pro Tools or whatever and move shit around. You can choose not to.. You can record ensembles live in a room with digital too…;) Neither does it forced you to over process, or overproduce… All of the stuff about restrictions helping creatitivy Is bang on, as is the psychology of Slow versus fast thinking. There are a number of pitfalls that people can fall into while using digital audio, But that is down to the method, not the medium itself.
I was born 1952. I can't have digital. A local jazz guitar/music teacher is the same. He's 78. I am new on this gizmo. I got a computer and joined social media Dec 2016. I listen to the YTubes on here. I complain a lot. I say, just please...give me the music. I don't want all the clutter. I don't want to know and hear how they are mucking about with the sound. I like me playing the guitar at 2/3 am. Even with 2 fingers out of commission, as I've damaged a nerve, beats this digital shit. Light is colourless. That is all your eyes detect. Only light. I fish. My best fishing tip is stop thinking. We are hunter gatherers. You do not want noisy bastards around when you are trying to catch wild animals for food. I can switch off for hours and not make a sound. I fish at night. Sometimes the silence give's you the creeps. Music is not just in the sound, it's in the intervals as well. I am a Marxist. "Psychology" is the psychology of capitalism. Unless you live on another lawless and know nothing planet.
Funny to introduce mystical stuff about “healing frequencies” after all the science. Does streaming affect mental health? I doubt very much there is any research backing that up. But Spotify et cetera do sound shit.
Just great, i´m myself an analogue addict and the only downside i see as an upside is that people seems to rehearse more when they understand the limitations. If you turn on the Radio, there´s no music from 1998-2005ish when digital was at an all time low, but plenty of analoge recordings going strong..
Digital is "ugly" because it tells the truth. Analog's characteristics are owed to the engineering that is trying to compensating for the technology's limitations. The smart studio of today takes advantage of the recall, editing, and pure economics offered by the DAW, while also having a well-suited collection of analog preamps and signal processing. I came up on tape and consoles and yes, I have a soft spot for that softer, more saturated and harmonic-rich top end. But any decent engineer knows how to capture that without relying on 75-year-old technology.
While I can understand and for the average person can agree with vision distracting hearing, I disagree that you cannot maintain both. As a musician, amateur recording engineer but most critically for THIS topic an avid competitive online FPS multiplayer gamer, find that not only is it possible to maintain both at a high level but for high level gameplay performance is CRITICAL. There are many audio cues in modern games, and many share the same frequency space. Not only do you need to be able to tell what each sound is and its source, but also its distance, direction, verticality, speed of repetition and more, and all while isolating it from the rest environment and its ambient sounds. At the same time you cannot close your eyes as your ability to aim and fight, as well as your ability to navigate are completely reliant on your vision. Also when your opponents are hiding or attack suddenly from around cover, the ability to visually identify an opponent QUICKLY as well as adjust your aim and track them are crucial, at the same time you must be carefully listening for call outs from your teammates, listening for potential other enemy footsteps, gun fire, the possible pulling of a grenade pin or its bounce relative to your location, trying to hear when your opponents are reloading so you know when you have a window to push for advantage. And all of this requires Accurate split second processing, analysis and decision making WHILE maintaining enough mental bandwidth to be able to physically execute the required inputs. In many FPS games at mid to high levels individual engagements can last as little as 200 MILLISECONDS, with the final play of Tournaments with thousands to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Pounds/ Dollars ect on the line being decided by less than a quarter of a second. Back to the idea of reducing visual stimuli to enhance hearing for studio applications, YES for someone who is not used to dealing with a lot of stimuli sources simultaneously I can understand where you are coming from. BUT like any skill this is something that can be trained, Fast paced Multiplayer gaming can be used as a form of OVER-exposure therapy that eventually increases the amount of mental bandwidth available to you. As you said, once you get good and comfortable with that mental load, the processing difficulty and by extension the required mental bandwidth drop. Leaving you with the ability to accurately observe MANY things at the same time with little to no hindrance to your vision OR Hearing. This can easily be applied to digital recording like Pro Tools, or any other DAW. And other than the old school analogue vibe for the artist, being strictly Analogue ONLY is at the very least a little short sighted. I'm not going to argue that analogue has nothing to do with the sound or feel of a recording as it CLEARLY does, BUT the down side that digital DOESN'T have its own sound, is also one of its biggest strengths and advantages. As long as you are using high quality equipment the is NO difference between recording DIRECTLY to tape, and recording the exact same way but into a DAW then from the DAW to tape. While limitations CAN breed creativity, the thought of losing an otherwise "perfect" performance due to a single mishap is maddening. At least by using a DAW as a middle man should something go wrong on one track, that otherwise would have been good enough to print on the final record. You could specifically delete the ONE offending track, re-record that then send the whole recording RAW to the tape machine. That would allow for a highly flexible tape recording setup with backup reliability and if you ADD nothing within the DAW, absolutely ZERO audible digital footprint, Just the Pre-Amps colour into a Clean ACCURATE DAW that does NOTHING to the sound by itself, but easy to backup and edit, sent straight to tape for a pure analogue sound, with the flexibility of digital.
Ahhh yes, playing instruments with one's fingers aka "digits". No matter what you do, you can't ever be "100% analog" can you. Long live the WOOOOO. Good sound is good sound; how you get it is not important in the end.
99.9999% of you watching will NEVER be able to work with analogue tape. You will never have the amount of talent in front of the mic that's required, because that talent doesn't exist anymore in musicians. Most of you will never be able to accept the fact that your ENGINEERING has to be best of the best to be able to pull directly on tape WITHOUT EDITS, because analogue tape doesn't allow you to... you can't use stacks of FX, non linear editing, comping... And you have to be able to tolerate mistakes. Takes are never perfect, and that's just not acceptable anymore in big labels (not that I like it to being that way, that's just the way it is). No autotune, no drum replacement... nothing. Most of you will never have the MONEY to have analogue studio because the equipment is very expensive, prone to breaking and needs constant and expensive maintenance... tape itself is also VERY expensive... and you can't record on it multiple times because it degrades fast. So yeah... nice documentary of people who are on top of their game and have the possibility to do this, but most of the people that want to do analogue, never will. and you won't sell gazillion records just because you used analogue tape... so there's no return on investment...
My take away from this piece was to get rid of your screen, not to have an all-analogue studio. This can easily be done with a hard disk recorder. Remember the piece starts off talking about how the visual overtakes the aural. Not sure why everyone is on here pontificating about the idea that it must be recorded to tape?
I'm curious if you've been in audio long enough to know what it's like to record without a screen in front of you? The main point of this piece is the psychology of how the visual overtakes the aural, not the psychology of recording to analog. Tape isn't the only way to record without a computer screen. I've seen plenty of discussions on pro audio forums with engineers looking for ways to get away from screens. This woman is far from a lone voice on the subject.
@@bigdoghat3827 I don't think I understand what point you're making. Audio is hearing, hearing is not snippets of zeros and ones played back at hypersonic speed it's an uninterrupted continuum of sound * yes including pauses of silence) at least in the carbon-based life form realm. It is surely `not visual , EVER, in fact visual is a hindrance IMHO. The last "Music Explosion" we had was the early to mid 90's when the majority of records were made analog, country, rock, blues, adult contemporary etc.. After DDD Digital took over things turned to shite, coincidence? I don't think so I actually saw an apprentice engineer, some FOOL Sail grad passover a racked 1073 looking for a plug in of a 1073, true story. If one wants to use a computer or visual crutches because they feel there's not enough shitty sounding music in the world today have at it.
Genuinely one of the most important films I have ever seen. Beautifully shot and about a subject matter I care deeply about. Julie talks such sense and is so knowledgeable, I could listen to her for hours. Bravo Myles, bravo, this film has been utterly transformative for me, thank you.
Thank you Doug. The world can be thankful that good people like Julie and yourself have such a deep respect for the aural senses.
thanks for sharing this me Doug it was a great watch and very interesting indeed
@@nickreesyt I knew you'd like it Nick! Thanks for having a watch.
Thanks for sharing this with me Doug, this was fantastic! I was captivated by Julie talking about sound - needs to be longer!
@@jonhicks7463glad you enjoyed it Jon! I was utterly entranced, it is such a fantastic piece of work.
This is one of the best films I have ever seen about audio engineering. Thank you~!
These comments are lovely! This genuinely brought tears to my eyes. Sums up so many thoughts and feelings I’ve had but haven’t been able to articulate to this degree. I am going to share this with others so they can also be blessed by its wisdom. Thank you!
What a gorgeous film. Stumbled across it tonight and it has made my weekend. A beautiful examination of creativity and the senses. Wonderful, thank you Myles.
and Julie!
Thanks Nial 🙏
This is the art of NOT cutting and scooping out mid range frequencies in tracks so as to make them sound hifi and modern. We need those frequencies, but we need them to be musical and analog has that for DAYS. You don't cut them, if you can the best way to do it is to figure out a way to pick up those frequencies in a pleasing way so things sound great with them in the mix. Al Smidt talked about this and how he didn't usually use EQ with his mixes...just microphones and placement.
I was stunned when I first used an analog EQ and I could boost 2k for days without ever feeling like it was wrong or harsh... it was just musical...and strong pleasing tone. There really is an art to music and sculpting tone...we've just been part of a generation that's been giving digital chill and grit and expected to hear that as music...when if you listen to the best analog records of the late 70's and 80's were WORLDS better sonically. 3D ..open...dynamic...musical. Not anymore. Imagine the bodyguard soundtrack being made today. So sad.
I've heard it said that F is a twangy note...it always has been always will be. That's it's color/timbre. It's getting the F to sound musical that takes work sometimes, but the right EQ or compressor....microphone etc...has a way of changing the character of notes so they're pleasing all of the time. It's an art...use all of the colors....transformers...capacitors...tubes...etc that you have at your disposal and screw anyone who tells you it isn't "natural" if you use them to get what you want out of the speakers. It's ART! STAR WARS wasn't real...but we LOVE IT! Jack Joseph Puig talks about using all of the colors of the rainbow in your music...so fetchin cool. And he's right. But what do I know. I'm just an old throwback whos been doing this 20 years.
Mmm tubes.
That's because 2K is not harsh with ~any~ half-decently designed EQ. Try boosting ANY equalizer at 5-8kHz and get back to us!
There was more than enough bad-sounding analog gear that we grew up with. It's easy to selectively remember the best of it while taking any advances since then for granted.
There is no actual competition of 'digital vs analog' in fact. The fact is that much (marketing and folksy) woo-woo remains.
Analog IS crucial on the front and back end. Mics, preamps, amps and speakers are **not digital** in their fundamental nature, because digital storage is ABOUT storage _only_ - it is an energy _conversion_ process. Each link in a recording chain is an energy conversion: Air vibration -> mic diaphram -> small amperage ->mic preamp (larger amprage) -> A/D converter (digital info for storage) / conversely / D/A -> small amperage -> power amplifier (wattage = amperage x voltage) -> speaker -> Air vibration -> finally converted into human memory of experiencing sound.
After 2 decades of building studios for other people, I am finally building one for myself, and this wonderful film is helping me reprioritize my design targets; to create a space rich in resource and possibilities where creation can flow at an ideal pace.
Several points that I've been trying to make/prove for years. This woman is an inspiration. I hope to record with her one day. I've been waiting to see this film for some time and it's exceeded my expectations. Great production!
This is inspiring. It gives voice to many thoughts and feelings that have been ruminating in me for years. Ultimately, we must preserve our soulful connection with the tools and machines we use to make our art. Thank you so much for the deep insights.
I came directly (in an analogous fashion) from the August/September issue of Tape Op to this most interesting and inspiring film. It also confirmed many of my longheld notions about music and recording - not that I was a doubter!) I'll soon be replacing the belts on the Tascam Porta 02k I bought for $4.00 at a garage sale.
Thank you so much for making this very informative video on a subject that rarely receives any attention these days. I feel very inspired and less alone in a world dominated by in the box recording combined with too much auto tuning, quantized, and over compressed tracks. Most of the music today doesn't sound musical. Your explanation of the creative process and how our brains perceive music is on point and I wish more of the general audience took an interest in it.
I am in the process of constructing my own analog recording studio and your video has reaffirmed that I am not crazy in doing so.
Keep up the great work and hopefully one day more people will learn to appreciate the efforts made by those who really understand the craft of audio engineering.
This is so special. One of the most inspiring things I have perceived in a very long time. Thanks Myles, Julie and co. Loves it!
Amazing! So inspiring. Thanks Mylo and Julie.
I feel reborn after watching this🤯
this is so beautifully shot and conceived. McLarnon speaks so thoughtfully and intelligently about her philosophy. utter truth. this gets to the heart of what i love in humanity. thank yoU!
Great film and fascinating topic. It’s also cool to hear that Julie studied with Bill Leader, just like I did. He was my hero in those days because of the Pentangle/Jansch/Renbourn recordings.
Thanks God I discovered this Documentary 🇿🇦❤
Another South African here 😎
She references the David Byrne book "this is music." Such an interesting book👍
OMG. This so right up my alley!! Brilliant Absolutely Brilliant
This is just utterly incredible
That's why I love my tiny Tascam DP008 portastudio: no screen!
just grabbed a Zoom R24 for exactly this reason. this film made me realize i made much more stuff and had much more fun back before I was seduced by DAWs - and the overwhelming / paralyzing infinity of options they offer.
Love this so much.
There is a whole other realm of awareness here. This is certainly a gift. Thank you for sharing.
Myles does it again!
Magic. Thank you.
Oh wow this almost made me cry ! Not the loud crying of pain , more of a silent tear streaming down my cheek , thank you , humans , thank you nature !
In digital, "happy accidents" are considered "mistakes" and there's a stigma around intentionally not editing it out. People call it "lazy" production.
Once the stigma is gone, you can somehow treat the DAW like a normal tape machine and slap on an emulator. Many of us just don't have enough money to get access to a tape machine.
But this video gives us access to the idea behind wanting to use it and somehow translate those to the digital bedroom recording space.
depends, if you look into the used market or thrift online shops you can find them for a good price. My reel to reel cost me $65, because it was a local pick up only. :)
@@Brokeninc I guess so. However, the story becomes a bit different when you're talking about the Philippines where these things are rare and convenience is almost a non-negotiable.
But the prospect of having to rewind and not seeing where the waveforms are should be fun for many. For sure we have niche analog people doing dumpster diving so that they can record their EP on tape (of any kind), but they're just too far in between.
I myself love and grew up on tape, but getting a multitrack rig for it is just not in the peripheral of most of us bedroom producers. Closest I could think of is to "print" the stereo buss on a consumer cassette recorder - and already as a post-processing step.
There's a video here of a guy who did it on 4-tracks. But WTH to find it here in good condition is anybody's guess.
These days "working and making do with what you have" means doing it on a laptop if not on your smartphone - as we all know.
@@tsdiokno2 this is a weird idea, but have you tried VHS tape? I use a VCR as an output and recording device for my 8bit synth. :) And to watch movies. heh.
@@Brokeninc Ah! That we have! I didn't know you can do that. Will experiment with that for the stuff I'm making currently. Thanks!
Great video ! You have a beautiful studio and ethos to your music production, I’ve learnt a lot just from listening to you. Thank you for the inspiration !
I’m a mature student studying Audio and Recording at Demontfort University. If there was ever a chance to come and visit you and your studio, to learn maybe some of your musical philosophies, that would be a blast. I must admit I do get irritated with DAW’s and computer based recording methods and would love to see the analogue side of life in the studio. You’ve been truly inspiring.
All the very best.
George
Wow. Truly am appreciating so much the incredible amounts of energy she’s put into the analyses... thank you for sharin bud 🖖
So amazing, love this, wow, how inspiring! Thank you ❤️
a truly inspired, fundamentally sound. doc. thank you for so generously giving sound a contextual shape.
This made me really think about the how and why...as any art should. Always with any M. O'Reilly vid I know that this will be interesting and good for both eyes and ears. Since the Tegan and Sara days of yore, it has always been a pleasure to see a new offering on this tubus...long may it continue!
What a beautiful film - thank you a lot!
I love this! She is an amazing person.
At least !!!! Marvelously well explained. Thanks thanks and thanks again !! ❤❤❤
Love the part re creativity. Constraints promote creativity. Taking people out of their comfort zones allows for this. Recording to tape with no undo option would definitely take me out of my comfort zone 😁
As the owner of a small digital home studio, I find this absolutely fascinating. I'm just a hobbyist and although the idea of a nice big tape machine and analogue miser are really enticing, it's so far beyond my means as to be impossible. I do things though that make my life easier. I have simple templates that I use so that I don't spend much time messing around and can get right to the music. I also use analogue emulation plugins to tame the sound and make it sweeter. At least I hope it is.
Any out board gear?
You can treat the computer as a tape machine. That's what I do. I if you work on the writing and arranging before you record, you can record through a small set of outboard gear and get that sound as recorded, and stop using plugins at all. I've gone plug-in free in my setup, and it's so liberating. I don't edit, or tune, or record any MIDI. I have the DAW turn off the wave forms most of the time so I can't look at them. I'm trying to get everything sounding right on the way in. It doesn't take a lot of outboard gear to do that.
In my opinion, the single most useful thing you can have is one or a couple good outboard EQs that have nice high/low pass filters. You can limit the lows and highs of every track to fit that track into the right sonic space. It's amazing how much cleaner things are when you low pass a lot of stuff. A lot of what you may be using those plugins to tame could just be gotten rid of before it even gets on the disk.
@@kensmechanicalaffair Not much. A Berhinger Tue stereo pre-amp and an old Yamaha SPX-90.
@@deanroddey2881 I sometimes use the EQ of my mixer. I use a Presonus Studiolive 32SC as my input interface. I have several keyboards and I really don't like patching and re-patching. I tend to low pass synths, my guitars and my bass. Don't need unnecessary low frequencies. The plugins that I like in my output chain are usually tape emulations and tube emulations. I just use them subtly to add some harmonic colour and add a minor bit of warm distortion. Not to dirty things up but to warm them up.
@@deanroddey2881 You preaching although i may use a stereo shaper or experiment with a verb or delay..I'd rather not have to rely on it.
This is just utterly incredible
Wow ^ is the most weirdly specific targeted porno spam I've ever received. Fair play to you.
100% on point. Ace. Brilliant. Sums up the importance of external environmental variables on an individual/s process and so much more
Also the fluid and fleeting nature of “inspiration”….. internal and external energies colliding …
Mad respect for her ability to articulate something so complex yet fundamentally core to one’s own approach, outlook, longview, no-view etc.. life, process, intent, proactivity vs reactivity..
im gonna stop here because …… well.. stop it with the masterclass/tedtalksProXpyramidfuckstick etc already!
View this excellent doc for free. Eyes closed, ears open,
I could listen to her all day , I love her analogies
Yet another treasure. I am slowly digging through your videos, taking my time, and I am just blown away again and again. Thank you so much for what you do. It really helps me to calm down from all the stress and news about the war.
Thank u Luca 🙏
beautiful stuff!!
but please remember people, analog is not the answer to everything. you don't have to choose. you can do both.
I think she is right about a lot of things but the fact that we can now buy a bunch of budget gear and a decent computer and make decent recordings is a beautiful thing. its what got (starting)musicians away from needing a big label to pay for a professional studio and able to diy their album.
not hating here, analog can sound amazing and working with tape and an analog desk is a beautiful craft.
but in the last few years of this analog revival I have heard people say that you can't make a good sounding recording when working digital, and that's just not true, there are multiple albums out there that prove that.
"we don't have happy accidents in digital" 16:30 erm.. I have nothing but happy accidents when I'm workin digital.
again, not hating, I am conviced her studio in that setting wil produce beautiful recordings and all the power to her.
Fantastic watch and insight. Thank you!
Class Myles enjoyed that :)
🙏
Love this so much.
Nice and great work.... Keep going and preserve that knowledge.
10:00 Updates - that's what I friggeen hate about digital! Analog doesn't need updates, it just works.
Well done.
Anyone have any links to the research she's discussing? I'd like to learn more about this topic of sight impacting our hearing.
It's very apparent in any recording studio these days. People watch the screen during playback to "see" what the music is doing as opposed to just closing their eyes and listening. They'll see something they don't like and immediately want to fix it whether it needs it or not. I have a home studio and try really hard to not do this but it does happen.
@@jeremythornton433 Yep, and there's the fact that you can't interact with the computer without looking at what you are doing. You can't just close your eyes and find your way around the knobs by feel and listen for what you are shooting for. That's why things like the Raven touch screen mixer makes absolutely no sense to me. It's the worst case scenario.
I have gone plug-in free in my little apartment setup. I have to use a computer, but I'm treating it like a tape deck. No editing, no tuning, no plug-ins, no MIDI. It's harder in the sense that you have to actually play the parts and remember the parts. And you really need to WRITE the song before you record it, not the other way around. OTOH, it's SO much simpler because you just arm a track, and hit record. I try to record everything as it should sound.
And she'd dead on about analysis paralysis. I used to spend all of my time wondering if I should use this plug in or that plugin or this pre-amp or that mic. Or this other drum synth pack. Way too many choices. Now I worry about the song and the parts and how the parts fit together. NO, my stuff is not inhumanly perfect, but it's real and it's what I can actually do.
@@deanroddey2881 I understand. I try to not keep looking at the screen but it's not easy. I'm currently working on a song that I'm writhing and to my ears, it's just not tight enough. Now I could go and quantize the parts but I really hate that. So I do take after take to get it right. It takes longer but it's real! As for plugins, they're my friends. I use the guitar and bass amp sims all the time as well as the "pedals". I use various EQ's, compressors, delays, reverbs, etc. I've bought a couple over the years but I've stopped wasting my money on them. I've found that if you try hard enough, you can get what you want out of the stock ones. I'm trying to figure out how to get the "tape" controls on my mixer to run my Cubase DAW. I have a Presonus SL32sc. I have several keyboards and I really don't like plugging and unplugging things.
Fantastic. Spiritual.
Profound reflections on Sound - Julie is a legend
This is wonderful
Not to be all negative but the reality of trying to work on that business model today is extremely difficult. Clients expect recalls and automation and demand perfect results. I asked one of my buddies about the possibility of recording to tape and he laughed! No we’re not going there he said! However for me personally I love analog and mixing on a desk. I think I’ll start out with a two track reel to reel and eventually get a 2” like she has. I just want that experience
look into John Vanderslice and his Tiny Telephone studio
You are right, some people could not operate with a business model like that. Not all clients expect that, some people are willing to try something different to the modern approach to yield different results and are open to these techniques to get a more characterful sound. Digital recording can be totally fine, but with analog there is commitment to takes to the tape, excitement of only having one shot to do things, and happy accidents. People who have had poor experiences with digital studios or are unenthused by modern radio sounds are chasing these mediums and experiences. There are plenty of studios offering analog recordings with no digital recall here in melbourne and lots of bands are using them here. Studios that try to please everyone these days can end up pleasing no one. If you are an analog service, great. If you are a digital service, thats great too. But its not a poor business model, just an alternative one and you are making a firm decision on what type of clients and music you want to be working on if you go the analog route.
@@jackcrook4435 Well your asking a relatively low income low budget client to spend $25 per minute of recorded audio plus my fees. It’s really hard to get someone to pay $25 an hour and to think they’ll pay $25/min plus a studio rate isn’t going to happen. Back in the day labels would fund albums but today that funding doesn’t exist unless your a superstar to begin with. Self funded bands just can’t afford analog tape.
Not exactly - both studios I have recorded albums in here Melbourne just charged a $50 tape hire on top of the days recording fee.
Im sure there is the option of buying the tape (which as you pointed out not many people would do as it’s absurdly expensive )
So once converted to digital your tapes are recorded over by the next band. My friend Richard just buys a new reel every so often once it wears out a bit.
Gorgeous, thanks.
A lot of very interesting stuff here, but there is no strong argument against digital recording, as a medium, or as a practice. Trusting the sound, and not the screen is a discipline. Putting yourself and artists in a creative zone Is great, when you can afford to hire a residential studio in the country… If you can’t, then develop the discipline of putting in hours every day in your bedroom studio… As regards happy accidents, nobody is forcing you to go into Pro Tools or whatever and move shit around. You can choose not to.. You can record ensembles live in a room with digital too…;) Neither does it forced you to over process, or overproduce… All of the stuff about restrictions helping creatitivy Is bang on, as is the psychology of Slow versus fast thinking. There are a number of pitfalls that people can fall into while using digital audio, But that is down to the method, not the medium itself.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Marvelous!
Excellent!!
Well and truly a special work of art. To say I am inspired would be an understatement.
LOVE THIS
Wonderful, thank you.
Beautiful watch.
GENIUS.
Gives me hope!! Thanks to everyone responsible.
I love this.
Outstanding.
Nicely produced video ----- I would never use analog recording - To me it is a silly reversion into the past - But this video is quite interesting
Love this so much
perfect
You found it :) 🙏🙏🙏
Splendid
Lovely 😍
I don't think she left anything out concerning focusing on the why.
I was born 1952. I can't have digital. A local jazz guitar/music teacher is the same. He's 78. I am new on this gizmo. I got a computer and joined social media Dec 2016. I listen to the YTubes on here. I complain a lot. I say, just please...give me the music. I don't want all the clutter. I don't want to know and hear how they are mucking about with the sound. I like me playing the guitar at 2/3 am. Even with 2 fingers out of commission, as I've damaged a nerve, beats this digital shit.
Light is colourless. That is all your eyes detect. Only light.
I fish. My best fishing tip is stop thinking. We are hunter gatherers. You do not want noisy bastards around when you are trying to catch wild animals for food. I can switch off for hours and not make a sound. I fish at night. Sometimes the silence give's you the creeps. Music is not just in the sound, it's in the intervals as well.
I am a Marxist. "Psychology" is the psychology of capitalism. Unless you live on another lawless and know nothing planet.
Man!!!!💪💥✌️🔥
Funny to introduce mystical stuff about “healing frequencies” after all the science. Does streaming affect mental health? I doubt very much there is any research backing that up. But Spotify et cetera do sound shit.
Beauuuuuuutiful
What's the name of the Junior Brother song on this?
no snitch
Just great, i´m myself an analogue addict and the only downside i see as an upside is that people seems to rehearse more when they understand the limitations. If you turn on the Radio, there´s no music from 1998-2005ish when digital was at an all time low, but plenty of analoge recordings going strong..
YES YES YES!!!!
That sounds like a nice place to make music
"choice paralysis and decision fatigue"
Digital is "ugly" because it tells the truth. Analog's characteristics are owed to the engineering that is trying to compensating for the technology's limitations. The smart studio of today takes advantage of the recall, editing, and pure economics offered by the DAW, while also having a well-suited collection of analog preamps and signal processing. I came up on tape and consoles and yes, I have a soft spot for that softer, more saturated and harmonic-rich top end. But any decent engineer knows how to capture that without relying on 75-year-old technology.
yeah...
While I can understand and for the average person can agree with vision distracting hearing, I disagree that you cannot maintain both. As a musician, amateur recording engineer but most critically for THIS topic an avid competitive online FPS multiplayer gamer, find that not only is it possible to maintain both at a high level but for high level gameplay performance is CRITICAL. There are many audio cues in modern games, and many share the same frequency space. Not only do you need to be able to tell what each sound is and its source, but also its distance, direction, verticality, speed of repetition and more, and all while isolating it from the rest environment and its ambient sounds. At the same time you cannot close your eyes as your ability to aim and fight, as well as your ability to navigate are completely reliant on your vision. Also when your opponents are hiding or attack suddenly from around cover, the ability to visually identify an opponent QUICKLY as well as adjust your aim and track them are crucial, at the same time you must be carefully listening for call outs from your teammates, listening for potential other enemy footsteps, gun fire, the possible pulling of a grenade pin or its bounce relative to your location, trying to hear when your opponents are reloading so you know when you have a window to push for advantage. And all of this requires Accurate split second processing, analysis and decision making WHILE maintaining enough mental bandwidth to be able to physically execute the required inputs. In many FPS games at mid to high levels individual engagements can last as little as 200 MILLISECONDS, with the final play of Tournaments with thousands to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Pounds/ Dollars ect on the line being decided by less than a quarter of a second.
Back to the idea of reducing visual stimuli to enhance hearing for studio applications, YES for someone who is not used to dealing with a lot of stimuli sources simultaneously I can understand where you are coming from. BUT like any skill this is something that can be trained, Fast paced Multiplayer gaming can be used as a form of OVER-exposure therapy that eventually increases the amount of mental bandwidth available to you. As you said, once you get good and comfortable with that mental load, the processing difficulty and by extension the required mental bandwidth drop. Leaving you with the ability to accurately observe MANY things at the same time with little to no hindrance to your vision OR Hearing.
This can easily be applied to digital recording like Pro Tools, or any other DAW. And other than the old school analogue vibe for the artist, being strictly Analogue ONLY is at the very least a little short sighted. I'm not going to argue that analogue has nothing to do with the sound or feel of a recording as it CLEARLY does, BUT the down side that digital DOESN'T have its own sound, is also one of its biggest strengths and advantages. As long as you are using high quality equipment the is NO difference between recording DIRECTLY to tape, and recording the exact same way but into a DAW then from the DAW to tape. While limitations CAN breed creativity, the thought of losing an otherwise "perfect" performance due to a single mishap is maddening. At least by using a DAW as a middle man should something go wrong on one track, that otherwise would have been good enough to print on the final record. You could specifically delete the ONE offending track, re-record that then send the whole recording RAW to the tape machine. That would allow for a highly flexible tape recording setup with backup reliability and if you ADD nothing within the DAW, absolutely ZERO audible digital footprint, Just the Pre-Amps colour into a Clean ACCURATE DAW that does NOTHING to the sound by itself, but easy to backup and edit, sent straight to tape for a pure analogue sound, with the flexibility of digital.
Gud Vid..
Ahhh yes, playing instruments with one's fingers aka "digits".
No matter what you do, you can't ever be "100% analog" can you. Long live the WOOOOO. Good sound is good sound; how you get it is not important in the end.
99.9999% of you watching will NEVER be able to work with analogue tape. You will never have the amount of talent in front of the mic that's required, because that talent doesn't exist anymore in musicians. Most of you will never be able to accept the fact that your ENGINEERING has to be best of the best to be able to pull directly on tape WITHOUT EDITS, because analogue tape doesn't allow you to... you can't use stacks of FX, non linear editing, comping...
And you have to be able to tolerate mistakes. Takes are never perfect, and that's just not acceptable anymore in big labels (not that I like it to being that way, that's just the way it is). No autotune, no drum replacement... nothing.
Most of you will never have the MONEY to have analogue studio because the equipment is very expensive, prone to breaking and needs constant and expensive maintenance... tape itself is also VERY expensive... and you can't record on it multiple times because it degrades fast.
So yeah... nice documentary of people who are on top of their game and have the possibility to do this, but most of the people that want to do analogue, never will.
and you won't sell gazillion records just because you used analogue tape... so there's no return on investment...
Fun At parties ,you must be.
My take away from this piece was to get rid of your screen, not to have an all-analogue studio. This can easily be done with a hard disk recorder. Remember the piece starts off talking about how the visual overtakes the aural. Not sure why everyone is on here pontificating about the idea that it must be recorded to tape?
Waste of time. This has more to do with her psychology than the psychology of analog.
I'm curious if you've been in audio long enough to know what it's like to record without a screen in front of you? The main point of this piece is the psychology of how the visual overtakes the aural, not the psychology of recording to analog. Tape isn't the only way to record without a computer screen. I've seen plenty of discussions on pro audio forums with engineers looking for ways to get away from screens. This woman is far from a lone voice on the subject.
@@bigdoghat3827 I don't think I understand what point you're making. Audio is hearing, hearing is not snippets of zeros and ones played back at hypersonic speed it's an uninterrupted continuum of sound * yes including pauses of silence) at least in the carbon-based life form realm. It is surely `not visual , EVER, in fact visual is a hindrance IMHO. The last "Music Explosion" we had was the early to mid 90's when the majority of records were made analog, country, rock, blues, adult contemporary etc.. After DDD Digital took over things turned to shite, coincidence? I don't think so I actually saw an apprentice engineer, some FOOL Sail grad passover a racked 1073 looking for a plug in of a 1073, true story. If one wants to use a computer or visual crutches because they feel there's not enough shitty sounding music in the world today have at it.
FINALLY! Someone who recognizes that modern recordings are too trebly!
GREAT! You "bots" are becoming ever more "intelligent".
Which is a trip being as I was told by a very reliable mentor that they mix very much hi/mid heavy Live on that side of the Pond
Just brilliant.