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Creation.

So, does this mean that musicians who improvise are artists then?

They're creating music on the spot.

I'll take that as a concession, then. You have realized that audio engineering is a musical artford.

A tip for you, dearie: ad hominems are not a legitimate debate tactic.

I've already given you a more than reasonable answer. Can you prove to me that the audio engineering ISN'T a part of the artistic creation process? Seriously, SHOW ME how it isn't. Furthermore, how much do you actually know about recording/mixing/Mastering?

The equivilant of sharpening the pencil would be turning the power on and loading in the files/tape, not my what I do to the sound.


You have yet to show why it is disqualified.



Because it shapes the work into it's final product. How can you not define that as being part of the artistic process of creation? If I take a track and put it through a flanger, it drastically alters the timbre of the work. If I utilize a convolusion reverb to simulate a concert hall, it drastically alters it again. If I place some tracks at lower levels than others, or at a differnent location in the sonic soundscape it alters the work. If I use a compressor, it alters the dynamic range, thus altering the work. If I use pitch correction on something, it alters the work. These are all tools in the creation of the final product.

How much work have you done in the field? No, really, how much? How many sessions have you been involved with? If you have no solid knowledge in the field, I feel that you have no business arguing for or against it.


Cheeky little troll, aren't you? biggrin

I'll use the all-night session I did on friday night as an example here. By the way, I was only assistanting and it was my first studio session, so I'll be leaving out details like the mics we used and stuff.

Myself and the producer I was assistanting for had a 5-piece band in. Only the guitars, the bass and the vocalist showed up so my producer had to play kit for them. I'll go through some of the decisions he hade and how he drew it together to use the studio as an instrument to bring the band together.

x The kit sounded pretty dull on its own. Without the rims it was too ringy and with the rims it was dull. We threw in a nice, fat mic in the kick drum, a mic on the snare and two overheads. We equalised the snare to hell and back to get the brightness back into it and the deepeneds the bottom end on the kick drum and the toms.

Result: A kit with a large spectral (think pitch) range that meant it held the bottom end together well and lifted the high end well.

x The bass' strings were at the end of its lifespan and the bass amp was pumping white noise. The bass player was playing with too much attack and the tone of the bass was too light and not deep enough. We tried a few mics before picking one that had a softer response to the attack of the bass player. We aimed it towards the side of the amp so we weren't picking up the direct signal (and so we were colouring the sound more) and we EQed the bass to hell to deepen the bottom out, smooth the tone generally and really get rid of the white noise.

Result: A nice fat, round bass sound that was smooth the the ears and generally generically correct.

x There wasn't really anything wrong with the guitar except the fact that the guitarist wanted to play with lots of distortion. We threw the amp in the isolation booth and made him play in the control room to eliminate the strumming sound he was making with the pick and we EQed it a bit to control the attack and distortion.

Result: A smooth guitar sound that was generically correct.

Note: we didn't do any work on the vocals, we never ended up recording them.


Now, we could've just thrown them all in the same room and pressed record, but we didn't. You, Liquid_len, seem to assume that that's all recording is actually about but, as Saurencaerthai has pointed out, you seem to be missing alot of information.

You have to understand that the industry has moved on since the "press the button and hope it sounds good" stage and that engineers and producers have to make musical decisions (because a mic kit and a studio is an instrument in itself) to make the band/ensemble they're recording sound as best as it can.

Everything that happened in that session and that I detailed IS creation. We started with a small, messy band and polished it up and that isn't all we're going to do - we still have to do post production and mixing/mastering.