heh

i wish i had a bcm-10 with 1084s and 2x compressors in it.

back to that original question, Im pretty sure Fleetwood macs rumours was all api mic amps. But again thats not behind the beauty youre hearing, Im pretty sure the fact they were all having messy breakups, recording after days of binging on booze and coke had more of an imprint than those circuits

OK. First I must engage my 'no-flame' filter because your observations cause significant irritation.

First of all, let me agree with you that the old timers knew far more about what they were doing than modern pros do. Just listen to the radio, notice how style has replaced substance, and then notice how even style itself has gotten really stupid. I understand that musicians often don't have any taste, but the guardians of the biz ought to.

Now onto the problem with your attitude. Let us suppose that a very talented but inexperienced person wishes to learn how to emulate the work of those old-school engineers. Lets says that this emulation includes not just the overall artistic approach, but also a desire to use equipment which was instrumental in creating the unique sounds obtained by those old pros. If you really know your subject, you know that no amount of skill can compensate for a device's idiosyncracies. And this is especially true of old, analog equipment which always exhibits loads of unique character that cannot be obtained by any other means than using that specific equipment.

This is not a case of our hypothetical talented rookie asking for fully formed sounds to be delivered on a plate. It is simply a desire to know the specific characteristics of various different equipment so as to make an intelligent choice about what to use to match an intended mix style.

Also, your bit about the driver winning the race and not the car is total bunk. Without that very specialized, high-performance automobile, no amount of skill can permit you to win the race. Go ahead and enter the race in your '68 VW bug and you will lose, no matter how great of a driver you are.

So please, experienced pros, stop with the self-serving attitude. It IS the equipment, as much or more as it is your skill. You CANNOT make a pro mix with the crap that most amateurs have to use, and you don't know this yet because you have no experience using it, so you don't know how restrictive it is. Your experience in using cheap gear is often from the analog days, when cheap gear still sounded musical and sweet. It just had more noise and THD than the pro-level stuff, but it still had the same euphonic characteristics that today we have to buy UAD-2 plugins to even emulate. So NO, most of you pros do not have experience using the current crop of crap that is available to modern amateurs. And thus, you don't know how it sounds. It sounds indistinct, smeared, and messy compared to the stuff you use; and that is why amateur mixes sound that way even when mixed by somebody who knows how to do it. Just by upgrading my plugins my mixes have become massively better. When I upgrade my converters too the results will go up again. Equipment matters today more than ever.

Now I take every opportunity to read and learn all about mixing and I never stop learning. But in today's world there are no options to 'go through the system' as it was done in years past. I would love to be a 'tea-boy' at a major studio, knowing that in time I would be asst eng and then on to more creative independent work. But that old 'master-apprentice' system is GONE, not because of us newbies, but because of you pros, and yet you still bitch about us 'not paying our dues' and thus not gaining the experience that famous old pros once obtained.

We are doing the best with the current messed-up situation as we can. And the situation is only messed up because pros allowed this to happen to the industry. The current problems in the music business were caused by music industry pros, including producers and engineers. So it is hardly appropriate to lecture those of us who find the industry far less fertile today than you had when you started, to blame all our sonic problems on our lack of skill, and to massively inflate your own abilities just because you are fortunate enough to drive a ferrari, so to speak.

I think Fletcher was trying to say, If an amateur runs out and spends all his money on one thing and expects to unbox and immediately sound like record X, then he is in for a bit of disappointment. - good gear is good gear because its been used to its full potential. and there is a learning curve within every piece you own. - and more to the point, a learning curve with what else is in the chain. - having a great mic pre but going into a bad converter/interface will not help.

Engineers back in the day indeed, they had more time not like the pressures of modern studios and record labels wanting a fat cheque real quick.

Equipment is one thing, engineer skill is another. at the same time..
Room is one thing, and choice of how you use the room is also another.
How the choice of mics used to compliment the sound your trying to capture. vs modern studios gunning for the first mic (albeit expensive mic) because its already good, and it will "get the job done" again due to deadlines.

There is a lot to be said for good engineering. - i.e - you can throw 3 mics on a guitar cab in 10 mins. - sure you can get a good sound. - but if you have great depth in knowledge you can get a much better sound in the same time.

So to the point, Fletcher was not puting anyone down, but just stating that new engineers think buying expensive tools will make them sound great, but a lot of the time it doesn't, as they need to learn a bit more about everything else first.

But sure, good equipment from the start, nothing wrong with that, and great, you start off in the right direction. but expect a few long and frustrating nights ahead.

I hear you (and him), but I must disagree about him 'not putting anyone down'. The implicit message in his comment is 'you will never sound as good as the old pros, even if you have the same equipment, because you are not any good and you never will be'. He sounds insulted that the 'riffraff' wants access to the holy devices that contain his secrets, as if nobody but elevated persons such as himself have any right to use it.

This is simply a stage in our development to finally figure out what gear works and what doesn't, and then get it, and then figure out how to make it shine like the pros we revere. I am at that stage. I have worked with subpar equipment for some years now, and I can tell you that there is little further development I can do without getting better gear. A race car driver learns to drive on less-capable equipment, and then goes up to the big leagues with the real equipment. Only then, once you have truly high-performance gear, can you even START to learn the detailed skills and tricks needed to be among the best. You cannot practice drifting on a car with poor suspension and little power. Maybe you can get a little drift going, but the real training of all the truly pro-level skills happens AFTER you get pro-level gear. And this is because you can't do pro-level things without pro-level gear, no matter how hard you try.

I see many pros say the opposite when they usually have never even had to work with the things we amateurs have today. And then to claim that their gear is basically unimportant to their outcome makes it seem like they are gods who can turn any hardware into audio gold, which is false. If it isn't false, why do pros ever buy anything new? Why spend thousands on converters when an Mbox 'works just fine'? And honestly, most pro mixes today are not up to my quality standards, so I really don't feel a strong admiration for their work anyway. Technically they are fine, even too much so. But the artistry of former days is gone in an attempt to make things as loud and punchy as possible over the entire duration of the song. Vocals occupy over 95% of the song's duration without respite, and there is little effort made to make the song timeless. Instead, it is made to be as timely and ephemeral as possible.

For us amateurs looking for that vintage tone we love, we are not asking for a handout. In fact, the people who got the handout are all those old pros from the '60s and '70s who happened to work at a time when all the gear around them sounded amazing. We are simply looking for the next step in our development. And since few of us have ever seen these devices, much less used them, we are understandably confused about what sounds like what. To ask these questions and then get "Well you don't need that cuz you aren't as good as us anyway" is extremely insulting and just plain wrong.

Many of us amateurs know that the gear is only a tool. There are lots of techniques and skills to be learned too or it is all for nothing. I practice and read books on mixing frequently and this has been part of the reason why I have outgrown my old gear. The tools are essential, and saying they aren't sounds like either cynical misinformation or excessive arrogance to the point of blindness.

I make a point of this only because I find this attitude to be sadly common among pros, and I think it harms them, us amateurs, and ruins the positive potential that this forum could reach.

I understand that probably a few pros will respond negatively to what I have said, but the pros do not own this forum. If anything, they don't need it and we do. This forum has no real purpose if it is not for us amateurs, and so the pros who visit here need to check their egos at the door and try to remember that they are not here to throw attitude around. They are here to answer questions without attitude. If they can't do this simple thing, please don't come here. I would rather figure things out from 10 half-assed amateur comments who sincerely are trying to help than deal with these exalted gods who feel that we amateurs are beneath them. For you pros who freely and humbly offer good ideas to us amateurs, I thank you without reservation. But unfortunately, not all of you pros are like that.

I understand where you are coming from, really I do. - but dont take things personally. - some people like to speak there mind before they realize what has been said. - its a forum, there is no attitude rules so to speak.

But whilst your posts are aimed at the pro;s insulting your methods, im not sure exactly where your coming from either. - do you need help with anything? - or are you just venting at a response that happened 3 years ago?

We cant help you unless you ask for it. - and generally speaking you seem to be heading in the right direction, if you know you have outgrown your gear, that that is a massive achievement. as the day you brought that, I bet you were also overwhelmed. - so yes its time to move on.

That sounds about right. To me, APIs always had the "crystalline" quality to them... at least the mixes that I heard that I knew for a fact were APIs. And FM tracks always seemed to sound crystalline. I'm sure a lot of that had to do with Buckingham. But without the APIs I doubt that LB would have sounded as crystalline as he did. Am I making any sense?

Sure talent is the most important thing here, but you also get alot "for free" with good equipment that you have to fight for in cheaper gear. Sometimes just by running stuff through it. Just saying.

It's hard to learn when you already know it all

I understand your confusion. I am not venting just to vent. I am trying to add some ideas here that could help with the overall tone and usefulness of this forum by pointing out counterproductive attitudes which I feel are commonplace here.

I understand that part of being a pro engineer is creating a kind of 'cult of genius' around yourself. You have to impress potential clients that you know many things which they don't and this is why you get paid what you do. Positioning yourself as a kind of audio wizard is just part of successful marketing, and so these high-ego-driven attitudes can be used productively. It helps when you have a band that needs to just play better if they hear that from an 'audio wizard' whom they respect, so I get it.

But when you go to a forum and start talking to non-customers I think it is inappropriate to continue to employ that attitude. Even the freshest and greenest of rookies should still be treated with respect as a peer, if not as accomplished yet as those with long discographies. My main objection is the trend to some pros behaving disrespectfully, if not by outright insult instead by the underlying attitude framing their comments.

I still have much to learn and I would like to be able to come here and pose my questions without having to wade through these useless replies from pros with excessively-arrogant attitudes. I have to say that such replies are sadly normal here, to the extent that other pro audio forums all feel that GS is a very rude place populated by rude people. That is the reputation of this forum. It would be nice if we could make strides to change that. That's all.

I don't already know it all. That's why I would like this forum to operate better, so that when I do have questions I can get answers without the accompanying insults.

One of the things I would like to know better is the tonal differences between the 1073 and the 1081. I know that I have to hear them both myself to really know, but the impressions of others with experience using these units would be helpful too.

I thought I might share some knowledge:

Nick Launay has never been "trained", and used Neve 1081 & 1073 consoles
almost exclusively. He's done a few records with Nick Cave, Midnight Oil, Silverchair, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, PiL, Peter Gabriel, and Kate Bush. Check out Nicks website for a discography.

Also, consider what your favourite records were mixed on. A lot of my favourites were tracked on Neve but mixed on SSL.

At some point in the future these fancy hardware EQ's and Preamps will be replaced by mystical Volterra Kernels, and strange profiling gadgets will take over from mic'd guitar amps