I, for one, am not threatened or offended in the least. I think it's curious. As I said I'm no great engineer. I don't think I'm a bad one either.

But it is interesting to hear your perspective. I know how a great guitarist can feel "threatened" or offended by a much lesser guitarist who knows 5 chords be considered serious and successful. Or a real composer feel ambivalent about a 3 chords writer selling tons of records. It's gotta be similar for a great engineer to be faced wit a bunch of home studio hacks who suddenlyy consider themselves serious "audio engineers". Must rankle.

But that does create a bias that's hard to see through, sometimes . . .

[/LIST]Hey maybe Don Was? I love that record!

What up Dog?

Whoa!!!!

BOOMERANG POST!!!

Nice. Almost took me bleedin kokonut off.

But.... Since I'm the original Ex-Home studio Uber-hack©® and the living embodiment of all that is NOT GREAT in AE...., I can only guess about that.

I'm guessing no.

Ask Paterno.

He actually knows what he's doing.

HOHOHO.

XOXOX

SlippyFink

PS.


Guilty as charged yer honor.

(Glad somebody caught that).

Slippy, you give me too much credit, but thanks nonetheless. Glad you copyrighted the Uberhack monicker. Very business-savy of you !!

In response to Henry's post, it seems to me that the kind of 'rankle' you speak of with musicians is born more out of insecurity than anything else. And can be applied to anyone else -- singer [notice the distinction - ha !], engineer, producer, actor, director, etc.

I definitely do not feel that from Our Man Slippy, who is -- I think we can pretty much agree -- one of the 'sage voices' around here. If not, then we can at least agree that it's fun to read his posts just to see how he spells!

He proposed a very narrow, very specific question and when he basically said , 'nope, not the criteria I specified' some folks appeared to get a little annoyed. Why is that? Did he bruise someone's ego?

I see a lot more of this 'rankle' you speak of from people who have blown themselves up to be something they are not, and are constantly trying to prove their theories to themselves and other people. 'I'm this', 'I'm that', 'I know this for a fact', blah blah blah. The internet is great for those kinds of people, because all they have to do is type and hit send. There doesn't even need to be anything to back it up. And it doesn't ever have to be unless it is challenged or contradicted by someone else. Some of it such complete conjecture that there's no point in saying anything.

For me, if it takes three chords to get your point across, and you do it like your life depends on it, that's all that matters. If it takes you thirty chords, and there is conviction behind it, then I think that's awesome. The key for me, is the spirit [for lack of a better word] in which it was delivered. And if that miraculously makes it to the end product, coming out of those speakers, then I don't care who did it or how it was done. I just want to hit play again...

Cheers,
John

Oh, and PS -- in deference to the thread topic --I'm a guitar player...

Bob Power.

I certainly didn't mean to rankle myself, or to rankle slipperman. I have the utmost respect.

Just something I've observed myself and with others. I don't think there's any generality perse. And you're right. It stems from an insecurity. I find the arts full of insecurities. Some of the most gifted are very insecure. It's part of the territory.

I find myself rankled at times with students who suddenly think they're better than they are. I get rankled by clients who do the same. Ultimately it's my issue.

So it just seemed to me that a great engineer might have issues with lesser musician/engineers who are trying to make a go of it, whether successful or not. Your standards being qualitatively higher.

Whether your chord knowledge extends beyond three chords or not, musicianship is defined by ones ability to play and comprehend the language of music, in a broader rather than a narrower sense. At least as far as I'm concerned. But you know, that's just me.

I'm a gearslut and I play/record music to justify my lust for gear!heh heh
Wouldn't call myself an engineer yet but I'm learning...