The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163596   Message #3905024
Posted By: robomatic
11-Feb-18 - 03:44 PM
Thread Name: Tech: How audio has improved
Subject: RE: Tech: How audio has improved
ANY system that records sound on some sort of media is imperfect. You can call it sound compression or something else, but I think it's true that the current era has enabled lower cost higher resolution sound capture (and video capture, for that matter) to be available to just about anyone who can rub two bitcoins together.

There is a recent mini-series out there, "American Epic" where modern musicians dress up in 1920s fashions and record onto a mechanical, gravity-driven recording system, the only working example in existence, where a hundred pound weight on a fabric strap provides all the energy for cutting the master. It gives everyone three minutes. As Los Lobos gets ready to play, the strap breaks and Jack White has to take the strap a couple of blocks down the street to get it re-sewn at an upholstery shop. (I believe Jack does it himself).

Every technology has its day. No one built pyramids the way the Egyptians did. In the 1950s and 60s Mercury records issued special recordings called "Living Presence" which represented the acme of then analog recording. I think they stand up well for most present day listeners. But I don't know who would record the same music the same way nowadays.

I grew up with certain record albums which developed skips or had musical errors voluble on 'em. To this day I expect to hear the scratches at certain places in pieces of music I've long loved.