"Spleeny Crank": Oi! There's no need for that, Rod Alaska!

Yup, I know that Harry Smith anthologised commercial recordings. I for one am glad they sound like they do rather than like many modern studio recordings. It's not about the music, its about the sound. I hate it when recordings sound too damned squeaky clean. Gimme a bit of reverb and distortion... hang on, don't some engineers us that in their expensive studios to make their recordings sound more authentic and down home? I suppose it's a bit like spending extra on distressed jeans...

QUOTE: all of which were beyond the means of an "average" artist of the time from creating in their home. But the home recordist now has relatively cheap access to equipment they couldn't even dream of in the 20s and 30s when the stuff on the Smith anthology was recorded... as long as they remember to splash out on a decent mic, learn how to use what they have properly, learn how to take constructive criticism and learn a bit of basic physics...

I'm not against professional studios and certainly not against professional engineers. I just think that all too often these things are overrated and held up in a mystifying, elitist way by those who have a vested interest in opposing the democratisation of the creative process... and I don't mean you Mudcatters here.

There's room in the world for the professional studio of course, and the professional photographer and graphic designer and so on. There's also room for enthusiastic amateurs of varying ability. In this Myspace/Youtube world of sample before you buy, if you don't like it you can vote with your wallet. And Wysiwyg, my partner is a photographer and she loves her digital SLR and her Adobe Photoshop (as she puts it, no more hanging around in dim and smelly rooms breathing in chemicals)... and finally, just a thought: my dad runs a walking group for pensioners. In the old days he'd have had to fork out for the design and printing of leaflets and newsletters and so on. Now he does it himself and emails rather than posts half of them to the group members. They may not look very pretty, but time, power, ink and paper aside, they're free. Typesetters may not like it, but I can name one happy pensioner who does...

Mick, how about a Mudcat "Just say NO to oppression by compression" campaign?