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Old 03-26-2010, 07:32 AM   #8
soniclovenoize
Minion of Satan
 
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Location: Minneapolis, MN
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ado View Post
Yes and no. I recall at the time Billy mentioned about it being recorded in live takes on to DAT.
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You mean ADAT. Machina def has the ADAT sound.

But they would record a version of a song, rework it and record it, rework it and record it, rework it and record it. All the while, Flood would route the guitars or whathaveyou through ProTools and digitally manipulate the sound, feeding it back to the tape, live, so that the end result had about 30% the original guitar sound and 60% of Flood's manipulation of it. So much so that they eventually lost track of what was going on, and the guitar sound of whatever song "just is." See Imploding Voice.

As for Adore, yeah, I believe they had Neil Pert and others manning ProTools and interpreting what Billy wanted and making it happen digitally, what couldn't be done on tape. I remember Neil Pert telling me they constructed the drum track for Blissed and Gone from random samples of people talking on the radio, using like a "th" sound has a hi-hat and a "pb" sound as a kick, and so-forth.

Virgo Thing:
Your own music is our own music, but I would suggest to rethink your idea that your choice of digital VS analog would be based solely on what The Pumpkins did. To oversimplify things, SP started out very analog and "vintage" sounding (Gish, Siamese) to very cold and digital sounding (Adore, Machina), and if you ask the opinion of the many audio-tech and audiophile SP fans out there, the sound of the early SP material was much better than the later; the common view of Machina is the production ruined the album.

So if you choose to go that way, expect harsh criticism. I personally hate drums recorded on ProTools. They sound thin and wimpy to me. I hear it on so many new recordings now a days. I record all my drums on analog and do a stereo mixdown of the analog multitrack masters into a digital multitrack program (SONAR, actually, which is Cakewalk's rip of ProTools, that I believe soudns much better!). So if you end up producing music that has the production value of Machina, expect projectile vomiting.

I've been playing in bands for 14 years and I've been recording them for 8, and let me give you some advice: base your recording methods on what's best for your music, not what some band from the 90s did. Think what's gonna sound good and the most cost effective. I assume you're just starting out? If so, I suggest getting a 4-track analog recorder. I know that might seem stupid in this day and age of digital, but learning to use the manual analog tape and limiting yourself to only 4 tracks teaches you discipline and how to plan the sound design of the project before you record. In one of my audio production classes in college, we started out splicing tape with a razor before moving on to editing wav-forms. You have to start from the beginning to get to the end. And also, just like a msuical instrument itself, as you progress and become a better musician/producer you can work your way up to a digital platform. If you're gonna let someone else record you, it'll probably end up recorded into ProTools, the industry standard. Not because it sounds better, but because they have really really good PR.

Also think of current trends--as aforementioned, you go to a cheap studio, they'll record you to ProTools. It's hard to escape form that. But also there is a resurgence in "analog" and the desire to have a warmer sound, so I'd think you'd have the options of tape. But then again, I think people are putting some gay ProTools plug in that just generates tape hiss and just puts it in the background.

So think before you leap, man.

 
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