FEATURE
they used lousy mics, they never cleaned
it. Andrew Loog Oldham, who was the
manager at that point, said that was the
key to the sound.”
actually improving the music? Regardless,
the studio imbued the recording with an
undeniable quality.
But the question remains, was that envi-
ronment good for the artists or for the
equipment? Think of it this way: experi-
enced chefs know very well the value of
a seasoned pan or grill. Flip on any show
from the Food Network and you’ll see
cooks bragging about their 30-year-old
griddle and how it imparts an amazing
flavor to their corned beef hash. Preparing
food leaves behind actual physical sub-
stances, unlike immaterial sound waves, so
that comparison doesn’t work exactly. But
the dirt and dust and grime could certainly
effect the equipment. In a similar way,
we have to ask ourselves, was that dirty
studio, then, a source of inspiration or
were the dirty, beer-smelling microphones
Dr. Horning Schmidt is referring to, the
recording facilities were also physically big-
ger and bands often played together in a
more live-type setting.
Horning Schmidt states
that “there’s a lot more
space in the recording,
a lot more acoustical
space and dynamics.”
Unfortunately, we’re los-
ing that space with con-
temporary recording and
production techniques.
Many guitar nuts can
identify a particular
instrument while listening to a song. Recording
experts can do the same
thing with studios.
“Back in the fifties and sixties, you could
tell what studio they had been recording
in just by listening to the song,” Dr. Susan
Horning Schmidt says. She is a professor
at St. John’s University who has researched
and written extensively about sounds and
the recording process. During the period
However, even for
recording experts who can discern if some-
thing was done at Columbia Records Studio
A or Olympic or wherever, it’s challenging
to define a percentage of influence that the
studio provides. “I don’t know that you can
measure it in any way. It’s really more an
ineffable quality of sound and aesthetics,”
“E E/G E D C B”
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