On the demise of major labels...

[zimv20]

Originally posted by WinterMute

In the end, the quality of the recording isn't so much about format, it's about signal chain and understanding acoustics or electronic manipulation of waveform, give me a Neumann U47, a Neve purepath pre-amp and a GREAT MUSICIAN, and I'll give you a world class recording from my Mac or from the Studer 2".

i agree wholeheartedly.

the sound i get w/ ProTools LE, a mackie board, and some decent condenser mics is pretty darn good, especially compared to what i could get for a similar price 10 years ago.

once i add a decent preamp and a better a/d converter, it'll be that much better.

in the end, the best tool an engineer has is his ears.

 

[zimv20]

Originally posted by gbojim

For those of you old enough to remember vinyl and cassettes , you know that the sound quality of CD is far higher (yeah, I know analog reproduces more accurately, but 99.9% of the people on the planet can't tell) and the media is much more durable.

vinyl is the most durable. magnetic and optical media suffer degradation over time. if properly stored, vinyl will last forever.

so all those bands that release music only on CD -- eventually it will be lost to the world.

 

[Doctor Q]

Originally posted by zimv20
so all those bands that release music only on CD -- eventually it will be lost to the world.

No, music issued only on CDs won't be lost to the world. The CDs themselves may die but all the bootleg copies being transmitted from one customer to the next will be on hundreds of hard disks, iPods, backup devices, etc. You'll never be able to get rid of the last copy of any music even if you tried.

 

[zimv20]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
No, music issued only on CDs won't be lost to the world. The CDs themselves may die but all the bootleg copies being transmitted from one customer to the next will be on hundreds of hard disks, iPods, backup devices, etc. You'll never be able to get rid of the last copy of any music even if you tried.

indeed.

still, an EMP blast could wipe out craploads of magnetic data. vinyl would survive that.

 

[gbojim]

Originally posted by zimv20

vinyl is the most durable. magnetic and optical media suffer degradation over time. if properly stored, vinyl will last forever.

Mechanically yes. What I was refering to was based on the way most people handle music media, CDs will produce consistently high sound quality for a longer period of time.

 

[zimv20]

Originally posted by gbojim


Mechanically yes. What I was refering to was based on the way most people handle music media, CDs will produce consistently high sound quality for a longer period of time.

gotcha

 

[maka]

Originally posted by zimv20


from what i've heard, the average artist doesn't get anything near that.

if you exclude the britneys and such, i think it's closer to zero percent. check out albini's article (link in a previous post) for a great description of how it all "works."

That was the article I was also talking about in my post But I couldn't find the URL... In Albini's article, they get their 10-12% but when adding all the costs, they actually own money. I think this doesn't normally happen with smaller labels but I guess it depends on the label.

What I find funny is that smaller artists make most (if not all) of their money playing gigs, and bigger artists lose money on big tours that are supposed to be covered with the money from the record sales...