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<!-- #thumb --> <p>Following Tuesday’s post <a title="Always hopeful" href="http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/hopeful/12565/">Always Hopeful</a>*we sparked a lot of discussion on the nature of recordings; most being not too great. *The few that are good a combination of three critical elements: a musician who cares, a producer that understands and a recordist who knows how to pull it off. *And all this IF the goal of the artist is to make a great sounding recording.</p>
<p>Take an artist like Adele. *Some of the worst sounding recordings yet. *Compressed, loud, unforgiving. *And such a shame, as she’s a really great artist, one that I personally enjoy. *The recordings are bad enough I simply cannot bear to hear them on any system save, perhaps, my car (and then only in small doses). *But maybe her producer’s intent was to play the loudness game, the one that helps her track stand out on the crowded airwaves of popular radio. *It certainly cannot be that she doesn’t have the money to hire a good recording engineer. *And it certainly doesn’t seem to have hurt her success.</p>
<p>Truth be told I think my expectations of hope may be unrealistic. *Let’s face it, the world doesn’t work that way. *Just about any category of product or service I can think of follows the classic 80/20 or even 90/10 rule. *80% of any product in any category is going to be mediocre, relative to the 20% that stands out.</p>
<p>It’s true for high end audio, restaurants, cars, music, recordings. *Heck it’s probably true for people as well.</p>
<p>I look at my music collection and realize even the way I catalog them reflects this pattern. *20% of it is a treasure, 80% of it is just ok.</p>
<p>What we as a collective should do is figure out a way to make sure that in some way we support the 20% that really deserves rewarding. *It may, over time, help raise the level of the 80%.</p>
<p>The ratio will remain the same, because a rising tide lifts all boats, and that’s just fine for me.</p>
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[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/standing/12589/]
<p>Take an artist like Adele. *Some of the worst sounding recordings yet. *Compressed, loud, unforgiving. *And such a shame, as she’s a really great artist, one that I personally enjoy. *The recordings are bad enough I simply cannot bear to hear them on any system save, perhaps, my car (and then only in small doses). *But maybe her producer’s intent was to play the loudness game, the one that helps her track stand out on the crowded airwaves of popular radio. *It certainly cannot be that she doesn’t have the money to hire a good recording engineer. *And it certainly doesn’t seem to have hurt her success.</p>
<p>Truth be told I think my expectations of hope may be unrealistic. *Let’s face it, the world doesn’t work that way. *Just about any category of product or service I can think of follows the classic 80/20 or even 90/10 rule. *80% of any product in any category is going to be mediocre, relative to the 20% that stands out.</p>
<p>It’s true for high end audio, restaurants, cars, music, recordings. *Heck it’s probably true for people as well.</p>
<p>I look at my music collection and realize even the way I catalog them reflects this pattern. *20% of it is a treasure, 80% of it is just ok.</p>
<p>What we as a collective should do is figure out a way to make sure that in some way we support the 20% that really deserves rewarding. *It may, over time, help raise the level of the 80%.</p>
<p>The ratio will remain the same, because a rising tide lifts all boats, and that’s just fine for me.</p>
<center><a href="http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/standing/12589/emailpopup/" onclick="email_popup(this.href); return false;" title="Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers" rel="nofollow"><img class="WP-EmailIcon" src="http://www.pstracks.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-email/images/email.gif" alt="email Standing out" title="Standing out" /></a>*<a href="http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/standing/12589/emailpopup/" onclick="email_popup(this.href); return false;" title="Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers" rel="nofollow">Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers</a></center><br /><!-- // MAILCHIMP SUBSCRIBE CODE --><center><a href="http://eepurl.com/eSzBY">Get new and fresh stories like this each morning by joining the folks reading Paul's Posts. Click here </a></center>
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[Source: http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/standing/12589/]