Re: [microsound] Quality Control

[Joshua Maremont <thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:40 PM 3/14/01 +0000, Tony Sakr wrote:
> The question we might ask is this: Is digital audio truly the free-for-all 
> panacea it claims to be or is it simply an unfortunate curse contributing 
> yet more data to our already overloaded ears?

The answer is:  both.  I like both approaches, and my joy in examining a 
beautifully created musical artifact - for example the latest Cranioclast 
picture-disc 7" on Drone Records or Hatohan's CD box on Hacca Note - is 
balanced by my enthusiasm at watching music evolve on line (as in the 
Bovine Life project or the Fallt label).  And if we are to look into 
quality control, the problems began not with MP3 uploads but with the 
appearance of affordable digital recording equipment (specifically the DAT 
and the ADAT) and cheap CD pressing rates years ago.  Suddenly what 
required a serious investment in studio time could be done at home and sent 
off to the plant for pressing the following week.  And it is here, to me, 
that the problem originates.  I am listening at the moment, for example, to 
"Systems of Romance" by Ultravox, one of my favorite albums, and although 
it is a rock group the example has some universality.  This group released 
one LP - 35 to 40 minutes of music - per year and so had to choose only its 
best material for that limited section of time, and as a studio and 
producer (Conny Plank!) needed to be hired by the hour the material had to 
be rehearsed and toured to perfection before the first mic could be set up 
for recording.  As a result, rather than ten albums and EPs and postings 
and CD-Rs through which to sort for gems in 1978, the group gave us its own 
best selection and left us with a single slice of perfection for that 
year.  It is not that the professional studio and the LP make musicians 
diligent and that home studios and CDs make us lazy, but rather that it is 
very easy to release every noise we make (I call it the toilet tapes 
phenomenon) in this age of instant hifi digital gratification, without 
going to the work - urged in the days of the studio and the infrequent LP - 
of polishing, editing, and culling.  To me it is simply a question of 
possibility and responsibility:  as the possibilities for creation 
multiply, it is the responsibility of the musician to bring them to heel 
rather than becoming intoxicated by their multiplicity.  A CD does not need 
to be 80 minutes long, a track does not need to be released, six remixes 
and seven alternate versions do not need to be published, although there 
are certainly markets in which all will gladly be consumed.  With the era 
of the upload upon us, it has become even easier to lapse into extruder 
mode, and here again it is up to the musician to exert quality control over 
the proceedings:  it is better to upload one brilliant piece per year that 
twenty mediocre ones.  Scarcity offers its own pleasures as well:  I am 
more excited to find a new 7" by Kallabris - whose whole output over the 
last few years has been two of these in quite limited editions - than to 
know that a musician has the third MP3 of this week up at the usual place, 
although I will probably get both.  And perhaps the MP3 track is the new 
B-side:  just as groups put their less commercial (or successful) work on 
the flipsides of singles in the days of the LP, now the physical release 
into which the best work has been mastered can be supplemented by more 
experimental or tentative work in downloadable or CD-R or MD 
form.  (Several labels and groups are already using this approach.)  But 
all of these technologies are simply tools, and it is up to us to use them 
wisely; if the new tools of digital music tend to have a laxative effect 
upon the compositional bowels, we must find a cure in our own process of 
production.  But even if 99% of tracks uploaded are crap (sorry for the 
unintentional continuation of the metaphor), I am still happy that the 
remaining 1% can get out into the world, can skirt the mechanisms of 
production and distribution so oppressive in the world of physical 
releases, and can make it through our modems for a few moments of 
appreciation.  Moreover, I like the way virtual releases have suggested a 
decentralized model for musical distribution, in which the huge 
conglomerates play no part (hence their desperate lawsuits at the 
moment).  Then again, while such developments allow for a democratization 
of releasing among musicians, they do create an aristocracy of listeners; 
far more people can go out to the shop for a tape or a CD than can download 
music on a fast internet connection and then listen to it on a good 
soundcard.  As a musician I find it useful to remove possibilities - fewer 
instruments, fewer tracks, fewer plugins - but as a listener I like to 
multiply them.  A few ruminations, anyway.

Joshua Maremont / Thermal - mailto:thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Boxman Studies Label - http://www.boxmanstudies.com/