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Re: [microsound] politics of digital audio reflux



i really think you're making too much of a fuss about this.  i don't
think the producer in san francisco was trying to shove his pristine
audio quality in your face (or, if he was, he was a tosser - so
what?)... it's just what record producers are like most often.  sure,
'personal is political' blah blah... but really, you only need to take
one quick glance around the recording industry to see plenty of
unmusical, 'quality' obsessed jerks.

as for albini, his reasoning for being pro-analogue, very simply
articulated in a lecture he delivered (which was downloadable somewhere
- i forgot where), is because analogue is not dependent on encoding, so
it has longevity as an archival format.  in other words, you record in
44k sd2 files today, but in ten years, it's 192k wxy files (yes, i made
that up), and your equipment doesn't even know what sd2 files are any
more.  good luck trying to remaster that record.  whereas with analogue,
you put a magnetic pickup to the media, and provided you get some basics
like speed right, you have your music.  adding to this it should be
noted that albini's interest in recording is of capturing a performance,
rather than crafting a flawless artefact - which i don't think is as
political as it is just an approach to his very specific profession.

of course, most analogue recordists would tell you they chose to record
the drums to analogue tape because it has a specific kind of sound, the
compression is different and perhaps even that they admire the sound of
older recordings.  aesthetically.

there is slightly more credence to the idea of markus popp's 'aesthetics
of failure' and what not, but i think that is limited also. 
particularly in the context of its contemporary equivalents; in the same
way punk rock was depoliticised (and i would argue that 'glitch' is far
less politicised than punk rock) by people who just liked (and played)
it because of the way it sounded.

a cheeky question for you all:

- what is the use value vs exchange value of marxist theories on digital
audio?

think about it.




> yes these questions are very important but I'm also looking at the  
> use of various audio technologies as a political statement...
> - for example:
> - an engineer uses a 16 track analog multi-track recorder for  
> recording drums -- is this a political act on some level?
> 	i.e., what sorts of decisions are involved in the decision to record
>  
> drums in this way?
> 	is it a reaction against digital audio? and if so why?
> 	what are the political issues surrounding buying, using, maintaining
>  
> and advertising the use of older technology such as analog
> multi-tracks?
> 
> a related question:
> from Wikipedia:
> 'a quote on the back cover of Songs About Fucking: "the future  
> belongs to the analog loyalists. fuck digital". -- Steve Albini'
> - can the opinions of Steve Albini (whom I admire btw) w/r/t the  
> technology and preference for analog audio be parsed as political? in
>  
> what way?
> 
> 

ETCETCETC


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