Calling all Recording Engineers

A similar question came up in the EQ Experts Forum - http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000837.html
. Someone asked George Massengburg how the Beatles got their vocal sound. (GM is a major recording engineer and equipment designer - he invented the parametric equalizer.) GM's answer was that John and Paul were really good singers who practiced real hard. The fact that they used what is now considered classic recording equipment is nice, but great talent and work is what made their sound.

In today's recording environment it's now possible for an artist to easily fix mistakes. If the singer doesn't sing in tune, use an Intonator (this is a real product, if you've listened to a pop record in the last 2 years, you've heard what this signal processor does). If the drummer can't play on the beat throughout the song, don't worry, you can sample the verse where he played well and loop it over to the rest of the song. The guitarist can't hit the solo, no problem, you can computer program a solo with MIDI and use sampled guitar sounds. The current technology offers today's artist an incredible freedom. Talented artist will take the technology and run. They'll create music. Less talented artist use the technology as a crutch to mask their shortcomings.

One thing to remember, back in the day, musicians worked in clubs before live audiences, usually for years, before they went into a recording studio. This is not the situation today. Artist can have multi-platinum records and never performed in anything by a music video.

Not much that can be added to Albert's excellent response, other than to make everyone aware of the AMPEX Corporation and their contribution. Most of the recordings mentioned were made on Ampex 300 series machines. Ampex engineers were probably the most visionary team in the history of audio.The wonderful all vacume tube circuitry in the preamps back then were a major contributor to the creation of this sound. I once had a chance to listen to half inch full track mono safty masters from 1953 recorded at the speed of 30 ips. And the fact is its been all downhill after that point, sonically. Distortion is lower today but the magic is not there. (at least on full orchestra)
Magnetic tape formulations of today, are not as good, in my opinion ,as the older Scotch 111 acetate. The difference is like watching a wonderful movie done in technicolor, with all those vivid reds and blues, vs todays bleached out film colors

Frap, good to hear from a man that appreciates art. Thank you.

Kudos to all responders. It's rewarding to participate in a forum where the music is being discussed and not the cables, amps etc. that plays it back for us. All the great equipment is useless unless we have something good to playback. I hope we get more great replies in this thread. Great Job Ladies and Gents.

Excellent observations in the above posts. Since the original question concerns "classic" jazz recordings I will add my two cents worth in that context; although the same issues apply to classical or any other music (including pop) of value. I think much of the answer to this question lies in what makes these recordings "classic" to begin with. IMO there are (were) two things at work here that are very interrelated; in addition, it is very difficult to determine which came first and which was a direct result (at least in part) of the other. I'm referring to the decline of interest in live music on the part of the general public and the proliferation of technology. As concerns jazz, remember that jazz was one of the if not the most popular music of the first half of the century; and that was during a time when a very different aesthetic existed as concerned the arts. It was a very different time, and a very different social climate. There was more respect for quality in a general sense and that respect certainly applied to music. In addition there was much more interest on the part of the average person in performing music if only on an amateur level. In general the average person heard much more live music than recorded music. The implications of this are obvious. At the same time there was rapid growth in the development of technologies that could be applied to the recording of music. Technological toys that arguably were not needed; but since the technology was developed, there was pressure to find a use for it. Unfortunately, when it comes to the business of recording music, there really is very little difference between it and any other business endeavor. It has become more and more about expediency and protecting the bottom line, as was pointed out by Albert. This trend is really a reflection of our social climate and not something that is isolated and unique to the art of recording music IMO. Look at the quality of most pop artists today versus those of fifty or sixty years ago. Folks, Frank Sinatra was a pop star then; what more need be said. As concerns recording engineers themselves, I just don't think the love of the music is there to the extent that there once was. The great Rudy Van Gelder set up a studio in his own home and produced some of the greatest and most important jazz recordings of all time. Do we have a Van Gelder today? Is there jazz being produced today worthy of the kind of care and attention shown by someone like him? I'm not so sure. Again, which came first, the chicken or the egg? And while I'm certainly not going to excuse engineers for their lack of commitment to produce a great product, I do know that most today don't have anything resembling an audiophile sensibility. This one blows me away: One of the most common and frustrating observations by musicians is that in the vast majority of cases, while in a recording studio, the engineer never comes out of his booth to hear what the real thing sounds like before starting to try to capture that sound. They start turning knobs without knowing what the artist(s) really sounds like. Go figure.