@slaw, Oh, I didn’t mean that Buddy Miller albums don’t sound "good"; they have a great deal of "in-the-room presence" and "aliveness". But Buddy isn’t adverse to using a great deal of compression, particularly on drums. I actually ask the engineers on my recording dates to use compression on the overhead mics; it gives a very percussive "click" to the sound of ride cymbals, a sound I love. Buddy also sometimes uses extreme equalization to achieve a "period" sound (to make a song sound like it was recorded in the 50’s or 60’s). In other words, he’s not a purist/audiophile recording engineer, which is fine with me!
I have everything available from both Buddy and Julie Miller, in every format---except the two Buddy Miller Hightone albums now available on Bear Family LP’s. I’m willing to pay $30 for them, but I would like to know the provenance of the source material BF used to make them.
By the way, before Julie started recording with Buddy, she was a solo artist in the Christian Music field. I also have her album from back then, on CD. Their new album (due next month) is of all Julie-written songs. Buddy himself doesn’t do much writing, but nonetheless finds great material to record. His version of Tom T. Hall’s "That’s How I Got To Memphis" is absolutely magnificent!