What happened, though, was that countless overly self-confident hobbyists realized that they could get some sort of sound coming out of their computers, so they started believing that they were in the same league as the professionals and some even began selling their services as such to an unsuspecting audience that knew no better. There would be nothing wrong with that, if a clear separation was maintained between the professional industry, and the hobbyists. For many enthusiasts, this became a hobby, clicking around just to see what happened. Digital audio workstations of a rudimentary nature were offered as free perks with many operating systems, or could be freely downloaded, including virtual mixing consoles and plugins that would replace the outboard gear. No heavy equipment, no major investment, not even what used to be standard equipment, such as mixing consoles and rack-mounted outboard gear. Avoiding all this was one of the major appeals and selling points of digital recording technology when it was introduced.ĭigital recording was cheap and only needed that computer that you already had anyway. to just randomly press buttons and see what happens, not to mention incurring the risk of explosions, fire, electrocution and having to overcome an aversion to screwdrivers. I mean, few people in their right mind would invest six-figure sums to purchase industrial equipment weighing in excess of 1,000 lbs. This already filters out those that do not intend to really devote themselves to learning the art of disk mastering. It is much simpler, easier, cheaper, and almost an entirely automated process to burn the result on a CD using that same computer, and play it back on a CD player.Įven doing a factory run of 500 CDs is way cheaper and easier than doing a run of 500 vinyl records, with its complicated mastering process that requires equipment that is beyond reach for anyone but the most determined and serious audio engineers. It was and still remains much cheaper and much easier for less-skilled and less experienced individuals to produce a recording in the digital domain, especially nowadays that computer ownership is so widespread, allowing pretty much anyone free access to software that will somehow record some sound in CD quality. However, the CD as a medium and digital recording technology is more commonly associated with lowering the entry level in what used to be a very exclusive industry of audio recording and mastering. If anything, Stockfisch Records has done the medium a huge favor, proving that it is actually capable of good sound, if properly done. As with all kinds of audio technologies, it is not that the CD cannot possibly sound good. 1, I almost couldn’t believe that the source was “only” a CD-quality recording, being so used to hearing substandard CDs and CD-quality recordings over many decades now. In listening to the direct-metal-mastered Stockfisch Records DMM Dubplate, Vol. Parts One, Two and Three of this series appeared in Issue 147, Issue 148 and Issue 149.
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