Re: Katechism XXXVI.7.xi

[8-Track Maniac <jsd@gaffa.MIT.EDU>]

Well folks, you knew it was gonna come some day, and sho nuff it did!
The big whopping near 300 line IED slam...  Despite the fact that poor
ole Richard stated at the outset that this was all based on
speculation, conjecture and idle flights of fancy, IED walloped on it
anyway.  But that's OK, cos now I'm gonna wallop on IED.

>Really-From: IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu
>
>   Your premise is unsupported by evidence here, Richard. IED for one
>dislikes your terminology. Although IED would not try to argue that _TSW_
>is a "better" record than _The_Dreaming_ or _Hounds_of_Love_, he would
>certainly not feel sanguine judging it a "worse" one. Such one-word
>appraisals of Kate's albums seem to IED to have less than no practical
>value. Kate's albums--_TSW_ included--are so rich and multi-faceted
>that to dismiss one over another in such cavalier fashion seems to IED
>unwise, to say the least.

Yes, they're all different - but they all offer something similar: an
audio trip for ~45 minutes.  Although one's perception of such an
experience is necessarily subjective (music being a wonderfully
un-quantifiable art), one can certainly rate one's enjoyment of an
aural experience on a scale.  In the sound quality arena, things are
even simpler because phenomenae like "hiss" and "clarity" are concrete
and quantifiable, although of course there are variations from stereo
to stereo.

>   Two other points which IED has made twice before in this forum: first,
>the final character of the sound on _TSW_ is certainly as much the
>responsibility of the mixer, Kevin Killen, as it is that of the engineer
>(or "recorder"--an interchangeable term, for all practical purposes),
>Del Palmer. In fact, if the sound is, as you say it is, distinct in
>character from that of _The_Dreaming_ and _Hounds_of_Love_, does it
>not make more sense to ascribe the differences to the newcomer to the
>project--in this case Killen--rather than to the veteran--Del--who
>didn't, after all, do that much more on _TSW_ than he had already done
>on _TD_ and _HoL_?

Don't go blaming Mr. Killen.  He did Peter Gabriel's album and it
sounds dynamite - hardly any hiss or noise there at all.  Besides,
mixing involves balancing track levels, EQ and effects - the technical
job of getting the instruments on tape usually falls to the engineer,
and I think there's a lot of shoddy engineering on TSW, whether one
cares to 'blame' Del or not.  There's several "rumbly" piano passages,
and I think the whole tone of the reverb could've been adjusted to
better effect, but that's me...  OK, the clarity of the US CD might
not be as great as the UK, but we've got to go by what we have to work
with.  I have never seen an import TSW, ever, so I am stuck with
judging the album I have got.  Of course, there are those in this
group who would prefer it if we never judged anything and just sat
there quietly accepting second rate material from a first rate artist.


 
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