Darcy James Argue wrote:
[snip]> Therefore, Erik has spent a lot of time and effort figuring out
how to
get the best possible amplified sound in a variety of situations. He
[snip]
That one sentence says it all -- amplification is not necessarily an
evil in any situation. *Poor* amplification is horrible in any
situation, and it needs to be each musician's responsibility to learn
what works best for their instrument and have the strength to demand it.
I think that those who react strongly against amplification have been
the victims of poor amplification, which would give them the right to
complain.
In my limited world, I have found that quite often those who run the
amplification are failed musicians. People who started playing an
instrument but couldn't handle the discipline or never really wanted to
work hard in the first place. And so they are not the best judges of
what the final sound should really be. They are full of book-learning
which really isn't appropriate in a real world where the human ear
should be the final arbiter, and have learned the 'ideal' settings for
EQ or balance, but who have never really listened to what an acoustic
instrument sounds like (the full tonal spectrum, overtones, resonance)
and therefore can't ensure that the audience hears that sound through
the amplification system.
And unfortunately they get hired to amplify rock bands where often the
only goal is volume, so when the do a good job there they get positive
reinforcement of bad behavior, so they think they're gods and won't
listen to some fool of an acoustic musician who complains about the
tonal color of their instrument when amplified.
So each musician needs to become an engineer and learn what works best
to deliver the correct sound when amplified, like Eric Friedlander has
done. It's not easy, but it's too important to be left to folks who
couldn't pass the music department audition and so entered the Recording
Technology department. (I know that last sentence is probably not fair
to the many sensitive recording engineers who entered the field in order
to do a great job in any amplification situation, but at least for two
colleges I know about, my sentence just about sums up the situation.)
And even worse is when it's left to people who have no education but who
simply bought some amplifiers and microphones and opened their own Main
Street Sound Reinforcement Company or some such business. The poor
people who hire them have no clue what they don't know.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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