Dinosaurs, tape and remixes.

I trained as an audio engineer (fat lot of use it did me too!) but there is a trend going round these days to just make all music really loud. Way To Normal, the latest Ben Folds album, fell into this category.

A lot of fans were none too happy about it and demanded that the album be remixed, re-mastered and re-released (I have since worked out that I am not a die hard Ben Folds fan, if I were I would hate everything he does). Anyway, being the God-like figure that he is Mr. Folds descended from the sky and gave his view on all these points. It makes a very interesting read.

Please note; I have edited this down. The full version including observations about the album's lyrical content and a very interesting fact about bats can be found at thesuburbs.org.

"YOU RANG?

The quality of an album is ultimately the responsibility of the artist. Some people love this album, some hate it, some don't care. Its all a matter of opinion. I love opinions. I don't love opinions that are stated as if they are fact but I suppose we're all guilty of that from time to time. I’m thrilled you care, and so I don’t mind spending some time caring back.

If this album was a movie I was the actor, passing on director's responsibility this time around so I could get a different perspective. I chose a director, a producer who's made many more albums than I, who had a totally different way of looking at things - a yes man would have would have just done as I said in which case I would rather just produce myself. I believe in giving a producer a lot of authority, like Amanda Palmer did for me recently when I produced her album. Of course when a dissatisfied audience member leaves a movie early and throws a half cup of melted ice and coke at the poster in the lobby, its the picture of the lead actor that gets wet. And I did say in my thank you section that anything less than perfect was my fault. So I’d already agreed with that point.

As far as the sound goes, I wasn't involved in the engineering but I suspect what a lot of you are reacting to - the compression and distortion - began in the recording phase since during the mix there generally wasn't the option of a clean sound. Compression seemed to have been committed to tape. That effect was compounded in the mix and again in mastering. So I don't believe its simply mastering that some of you are finding disagreeable.

Dennis and engineers were actively going for this sort of thing. A broken ribbon mic was chosen for many of the vocals and Dennis had me singing about a half inch from the mic. They compressed and EQ'd the vocals heavily to tape. I wasn't aware that they'd all been effected that way until the mix and it became obvious that there was no changing these things at that point. So I embraced the effect and went with it. Mixing from stems and self mastering could gain quite a bit of dynamic and would be interesting to hear. I may do the same thing for the hell of it.

I don't have perspective on the production of the album at this point. Its too soon. I usually hate what I’ve just done until I start making the next record. I’m just now able to hear what’s good about [Songs For] Silverman. That's why when I'm the producer I like to move quickly if possible because I lose perspective quickly. I don't really like to get heavy on effects and compression but that's my personal slant - I'd like to see the music do most of that work but I also don't like to get stuck in my own rules. I've produced a lot of my recent stuff so I thought it was time to try something different - Dennis was definitely different. In mastering I tend to like a slightly lower level that makes room for dynamics, headroom for low end, transients etc. This is old fashioned and sometimes it really just sounds dumpy when put into context with "modern" music - like when I hear my music at a restaurant and the next song by some other artist blasts it out of the room. So I was open to this loud method. I'll try anything once. Or four times even.

I wasn't at mastering so I'm not sure what was done. Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't feel I had anything to offer aside from my typical "turn it down and take it easy on the multi-band compression" comments.

Loudness is definitely now an official industry wide issue. Its spread into the general public via articles like the one in Rollingstone about the Loudness Wars. Loudness is like contrast in black and white printing. High contrast is often the symptom of a hopeless amateur, although some master printers, like Ralph Gibson use it to amazing effect. Loudness is also like a tattoo. If your friends talk you into it on a drunken night, you can't really bitch about it the next day because its on you for good. Might as well embrace it. Or go even go for the full sleeve!

Loudness might currently represent the dinosaur of the old music industry that's desperate to compete. As that dinosaur becomes completely extinct its possible that all production with Loudness will be buried alive with it, including albums like mine. A Loudness witch hunt may ensue, half of the Loudness haters not even knowing what compression is. Years from now some of those albums might be revived. Disco was Satan for years and then we discovered Abba and the Bee Gees again. All disco wasn't bad."