Recording Quality Quotes

Little things can make such a big difference during recording.

A lot of times, when you record something, the album becomes less about the music and more technical.

I like noise. It's always puzzled me why one of the goals of contemporary recording is to get rid of noise and to eliminate any element of a performance.

It's always been difficult to make a good record. To be perfectly honest with you, it's really about the person that's pushing the buttons. No matter what type of equipment you have, you still have to have a certain talent to be able to make a good record.

No matter what type of equipment you have, you still have to have a certain talent to be able to make a good record.

I'd do a demo recording by myself, layering instruments on top of one another, and while that's fun, it doesn't have the same impact as getting some great players together in a great studio with a great engineer and producer, then waiting for the magic.

It doesn't matter if you record with a microphone on a laptop or at a friend's house. Now it's more of a danger of things sounding too high-fi than sounding too low-fi.

People say I play real loud. I don't, actually. I'm recorded loud and a lot of that is because we have good engineers. Mick knows what a good drum sound is as well, so that's part of the illusion really. I can't play loud.

The first songs I made brought me to the Grammys. I was a five-times nominated teenager off voice memos and songs that were clearly recorded off different mics.

I get some heat for what English people call 'overproduction.' I don't think my older stuff was overproduced, but I do think that sound has dated.

I would give anything if it went back to analog age. I mean, music was so real, and you had to sing everything on a record; you had to play everything on a record. There was no cut-and-paste - you couldn't get the chorus right one time and then paste it every other time; you really had to be good at what you did.

We rarely write in the studio. Everything's already completely arranged before we go in. That way, we can really focus on getting the recording right.

It don't matter who I'm working with. I just feel like I want to make the best record possible.

You don't want to get stuck with a record that you've done with someone that you feel obligated to put out - that's not really dope, just because you made an effort to get together and work.

The best live recordings capture elements of surprise onstage.

What I try to do is produce an atmosphere where musicians want to invest in what they do and give to the recording. I hire those musicians who I know will play something creative and interesting.

I'm ruthlessly picky when it comes to the crafting of an album, the choosing of musicians, the right mikes, the right studios. There was a time when it was, 'whatever you want.' Then, as you learn a little bit more about your tastes, I don't give in to that kind of thing.

A lot of times good, pristine recordings prevent the listener from getting emotionally involved in the music.

I do go back and listen to my songs. I'm biting my fingernails the whole way through, but I do listen. I have a lot of songs I've wanted to re-record just because of how advanced technology is and the different instrument sounds that I'm more experienced with.

I think it's important when you make a record that you know you're working with the people who are going to get the best out of you.

I listen to everything that comes in. I'm not real worried about demo sound quality. I can hear through that sort of thing. If a band can play, then they can play.

T Bone is genius. The way they've recorded my voice and the instrumentation to these songs is really quite extraordinary.

There's so much more subtlety to this new recording. There's a subtlety in the playing. There's also a subtlety in the way I approached the singing. The band was able to really capture the feeling of the songs and not really trade anything that we had sort of arranged for the live presentation, but the songs just aren't as loud.

You can sit down with Reason or Ableton and literally in a couple of hours make a very good-sounding record. But then a lot of people become contented with that, rather than pushing themselves to making something that sounds great.

Age don't count in the booth.