[Wayne]

Dean,

I used to have a similar approach to band recordings......where you didn't put anything on the recording that you couldn't pull off live. That philosophy was based on having heard tons and tons of bands that couldn't come close to sounding like their records. The problem with this approach is that it severely limits the possibilities of what you can do on your recording.

My approach, now, is to do what is best in each scenario.....their are some things that you can do live that are very hard to capture in the studio, and there are certainly things you can do in the studio, that are difficult to pull off live. But what a listener is going to respond to differs as well in these very different atmospheres.

When a person comes to your live performance, their senses are alive with stimulation from a number of sources.....bright colored lights, atmosphere of the hall, the smell of smoke drifting, hot dogs cooking, fans talking and running around, the musicians jumping around on stage, the drummer being very physical with his kit, banging away, the give and take between the charismatic lead singer and the audience, and so forth.......so in the middle of all that, from a listener's point of view, there's not a lot of attention left to focus on the many subtleties of of the musical presentation....hence you find yourself, as more of a performer pulling off a bit of artistry, instead of an artist pulling off a performance.

On the other hand, in the studio, your audience, in theory, doesn't have all these distractions and things going on, but, rather, is sitting their with all their attention focused on you .....basically saying..."show me what you got", so it's up to you, through the 'magic' of your studio, to give them an artificial atmosphere....a kind of exciting place, where anything that you can imagine can happen....and does!

So, now, I approach the studio environment with that philosophy.....where anything is possible, where you're taking something that is basically two-dimensional in nature and transforming it, thru the magic of electronics, into something multi-dimensional, that is very much alive and moving about! Otherwise, from the listener's point of view, yes...it could get kinda boring.

If you think about it, this is the same thing that happens in live theatre vs. the movies. In live theatre, you have the hall, the bright lights, the magical give and take between the actors the audience, the actual vibe in the air, and all the same stuff I described before.....and the actors over-do everything in order to 'project' this way out to the people on the back row.

But in the movies, it's a lot different, isn't it! Can you imagine, these days, watching a movie that didn't have dynamic special effects, tremendous camera zooms and pans.....and that exhilarating soundtrack, full of eerie violins and stunning sound effects......just actors telling the storyline, pretty much from the script, saying their lines in front of a straight ahead camera shot......why you'd be bored out of your mind, wouldn't you!

Get the picture? So yes....make those mixes come alive, I say! Use all those ProTools you paid for and have fun doing it, by crackie! [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]