I wandered to the studio today in a daze. Man it was cold. New York City weather can be harsh. Those avenues are like wind tunnels. I only brought a little jacket with me so the walk is painful.
Emery was finishing Long Way Down when I got in. It sounded amazing. He was about to "put it down" when I asked, just to be safe, could I hear the monitor mix.
"Put it down" means transfer the mix to 1/2 inch tape. Once it's on 1/2 inch, the mix is over. You are puting the mix to bed. It's forever. Never to be tampered with again unless you are asked to revisit the mix on the classic album show :)
The significance of tape at this point is huge. Tape is physical, and, unlike the digital universe we find ourselves increasingly sucked into each day, it has a certain depth which just cannot be matched by anything other than tape. Like darkroom photography and digital photography, the difference is so subtle, yet no digital camera will ever recreate the richness of film.
Digital is zeros and ones imitating, and anolog is physical. When you hit tape it is solid and, if you get the right tape machine it sounds amazing.
Soooo Emery was just about to put it to bed when I asked to hear the monitor mix. As with Chinese Blues, the monitor mix of Long Way Down had something that this desk couldn't give us. Emery agreed, so we put the monitor mix onto 1/2 inch tape and that was that.
We had already decided that the monitor mix of Broken Mirror was perfect so we moved straight on to Friends.
This was an interesting one because of the way it came about. More tomorrow
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