Over the years Sear Sound has been in three different locations — 16 or 17 years each in two of the cases. What's motivated you to survive these and more recent changes in the industry, such as the rise of digital recording and home studios?
The idea that we can make it better, but that the rest of the world is fighting me and trying to make it worse. And it is. The music delivery system for the last 19 years [CD technology] has been far worse than the old vinyl discs. I ran a seminar at AES a few years ago. I found an LP and a CD — same material, same master tape, same mastering engineer. I put them on simultaneously and we cross faded back and forth. At the end, I said, how many like this? 150 engineers' hands went up. How many like this? And zero hands went up. It's shooting fish in a barrel. Anytime you A/B even the worst recorded, worst pressed LP and compare it to any CD, there is instantly [a difference], just like with vacuum tube mic pres.
Is it the actual physical process of vinyl? The physical construction of the grooves and the different playback mechanism?
It's wrong. My ears are still analog. In physics, you learn that any resistive device adds noise. Noise being distortion or any unwanted thing. The more conversions, the more devices, the more times it goes from analog to digital and digital to analog, you're making horrendous mistakes. There are clocking errors. There are thousands of resistive devices. It sounds terrible. And there is no question it sounds terrible. Except a whole generation has been told that it sounds great. And unfortunately, that's what the problem is. Digital technology has brought music back into the home. It should stay there.
Explain.
Bad is bad. We always had home tape recorders — I bought my first home tape recorder when I was in the Air Force. I did recordings, but I never was conceited enough to think I was doing professional recordings. That's the big difference. The industry, to quote my friend Russ Hamm, is no longer an industry of professionals. We gave that up about 15 years ago. It's become an amateur thing. It's very good as a music educator — you're always trying to get music back into the home. Now everybody has a nice home studio — the only trouble is they've been told by the salesmen that sell them the equipment that they're doing "professional recording" — and this is the furthest thing from the truth. I would not go to an amateur brain surgeon who had read a book and a few of the medical advertisements and have brain surgery done.
Yeah, that would be bad.
The old system, which no longer exists was, you'd come in as a runner/cleaner, and the assistants would talk to you occasionally and you'd begin to pick up little things. Then an assistant would get sick and they'd put you in a control room with a master engineer and you'd watch for two years. You'd watch what he did, and follow his instructions, and learn the microphones, and learn the setups and learn maintenance. My first job was at Fine Recording. I remember when I was interviewed and [Bob Fine] said, "Where did you get your EE [Electrical Engineering] degree?" and I said, "Sorry — I'm a Chem E." And, you know, everybody's nose went up in the air. But they had seen me in the studio...
Many of the newer engineers today don't come from technical or electrical engineering backgrounds.
But we were. I was a Chem E — and they let it slide.
There is a certain level of sophistication, which goes along with that.
Well, you're supposed to know physics. There's no question about knowing Ohm's Law and the math that goes with it, because we were building our own equipment — and I still am. It's back to my original theme: the industry has become totally ignorant. Nobody knows anything anymore. And the question will come up: Who died and made me god? Why am I spouting?
I think that you have a certain aesthetic to it all, which people admire.
Well, I have the training for it. If I'm putting down home studios, it's an amateur thing. It should be considered that. Amateur means "love of". If you have a love of it, that's fine. But don't kid yourself. It's not comparable to a good professional studio.
There's a certain pride that you have from all of the time you've taken.
First thing is, I worked as a professional musician for 45 years in New York and I supported my family as a tuba player. Four years at Curtis Institute — a stay with the Philadelphia Orchestra.
And you were in the pit at Radio City for a while.
Six years. Four shows a day, six days a week. It's the discipline of engineering and of music — which are identical. The discipline is the same. If I resent what is happening in the industry now, it's because it's instant gratification. Take it out of the box, don't read the manual, plug it in, and fiddle around.
And you really can do that.
It isn't the equipment that makes a recording engineer. It's the engineer. It's your skills. I've been in situations with a couple of SM57s — which is an excellent microphone — I was in a situation where I didn't have a world full of equipment to deal with. If you've got ears and a little bit of time, and your microphone settings... But you have to know what you're going for. You have to have a vast amount of experience, so you can draw on that.
Where do you think someone today can get that experience?
You can't because the studio system died. And it died for economic reasons, because you can't compete with free.
