Hi again John,
Originally Posted By: JohnJohnJohn

<snip>

as I have said before, do whatever you want with your music and your performance. if you enjoy it then it is all good! and if you find a market that also loves it then that is even better! like so much in life you simply cannot listen to the elitists, purists, haters, etc. when trying to decide your direction!

After I posted the above I reread your posting and realised that the bit quoted above is an almost perfect description of the difference between:
Music, the artform, and
Music, the business.

To me, and this is very much IMHO, the use of technology to get "perfection" in order to create sales is all about business and not art. Mediocre as I may, or may not, be; I much prefer art to business.

I have read laments elsewhere on this forum relating to the good 'ol 3 or 4 chord wonder and how the recording companies are forcing this simplicity, as well as dictating style, and thereby educating the public's listening pallette in order to reduce production costs and sell more tracks...

It seems to me that Jazz has fallen into disfavour with the majority of the listening public because they have had their musical pallette trained to the point where interesting chords like 11ths and 13ths or half and full diminished's sound "wrong"

The listening public has had their musical sophistication deliberately "dumbed down" by the recording companies. I think this is a very sad thing - if it keeps up, we'll all be listening to monotonal chants again - anyone mention Gregorian?

AND THEN we come to dynamic range... WHY, when a CD has a dynamic range well in excess of (depending on whose article you read) 90dB do we consistently get recordings using a range of, what, 6 to 10dB? Way less than vinyl anyhow (same article = 55 to 65dB).

Quote:
In music, dynamic range is the difference between the quietest and loudest volume of an instrument, part or piece of music. In modern recording, this range is often limited through audio level compression, which allows for louder volume, but can make the recording sound less exciting or live.[30] Popular music typically has a dynamic range of 6 to 10 dB, with some forms of music having as little as 1 dB or as much as 15 dB.

WOW, as much as 15dB!!!

Check these two interesting articles:
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.htm
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicdeath.htm

I play in a few different live contexts, concert bands, jazz big bands, jazz small groups and theatre orchestra's and I can tell you that it gets harder and harder to get a sound engineer who understands dynamic range. Typically they turn up the drums, bass and guitar to "11" and walk away - AND YOU CAN'T TRAIN THE BA$%@#^&$'s frown
I will tell you this, any time I have influence I won't even allow the kit to be miked! It is plenty loud enough accoustically for most venues I play in.

Let's come back on topic - Autotune to improve sales, loudness wars to improve sales - THEY are both about business, NOT art - I prefer my music to be artistic thank you very much.

--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya laugh --=--
You're only paranoid if you're wrong!