REQ: The Other Side of the Mirror

[David]

Originally Posted by amber

David - can you be more specific on a poorly produced section? Like on LWTG, for instance, what's the problem?
It's obviously overproduced, but I think sometimes Stevie's late voice needs that.

I don't recognize "overproduction" as a technical problem in any area of pop music (it's an artistic choice the producer makes, it's his vision, his conception of the song), but bad engineering is pretty recognizable. Think of the way the volume drops out about halfway through "Escape from Berlin." Also, somebody mentioned the whistles on "I Still Miss Someone." But the problem with the whistles isn't that they're there, it's that they're recorded & mixed poorly. They are tintinabulatory tinny to the fastidious ear because they are too high end & engineered poorly. Remember, engineering is the craft of correcting the problems you had with microphones & recording (& even with bad vocal takes). But if your engineer is asleep at the wheel, or just not very gifted, or possibly suffering from a cold or a sinus headache that day--anything that would affect his ear--you get a track with bad sound & bad levels in both instrumentation & vocals.