Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (03/02/87)
Really-From: ed191-bq%violet.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu (Taylor) (Really from Hugh Maher) Has anyone else noticed that ever since Kate got her new Nagra recorder (post Hounds of Love, Pre several of the HOL singles B-sides), all of her songs (especially "Experiment IV" and the New "nagra" vocal on Wuthering Heights) are accompanied by an incessant high-pitched electronic whine - sort of like the sound of your computer terminal, or the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Does she have one of the settings wrong on her console, or does she just need to change studio lighting? Also, just to head off a very old debate before it even gets off the ground: THE DREAMING was DIGITALLY mixed, and the "AAD" on the packaging is yet another one of EMI's dumb tactical packaging errors. (Should be "ADD"). Actually, a lot of people thought that the whole album was digitally recorded (I'm still convinced that at least Sat in your Lap was, since it was recorded as a sole single back in '80-'81 at newly digitized Townhouse studios with Hugh Padgham - and I think at the time, Kate was debating whether to go digital with the album, but then kept complaining about the "lack of the proper studios with the facilities we wanted). The "Digital Editing" credit in the liner notes added to the confusion, especially among people like me who didn't know what "digital editing" even was. Since then, I've read interviews where Kate talks about her comparison tests, and decided Analog was more "warm" (don't want to start this debate!) for recording acoustic instruments and voices, but that she liked the "edge" that digital mixing gave the final sound. So that, she explains, is why she decided to mix "The Dreaming" digitally. It's even conceivable that "Never For Ever" is the same story, but I'm not sure. Hugh Oh yeah - for those who are interested, Peter Gabriel, after recording "Security" digitally, started out on Analog for "So" but then switched to his old digital recorder half way through for the synths and voices and drums - so after linking the two machines together, he was sort of half in one camp and half in the other. (Same story with Paul Simon's "Graceland").