Re: LAL recording techniques

[owtufuel@usa.nai.net]

>The purpose of the "mixing board" is to take the outputs from the various
>instruments and redirect them to the amps (ultimately to the speakers) so
>that you can hear the various instruments clearly and with somewhat equal
>"power"... 

This seems misleading. Missing is the distinction between plain old power
amps that send the output from the mixer to the PA speakers. BUT there are
also those highly visible HiWatt, etc. guitar amps onstage that were and
integral part of most electic guitar players' sound. The actual sound coming
out of THOSE amps' speakers is probably what we're hearing on LAL.

>For recording purposes, you would never want to record off of the speakers,
>but rather at the source (ie the mixing board) as once the signal travels
>that far, its no longer "pure". Think about recording a CD through your

This may seem right if you're recording experience is with recording CDs,
vinyl and tape onto another tape (maybe with some EQ, speed correction and
noise reduction). But with multitrack recording or live recording then the
sound from the guitar speakers IS often the sound you try to capture.

But you're idealism is well-taken. If The Who was using an onstage mixer for
the monitor mix in 1970 (which I know they eventually had) then this mixer
could have received direct signals from the guitar pickups and vocal/drum
mics. (Someone else wondered if direct boxes were around then, in which case
the tape recorder could have been back at the hall mixer). If they sent each
signal to it's own track they could have taken this tape and played back
their outputs through anything they wanted. They could have taken Pete's dry
guitar sound and plugged it into his stack and what came out would have been
basically the same as during the show. Then they could have done whatever
they wanted with this sound during mixdown.