Dan Lanois is the reason, he is an audiophile and stickler for excellent sound. Oh yeah, and he's Canadian too!
How did "Oh Mercy" end up sounding so great?
Hi,
Years ago, probably not long after it came out, an acquaintance gave me a CD of Bob Dylan's "Oh Mercy," which came out in 1989. Not being a Dylan fan, I never played it until a few weeks ago, when I noticed in another thread here that someone recommended it as a recording with an impressive sound stage.
I was blown away by the sonics of this recording. While clearly a big, multi-tracked studio effort, the sonics and sense of spaciousness are extraordinary, and this is just the garden variety CD.
Now, being that 1989 was hardly a golden age of pop music recording, it got me wondering: How did this record end up sounding so amazing? I mean that two ways:
1) Technically, what techniques did the engineers and producer use to get it to sound that way? Miking? Artificial phase manipulations? I don't know anything about studio recording so I'm just guessing here.
2) How, in an era of crappy sounding, compressed recordings, was such a feat pulled off (because it leaves you wondering why more records of that era didn't sound so good)?
Thoughts?
Years ago, probably not long after it came out, an acquaintance gave me a CD of Bob Dylan's "Oh Mercy," which came out in 1989. Not being a Dylan fan, I never played it until a few weeks ago, when I noticed in another thread here that someone recommended it as a recording with an impressive sound stage.
I was blown away by the sonics of this recording. While clearly a big, multi-tracked studio effort, the sonics and sense of spaciousness are extraordinary, and this is just the garden variety CD.
Now, being that 1989 was hardly a golden age of pop music recording, it got me wondering: How did this record end up sounding so amazing? I mean that two ways:
1) Technically, what techniques did the engineers and producer use to get it to sound that way? Miking? Artificial phase manipulations? I don't know anything about studio recording so I'm just guessing here.
2) How, in an era of crappy sounding, compressed recordings, was such a feat pulled off (because it leaves you wondering why more records of that era didn't sound so good)?
Thoughts?
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- 23 posts total
Here's a video of a radio interview with Lanois talking about making"Oh Mercy". |
- 23 posts total