Imperfect sound

[Marco Raaphorst]

I am from 1968. When The Beatles were still kickin' ass at Abbey Road.

Although music equipment improved a lot over the years I came to the conclusion that popmusic was never about perfection, it was all about "soul" and imperfect sound. Noise, hum, overdriven signals.

In 1968 The Beatles didn't even use a click track.

I am a guitar player. During the 80s and 90s a lot of players went from using pedals to using 19" units using a Bob Bradshaw switcher. I was using rack effects as well. Less noise and signal loss than the old pedals.

But guess what? Nowadays everyone is using pedals again. Even Steve Lukather who almost invented the 19" rack for guitar!!

I remember Prince using a LM-1 drummachine with that rim pitched down and all it's digital artifacts. Prince running every synth and that LM-1 through his Boss pedals. His early years 'till '88 have a demo-like quality, a rawness, the quickness of working (all Prince songs are recorded in 1 day). Thanks to Susan Rogers also. His later albums sounded better but lacked the early rawness. Prince kept on using pedals, he hated the 19" stuff.

I remember hiphop, the early samplers, that limited bandwidth. I remember analog tape. Timing and syncing issues with MIDI.

Popmusic came out of the blues. Which was a black man playing his guitar way too loud. And then we started to dig that overdrive, that non-clean tone.

I remember seeing Eddie van Halen play his "Frankenstein" strat. No pedals, except for a Phase 90. Just the amp on 10 and Eddie using his volume control to change the tone. With just one fucking pickup!

I still love that imperfect sound. It must be my age I know, but too perfect sound sounds clinical too me. Perfect might work for classical, folk or even jazz music, but for popmusic not. It needs to have artefacts. That's what popmusic is all about. Wabi-Sabi. Imperfect it should be. At least for me.

[plaamook]

Just to throw some shit in because it's not just bands and so on...

Selected Ambient Works 1 from AFX was all tapes fars I know. It sounded crap in a really great way. In fact lots of his early stuff was rough as hell. I think in electronic music there was or is a resurgence in that sort of thing over the past few years. Burial and so on. Admittedly it's often added rather than just naturally in there but then overdrive was added.

When I work it's a similar thing. I try to get things gone fast and leave em alone. No over polishing. I make all electronic noises, field recording and so on.

[Marco Raaphorst]

Just to throw some shit in because it's not just bands and so on...

Selected Ambient Works 1 from AFX was all tapes fars I know. It sounded crap in a really great way. In fact lots of his early stuff was rough as hell. I think in electronic music there was or is a resurgence in that sort of thing over the past few years. Burial and so on. Admittedly it's often added rather than just naturally in there but then overdrive was added.

When I work it's a similar thing. I try to get things gone fast and leave em alone. No over polishing. I make all electronic noises, field recording and so on.

I love Aphex Twin. Love that rawness.

Not making something sound perfect, loving the irregularities, it's a creative decision.

Their aren't any mistakes in art.