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Cuepoint

Medium’s Premier Music Publication: An ear for the new, a heart for the classics

Why Do All Records Sound the Same?

15 min readJan 9, 2015

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So Maroon Five’s job is clear. Just as a modern politician’s job is to deliver seven second soundbites, their job is to deliver seven second audio clips which will encourage young-ish people with a high disposable income to turn a little red knob at least 180 degrees clockwise. No wonder they look so stressed.

Rick Rubin’s recordings of Cash are extraordinarily intimate and affecting. But they don’t sound anything like Johnny Cash sitting in your living room playing some songs. They sound like you’re perched on Johnny Cash’s lap with one ear in his mouth and a stethoscope on his guitar.

JJ Puig in Studio A at Ocean Way, polishing Black Eyed Peas records in the room where Michael Jackson recorded “Beat It”
Dr Andy Hildebrand, seismologist and inventor of Auto Tune (Antares)

“I see:/a world which recognizes craft and training/
in audio itself which is not disdaining…”

A Bob Ludwig mastered copy of Led Zeppelin II (Source)

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Cuepoint
Cuepoint

Published in Cuepoint

Medium’s Premier Music Publication: An ear for the new, a heart for the classics

Tom Whitwell
Tom Whitwell

Written by Tom Whitwell

Consultant at Magnetic (formerly Fluxx), reformed journalist, hardware designer.

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