[Tall Pall]

It occurred to me today, when listening to the Green Day album Shenanigans, that music has come a long way since the days of the great’s such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Stones etc. Technical excellence and producer know how as resulted in an almost infinite line up of professional sounding bands and artists. Yeah I know Green Day and technical excellence are not synominous but bear with me.

Now the point of my post, you may be wondering, which is that: recently I’ve started learning how to play Jazz and the 12 bar blues. I’ve got some pretty nifty equipment but never seem to manage to capture the professional sound that you find on pretty much, any album, anywhere. Now moving swiftly on, if you go and see your favourite band live (if your ever lucky enough that is) then you may get the feeling that these guys/girls don’t have a bloody clue what they are doing. Professional is definitely not a word to describe a lot of them.

Rarities such as Counting Crows of whom Mr Moyles is a big fan, apparently, also a big favourite of mine. They are fantastic live and in my opinion far better in that setting than on released albums.

Now, “fair enough” you may say, “I agree but what the hell are telling us this for?” Well what I think should be done, is the folks at the BBC should start up a Radio station dedicated to live music. A lot of people I know appreciate good live music and I think this could be a big hit, especially in the evenings.

I hope I haven’t missed out and made myself look stupid by overlooking a good live music radio station, either way, good idea or no? Your opinions please.

[David]

It is a good idea, but is there enough live music to fill a whole station 24/7? BBC 6 Music do a show each weekday night for 2 hours dedicated to BBC sessions both past and present.

David

[TJD]

Good point, although during the summer a lot more festivals take place: leeds, ozzfest, redding e.t.c. so, one of the current BBC stations could have longer dedicated shows throughout the summer if you get my drift.

[Funky Drummer]

Firstly, your "professional sound:"

Being in a recording studio is a completely different setup than one that's live (my band by the way recorded our first album a few weeks ago - would anyone be interested in me emailing them a couple of snippets?)

Anyhoo, there are a wide variety of things that alter the sound of the music. Firstly, it's near impossible to capture a "live" sound on a disc, whether vinyl or cd. People figured out how to get the best sound in a studio and that's what we've come to accept as "professional-sounding." Different effects are used in a studio that usualy aren't used live. For example, whether you think it sounds like it or not, reverb is usualy put on the mics. This just gives the vocals a bit more weight and more sustain to them, not to make them sound like they were sung in a cave

You've also got things like compression which are added to the drums. As expected, this gives them a "compressed" sound, not the bold, open sound you get when live. It's not done to try and make them sound quieter, but to make them sound neater and tighter.

Then there's other little things such as how the guitars are miked up that alter the sound, and also the editing of the track, the mixing and mastering and then the final reproducing that all change the way it sounds.

If you were to record your guitar in a studio going through all the processes above, and more, then it would sound a lot more "professional" as you put it.

Secondly, live music station. Good in theory, but as David said - is there enough live gigs to keep it on air (and decent!) 24/7. Radio 1 already do more live sets than (I think) any other station in the country, especialy if you take into account all the One Big Sundays, live lounge sets, etc, etc.

Good point, though.

Rich~

[kendra k]

live music on the radio is a great thing. the bulk of the production i do for radio is live programming. http://kalxlive.org is the website for my programme which i'm incharge of. the problem isn't only, as rich pointed out, the fact that it's near impossible to get bands to perform 24/7, but the logistics. it takes 6 hours for us to get a band to play for an hour on the radio and make it sound good. the bulk of our show is comprised of "cabinet tapes" or previously recorded concerts. it would most likely be a very expensive and time intensive operation that just doesn't seem feasible. also, i think there's something special about the ocassional live perfomance on the radio, or only once a week. it keeps it fresh and not played out.

[Tall Pall]

No I ment a radio station dedicated to playing live music whether recorded or happening live. It would be nice to support and give air time to bands who perform very well live.

As for you and your band Drummer, congrats on the first album. How's about ripping a few tracks and hosting them online so we can all have a listen? Personaly Im always interested in hearing new bands/music.

I think you missunderstood also about what I ment by the live/studio thing. I understand a fair deal on what happens in a studio, but that still dosnt ditract from the fact that, some bands sound better live. They dont use (well most of them dont, famously Sting does i think) use a recording studio quality set up whilest playing live.

As for me, Im unable to create a sound which is of profesional quality despite plenty of time and effort although it can be done. Especialy when using a faily clean sound, Jazz being a prime example of "sound good" mainly when live. Hence my request for a live or err "livelier" radio station (note the pun).

[Funky Drummer]

As for you and your band Drummer, congrats on the first album. How's about ripping a few tracks and hosting them online so we can all have a listen? Personaly Im always interested in hearing new bands/music.

Okay, will do Either that or I'll but some segments of them all into one audio file. I'll have a look into it tomorrow - got nothing else to do!

Rich~

[jc]

I like the idea, but wouldn't licensing be hellishly difficult or expensive to obtain for sessions that aren't done in house, such as live gigs (which happen every night and are usually arranged by a promoter), festivals and the like? - jc

[kendra k]

record them- i'm sure the bbc records everything the boradcast on the evening sessions and what not. like how much live music do they get from their "one big sundays"? lord knows most of the stuff my show boradcasts wasn't recorded in house. and besides, i'm sure the stuff the bbc has already recorded would be easy to re-use as i know the have the apropriate releases already.

[Tall Pall]

Maybe jc, I honestly dont know but I would expect they could sort somthing out. Doing some sort of deal with record companies that encompass all there artists or somthing, if they got some really big stars on board then the advertising would pay for that alone, perhaps.

Nice one Rich, if you need any hosting space then I can host up to 5 meg files in size and have room for about 45 megs in total at a time on my site.

[Funky Drummer]

Nice one Rich, if you need any hosting space then I can host up to 5 meg files in size and have room for about 45 megs in total at a time on my site.

Okay, cool, cheers. I'll give you a shout when I've sorted it

Rich~