Tír Na HiFi

The worst replay of recorded music I ever heard was at a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert in The Backstage Theatre in Longford. No fault is attributed to The Backstage Theatre, it was the sound equipment and the PA system that was supporting RyG that was the problem. My wife and I took our seats well before the off and what I thought was a recording of a half decent pub rock group was blaring [and I mean blaring] from the PA. Dreadful sound, it sounded so grainy and indistinct.

On the way out after the show we passed the sound desk and I could not resist asking the young operator what CD he played before the show. He picked up a jewel case - For Those About to Rock We Salute You by AC/DC. This was an album that I did not have, I had around four AC/DC albums at the time, but I thought I would recognise AC/DC at one hundred paces and was amazed that I did not. I told the chap that the sound of the CD playing was awful. He looked at me as if I had three heads and probably thought that I was an old fogey and what would I know about rock music anyway. I bought that CD a week or two later and not surprisingly it sounded, on my system, exactly like AC/DC. And not a bit like the racket before the RyG show.

The RyG show itself sounded amazing. As did the supporting acts. It was the pre support acts music that sounded dire.

A lot of The Smiths stuff is pretty sharp - Stephen Street productions in particular. Big Country's "The Crossing" was unlistenable and that was produced by a sometimes brilliant and sometimes Godawful producer Steve Lilywhite. Steve Earle's "Exit 0" was so bad I took it back to the shop but the owner, Charlie, said it was now played so wouldn't exchange it. Charlie is still involved in Claddagh Records and that musical tourist trap on Middle Abbey Street. A quick google tells me

The album was recorded digitally, using the Mitsubishi X-800 at Nashville's Emerald Studios.

Of course my fledgling systems probably didn't help but I know the above are still far from satisfactory
I used to think early Tom Waits albums were a bit ropey but as my system has improved so has their production!

The RTE recording of Misé Eire is a well know bad recording (some may not agree of course). As it happens I was talking to a radio co-worker some years back and he was actually present at the recording. He pleaded with the engineers to rethink the placement of microphones as he could see this was going to produce a cluttered narrow recording. It's a while since I listened to it but I don't remember it being very good.

RTE can't mic for shite.

I was just about to say "any RTE program". ;) I have a fair few bad productions in my collection. A Police - Greatest Hits CD come to mind.... I was listening to Grant Lee Buffalo last night and that was pretty badly produced..... Good songs though.....

Head and shoulders above (or below?) anything else I've heard is this little nugget



Principally because
....".The album's sound quality is poor, due to its being recorded onto cassette tape (a low-fidelity recording medium by 1972 standards) by live sound engineer Hunter MacDonald. The liner notes to recent CD reissues of the album state that it was "captured live on an Ampex stereo cassette fed from a Kelsey Morris custom built mixer ... in the rain from the back of a Volkswagen truck." Atlantic Records, King Crimson's original North American distributor, declined release of Earthbound due to its poor sound engineering. Current CD reissues of the album do not significantly improve its overall sound quality, due to its cassette origins."

Also, anything I've heard by The Flaming Lips has a very hard, flat sound that I find very tiring to listen to.