Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock
Titolo: Dylan e i microfoni

[OT] Rui si e' magnato un gol incredibile...
Tratto da Scritto nell'Anima di Bill Flanagan (Arcana 1987).
Sono 29 interviste a nomi storici e muffosi del rock (Dylan, Young, Jagger,
Richards,Reed, Costello, ecc...).
Molto interessante, reperibilita' dubbia.
Tutta l'intervista e' qui:
http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/85-mar.htm
BILL FLANAGAN: You're famous for going into the studio and recording very
quickly to catch the moment. But a couple of your recent albums, "Slow
Train" and "Infidels", were more labored over.
BOB DYLAN: See, when I started to record they just turned the microphones on
and you recorded. That was the way they did it back in the sixties. Whatever
you got on one side of the glass was what came in on the controls on the
other side of the glass. It was never any problem. What you did out front
was what you got on the tape. And it always happened that way. Whether you
played by yourself or played with a band didn't really matter - there'd be
leakage and that stuff, but you were pretty much guaranteed that whatever
you did on that side of the glass was going to be perceived in the same kind
of way. That was never any problem. So what happened to me was, I kept
working that way through the seventies. I didn't realize things had changed!
(Laughs.) I really didn't. I don't think I knew you could do an overdub
until 1978. I just didn't think about it. Maybe I was *so* outside of it
that I hadn't realized that. The problem is, you can't record that way
anymore. If you go into a studio now, the technology is so different that
you might have a live sound that you want and you'll put that live sound
down, but it won't sound that way on the other side of the glass. So then
you have to contrive the sound to make it sound the way you really want. in
other words, if you want to sound a certain way, whatever that way is, it'll
never happen in the studio.
There's a kind of an outdated thing called "live excitement in the studio."
It doesn't happen anymore, because people don't record that way. A lot of
people put things down one track at a time. Things are so advanced that
you'll be able to *phone* in your parts pretty soon. Anyway, the problem
with it is that no matter what you do, it's not going to come out that way
anyway. People try. Some people use a certain studio because it used to have
a certain sound. But they might have changed all the equipment in the place,
so it's not going to have that sound anymore. I like the old sound, but it's
done. It's never going to come back. So you just have to deal with what the
modern way is.
A lot of my records have been made because it's - quote - time to make a
record. "When's your new record going to be delivered?" "Oh, next month."
Time for me to go in and make a record. I never used to think about it
during the year. I had other things to do. Some of the seventies records
were made on just one block of time. "This month I'm going to block all this
time out, write the songs, record the songs, mix 'em, press 'em, get a cover
together, and it's all out in a month or two." It took me a long time to get
off that particular style. I didn't really enjoy it that way.
Sometimes I've never done the songs before - I'll just write 'em and put 'em
somewhere. Then when I'm making a record I'll need some songs, and I'll
start digging through my pockets and drawers trying to find these songs.
Then I'll bring one out and I've never sung it before, sometimes I can't
even remember the melody to it, and I'll get it in. Sometimes great things
happen, sometimes not-so-great things happen. But regardless of what
happens, when I do it in the studio it's the first time I've ever done it.
I'm pretty much unfamiliar with it.
In the past what's come out is what I've usually stuck with, whether it
really knocked me out or not. For no apparent reason. I've stuck with it,
just from lack of commitment to taking the trouble to really get it right. I
didn't want to record that way anymore. Now I'm recording more than I used
to record. About two years ago I decided to get serious about it and just
record. Because I do need records out and I do have deadlines and
commitments. It's been a big struggle to come up with them at certain times.
So rather than do that, what I do now is just record all the time. Sometimes
nothing comes out and other times I get a lot of stuff that I keep. I
recorded this album ["Empire Burlesque"] for a long time. I just put down
the songs that I felt as I wanted to put them down. Then I'd listen and
decide if I liked them. And if I didn't like them I'd either re-record them
or change something about them. I wanted to be the first one to judge it
rather than put them out there to the people and have them do it.

molto interessante. In effetti Sua Maesta' è stato spesso contraddittorio su
questa faccenda della registrazione degli album. Alcuni dei suoi migliori
lavori (uno per tutti, Desire) sono stati registrati pressoche' live. Altri
capolavori, ad es. Time out of mind (sebbene su quest'album in particolare
Dylan stesso abbia espresso giudizi profondamente divergenti in tempi
diversi in merito alla produzione), hanno richiesto un lavoro certosino di
produzione e ne son venuti fuori benissimo. Altri album, sui quali il
produttore ha esercitato un ruolo di rilievo (es mark knoplfer in infidels)
hanno imho sofferto di sovrapproduzione.....
per me il buon esito dei suoi lavori nasce piu' dalla scelta dei musicisti e
dagli arrangiamenti , oltre che dalla qualita' delle canzoni e
dall'intensita' interpretativa,  che non dalle scelte di produzione......
ciao bp