Do you find that some want to leave the whole thing to the expert, while
others are more engaged, Paul? I once spent 11 hours with a conductor
combing through his chamber chorus project, days before it had to go to
replication. It was supposed to be pretty much done, be we got into refining
edits, then trying some really tricky editing, then fine-tuning mixes for
each tune, and using different balances of stereo arrays at key moments.
Before we knew it, it was nighttime, lunch and dinner forgotten (billable,
fortunately). We had improved the project 200%. The more he got into the
possibilities, the more he wanted to explore. That was an exception. Other
people might get into the recording process, but not so much into the
post-production work. Anybody who does this gets to know how difficult and
unnerving recording can be for some performers, and how it seems like
ambivalence can become their shield.

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Stamler
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 2:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Bass less reissues from England,U.S. Record club
versions

That's been my repeated experience too: musicians' ears usually are
attuned only to their performance, not to the sound characteristics --
sometimes to the extent of listening happily to cassette dubs of dubs of
dubs and proposing to remaster a CD from them, and becoming incredulous
when I say that I want to go back and work from the original tapes --
they literally don't hear the difference, but only hear vocal and
instrumental nuances. Which is why they're on that end of the microphone
and I'm on this end.

Peace,
Paul