Let me talk to you as an agent or recording studio producer would,
and I'm thinking Daniel Lanois, twenty miles away,
Mitchell Froome and Tchad Blake, producers for Police to Chery Crow,
people I've spent time with backstage.
Just to give you some perspective, a book publisher will tell you,
that if a book has over 75% original material, readers can't get into it.
If music listeners don't hear a natural human voice most of the time,
they'll lose interest right away.
That's why lead singers who use an effect will have a retro mike beside them,
so they can sing and get that distant sounding, ballpark or DJ sounding voice.
In the old days, lead singers got into having an effect at the end of the mike cord beside the stand,
turning their own reverb on and off or another effect that simulated another sound.
I would never only trust a sound man or roadie to be turning on and off vocal sounds for me,
wanting a reliable, therefore only enjoyable experience.
In 1969, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada,
Jimi Hendrix had speaker wires going to the four corners of the arena.
He had two mikes side by side for himself, with a mike in front of the guitar and bass amps,
having them on both sides of the drummer, the basis of his "Axis", bold as love, sound.
This was before there was manufactured stereo equipment.
Jimi would be waving his guitar, and the roadies in front would turn big copper knobs,
and the sound would move back and forth, side to side, up and down,
following his movements onstage.
When the wings of Little Wing began to rise up to the top of the roof,
people were looking up like they were going to see something, us too.
Sound is what you make it.
I hope you know how to sing into a mike,
and use a Shure SM58, still the industry standard,
and less expensive now than they were in the 50's.
aussie Dave, be nice to your musicians.
According to the American Federation of Musician's Union,
singers aren't musicians and don't have to pay dues.
Female singers get paid twice as much as men.
What do Natalie Imbruglia, Kylie Minogue and Nicole Kidmann have in common?
They all say Lenny Kravitz sexed them up and made them a mature artist.
That's just a heart-brake ago. Where were you?
