During the breakup of my marriage, my ex gave me a big box of digital audio tapes (DAT), that have since been gathering dust in my closet. DAT was one of the fastest moving obsolescences to happen in the history of digital technology. DATs look like little boxy mini-cassette tapes – and they are, in fact, magnetic tapes, just like cassettes, but instead of recording analog waves, they record digital information. But this technology was only favored for a handful of years until recording directly to a computer hard-drive with unlimited tracks and do-overs became too handy and easy to resist, and DAT was dinosaured out of the industry.
I recorded my first three CDs in studios using DAT recorders, and recorded my fourth on a stand-alone hard-drive recording unit, and after that it was directly to a computer with a system called a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), which is still the nomenclature in use today. You may have heard of Pro Tools or Garage Band or Ableton or others.
Thus ends the lesson on the archaeology of digital recording.
I recently got a DAT recorder, a huge beast the size of … holy shit, I don’t even know. It’s enormous. Takes up about a third of my recording desk. But from 1993-1998 or so it was The Industry Standard. And it is simply the most solid and reliable hunk of machinery imaginable. I kind of adore it. They are becoming rare, which is sad, because they truly are that amazing confluence of analog warmth and digital clarity, possibly the very best of both worlds.
Anyway, I have been archiving all of these old DATs so the music is accessible in a format that seems to be what we’re going with now. The project hasn’t been as exciting as I had hoped it would be. Most of the recordings I have are production masters of my old records, test mixes, corrections, and a few live performances that I can barely stand to listen to. It is all very … triggering, in a way.
Because when I would make a mistake in front of a live audience, or gods forbid on live radio, I would hear about it from my ex husband for days, he would berate and belittle and heap abuse upon my head, and rationally, I’d think, Nobody noticed except maybe the most astute and well-trained guitar player in the world … and they would give way fewer shits than you, who are just waiting to pounce on anything I do wrong, even though you can’t even play a single note. But still, the ordeal was horrible, and a lot of that anger and criticism stuck like manure to my shoes.
Even listening to the production masters of my old records is a little uncomfortable, being perfectly imperfect as they are. I have always been more concerned with the feel and the expression than anything like virtuosic perfection. And boy, some of that stuff was pretty darned expressive. I’d rather put on an emotionally engaging show than a painfully perfect one. Nice when both of those things come together, oh hell yes, and sometimes they did. But I always erred on the side of the feels because that’s what music is for …
I was hoping for the stash to include my old “sketch pad” tapes from my field recorder, ideas, fragments, songs that never happened … but no, those are apparently for future archaeologists to ponder as they excavate our midden heaps.
But listening back to all this ancient stuff has been educational. I haven’t listened to those records in years and years, probably since shortly after they came out. Well, there was no point, really. I was there when those songs got written and recorded, why would I need to go back and listen to all that again? There are some songs that I remember just loving when I wrote them that make me cringe now. And some that I was “meh” about that now I think might be half decent. And some that probably should have been left on the sketch pad to gather dust forever. But one thing is so very clear, so very clear, and that is, boy have I made progress, both as a human and as a songwriter. I compare that old stuff to the stuff I’m writing now, and uffda baby, thank Goddess and thank Muses and thank Source, I am a ridiculously better songwriter now than I was then.
More importantly, I have learned that I am also better when I am in collaboration with other musicians. I used to take such pride in “doing it all myself” but that approach did not serve me, or the music, well. My last two records have included some great musicians that have allowed me to relax and fall into the wholeness of the song. Collaborating with other musicians on my songs has created interpretations I couldn’t possibly have imagined. They have made these songs even better, so much stronger, so much more engaging and listenable. The songs I recorded with other people on those early records are straight up my favorites, 100%, because they were so much more than me just wanking with a guitar. Yes, I just said that.
I don’t know where I’m going with this, or even exactly what I’m trying to say here, but … Collaboration=good. Examining early efforts can be empowering and actually affirm your progress as an artist and a human. Digital technology can be really really stupid.
I’m going to play with this DAT now; the seller included 4 blank tapes, and I’m not afraid to use ’em. I have enough songs right now for about three more records. May as well make a start.
