T Bone Burnett Quotes

When I started in '54, it was only one track on a quarter-inch machine. We didn't have recording studios much around the country; we went into the radio stations and recorded our records.

What do I think of digital recording? Well, it's all right. But those old thorn needles, now, that was a sound.

No compression or as little as possible - that's how you get a good recording.

The late '70's and early '80s is the zenith of a certain craftsmanship in sound recording.

There's a lot about records that you cannot feel from a CD.

All I know is that when I mix to digital and when I mix to tape I compare them and the tape always wins out.

When we recorded our first album sixteen track machines were the thing.

It's a battle between record company, between producer and between mastering engineer. Because the louder you make your record in a digital process, the more dynamics are squished out of it. Nobody knows exactly what happens, but the dynamics in the performance disappear, and everything is at the same volume.

Another thing to do with the blues is how they were recorded. They were done on the quick, and some of that stuff was made on wire, not even tape, let alone digital.

Every record I've ever done with Tool has been on tape.

I'm not a fan of the sound quality of our first album, because there's a noise in my head.

Sometimes I hear records that are being recorded at the absolute highest quality, and I just don't like the sound of it.

That's what records do: represent a compressed, heightened version of the sound. Because of the compression of the tubes and microphones and the wax, it's magic!

When you're recording live, really good vintage instruments onto two-inch tape, it's the best fidelity you can get.

I was born in the overdub years. I wish there wasn't such a thing as a multitrack tape player, because what you heard would be the record.

Jesus, that ear. He should donate it to The Smithsonian. Brian Wilson, he made all his records with four tracks, but you couldn't make his records if you had a hundred tracks today.

Some people record onto tape, and then they pay for the tape, and download those onto a hard drive. Initially in a Pro Tools program. Other people go straight into digital, and use no tape at all.

The only advantage of the CD is that you have a booklet that can tell a bit of a story, but the little covers are just boring. I love vinyl, and I have loads of it. It's the same thing as digital photography versus film photography. It's a quality thing.

I like noise. It's always puzzled me why one of the goals of contemporary recording is to get rid of noise and to eliminate any element of a performance.

When we were making vinyl records we had a lot of time limitations for each record so songs were left off for a number of reasons. Now, with CDs, much more music can be included.

I've personally reached the point where the sound of MP3s are so uncompelling, because so much is lost in translation.

Well, they put me in a booth and then did some nice things to the speaker to make it come out sounding ok.

I always liked the intensity of the recording.

It's very clean. With tape, you get noise.

The tracks on 'Sleep' were recorded live to 2-track. I did a fadeout or two of them, but that's really it.