The British Audio-Visual Dealers Association (BADA), has come out in support of Bob Dylan's recent scathing comments regarding the sound quality of modern recordings.
In an interview published in this month's Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan said the quality of modern recordings is "atrocious," and even the songs on his new album sounded much better in the studio than on disc. "I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really," said the 65-year-old rocker. "You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them," he added. "There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static."
BADA was invited by Reuters to comment on Dylan's remarks from an industry perspective and to put the case either for or against the argument. BADA spokesman, Peter Thomas, MD of PMC and BADA Associate member observed:
“Bob's comments could be taken in several ways... His comment could be interpreted as reviving the old vinyl-CD debate or analogue vs. digital question. He could be focusing on production values and the competence of the current crop of engineers or producers. It certainly brings in to question whether on simple acoustic works the recording professionals should avoid the vast range of tools open to them and go back to basics. As we know that a complicated path can only degrade the fragile signal whether it is in digital or analogue form... The likelihood is that it is a mix of all of these elements. However you view it, Bob Dylan's comments have opened a debate which can only help bring the attention to sound quality of the mass population and the need for high quality equipment to reproduce it.”
As for us, we can't be sure what exactly ol' Bob was referring to, but in all honesty we're more interested in the fact he's making decent records himself again.
More information: www.bada.co.uk
