Joni Mitchell Sounds Off on Digital Recording

In case you missed this Billboard Magazine interview with Joni Mitchell, conducted upon the release of her 4 CD retrospective box set Love Has Many Faces, A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced.

It's certainly worth a read, but if you don't have time, here's a fascinating excerpt:

Was there anything you tweaked or adjusted once you revisited the masters?

The masters have been irresponsibly maintained, a lot of them were corroded, so I had to go a different way. I remastered from my own record collection, so it was generational, on Pro Tools which is all digital. And digital has done horrible things to music. But using digital, the enemy, with analogue-y cues on some of these programs, I put some of the warmth back in as best I could. But [mixer] Bernie Grundman went back to the masters and found they weren't in good shape. So he remastered side 3, and I remastered sides 1, 2 and 4. Henry and I made 14 albums together and the sound of those was pretty consistent. It was when Larry Klein pulled me away and Mike Shipley in the '80s, and that appetite for "sizzle and fry" as I call it. It's a very unattractive sound, and it dates. But that was only one album, and there was some imposition of trendy stuff. But even in the remastering I was able to clean some of that junk off of it.

COMMENTS
SimonH's picture

What a shame about the masters - I was hoping for some more of the Rhino re-issues especially the first 2 lp's - lucky that Hejira turned out so good on vinyl last year. And I guess the Classic 45 rpm Clarity Box's of Blue and Court & Spark will become the references.

SimonH's picture

Best wishes for a good recovery.

DannoC3po's picture

What about all those HD remasters that came out recently? Was this box set mastered from her vinyl?

Michael Fremer's picture
was mostly sourced from her vinyl according to the Billboard story. I wonder what turntable, cart and phono preamp!
vinyl listener's picture

... killed my enjoyment of Joni's music.
Chalkmark in a Rainstorm was the last Joni Mitchell vinyl I bought and it sounds AWFUL.
IIRC Mikey called it Fingernails on a Blackboard ?

Zardoz's picture

I saw a few days ago that she had been found unconscious at her home. She was reported to be in good spirits and they were running tests the last I heard. Anyone heard since?

Great to know there is another great artist out there that loves vinyl and cares about their music's reproduction.

Z

OldschoolE's picture

As of yesterday she is still in hospital, but getting stronger, thank goodness. The last two weeks have been a cluster of greats getting knocked down: Joni Mitchell, Paul Kantner (still in hospital from a heart attack, but looking hopeful) and B.B.King in hospital for dehydration.

audiof001's picture

PLEASE stop smoking!

OldschoolE's picture

Yes, especially with that crazy condition of hers, but sadly it is easier said than done from what I hear.

Devil Doc's picture

Hell, I quite for nine years once and started again. I remind myself of an old Soviet agent on NCIS, "You think it's going to kill me twice".

Paul Boudreau's picture

she was ill. Best wishes for her recovery.

I wonder what "analogue-y cues" means?

Michael Fremer's picture
The "cue" that it sounds like real music!
mauidj's picture

That is really sad..her health that is......but also the state of the tapes. I was really hoping for a reissue of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. Does anyone know if it is on the cards?

OldschoolE's picture

Probably not if that was on one of her first 3 LPs according to her. Ms. Mitchell needs to not be so harsh on herself as many of those who like her works like her first 3 LPs as well.

sandyu's picture

Worth repeating, the best part of the interview:

Can you remember the last new piece of music you connected with?

No, but some music is forever new -- Duke Ellington, "Subtle Lament"? That piece is progressive to this day. Harmonically, just totally original piece of music. "Kind of Blue," Miles [Davis] – that's a magnificent piece. There are some things that are magnificent that are always new, it doesn't matter when they were made. I just don't see much that's made that isn't derivative. There's no Charlie Parkers, nobody coming out of the blue. I listened to this one radio station out of Vancouver, and they played this horrible piece of music – these girl DJs said it was the best piece of music they'd ever heard. It was a bad garage version of the Beach Boys, and I'd never heard such horrible music played. I thought, "I'd rather listen to something that was made before your generation." Because the generation isn't concerned with talent, they're too busy twiddling their thumbs and pushing buttons on their computers.

Hats Domino's picture

So many things wrong with this.

First off, Bernie Grundman isn't a mixer. He's a mastering engineer. Not only that, he's a mastering engineer who believes some really kooky things, like uploading WAV files somehow degrades the audio and the track order inside of Pro Tools impacts the sound quality. but that's a discussion for another time.

So, Joni, personally mastered 3/4 of this album? She's a mastering engineer now, too? Don't we need some sort of entrance exam to do this kind of work?

And she mastered this from her own personal record collection? Does that mean she transferred her vinyl into Pro Tools and "put some of the warmth back in as best I could"?

Also, why do we need yet another story that vilifies digital audio. Excuse me while I yawn. And, besides this being an incorrect idea, it's truly brainwashing people in much the same way as Fox News uses it towards Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Sad.

allvinyl's picture

Neither Obama or Mrs Clinton need any assistance from any news agency in order to draw legitimate scrutiny of either their actions or policies. Just IMHO...

Gerryn's picture

Right on, all vinyl..... both Obama (one of the weakest US presidents in my lifetime) nor Mrs. Clinton, deserve as much scrutiny as possible from a news media who's no longer paying attention to iiberalism run amuck. At least Fox has its eye on the ball....

Chuck's picture

...for posting this link and excerpt. You've just saved me the $40+ this box set would've cost. Mastered from her record collection? Seriously?! I guess I'll just keep listening to my own copies of Joni's LPs and eliminate the middleman (or woman, in this case). It's too bad that she refused to allow her record company to issue a career-spanning collection for so many years; the masters might've still been usable a decade or so ago...

cundare's picture

...for writing this article?

Gerryn's picture

I liked especially her comment that she's sick of "hip hop". No surprise there.
It's a poor excuse for a musical genre and certainly has worn out its welcome long ago.
Right on, Joni.

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