The songs that make up “Celtic Revival” and the performance on each one is uplifting. But the recording fidelity of the entire record is downright depressing. What could have been a superior masterpiece of sound for the Sky Family is marred by the inferior production qualities of the final finished product. And that is really such a shame because you can hear they have talent – it’s just that whomever had the last say about the recording console decisions was lacking in that department.
Don’t get me wrong. The Sky Family knows their way around their instruments and every note played is done so with heart and soul. The band’s songs are well written and nicely crafted. As artists they know what they’re trying to get across to their audience and that in itself is no small achievement. Although I’ve not been at one of their shows I suspect that the production problem I’ve already mentioned is the same that many musicians must grapple with: taking the same musical excellence you can achieve on stage and capturing it during your sessions in a recording studio.
There are so many stages to making a great recording. You have the recording studio equipment to begin with. If it’s not maintained correctly it doesn’t yield the best reproduction of sound. The equipment must be upgraded regularly less new technology renders it obsolete. This is as true for both the studio’s own hardware as well as the band’s instruments.
The synths sound like they’re cheap Casio keyboards from the 1980s, and unlike fine wine, vintage is not always good. Could be caused by outdated devices or poor choice of sound patches chosen. This is particularly evident in their choice of using an old school drum machine that an early model of a primitive beatbox. It lacks the more natural dynamics of today’s models. When mixed with the Sky Family’s traditional Celtic instruments it’s less than appealing.
The engineer at the console must be both a technician at the control board as well as an artist who understand what the musicians are going for how to help them achieve that goal. If there’s someone there calling the shots as a producer then that person too must be able to effectively work and communicate with the musicians and engineer during the tracking process. Once the tracking process is completed the producer’s job then extends to overseeing the mixing of the tracks and then overseeing the final pre-manufacturing mastering process. If each step along that path is not done correctly then the end product is inferior.
Again, the Sky Family appears to bring to the table many good ideas with the necessary talent to make them a reality. This is a band who sounds like they have great voices so why bury them with unnecessary vocal processing? On their next record they may want to consider using different equipment, engineer, and/or producer. Because the sad truth at the end of the day is “Celtic Revival” could have been a masterpiece for them, but it misses the mark when it comes to high audio fidelity.
soundcloud.com/celtic_revival/sets/celtic-revival/
