Sorry, I'm at it again. I'm evangelising a forgotten thing in media distribution.

HIGH fidelity. QUALITY sound.

Exceptional recordings that carry every subtle nuance of the original performance with detail and clarity, building an audio landscape of emotion-invoking aural pleasure. A sound stage with depth, space and character that conveys the reality of the performance. Not compressed MP3, MP4, AAC, vbr, uber-tiny-filesize digital formats that make your ears bleed with their coarseness and flat, dead, lifelessness.

Real sound with a full and natural dynamic range.

Why?

Read this article in the LA Times. In my opinion, it's worrisome. 

Why? Here's why:

A movie of that calibre with performances by artists of such skill will be ill-served being sold in a heavily compressed format.

The guitar is an instrument, the beauty and detail of which can scarcely be recorded well, even at the hands of a very good audio engineer, let alone at the hands and ears of an average one. At best, most recordings are an unrefined approximation.

Think of it this way - it's a highly technical instrument, from a detailed listening perspective, let alone a player's perspective. One can scarce ignore the vast difference in sound character between a classic early sixties Les Paul and say, a vintage Gretsch White Falcon. Chalk and cheese. Even if they were played by the same artist through the same amp stack on the same settings.

Don't even get me started on acoustic instruments - so many different voices formed by the same instrument in different hands.Consider the difference between say Elvis Presley and Django Reinhardt on the same Martin. One is sleek technical artistic perfection. The other is 'product'.

So much of that subtle character is not just about how it's played or how it's recorded. It's about the ambient characteristics of the performance space - the air around the instrument, the deading or liveness of the room - even how moist the player's fingers were on the day. There are so many, tiny and subtle variables that come into play which change each performance.

Trying to express the performance by guitarists of that calibre, playing such supreme instruments in a compressed digital format as will be sold on iTunes is of similar characteristic to expecting someone to convey the complexities of the sensual experience of a perfectly stored and served glass of Grange Hermitage in a Twitter message. Not going to work, sunshine.

The only ones who heard the real performance in "It Might Get Loud" were the recordists and those present on the day. No one else will. They were auditory witnesses to the beauty and the passion of the performance - they experienced the vitality and the enthusiasm. Something that the rest of us can only dream of as that moment is passed.

However, through the effort or the sound recording team, we can get a reasonable facsimilie of it. There will be losses in quality - oh yes. But that last step to digital compression for retail sale, let alone the post-production work which crams 120 dB or more of true dynamic range into about 60 dB in order to make the filesize better and other jigger-pokery playback 'sound' better (i.e. psychoacoustics, etc) has losses.

Detail and beauty will be slaughtered.

Heavily compressed digital formats have a purpose of convenience and enjoy massive popularity. One of the prime reasons could be followed logically from a comment made by Mick Thompson of Slipknot when he mentioned earlier this year in an interview published in a respected music journal. He said of the MTV awards. "We were in a room where we were the only band that actually plays their own music. Everybody else is a pretty face with a producer who tells them what to do."

Generic, popular, headline, cash-cow acts for the mass market played predominantly by electronic instruments through digital amplifiers lose almost nothing to the highly compressed digital sales formats. If the product is merely musical entertainment and not artistry, then an AM pocket radio is a suitable playback platform - heck - even an Edison Phonograph if you're keen to go lo-fi. In the case of "It Might Get Loud", that's just not the case. It deserves more. Much more.

Yes, from the point of view of increased distribution and the content finding its way into the hands of more people, Guggenheim is correct. With solid marketing, sales will be made and perhaps people outside the core interest groups may access the material. Oh - and a greater 'monetization' (ugh! that word again!) for all involved.

However, it's still going to suck.

Go see the movie at a cinema with an awesome sound system. Your ears will thank you.

Cheers - Virgil.

_{NB: Red Circle Media is in no way associated with "It Might Get Loud" or any company involved in the making, sale, distribution or marketing of that movie. This article is merely a personal opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Red Circle Media. No animals were harmed in making this post.}