I really didn't see the movie as a Neve Console vs. ProTools rant (LOL, they are NOT mutually exclusive). I guess one could see it that way if one were insecure about their use of ProTools. (Weren't they using ProTools with the Neve console at the end?) But rather I saw the movie as a documentary on how audio engineering has changed because of digital technology - how maybe the interactions, friendships, and comaraderie among people (including small things like dealing with the office managers) is lost because digital does make it so much easier than in the past, i.e. no more tape splicing, finding the room with the right reverb, etc. Granted, not all people are going to like change - this is very obvious in the movie.

I do think they have a good point about the old ways. It's not just about compression, although brick-walling is a serious issue. It's about production. I absolutely love pop music, and I haven't heard too many albums recently with the production qualities of the great records from the Talking Heads, Pixies, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie, Tom Petty, Joe Islam, etc. Heck, let's even throw in Pat Benatar and Rick Springfield if you've ever listened to their select tracks on a good HiFi. There's still a small non-cynical part of me which would like to believe that small little things do rub off on the folks who work their way in a recording studio doing things the hard old fashioned way.

I do think they have a good point about the old ways. It's not just about compression, although brick-walling is a serious issue. It's about production. I absolutely love pop music, and I haven't heard too many albums recently with the production qualities of the great records from the Talking Heads, Pixies, Nirvana, Michael Jackson, Lionel Ritchie, Tom Petty, Joe Islam, etc. Heck, let's even throw in Pat Benatar and Rick Springfield if you've ever listened to their select tracks on a good HiFi. There's still a small non-cynical part of me which would like to believe that small little things do rub off on the folks who work their way in a recording studio doing things the hard old fashioned way.

I agree, although compression is ultimately a part of the production because it's on the finished product. We measure 4 or 5 albums a week for every review we do, and 99% of them are DR5 or DR6. Some of them are well recorded and produced, some aren't, and the badly produced ones I tend not to get too upset about because more DR wouldn't do that much for them anyway. The classic example is Justice For All. It's DR12 and it sounds like shit. There's no bass, not because Jason was smashed out but because they mixed him out. The only way to make that album sound any good would be to re-record it.

What really makes me angry is when the band goes to a lot of trouble to get a great sound and a great mix, and then destroys it by brickwalling the CD. We see that all the time and it's incredibly irritating, especially when there's no vinyl version so it's the crappy CD or nothing. The master on the latest Finsterforst for example is appalling, mostly DR4. It could've sounded quite good, but they destroyed it. I've seen plenty of examples of engineers doing absolutely heroic work to get DR6 to sound quite good, but there's no saving DR4, not by anyone. 

I'm not very familiar with mixing consoles, but going from the documentary they are as much musical instruments as they are recording devices. The particular Neve 8078 at Sound City Studios is indeed very notable among it's peers:

http://soundcitystudios.net/recordings-by-year
http://soundcitystudios.net/artist-list

The folks at Studio City seemed to have a great system that worked and they knew how to use it. In particular, percussion instruments seemed to have been the studio's strength, which was attributed to the room and the Neve mix console. I would also give quite a bit of credit to their engineers, who probably knew how to work well with what they had.

I did not feel that the folks from Studio City were adverse to Pro Tools and/or DSP in general because analog tube mixing consoles were seen as being "good" or "bad". They were apparently facing strong competition from studios employing digital (and perhaps more modern) consoles, which given their process and costs, may have contributed to Sound City's revenues going down. Can't be too happy about Pro Tools, if it's perceived as a contributing cause of the Studio's economical struggles, and as a facilitator of mediocre and uninspired work from the artistic and innovation point of view.

I really liked the video, and learned a little about the recording and mixing process. I also spotted a set of Fostex T20RPs and Sony MDR-V700DJs, but for some reason no IEMs. As far as Foo Fighters, my wife likes their music quite a bit. I think Foo Fighters is OK.

All in all I enjoyed the movie and the way it tells us some bits about the history of a few important albums. However I couldn't help but feel that it was Dave doing himself a service by buying the mixing console and getting to jam together with his idol Paul. There were some interesting bits about how analog tech would have an impact on the whole creative process and so on but then we have this- http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=34763

Sure, it's easy to go on and on about preserving the "human" sound and the fidelity, BUT are you ready to actually do something about it? Are you ready to step up and tell your producer that you hate how compressed and loud the record sounds? Are you as a businessman ready to take a financial risk by doing a recording that's different from the 95% of the popular drivel? I don't think that Dave did it.

And most of the music from the Real to Reel album that was in the movie sounded terrific!

There's compressed and there's just loud. The site should really list DR per band. (e.g. lows/mids/highs DR) Thus not unduly penalizing highly layered music, like most of that album, or something with just bass or kick compressed, which is usually ok if not overdone.

The DR database is calculated using the TT meter, which doesn't have any capability to do that kind of thing. When I'm testing I load the tracks in FL Studio and measure using FL's own mixer as well as Blue Cat Peak Meter Pro and X-ISM, and neither of those can do that either. I don't know of any commercial DR meter that can when playing a mastered MP3 or WAV file.

The track DR is what it is. The DR score doesn't tell you whether the song sounds good or not (though <DR5 pretty much guarantees it wont be good) i, nor do I think there's anything in "highly layered" music that would necessarily force low overall dynamics.

Sound City Real to Reel on CD is smashed to DR6 for NO REASON. A vinyl version would be in the DR10-12 range and would likely sound about 1000% better.