Hard Truth

I listen to a lot of older music and often there are imperfections in the recordings. One of the most common is having a particular instrument too low or high when it first begins a solo. For me, a good performance and good material will usually transcend a flawed recording. By good performance I mean enthusiastic and heart-felt, not perfectly precise. It takes really bad room acoustics (as heard on many non-professionally recorded live performances on bootleg releases) and excessive noise (audience noise or the background noise heard on a damaged vinyl record) to make good music unlistenable. The advantage of digital recording is that it is possible to fix distracting errors in an otherwise good performance. The technology does not, and can not, make the music sterile, only a bad performance, poor material or excessive manipulation of a recording can do that.

Looking at the magazine selection in mainstream stores it appears that playing music is not nearly as popular as hunting, knitting, collecting guns, and many other hobbies/interests. Even music magazines for listeners (not just players) are fairly rare, usually they're for teeny boppers and hip hop fans if they have any at all..

One major difference between the Studio models is that the faded versions, and perhaps some of the other models, don't have the maple cap. I'm very happy with my LP Studio with the stock pickups.

Here's yet another vote for "think outside the box." Which usually means 'think inside my box, not your box." "Best practices" is a favorite over-used phrase at my work these days.