The record executive picked up the phone on the third ring. He never wanted to appear too anxious. “Hey Bob, we start tracking Holly’s record this morning at 11. “Why don’t you fall by the studio at 11:30 and we will give you the first single, ready to go”.  The executive said, “ What are you talking about?”  “No time to explain now,” the producer exclaimed, “just get down here if you can.” And then the record producer hung up. The executive thought for a moment and then decided to show up. It had been quite some time since he had been in a studio.
 
When he got to the studio, the usual preparations were taking place but he noticed the vibe was far more intense than he expected. Everyone was preparing in his or her own way. After much preparation, the engineer was finally ready for the first take. The exec went into the control room and noticed the producer sitting right behind the engineer. To the producer’s left, was the associate producer, intently studying the chart. The producer motioned for the engineer to start the tape machines and the session started.
 
It was at that moment that the exec noticed that the studio was FULL of musicians and singers. He counted four keyboard players, six background singers, the artist (singing!), three guitarists, bass, drums, two percussionists and a small string quartet. Oh yes, he just then heard the three horns. He noticed a punch, a dynamic vitality to the music that he had never experienced at the hundreds of other sessions he had attended in the past. There was a sound he FELT, rather than heard – an immediacy to the music that got under his skin.
 
Was the song that good, he wondered? Was the singer that evocative? She certainly sounded more emotional, more dramatic, and more believable. Even he, as jaded as he was, believed her. And why did the track sound so damn alive - so clean, so vibrant, so dynamic, so in his face? He suddenly noticed that his body started moving with the beat. What was that shit all about, he wondered. In over twenty years of making music, he never responded to music in this manner. What in the hell was going on?
 
And then it was over.
 
The producer briefly huddled with the engineer and the associate producer and then motioned for everyone to come in and listen to the track. As everyone crowded into the control room, the exec noticed that the players and the singers were buzzing about the music, really excited. The playback started and suddenly everyone was moving. It was contagious and even he started getting into the groove. The players and singers were yelling and screaming as they sang along with the track they just recorded. Why were they so genuinely excited?
 
And then it was over.
 
Everyone filed out and the producer presented the exec with a CD master of the song, ready for mastering. The exec had this dumfounded look on his face and the producer just chuckled. He explained that the track was recorded live to two tracks, with no mixing, editing or overdubbing. The exec still shook his head with wonder.
 
Years ago, the producer explained, there were only two tracks. This, of course was a dramatic improvement over mono. As the recording studio became more and more technologically sophisticated, additional tracks became slowly available and the scientific microscopic examination of recording music began culminating in the nausea of the unlimited number of tracks available today. Soon, artists began to be seduced by the availability of studio technology to such an extent that artists, in pursuit of musical perfection, forgot that music was the highly personal, collective dissemination of emotion in the form of musical chronicles. Making music had become a series of isolated, bloated overdubs with the heart and soul of the recording often mixed right out of the tune. It was not unusual for the singer never to even see the band. Sometimes, the band never even saw each other. They were just brought in individually and their parts were recorded separately. Studio technology allowed everyone involved to record their part of the song over and over and over, and then an engineer could assemble a compilation track from the best parts from the previous takes.  Sooner or later, all the various parts of the song were cobbled together in the final mix, like some sort of prefab housing.
 
Wrong.
 
Live two-track recording allows a group of dedicated musicians and singers to simply do what they love to do, to make music. Performance is their perfection. Not technique. Not technology. The result of this process is a track that is sonically superior, emotionally satisfying and financially responsible.
 
The product becomes more intense, more vital and more revealing. Realizing that the track is being recorded live forces everyone to be on top of his or her game. The players and singers are intensely focused and the result is a far more emotional product than one could ever achieve any other way. This is a clear result from the joys of jamming together. This emotional dividend is the bridge that has always connected the artist with the listener. Everybody wins. Best of all, since it takes three or four days to record the project in its entirety, when the record label reviews the recording budget, you‘re a hero.
 
The exec left the studio, dazed from having to listen to that religious zealot of a producer and exhausted from the emotional energy he expended, just listening to the music. Yet, he was energized, and he knew it was from what he had just experienced. He smiled.
 
And then it was over.
 
(This is a true story…)
 
For those performers that have discovered this way of making music, the rush is euphoric. It becomes a drug, a tempting seductress, promising an emotional depth that at once becomes cathartic. It is a religious confession of epic proportions - life affirming, deliriously magical and alluring.
 
And then it’s over.