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Sound Quotes


"All your travelling is together, you eat together, you're on stage as a band together, when you get to the sound-check the band and the crew are all together."


"Locations are all tough, all miserable. I never left the sound stage for 18 years at Warners. We never went outside the studio, not even for big scenes."


"I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."


"I wanted this album to sound like a big crocheted blanket - to be warm yet to have a lot of space."


"It's rare that scenes last more than 2 or 3 minutes, so sound helps segue from one scene to another."


"My style is a very universal sound, which is very close to where I grew up."


"The whole problem of the sound-work is distancing oneself from the dramatic."


"I know guys in my hometown that drive by feel and sound."



"The one thing you don't want is that stale sound when you've done a line so much you can't find a fresh approach to it. Drop it."


"I know that if I went to other studios, like in Vancouver, that those are set up to be as professional and as true, so it's just a different flavour, it's a different sound, but I think both have their place."



"A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique."


"I mean, Chris is, I'm sure, a wonderful guy. But in those days he also very, very late. For all appointments and departures and arrivals and sound checks and anything."


"I am a fan of today's sound as long as we don't get too slick, and yet I am very reverent of my roots."


"Generally, you are held to a sound and that becomes your sound. That gets branded as your sound, and all the copycats start with it because the labels are looking for that sound."


"Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes."



"A bass should sound like a bass with the thump of the finger against the wood, like it began with stand up."


"I don't try to sound like anyone but me anymore. If something is out of my element, I try to avoid it."


"Let's get one thing straight: there's no such thing as the Bristol sound."


"I don't want to sound smug but I am reasonably satisfied with how it's gone. I think it's fine."


"My sound is very smooth. Not to be to cliche, but really sensual and sultry."



"It's refreshing to hear something that's pop but doesn't sound like Britney Spears."


"Fortunately, as we all know, it's impossible for anybody but Jimmy Smith to really sound like Jimmy Smith."



"The reporter claimed he was going to write the article from my point of view. Instead, he made me sound like a little idiot. It made me never want to do another interview again."


"I use my hands like a sculptor, to mold and shape the sound I want, to clarify."


"I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound."


"It's the group sound that's important, even when you're playing a solo."


"I know when I started I would have been happy to sound like the Beatles or Joe Tex or whoever. You want to sound like most bands, you want to sound like their records and that's how you learn your chops."


"Whether I sound like Sammy or not is purely coincidence. You have got to hand it to him, he sings his ass off. There is no moss on that stone."


"I also used these realistic sounds in a psychological way. With The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I used animal sounds - as you say, the coyote sound - so the sound of the animal became the main theme of the movie."


"I've learned a lot about my voice, and about things I can do with it. Maybe that's why my sound has become a little more pop."


"If it's not going to sound like Terrapin Station, what's the point of playing Terrapin Station?"


"The heavy guitars are the ones that sound good. They are not that comfortable, but they do sound great."


"It couldn't sound like a dog, because K9 isn't a dog, but I made it sound as mechanical as possible."



"Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band."


"The sibilant s is the most difficult sound to correct."



"All the Frank O'Hara types seem to have very little sound stuff going... it's so chatty or something."


"It was rehearsing in the studio, at which point they were setting up the sound, and once we'd got the thing together they'd actually record it, without us knowing sometimes!"


"Sometimes I write them down in musical notation as a trigger to remind me about certain directions to go. Or I can be specific about a sound I'm looking for."


"And then as we played more and more as a trio, it became more and more of a situation where we realized we really knew how to use the fourth member of the group - that space. The thing about the trio is that it's the biggest sound you can have with the smallest unit."


"We wanted it more live and raw. We didn't want a studio sound."


"Japan is quite weird because they wait for you to say something before they respond. You can literally hear a pin drop, they don't make a sound until you say something to the crowd."


"This continuity of sound and form was something that I became really interested in from working with Ligeti. He was always going on about how form has to be continuous."



"When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record."
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