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Do you prefer live music or studio recorded music?


atmuh
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I find myself enjoying studio music more than live stuff, although I haven't really been to too many live shows (and the ones I've been to were good for the most part). But I have to agree with zircon; majority of the time, live stuff is waaaaay too loud. I have to go to a monthly concert for my school which showcases each department in the school of music, and even though we have like 5 guys running tech, there's always one or two songs that I can't tolerate because it's waaaay too loud and thus not enjoyable.

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I love live music BECAUSE I love studio recordings. I want to see what the band can do live with their songs. Very rarely do I attend concerts where I now nothing of the bands material.

Oh, and if you ever get the chance, you must see Jaga Jazzist live.

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I prefer just listening to studio work usually, can't hear a damn thing at most of the lives I've been to with the one notable exception being The Protomen. Even in a tiny, terrible little club they came through crisp and clear and it was infinitely better than listening to their cds.

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Studio, unless the sound quality is good, the volume isn't headache-inducing, and the band plays musically different and better in a live setting (i.e. more varied or longer improvisations and solos, producing better music by feeding off the energy of the crowd, etc.)

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It really depends on a lot of things for me, mostly which band it is and what sort of mood I'm in. Overall I tend to like them both about the same. Studio recordings let me get into the song itself and everything in it, while a concert is just plain fun when I want more to the experience than just music. And if you don't have at least a few bruises when you leave the show, you're doing it wrong.

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If the question is where music is the most enjoyable, that's an easy point for studio. Annihilator is the only band I thought sounded better live than on their CD's.

Does anyone go to live shows for the music? Atmosphere, party, snobby "mjehehe can the musicians pull it off perfectly live" (I don't give a rats ass, personally) and so on sure, but I can't see how there'd ever be anything magically better with the actual music live than on the albums where the band spent time to perfect their vision.

Perhaps if the band is known to not play the same live as on recordings (slight rearrangements, different solos...), but that'd be another thing.

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Depends on the band honestly. Most, probably just studio. But when a jazz group or big band come into the picture, live wins every time. Gordon Goodwin's Big Phat Band is one of the few I've had the pleasure of being at live, and while the music is exactly the same (cept for solos), the impact that the band can produce is impossible to reproduce on most sound systems out there.

If the band has a track history of being very completely awesome live, there's usually a reason why.

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Though I can definitely appreciate the idea behind live music and would go see a full orchestra live in a heartbeat, I have three reasons for preferring studio music:

1.) Like zircon said, volume is important. When I can hear just a guitar or just the drums or my ears feel like they're about to blow out, that's no good. Similarly, when my pleural cavity feels like it's on the verge of collapse because the amplifier(s) and subwoofer(s) are turned up too far, that's a problem. If I'm paying money for a seat somewhere then I want to be able to concentrate on the music, not whether or not my lungs are about to cave in.

2.) Like Fishy said, shoving is not cool. I'm 5'1" (that's 155 cm for the metric people), so it's bad enough that I often can't see over other people's heads sometimes in the older style of movie theaters. Having to try to fight taller people – not for position, just to not get knocked down and trampled – who naturally have better leverage in that situation makes for a horrible musical experience. I'm sure there are plenty of short(er) people who don't have that issue or otherwise don't care, but it can ruin my enjoyment very easily.

3.) Lastly, and probably least importantly, it simply flat-out annoys me to hear people cheering in the middle of a song. Admittedly, when they're doing so in time with the beat it isn't so bad, and I realize they're expressing love for the song and/or the artist(s) – which certainly helps convey the good energy – but being a somewhat anal-retentive person, the random cheering and whistling just throws everything off for me.

So as much as I occasionally like the tweaks and nuances live music can bring, studio music is the music for me.

~LS

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they're two completely different mediums. there have been a lot of times when there's a band i just didn't get until i saw them live and something clicked. animal collective were like that for me. and i don't know that i could possibly give a shit about sound quality when i'm seeing an artist or band i love. when you hear the opening notes of a song you love and you have that moment of recognition...there's nothing better really. so much of it is about seeing people create in the moment.

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how many of you guys even listen to bands or any kind of music you'd go and see live? i have to wonder if most people in this thread are really in any kind of position to place merits of studio music over live music.

most probably arent

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I remember listening to an I Fight Dragons song and thinking "well, this is pretty cool..." It wasn't until later, when I saw the band perform the song live, that I really came to appreciate the song and the musicianship of the band. With studio recordings there can sometimes be trickery and post-patching done, so seeing them do what they did onstage was quite refreshing.

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they're two completely different mediums. there have been a lot of times when there's a band i just didn't get until i saw them live and something clicked. animal collective were like that for me. and i don't know that i could possibly give a shit about sound quality when i'm seeing an artist or band i love. when you hear the opening notes of a song you love and you have that moment of recognition...there's nothing better really. so much of it is about seeing people create in the moment.

this pretty much

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animal collective were like that for me. and i don't know that i could possibly give a shit about sound quality when i'm seeing an artist or band i love.

I'm not sure how you can give a shit about what you hear at all if you like animal collective

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