Customer Reviews

Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording, 1900-1960 (Music Culture)

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I was prompted to write this response due to "jazzhermit"'s completely ill-considered, ill-informed and, quite frankly, loony "review" of this fantastic book. Echo and Reverb is one of the best books on a relationship between sound technology and social history one would ever hope to find. In short, Doyle provides a complete history of the sonic treatment of sound in the recording studio, including the emergence of acoustic effects, notable examples from recording history and ultimately the psycho-acoustic ramifications of sound processing in the recording studio, by way of some of the best-known pre and early rock'n'roll records.

After having read this book, I was prompted to do further research, and thanks to Wikipedia, I am now aware that Peter Doyle is a critically acclaimed academic AND fiction writer, which would seem to make sense, as the style is fluid and accessible and not simply some overly verbose academic treatise. In fact the book was the recipient of an "Association of Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) 2006 award for Best Research in Record Labels and General History", so I would take that as a more appropriate indicator of its erudition and quality.

Furthermore, as a music lover and historian, I am a self-confessed taskmaster when it comes to historical data and trajectory. This book never sets a foot wrong, providing an absolutely comprehensive discussion of recording techniques, and the studios in which these new sonic innovations (Sun, Chess et al) took place.

Why the previous reviewer would have such problems with the book is beyond me, as it is one of the finest elaborations on the emergence of effects/audio treatments and the records that drove these innovations that one could ever purchase.

Fantastic Book!

Completely worthless. Somehow this dolt has managed to equate reverb to class struggles within society. Mostly he just blathers on with verbose statements that say nothing. Truly a waste of time and money. It's not about echo and reverb, it's not about music, it IS about some vest pocket intellectual stroking his own ego.