Chris Thile and Michael Daves performing live on Soundcheck

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg)
Regular readers of this blog know that bad sound comes from a variety of sources, and not

just MP3s; there's no shortage of crappy-sounding CDs and LPs. But I know one place that

delivers great-sounding music day after day: Soundcheck on WNYC. Right, it's a radio show,

but one that features live music, ugg boots sale and I certainly can't name another daily show that's as

entertaining as Soundcheck.

I dropped by the WNYC studios this past Tuesday and Wednesday to see the show in person and

chat with the show's host, John Schaefer, to find out why Soundcheck sounds so good.

Musical genres featured on the show are as eclectic as they come, one day you might hear

Adele, next time it might be Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, or The National, The Jazz

Passengers, Jakob Dylan, or The Decemberists. Musicians are interviewed by Schaefer between

tunes, and I have to say, the man sounds wholesale christian louboutin like a guy who's hosted an eclectic radio show for

going on 30 years. He's a great interviewer.

Technical director Irene Trudel and head of concert recording Ed Haber typically have a

mere 90 minutes to dial-in the band's sound before air time. To my ears the sound

frequently surpasses the band's CD sound, just because it's more like the way the band

really sounds, without the assistance of Auto-Tune or other tricks. On Soundcheck you'll

hear what they can do on their own. I love that! Trudel's favorite recent show featured

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, which Trudel found "electrifying."

Tuesday's show featured the moncler outlet desert-blues collective Tinariwen, from the Sahara Desert

region of northern Mali. The beats and rhythms sounded awfully good over the control room's

Genelec monitors. Most Soundcheck performances are done in the studio.

Wednesday's Soundcheck was broadcast from The Greene Space, which is in the same building

as the WNYC studios. That show was more like a concert, with a studio audience. First up

was the legendary Del McCoury and his group playing with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

The show was described as "the king of bluegrass meets the kings of New Orleans jazz." The

vibes were great and the live sound was perfect.

That same show also featured mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile and guitarist Michael Daves'

"progressive bluegrass" music. Their high-energy duets completely blew me away, so I

ordered their new CD, "Sleep With One Eye Open," from Amazon the second I got home.

The range of genres covered on Soundcheck is vast, so I had to ask Schaefer is there any

form of music he doesn't like, and he said, "Left to my own devices, you'd probably never

hear anything resembling Broadway on Soundcheck." Even so he covers show tunes from time to

time.

Senior producer Joel Meyer told me that a few young bands are a bit disoriented by the

experience. It looks like they're in a recording studio, but they're working without a net,

so their mistakes will be broadcast live to hundreds of thousands of people, and many more

who will hear it later on podcasts. wholesale abercrombie But the band doesn't get any live feedback from the

listeners like they would at a "real" concert. In addition to WNYC, WDET in Detroit also

airs Soundcheck live.

John Schaefer has hosted Soundcheck since the show's inception in 2002. He has also hosted

and produced WNYC's radio series New Sounds since 1982, which if anything covers an even

wider range of music, 7 days a week! If you can't listen to Soundcheck and New Sounds live,

check out the show archives on the WNYC Web site.