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You don’t master your recordings to a water-damaged Panasonic boom box if you’re looking to follow up The River. But not only did Springsteen use the Panasonic for mixdown; he also, in the mix process, put all the recordings through a Gibson Echoplex, which put a layer of early Sun Records–style slap echo on, well, everything: vocals, guitars, harmonica, percussion, glockenspiel. As decisions go, to mix every recorded track on a multitrack recording through a single effect is certainly not the kind of choice professional engineers tended to make when they were creating recordings for commercial release. But Springsteen wasn’t thinking like a professional engineer. He just wanted a reference for the “real” recording process, something the band could listen to before they made a final version. “Yeah, everything went through the Echoplex,” he told me, laughing. “Guitar, voice, everything. It all has that weird echo.” When I said to Springsteen that I felt it ended up being a crucial part of the recording’s character, he stopped laughing and nodded, agreeing that it was exactly right for the recordings, even if it was foolhardy.
Deliver Me From Nowhere
Warren Zanes
It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a dark, boundless void. But there is no space, no darkness. The singularity has no “around” around it. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can't even ask how long it has been there—whether it has just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever, quietly awaiting the right moment. Time doesn't exist. There is no past for it to emerge from. And so, from nothing, our universe begins.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
The durability of concrete structures varies widely: while it is impossible to offer an average longevity figure, many will deteriorate badly after just two or three decades while others will do well for 60–100 years. This means that during the 21st century we will face unprecedented burdens of concrete deterioration, renewal, and removal (with, obviously, a particularly acute problem in China), as structures will have to be torn down—in order to be replaced or destroyed—or abandoned.
How the World Really Works
Vaclav Smil
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