TOPIC: recording our class

I especially agree with one of the points in Jim's reply. Sound quality - we would have to have good sound quality on the recording and that means real good recording equipment and room ascoutics. The sound quality of the past recording was terrible to say the least because it was done on some handheld MP3 thing.

To be able to really hear the individual instruments and get anything from it the quality must be there. This means good microphones and recording equipment. Anybody got any of this for loan or want to buy the equipment?

Go for it! Sound recordings are extremely helpful. They are a fact of my life, every worship service is video/audio recorded and I learn a lot about myself as I watch it, either on playback or on the web. I use it everyday in psychotherapy sessions for myself and to train other therapists. Even a poor recording is better than no recording, you will always learn something and it seems to me that learning is what the class is all about. Anything that I can do to shorten my learning curve is greatly appreciated. My graduate students hated recording therapy sessions for critique, but I have had many, many therapists tell me years later how useful the recordings a feedback were for them. Use the technology at hand, and benefit from great feedback. I would suggest if you don't wish the feedback, Dave can withold it but that will lengthen your learning curve.

Quality is such a subjective thing, it is and will be, a hard thing to quantify. Everyone will have a different opinion based on the ambient acoustics in the studio, and the frequency response of our hearing ability. I don't believe it's Dolby quality we're shooting for.
I want to hear the song move, feel it's spirit, as a rhythm player, did i hold it up? It's not important if every note in a chord rings out, but did i keep the basic rhythm of the tune? Did i keep consistent timing? Did i transition to my lead properly? Looking at these things from a 3rd person perspective is what is important. Sometimes you can't catch your mistakes in the 1st person while playing.