Production Values Today...Compared to Yesterday

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:21 pm

Dave....
I love you man!
(Platonically speaking.)

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:31 pm

If we do nothing else here, lets at LEAST educate the young uns and give them the ability to grow some taste and knowledge that THEY can hand down someday...............................

Its the only way it really does go around.

............................... Very Happy

group hug

...............................................

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 6:56 pm

Quote:

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I know this has been posted before somewhere on this forum but it really does show how the loudness wars is a detriment to the quality of recordings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

I just listened to this, and ya know what? At 55 years of age, I preferred the less dynamic example over the original. It just seemed to have more energy. Maybe I've been brainwashed by FM radio these last 2 decades.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:14 pm

yeah, I was sort of following Mr. Cloud's thought process until that Radio Shack Mic comment. There must be something seriously wrong with his monitoring setup.

As far as the loudness war. That one's been raging since the 50's. It's not new, we just do it differently now in the 21st century.
Back in the last century, Labels wanted their songs to stand out when they were played on Juke Boxes. But there's a limit to how loud you can print to vinyl. However, if you lower the bass and treble just a tad and boost the mids, Bingo, you can push up the volume just a bit more than your competitor. yes, the fidelity suffers, but it cuts though a room full of kids.
Some things never change.

But really Mr. Cloud, are you saying that you can't tell the sonic difference between a single mic non professional setup and a multi mic studio recording?

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:18 pm

I'm not surprised at your answer. Where this example fails is in comparing the two at similar amplitudes.

If you were to listen to the "original" example at a significantly louder amplitude where the fade in resembled that of the newer/compressed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life mix, you would have probably preferred the original.

To the human ear, louder almost always equates to better (to a certain point, of course.) Of course, louder with more dynamic punch trumps simply loud any day.

This is why the volume knob is so important. You can make the track loud, but it still retains its dynamic impact whereas if you simply have it loud all the time, it can never, regardless of the volume knob setting, have any dynamic impact. It's loud, loud and loud - those are your three choices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edit -
This comment was directed specifically at AwedOne's post 2 up from mine...Natural squeezed in between as I was typing.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:28 pm

Davedog wrote:

I have NEVER experienced this "distant" sound on ANY recordings of the Beatles or for that matter any of the acts from that time.

To suggest that the Beatles recordings are anywhere near the fidelity of a radio shack mic recording of some prepubescent band is complete ignorance.

One thing it does suggest to me is you, MrClowd, have never heard a really decent stereo or anything of really high fidelity. Earbuds on an iPod do NOT count as high-fidelity.

The beauty and purity of recordings made in the sixties and seventies cannot be denied, even by a generation of need-it-now, impatient, gimmegimme, egoists always assuming that the world is down on them, cracksmokin, doomists, bent on the destruction of the very business they pray will feed them for life.

sorry.

The depth of field, the width and separation of the instruments still retaining a 'glue' if you will that brings it all together as one, is the ultimate goal even now and one that was achieved over and over and over throughout the rise of recorded music.

You do realize, dont you, that the studio, Abbey Road, was one of the finest in the world at that time, as well as now, that only the highest end recording gear and knowledgeable engineers were used and hired to reproduce ANY kind of music from there....let alone the Beatles... That they and several other places, Olympic, The Record Plant, to name a couple, were completely cutting edge in their keeping up with the release of modern recording gear as well as inventing techniques which you attempt to use today to create your wall-of-noise.

You owe a complete debt to recording pioneers like Phil Spector for creating the wall-of-sound.

My advice to you is to spend some serious time finding out about where things came from and how they directly relate to you and what you're trying to accomplish rather sit on the sidelines yelling insults and flinging opinions based in nothing at things you dont understand.

I'll tell you this. I may not be of your generation and I may not be a metalhead dude, but I can sure-as-fuck record your stuff at a much higher level than you can imagine as well as hundreds of 'other' styles of music, and do it without an opinion about the music other than what needs to be done to reproduce it with quality.

If you need to hear brickwall limited music to get your cookie thats great.

To assume that all else is 'old and not very good' without a basis for what your hearing and without an understanding of the process is pathetic.

I'm not flinging insults and I'm not even pretending that I understand. I DON'T understand, and that's why I posted this in the first place.

I am listening to the Beatles right now.

I understand that it was the sixties. I understand that they were doing the best they could at the time. I'm not saying the Beatles should have had a metal producer, and I'm not saying that my radio shack recordings were of comparable quality. I said that they REMINDED me of it. They had similar qualities. They both sound distant to me (I know you disagree. sorry.) The bass drum and toms, and the bass guitar for that matter, sound flat. The snare sounds alright.

I'm not saying these things in a negative or insulting way. OBVIOUSLY the Beatles got their musical message across properly, or we wouldn't even be having this discussion right now. Like I said, I'm not trying to take anything away from them. All I really want here is to know why the music I like is so fucking badly recorded, in your opinion.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:39 pm

Clowd wrote:

All I really want here is to know why the music I like is so fucking badly recorded, in your opinion.

Clowd -

I'm going to sum this up for you as best as I can. Listen to this one point - it will answer your question.

The music examples you linked to on the site earlier do not actually sound like the musicians sound in real life.

Yes, they may sound like that on a stage with those 20 kilowatt stacks, but that's because they are all processed to hell (and in many cases working to backing tracks anyway).

The Beatles recordings sound like the Beatles sounded when they played.

If you don't hear this, then the problem lies in your ears and your understanding of music. This is not an insult, just a fact.

Music, in reality, played by musicians with real instruments has dynamic range. Singers have dynamic range; guitars have dynamic range; drums have dynamic range. In the examples you posted, they do not.

If you can't trust your ears (and I suspect you cannot), sit in front of a drummer on a trap set and hold an SPL meter next to you. You'll see that, even Bobo the primate drummer has a good 30-40dB of dynamic range.

In the examples you posted, there's about 8dB of dynamic range.

That's a pretty darned big difference.

What you're describing as "distant" is actually what the instruments sound like. What you're saying is "big," "present" and "up-front" are unrealistic interpretations of instruments that are incapable of doing what they're portrayed as doing on your recordings. It's that simple.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 7:41 pm

Cucco wrote:

Quote:

I'm not surprised at your answer. Where this example fails is in comparing the two at similar amplitudes.

If you were to listen to the "original" example at a significantly louder amplitude where the fade in resembled that of the newer/compressed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life mix, you would have probably preferred the original.

Actually, at the end of the video clip the volume of the original is raised to the level of the overprocessed wave. I'm saying I still preferred the overprocess wave. Like I said, my brain has been soaked, washed, rinsed and dried. Very Happy

Actually, this whole discussion seems IMHO, to be a comparison of apples to oranges. They're both nourising food for the system, but they activate different sets of taste buds. I really can't quantitatively say which is better. I like the apple, when I'm hungry for the taste of an apple, likewise with the orange.

I love the dynamic range of Beethoven's 4th symphony when I'm in that mood. I also like, when I'm in the mood, to have my senses assuated by old Nirvana and Pearl Jam. then again, sometimes I'll stick on the cans and take in the full dynamic range of Yes's "Close to the Edge".

You state that you don't go to rock concerts anymore because of the loudness. Loudness is nothing new. I went to a Quicksilver Messenger Service show at a small venue when I was 15, and the SPL must have been 120+.
I got physically ill (nausea, dissyness) after about 10 minutes. but since you made that statement, and we know that your preferred client is in the acoustic / classical genre, I can surmise that you don't listen to a lot of the music the original poster refers to. That doesn't make you any less an expert on sound recording, but it seems to me that conversation between the two of you on this subject would be as polarized as the conversation my dad and I had about my Nejru jacket and beads in 1967.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:09 pm

AwedOne wrote:

but since you made that statement, and we know that your preferred client is in the acoustic / classical genre, I can surmise that you don't listen to a lot of the music the original poster refers to. That doesn't make you any less an expert on sound recording, but it seems to me that conversation between the two of you on this subject would be as polarized as the conversation my dad and I had about my Nejru jacket and beads in 1967.

You'd be surprised. Just because I specialize in recording classical music and that I'm a classical musician, doesn't mean I don't have eclectic tastes in music.

Granted, I'm not a huge fan of speed and death metal, I do have a varied taste in music. I'm loving my new Radiohead (In Rainbows) as well as Bush (which surprised another poster elsewhere on these boards), Smashing Pumpkins, and I've even been known to throw on some SR-71, Prodigy, Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails.

I personally believe that to be a complete musician, one must embrace all aspects of sound and music and understand what it is about those sounds that appeal to the listener.

Beyond that, I just like to listen to anything and everything. Music to me is a drug. I will listen to just about anything. Including Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale, DMX or just about anything else. My iPod is probably the most eclectic mix of wierdness you've ever seen. (I'm loving the new British Explosion! I just picked up a bunch of Lily Allen and the Streets! I don't care much for Amy Winehouse though - but that's mainly because she's absolutely FUGLY!)

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:09 pm

I havent said...even once...that the music you listen to was recorded badly. In fact it takes a certain amount of skill to get it to sound like it does consistantly over an entire record.

This isnt bad, its just not ALL. Which is what you seem to be saying.

Theres a crapper full of other music out there which isnt limited to the ceiling.

This discussion should be about why most records these days has that brickwall limiting to it and that this is all the record companies seem to be enamoured with. Its not just metal, but its most of everything.

I have no idea which Beatles you were listening to and its not important. BUT your reactions to it leave me with the feeling that you arent speaking any kind of language about what you're hearing that co-incides with what I and most of the others on here know. Pauls bass is flat? As in hes using flatwound strings and it doesnt sound like a piano on steroids flat? Or its literally outoftuneflat?

Maybe its the space between the notes that you dont understand. Thats the reality of dynamics. Music isnt all about slamming a pick into a guitar string as fast as possible with a pink-noise generator set on kill engaged to it. I'm not saying that this ISNT music, but what it doesnt have is soul or movement or inspiration.

When you listen to something that doesnt automatically make you stare at the ground while slinging your hair back and forth in a zombiesque dance, do you understand the relationship of the notes working with and against themselves ? Do you not see how the downward movement of a bass line opens up the top end of the other instruments perking right along with the vocal line? Counter movement and counter melody uniting to form something that an individual part cannot possibly state alone.....

In contrast we have the typical metal passage. A riff played by a single instrument against a furious assault of the same note or simple two-tone chordal structure played by everything else. Simple....yes...effective...yes...earth-shattering....uh, no.....And really, at those speeds its about all you can do in order to have semblance of something other than mud.... Okay. That works for me. But only for a while. Then it gets boring like every country-life song on the radio. Played by the same band BTW.

Same-o same-o and its the business that tells us that this is what we must do in order to succeed. To get airtime. To have backing for sales. To have a promotional package.

And heres this glut of metalheads who pride themselves on being outside the law being sucked into the machine like a helium balloon in a fan factory.

You want reality? Take what you know. Learn MORE stuff to add to it. Your record doesnt have to sound like all those putzes out there . Ya wanna be different? Do it. But learn something about melody and timing and dynamics.

My guess is, most of your favorite bigtime bands know a shitload about this stuff....More than you think.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:24 pm

well the old beatles, like the first like two albums or so, even the beatles werent happy with the bass tone they were getting. it wasnt punchy enough for them. SO! the engineer of the beatles at the time ( i believe it was geoff emerick) had one of the abbey road electrical engineers reversed a loud speaker to be a microphone which turned out pretty good and i believe was used on the revolver record or the record after....im not sure.

im gettin old.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:52 pm

There were several reasons for this change and several reasons why it had not hppened until then.

(Clowd, pay attention)

It is true that the bass until Revolver suffered somewhat in clarity. The principle reason for this was the stringent standards at EMI when cutting the records on the lathe. Too much bass caused the records to physically skip the needle out of the groove and there was a set of parameters that NO ONE crossed. Until 1966 and the recording of Revolver. Norman Smith had left as the Beatles Balance Engineer and Geoff Emerick had been chosen to replace him.
Down in the Lab, an engineer had come up with the ATOC (automatic transient overload control) and it allowed the lathe to cut and boost bass where needed in the mastering process.

This is also where Paul began to track the bass separately from the drums (remember now, 4 tracks only) and it gave Geoff the ability to further refine the bass as a separate entity not dependant on another instrument with similar qualities (ie: drums).

As a point in fact. Ken Townsend came up with the idea of using one of the studio speakers as a mic for the bass. As a result there were only two tracks recorded like this simply because it picked up the bass like crazy, but also everything else in the building. The only two tracks it was used on were Paperback Writer and Rain. Which as a coincidence were two of the finest sounding bass tracks they ever did.

They started using it on the kik drum but when the management found out about it they made them stop and reprimanded them for 'improper use of equipment'.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:13 pm

My three year old can brickwall a Kik drum track.

OK, Dave said it.

Lack of soul, emotion, depth...

A bunch of tracks brickwalled have no depth.

Here's a different approach:

Which were more realistic:
The Special FX in the original three Star Wars movies, or the new cut and paste CGI ones?

What looked better on 'film':
The original group of X-wing fighters going up against the death star, or the copy and pasted clone army (and stupid spinning CGI Yoda) in the new ones?

What's a more realistic vision of spaceflight:
2001 A Space Odyssey, or Armageddon starring Bruce Willis and one of the worst songs Aerosmith every wrote?

What simply sounds louder the more you turn it up, and which makes your speakers sound like they're about to fry from square wave overload:
Glass Onion (or anything, really) by The Beatles, or any song ever recorded by Fallout Boy?

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:17 pm

Of course, that's also about the time he started using the Ric in the studio instead of the Hofner, right? The Hofner is a pretty "woofy" bass no matter how you amplify or record it. Still it has a cool sound, even if Clowd and his generation will never know what it was like to hear "I Saw Her Standing There" come over an AM radio with a 2 inch speaker for the first time. (Paul did kow how to write a song that a bass player could sing while playing a cool bass line - even if he did all of his best bass playing on John's songs.)

Don't worry Clowd. I'm not dumping on you. I can remember the first time I heard a Charlie Christian record. I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. It's like the say about Shakespeare - every other line is a cliche.

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:17 pm

AwedOne wrote:

Blame first the artists, then the businessmen who new a good thing when they saw it.

I actually wrote a paper 2 years ago, on the origins of the Loudness Wars. (yeah I know, my university ROCKS)

My investigations showed that it was in fact radio that started everything, with early forms of multi-band compression and eventually the Orban. This was about a decade earlier than the 70's rock bands. What happened after, is that bands saw that when a louder song was played on the radio, it sounded COOLER. This in turn gave the whole idea of the "11" switch, while producers were telling engineers to make it louder so it would be louder on the radio, inherently making the whole track "stand out" and seem better.

I'm not saying it's one person's fault this all started. It started because louder was cooler and had a better ROI (return on investment). What I'm saying is, it's the "suits" fault for pushing it TODAY, and the artists who always know better than the person doing their job.

The fact is, this is a society thing at the moment, where it seems people have given up on quality in exchange for convenience. (is it ironic that most of the better digital gear was made in the late 80's?) What happened to the Minidisc, DAT tapes, Magneto-Optical drives? One of the first reverbs made for the general studio owner, is still considered to be one of the best... Instead of looking for ways to replace the high quality of the CD, were looking for ways to compress it and fit it directly into your ear canal, no matter what the cost at the hands of quality.

My point is, no one is really looking for high quality, so no one really cares for that distortion that only a handful of people on the planet can hear. As long as it's LOUD!!! This makes my generation, and the younger generations "immune" to this sound, as we've been hearing it their whole life on the radio. And when faced with a recording that has no punch, isn't pumping and doesn't sound like nails on a chalkboard, it sounds dull, unexciting and just ridiculous.

That's how I observe it, from the front lines... Very Happy

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