Thread: Its Official - Pop Music too loud and all sounds the Same

Depending on which pop music "pop music" refers to...I like pop music, and have no problem with its loudness/sameness

Originally Posted by Kazek

Depending on which pop music "pop music" refers to...I like pop music, and have no problem with its loudness/sameness

Ya I agree... some bands I listen to are loud and sound all the same but I still like them alot!

Interesting discussion,

What I find most obvious today is the "sound " digital music has. I like the music, just don't enjoy the boring mix being produced with most DAW's. It may be clear and have less noise but its boring and similar because its all digital. The converters suck most of the time and the plug-ins create a wall of one dimensional deadness. Dead dead dead is how I hear it.

My children are starting to pick up on this now. They hear an over tone/ high pitch freq in everything. I call that the sound of Pro Tools zzz and plug-in mush that creates this trail in everything. And the instrumentation is mostly all keyboard created ( dead sounding samples) so its even more sonically infected so the problem just compounds year after year. Add some compression and upload that to the internet and presto, we have a boring wall of volume that generally all sounds the same.
The "same" is the sound of digital music.
Hybrid summing and the additional use of analog gear to add space and colour in the mixing helps break this plague a lot .

DAW being the zoo. Here is how we see it:

Originally Posted by bigtree

Interesting discussion,

What I find most obvious today is the "sound " digital music has. I like the music, just don't enjoy the boring mix being produced with most DAW's. It may be clear and have less noise but its boring and similar because its all digital. The converters suck most of the time and the plug-ins create a wall of one dimensional deadness. Dead dead dead is how I hear it.

My children are starting to pick up on this now. They hear an over tone/ high pitch freq in everything. I call that the sound of Pro Tools zzz and plug-in mush that creates this trail in everything. And the instrumentation is mostly all keyboard created ( dead sounding samples) so its even more sonically infected so the problem just compounds year after year. Add some compression and upload that to the internet and presto, we have a boring wall of volume that generally all sounds the same.
The "same" is the sound of digital music.
Hybrid summing and the additional use of analog gear to add space and colour in the mixing helps break this plague a lot .

Here is how we see it:

Very well put Chris!

Not to mention the spreading infection called "self recording". No filters, no weeding out, no consideration whether someone or something should even be recorded in the first place. Many people record themselves just because they want to record, not because the have a great song or performance to convey. All it takes any more is a hundred bucks for a USB mic and a free recording program and PRESTO your a "producer".

Add insult to injury, many are reticent to tell someone they suck. Too many times I hear see people playing and recording while others who really should know better encourage them all in the name of "correctness". Must be careful not to insult anyone these days with the truth. It's already too late, we let the cat out of the basket years ago and I'm afraid we just have to live with it now.

Very interesting article. The sad part is that the younger generation has no reference to which to compare today's music. As a result their tastes conform to what is being fed them. We older folk remember when popular music had dynamics coupled with great melodic and harmonic movement. Melodic and harmonic movement pretty much went out the door when Rap became the predominant genre. Now much of the music is beat-driven and melody and harmony, if they are present at all, are secondary in importance.
Add to that the way that the dynamics are nearly completely squeezed out of today's recording and further limited by lossy data compression and the low fidelity of most mp3 music players and what you've got is some of the worst sounding stuff ever produced!
This is one reason I decided to specialize in Acoustic music in my studio. Acoustic music featuring real live acoustic instruments. Just about the only enjoyable music left, to my ears anyway.
Jeff

Spot on to that, Jeff! And remixing this stuff with a MixDream and nice hardware looks increasingly promising and keeps it fun too.

Thanks Kurt, welcome back.

Well being an old fart and using both digital stuff (RME) and old vintage Tascam stuff, I thought I'd chirp in and agree with Kurt, bigtree and thatjeffguy.
It's a generational cultural thing just like it was when it went from big band to rock n roll.
Stuff changes with the times...
This digital sound is a tad brittle, it's clean I'll give it that...but there this sterile sound to it versus smooth rich analog sound. The analog stuff just sounds better to me. I like having a computerized tape deck though!
That part is brilliant. Especially if you grew up with "reel" tape decks. The kids have no idea on that! It's all too easy and cheap now.
The part about anybody can make this stuff now is soooo true and that is all part of that cultural/social concept...
Everybody wants to be a star, because history's past court jesters are now cultural wealthy idols.
The kids don't have the same brains or ears we do and they even think differently...they have their likes and dislikes.
I watch some of these death metal bands with the screamers and growlers and see concerts with thousands of young boys and girls throwing themselves around on the ground with tattoos everywhere and it just cracks me up..!!!
I don't listen to any of the beiber/gaga pop, rap, hiphop or EDM etc....and that's perfectly normal and fine for me.
I don't get it and I don't want to or need to get it!
I just ignore all of this modern commercial nonsense anyway...it's like watching a train wreck...pretty funny to watch and I really have no further interest in making music. You couldn't pay me enough to sit in a control room and listen to any of that stuff and say it's music. Maybe the nice new stuff like Goteye, I could get behind and actually like but even those seem so rare to come across and with the cultural attention span of gnats I suspect that will quickly come and go away.
I'm certainly not deaf and my hearing is a sharp and musically keen as it was when I was 20....and I hope I can grow old listening to the Beatles when I'm 64.

I'm with all y'all. These automated metronome beat clock with cartoonlike samples gets me real tired real fast. And no melodies! Where the heck are the freaking melodies? Whistle me something you've heard lately?

I really can only record talented musical people (and television news). Music first... technology second. We are acoustical electronic translators a.k.a. recording engineers/audio engineers. Working on feature films, post production for television shows, yeah, hard to beat the purely digital environment. But when it comes to music, the latest electronic thingy doesn't necessarily cut it. If we didn't believe in some tradition, nobody would believe in religion. (I'm agnostic basically an atheist) And of course this is the artistic standpoint rant.

People don't make any money without building in some planned obsolescence. it's a business plan that made Detroit work for many years. Today it's all about the bottom line. Earlier times and people needed to have some talent. Today it's an app.

The unfortunate mix of all of this is that technology must march on... so everyone can keep being employed. Otherwise we'd still be using our old API and Neve stuff.... Wait a minute... I am still using my old API and Neve stuff. I don't want to change. I can't change. I won't change. You can't make me. Unless I maybe make it to 64?

57 in mid-October...and counting.
Mx. Remy Ann David