DCC Archive Is it me or do today's producers/engineers suck?!?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by KLM, Nov 16, 2001.

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  1. KLM

    KLM Senior Member Thread Starter

    I have noticed a trend over the last 5 years that seems disturbing. Today's rock music seems to be produced very differently then the music prior. Specifically, cds sound louder, more compressed, more equalized to be bass heavy without full bottom frequency bloom, etc. Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of the music out there but it seems that a lot of producers are recording music for boom boxes and care stereos rather for quality home 2 channel systems.

    Check out albums from bands that have been around for a while to compare their current recordings with those of the 70's, 80's and early 90's like Yes, Rush, The Rolling Stones, etc and see if you can tell the huge difference.

    Has anyone else noticed this and do you like the new sound (not necessarily musical taste)better or not? What are your thoughts?
     
  2. Doug Hess Jr.

    Doug Hess Jr. Senior Member

    Location:
    Belpre, Ohio
    KLM,
    As someone with 20 years in the radio business and the last 10 in news, let me remind you of something. A long time ago it used to be the MUSIC business...now it's the music BUSINESS.
    So, first of all, there is no accounting for taste when it comes to what people like in the way things sound. Second, if it sells, they will make it. Third, when I go to the city council meetings to report for the news, the big issue is not about the next door neighbor and his $20,000 2 channel stereo playing Bach on 45 rpm vinyl too loud...it's trying to get the city to do something about the loud booming car and truck stereos that rattle the windows two blocks before they get to your house and the boom boxes at the local park. So the producers are just making the CD's sound best where lots of people will listen to it.
    One more thing...check out the boom boxes with the auto eq settings...the classic V is still alive and well.
    Dough

    [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Dough ]
     
  3. KLM, I agree, most of the current music sounds like s**t. I am not refering to the the content of the song, I am refering to how the music sounds. Even a lot of the remastered soungs of the 60's sound bad (ie. The new Yardbirds CD). You have a point when you say that the music is mastered to sound good??? in a car stereo or a boom box. Plus--what's with the filthy, negative, degrading lyrics in many of today's songs. Beats me. I guess that's why I continue to listen to songs of the 50's, 60's and 70's.
     
  4. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialist™

    Location:
    B.C.
    Hey Johnny,
    The type of negative lyrics that you speak of is a ploy by government to create hostile feelings in our youth and adults as well so that they will go out and be hostile and commit criminal acts as a defiance towards "the system" and then they have justification for massive police force expansions as well as more prisons. This appears to work hand on hand with their self serving "Drug war" as well as making people less sensitive to physical acts of violence.
    I know a lot about this particular topic and it's not based on conjectier, just the facts.
    After all you did ask ;)
     
  5. Gary

    Gary Nauga Gort! Staff

    Location:
    Toronto
    Ahhh but don't forget that these youth will be taking care of us in our old age. As long as we can pay them off, of course.
     
  6. joelee

    joelee Hyperactive!

    Location:
    Houston
    There is a lot of good new music but the sound does suck. Steve, do you think these new recordings are being laid to analogue at all?
    Is the master now a disc or DAT? Do you think its the master clone we hear at the purchaser end? Is their hope of an undoctered, noncompressed, non pumped up master that may some day be available of the music being made today?

    Joe

    Joe :confused:
     
  7. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    I agree with you all about today's music. When I turn on a CD in my collection that's overproduced, say, a modern pop-country recording, and play Johnny Mathis back to back, sonically I prefer Johnny Mathis, plus his music has a timeless appeal that so many new recordings don't have.

    [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Bradley Olson ]
     
  8. Cousin It

    Cousin It Senior Member

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    Yep,a lot of music today sounds like ****(I'll fill in the blanks).I spoke to a guy a couple of years ago and he was surprised how
    many younger recording engineers don't seem to know how to mike up a drum kit for example,it seems to be a lost art or you have to get a guy in his 50's,something I could never understand was the multi-miking multi tracking of drum kits,I've seen examples where they have "12" tracks for drums alone even though they only play the kick drum,ride cymbal and snare drum and yet those engineers pre-70's got some superb drum sounds on recording with 2 mikes,1 overhead and 1 kickdrum mike.I have had a real problem with drum sounds where the struck snare sound like a nuclear explosion and a cymbal sounds like a shelf full of plates crashing to the ground due to various sonic manipulations.
     
  9. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    It's something that the record companies are controlling.

    Ever watch a movie on TV and when the commercials come THEY SOUND REALLY LOUD.

    Remember, dynamic range gets hosed when you change the audio signal and press it up against 0db or use compression to make everything in the range sound just as loud. When you have a lull in the music, say a soft bass solo, it shoulnd't be just as high as the rest of the song, unless it was.

    There is no such thing as "a wisper to a scream" anymore. Steve's example of a ride cymbol was right-on. A recording engineer's job is to make sure the recorded product is as close to the live product as possible.

    ...but times have changed. Just blow lots of bubbles in it, and everyone will love it.

    I call it Cornholio Mastering. Remember Beavis and Butthead when Beavis drinks way too much caffene and starts to make no sense because he's so hyper? Music suffers the same way.

    [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Sckott ]
     
  10. Cousin It,

    The problem with the “exploding” snare drum that you descried is a factor of mike placement and drum design. I have a wonderful set of Ludwig drums at home that were made in 1966. The set has a 5” x 14” Super Sensitive snare drum with floating snares. I make special mention of the snare drum because it is only 5” deep. Most modern drum sets have a 6 1/2” deep snare drum. The problem with the deeper snare drums is that they have a deeper sound and are less crisp and less sensitive than the thinner snare drums. Also, most modern drummers use extra thick drum heads. These are needed to withstand the hard pounding . Jazz drum heads on a snare drum produce a wonderful crisp, snappy sound instead of a nuclear explosion sound.
     
  11. Mart

    Mart New Member

    On the bright side today's stuff is less stuffy & compressed. Plus, even pop music is using better mikes than most old recordings.

    OTOH, the engineers need serious tutorage. Has anyone else bought Bond:"Born" album? These gals are playing their hearts out on acoustic instruments but you'd never know it by the sound. [​IMG] Each track is banded & gated. Then, they're combined devoid of any soundstaging or imaging.

    Say what you will about 80's albums (not that I'd dispute you), these are worse. It's like the deaf sound engineers that used to work concerts are now in the studio where they can document their debilitating tinnitus progression.

    BTW, for the record, Cher, "I don't believe in love if you're going to synthesize your voice in addition to your entire virtual band." [​IMG]
     
  12. KLM

    KLM Senior Member Thread Starter

    I would love to hear Steve's thoughts on this. I read a very good interview with Steve in Stereophile (some issues back) and this topic never really came up.

    Any thoughts?!?
     
  13. christopher

    christopher Forum Neurotic

    most drummers will tell you that the advancement of recording technology from the 50's to the 70's (i. e., more tracks to record on) was driven by the idea of recording the drum set better.

    yes, you can't go wrong with 2 stereo overheads, a kick and snare mic. but in the recent past, engineers--spurred on by drummers--began experimenting with multiple mic placement. just listen to billy cobham's drum set on MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA's "birds of fire" CD as an example of how good an engineer (in this case, the great ken scott) and musician can work together.

    of course, by the end of the 70's, things started to get a little out of control. when it takes three days to get a "drum sound", give it up, ok?

    but then, punk came along just to keep everyone honest.

    later, chris
     
  14. Pinknik

    Pinknik Senior Member

    "With a mass-market format, in mastering, we're going to be asked to make it louder than anything the world has ever known before and so we'll need to compress it - that's what we do. In daily life in the mastering world right now with CD's, a format with roughly 90db of dynamic range, we try to squeeze everything into the top two dB. Now, that's not on every project, thank God, and I'm happy about developing clients who don't ask me to do that, but I can tell you that in the trenches, that's what mastering engineers are doing on a daily basis.
    It's the world's stupidest thing and it's going to happen in any mass-market format. Some day we're going to have a format with 144 dB of dynamic range and we're going to be squeezing everything into the top two. It would be nice to have a format that everyone knows isn't a mass-market format and no one will ask us to compromise the sound for the least common denominator. It's an outside chance, in my book, that SACD could get established as that format."

    Mastering Engineer Paul Stubblebine
    from The Absolute Sound, Issue 130, June/July 2001
     
  15. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Oh Dave, that's a bunch of sh**! That's the same crap they tried to push on us in the 50s and 60s. The religious people didn't like rock & roll because had it's basis in sexually explicit blues. Conservatives didn't like it so they tried to tell us it was a communist plot to corrup our youth. Racists didn't like it because it was originated by Blacks and it promoted "race mixing". Later, social scientists tried to tell us that listening to rock made you stupid.

    Now, the reason we are getting so many cds that have the volume digitally maxed out is because the record companies want it, the artists want it, the public (average consumer) likes it, and I think a few, some admittedly, like the challenge of trying to get things louder.
     
  16. Doug Hess Jr.

    Doug Hess Jr. Senior Member

    Location:
    Belpre, Ohio
    And then when the songs play on the radio they use multi-band compression and a device called a Composite Clipper to max the modulation coming to your radio.
    (To explain the Composite Clipper-- most stations micro-wave their signal from the studio a few miles to their transmitters. They send a single composite signal of both Left and Right channels. The Clipper makes sure the signal doesn't over modulate by simply clipping it off at whatever level is set.)
     
  17. ultron9

    ultron9 The quest for perspicuity and grace continues...

    Location:
    USA
    Hi there.

    In spite of the deficit of decent music on radio currently, there are still worthwhile releases out there deserving of consideration...some examples are listed below.

    Ginger Baker Trio/Going Back Home (1994)

    Pat Metheny/Trio Live '00 (2000)

    New Order/Ready Or Not (2001)

    Bill frisell with Dave Holland & Elvin JOnes (2001)

    PJ Harvey/Stories From The City Stories From The Sea (2000)

    Lou Reed/Ecstacy (2000)

    Paul Simon/You're The One (2000)

    Wayne Horvitz & Zony Mash/Upper Egypt (2000)

    Marc Ribot/Y Los Cubanos Postizos (2000)

    Dan Wall/Off The Wall (1999)

    Michael Shrieve/Fascination (1994)

    Dave Holland Quintet/Prime Directive (1999-2000)

    Bruce Cockburn/Charity Of Night ('96-'97?)

    John Hiatt/The Tiki Bar Is Open (2001)

    Saint Saens-Symphony No. 3(Reissue on Classic Records) (2001)

    Chemical Brothers/Surrender (1999)

    Laurie Anderson/Life On A String (2001)

    The Philadelphia Experiment (2001)


    The engineering on some of these (EG Paul Simon and Bill Frisell) is pretty good also.

    Cheers.
     
  18. Sckott

    Sckott Hand Tighten Only.

    Location:
    South Plymouth, Ma
    Music is just a government ploy to make us all deaf and broke with marital problems.
     
  19. Unknown

    Unknown Guest

    As opposed to the good ole days (35 years ago), when the top and bottom was rolled off and the midrange boosted so an LP would sound good on a cheap record player.
     
  20. Unknown

    Unknown Guest

    As opposed to:

    Under My Thumb (degrading)
    Stupid Girl (degrading)
    Bobby Brown Goes Down (filthy)
    Catholic Girls (filthy)
    Dogs (the Pink Floyd one, negative)
    The Unknown Soldier (negative)
    Masters of War (negative)
    The Sun is Burning (negative)
    etc etc etc
     
  21. Unknown

    Unknown Guest

    Like on "White Room"?
     
  22. Unknown

    Unknown Guest

    Eric Johnson has tinnitus. It doesn't seem to affect his ability to get what is perhaps the greatest guitar tone on earth.
     
  23. Cousin It

    Cousin It Senior Member

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia

    Johnny K
    Yeah,I figured as much,I thought it would have to do with drum manufacturing advances(?),I'm kind of surprised there is no big hoo-haa over vintage drum kits the way there is over vintage guitar,bass and amplifiers.
    A lot of my fave albums rock or whatever seem to come from pre-1970 albums,John Bonham's drum sound on the the first 2 Zep albums are superb,real natural,you can heard the snare rattling caused by JPJ's bass on Dazed And Confused.I just get real tired of hearing records for the last 20 odd years where the drummer plays just the ride,snare and kick drum,no variation,I read some years ago that the mega drum sound as we know it today started with Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight".Anyone care to add to that ???
     
  24. Cousin It

    Cousin It Senior Member

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
     
  25. Unknown

    Unknown Guest

    You can hear his pedal squeak on "Since I've Been Loving You." And how about the drum sound on "When the Levee Breaks"?

    If Jimmy Page never wrote a song and never picked up a guitar, he could still be a legend as "just" a producer.

    As much as I love Mahavishnu Orhcestra, I've never been happy with their studio sound. And I don't see that the remaster of "Birds of Fire" is an improvement on the stock copy.

    [ November 17, 2001: Message edited by: Patrick M ]
     
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