Lately I had been listening to a lot of old records and albums (mostly country material from the late 60's and early 70's) and I was always amazed by the absolutely beautiful stereo sound they offered. I usually listen through a very good sound system, partly with headphones, and the sound is so decent, clear and vivid, the balance between instruments and voices is absolutely perfect that it is pure pleasure to listen to these records. As I write this, I am just listening to one of the old Roy Drusky albums on Mercury - what a sound!
With all the technical progress from the last 30 years in mind, I wonder why some of the modern releases lack that feeling (in my mind - or am I probably prejudiced?). Today's sound is technically perfect, but I can't help myself, I feel it differently. Of course there are a lot of great records today, too (soundwise), but I heard a lot of current recordings who have that "sterile" sound which is so hard to describe.
Does the technical progress, the digital recording etc. make it "colder"? Or was it the technique of having everybody in the same room at the same time, w/o a lot of overdubbing? Is it the way some of the instruments (drums and bass) are mixed today?
I wonder if any of you guys has made the same observation.
The engineers of that era came from a totally different midset sonically than todays computer types. They went for capturing as close as they could the actual sound of the instrument or voice and recording it to a point where it sounded as natural as possible. Todays sounds are very artificial sounding, too much top end on everything, no sonic image to speak of. Most all of it is just loud and louder and compressed and over EQ'd. Also keep in mind how much simpler the tracks were. No synth sounds, no blasting kick drums, no twangy low B electric basses, no chainsaw guitars and the list goes on an on. When you start muddying up the audio waters with that stuff then you really lose a lot of the purity that the classic recordings of the 50s and 60s had. Also most were done in good sounding large rooms as opposed to a computer with everybody plugged in directly to it. Classic recording is a lost art. The players,engineers, rooms, Ampex tape machines who did these are either out to pasture or gone.
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Postby Dave Mudgett »
Walter, this is a thread I have been thinking about starting - it relates to several other threads on tuning and pitch accuracy, studio parts getting 'cut up', and so on. Obviously, there's been a huge change in recording mindset in the last 30-40 years, and I think that's a big part of the issue here. I think that the 'cut and paste' mentality has radically changed the way records sound, and I don't like that change. Let me explain.
First, personally, I prefer live-in-the-studio with multi-tracking and reasonable isolation, so a great feeling take with perhaps a glaring but not fundamental technical clam can be fixed if necessary. But for me, the feeling generated by musicians who play well together usually outweighs small defects in playing. This explains why I mostly play as part of an ensemble, and if we record with a producer, he or she works for us. Not much chance of me becoming a serious session musician in today's world, although I do low-key sessions occasionally. Some of this is a part of why I moved back into science and engineering after a 5-6 year foray into music, professionally.</p>
As mentioned, 50s & 60s and earlier jazz-blues-country-rock'n'roll was recorded in relatively primitive studios mostly live. Maybe they could fix a thing or two, maybe not. I think a lot of people are still trying to figure out how they made it sound so good without all the fancy equipment. Everything said here makes sense: engineers worked acoustics more, some people swear it's the old tube consoles, I agree that the room matters, etc. </p>
But overall, I don't think there's anything wrong with the current equipment, there are still plenty of good rooms to record in, and lots of engineers are still plenty knowledgeable about acoustics, etc. My view is that lot of people in the music business (not necessarily engineers or producers, IMO) seem to think that music is just the sum of a bunch of independent parts and pieces, and I think that is fundamentally not correct. In my opinion, the freedom to be able to cut and paste pieces of sound like putting together a jigsaw puzzle doesn't turn a 'jigsaw puzzle of the Mona Lisa' into the real thing, no matter how talented the people making the pieces are. Let me explain further.</p>
When an ensemble of musicians play live, there's a phenomenon called "entrainment", which happens when players make feedback corrections to keep the overall rhythm, feel, pitch, overall sound, whatever, of the entire ensemble together. People don't have identical and perfect rhythm, feel, or pitch, of course some do a lot better than others. But some adjustment for errors is essential, and the dynamics of this closed-loop system can get very, very complex. In the hands of talented players and production, the music 'breathes', the way people do. I think this is missing from a lot of modern recordings, where engineers or producers can time-shift, pitch-shift, remove string noises, and do other things to 'scrubb-to-perfection' the ensemble sound. It doesn't sound natural to me, but YMMV.</p>
The technical requirement for near-perfection is very real if the musicians are tracking separately, without the feedback to adjust to the entire ensemble. I think this is one of the reasons why virtuoso-level playing is expected in studios these days. The technical mastery of the top players today is remarkable, and part of that is the need to be able to function in this high-tech environment. One has to be very, very consistent about the 4 Ts, tuning, tone, timing, and taste, to make this cut-and-paste thing work well. Do you think Luther Perkins could have cut it in the recording world today? Not a chance, but regardless of what you think about his level of viruosity, the impact on popular music of his simple figures, from the early Johnny Cash records, cannot be overestimated, IMO. Lots of similar examples abound in many styles of music. How do we think Charlie Parker would have reacted to the studio system as we now know it? No issue about technical virtuosity there, but I seriously wonder if we'd have ever heard of him in the current landscape of the music biz. Do we really believe that great musicians make their best music detached from their fellow musicians?</p>
Think of this analogy - suppose you want to send a spaceship to the moon. In one approach (this is the ensemble-playing analogy), you're constantly measuring your relative position and velocity relative to your target, and can continuously apply error feedback correction as you go. The technical requirements for precision to your pre-planned course are relaxed. On the other hand, without this continuous feedback (the separate-tracking analogy), one needs to execute all pre-planned maneuvers very precisely, or the target on a long journey is missed completely. This is the actual experience in early rocket travel work. Back to recording, in the separate tracking approach, everybody needs to play very precisely to the pre-planned 'trajectory'. Certain feedback mechanisms are generally provided, like click tracks for rhythmic consistency, and laying down the rhythm section first. But I think that's a lot different than having the whole ensemble together. </p>
Finally, before anyone thinks this is a slam on the entire recording industry, it's not. I realize a lot of conscientious producers and engineers try hard to keep ensembles playing together as much as practically possible. And I do hear things that sound great today, but it's unfortunately not that often. I think the problem is the fast pace and current tendency of many large corporations who control things to largely sublimate 'musical issues' to 'business issues'. I'm not against business, but since it's the 'music business', I think the baby should not be thrown out with the bath water.</p>
This topic was discussed once before in a analog vs digital thread some years ago. But I think you guys have summed up the aural appeal of analog + ensemble recordings quite nicely.
Dave. I would have to disagree with you respectfully on your statement that most 50 60s recording was done in "reletively primitive" studios. The Columbia studios in NY where "Kind of Blue" and other monster classic recordings was not primitive at all. Van Gelders in Englewood cliffs was and still is a great studio. All of the gee whiz crap that is used in recording today certainly has not rivaled or surpassed the sonic purity and acoustic imaging that was prevelant in the recordings from these "primitive" places. There was really no need for complicated overdubbing and isolation and sampling and whatever. The absense of that is what makes classic recordings sound so wonderful.
I think Bill has it right. Today's recordings are far too polished. What happens when you overdo it? Consider the analogy of a coin. It's image can be beautiful, but too much "polishing" just to make it shine eventually washes out all the wonderful detail. It becomes smooth, slick, and featureless.
Something has changed, and not just recordings. Think of the old TV shows, like the Wilburn Brothers. The band sat right there in plain site, and just played and it sounded just like it should. Probably with just a couple of mics to pick them up. Now, when you watch something like that, (if you can find something like that), it's more like a bad studio session. (From the point of view of the overall sound).
I guess the Bluegrass people are the only ones left that understand how to get that blend, and even they are loosing it as they go to induvidual mics on each instrument, etc.
Location: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Postby Dave Mudgett »
Bill, Donny - I think you latched onto the word 'primitive' like I meant it as 'bad'. From the standpoint of editing and other 'modern' cut-and-paste features, those studios were primitive. But the entire point of my post was to opine: 1) Why I prefer the sound of old recordings made in those old studios and 2) Why I think the modern cut-and-paste method doesn't work as well as the live-in-the-studio approach used at those old studios. I totally agree with you about 'gee-whiz crap', 'sonic purity', and 'acoustic imaging' and 'too much polishing'. I addressed the 'scrub-to-perfection' issue directly. I didn't ever say the sound of those studios was bad. At the same time, I think there are lots of good-sounding modern digital studios. It's the over-use of the cut-and-paste approach that I dislike. I was simply trying to articulate in a detailed way why I think that approach doesn't usually work as well. I think there's something inherently flawed, from the point of view of recording ensemble music, with extreme cut-and-paste. I focused on the disruption of entrainment, which is a performance issue. I realize that there are other, more acoustic issues - those had already been addressed somewhat in earlier posts.
Now, at the same time, there were plenty of great recordings that were made in less sophisticated studios than Columbia or Van Gelder studios. Let's face it, Chess Studios and Sun Studios and many others were not sophisticated from a technical point of view, even by period standards. But the rooms were good-sounding and the producers and engineers knew how to artistically extract good sound from them with their equipment. The recordings were great. I used Luther Perkins with Johnny Cash at Sun Studios as a case in point. I might just as easily use Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters and Little Walter at Chess. </p>
I don't disagree with anything you've said except that I characterized the old studios as 'bad'. Perhaps my post was too long, sorry about that. </p>
at every point where technology advanced in recording, people used it. some people didn't like stereo, some think editing tape was "dishonest". recording began as all documentary, simply recording the music as played but as soon as somebody figured out a way to edit performances, overdub parts, etc. the studio became more and more a part of the product. that's not going to change.
the key element, to me, of a good recording is good music played by players with some soul. technology is nothing but a tool, capable of being misused, but also capable of helping to deliver soulful music with better sound quality than ever. there were plenty of bad (and bad sounding) records made in earlier eras too. it wasn't necessarily the fault of the technology.
and you're correct that musicians have adapted their ways of playing and engineers their way of capturing the music to the new technololgy. i don't think that's good or bad, it's just the way the world works. the key is still the quality of the music and i think that has always cut thru the technological barrier.
But Van Gelders studio WAS primative.
The acoustics were quite odd, but after MANY sessions he had found the specific places that "worked".
IF you alway put the bass on this mark, and the drums on that mark and the sax aimed this way in that corner it worked.
Yes he literally had marked the floor where his sound worked.
As opposed to more modern studios where the sound was good in several places for several instruments. And you coluld vary it, by movement, not get one sound and re-produced it many times.
That said as above love the sound he got.
He worked WITH the acoustics, but also he had no choice either.
I just heard Dean Martin's Welcome To My World and the use of stereo was just bizare, but they were still learning then.
The ability to make great live sounding recordings is still there, but they just tend not to go for that anymore.
And no one is building new studios purpose built for this acoustic modality,
because of the digital home studios erasing the demo market,
so people just can't justify building the rooms...
since thay can't break even.
One thing you CAN do is feed a track out to speakers in the room and add the acoustics back in from mics in the room.
If you have a good room.
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 17 May 2005 at 12:29 AM.]</p></FONT>
<SMALL> Yeah, that's right, plug all their direct boxes into the interface. Put Donny there into the Podxt. Let 'em use those tube amps and those dummy SM57s... Look at 'em in there. They're all smiling like hell... Tell them to run another take. All we need is the guitar part on that one verse.. -modern 36 bit producer-(as he hands the pipe to his apprentice.) </SMALL>
Amazing that anybody ever got used to 60 cycle lights or moving pictures...
EJL<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Eric West on 15 May 2005 at 03:16 AM.]</p></FONT>
Me with a PodXt? That'd be like giving Orville and Wilbur an F-18.
I think it was David Donald that once posted a graphic example here of the sound of an older recording vs. the sound of a newer (highly compressed) one. It spoke volumes. The older recording had loads of dynamics and open space, "breathing room", I think they call it. The newer recording looked more like "hash", or white noise. The signal level was constant. There were no spaces that weren't filled! Maybe that's why I can't lsten to today's music for long periods. It's just too "busy", and it just seems to induce mental fatigue. My old vinyl? I can listen to that all day. It doesn't <u>assualt</u> the senses like today's popular recordings. I must admit, the steeler CD's and some of the indie CD stuff is far closer to the "sound" of decades past. But lately, it seems even the indie stuff is "busier", and more compressed.
p.s. Dave, I don't always view "primitive' as bad! Some of my 78's are far more listenable than this cluttered-up, compressed stuff they're releasing today. It has nothing to do with fidelity, and <u>everything</u> to do with capturing the raw, live, musical talent of a performer. My Muddy Waters and Leadbelly stuff would be ignored if it were on CD's. <font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 15 May 2005 at 05:46 AM.]</p></FONT>
Bingo, Donny! We can all pine for the "old days", but the real problem with a lack of "definition", "clarity", "air", "ambience" (etc.) has been the advent of the...
<font size=+2><c>Compression Wars!</font></c>
Followed by that other skermish, the "Clone Wars".
Mastering guru, and noted compression hater Bob Katz has the following to say...
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>From The Sublime to the Ridiculous
roducers don't seem to like making a CD that's even a little softer than the competition, so each succeeding CD is often a little bit hotter. Just how much hotter can CDs get? I can cut a CD that's 16 dB louder than the ones we made in the early 90's, before digital limiters became popular, but it'll look like a square wave and soundlike audio cream of wheat! Imagine the consumer problems caused by large variations in loudness--switching CDs has literally become Russian Roulette, shooting out our speakers and ears! But ultimately, your hot CD doesn't get any louder for the public; they just turn their monitor down, and scream in disgust at the increasing range they have to move the knob when they change CDs. In addition, sound quality is suffering by an unjustifiable demand for hotter CDs. A fellow mastering engineer reminds me that in the early days of CDs, we didn't have any pressure to make them hotter (because there was little competition), and early pop CDs had good, open sound. They're much softer than current CDs, but if you turn up your volume control you'll see their dynamics are much better-sounding. Why do we have to go backwards in sound quality?</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<font size=-1>'95 Mullen D-10 w/ E66 (E9) & Mullen (C6)pups - It's still one smooooth puppy! '04 Artisan S-6 - "The Home Depot scrap pile refugee"
Photo page: http://www.davidhorch.com/music
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<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dave Horch on 15 May 2005 at 05:55 AM.]</p></FONT>
There is a place for compression,
but most these days use it far into excess.
Why it makes for a so much simpler mix...DUH!
Well one issue especial for singles is getting air play,
and the big stations compress the station output
up to fractions below illegal transmistion levels.
Squeezing out to every last legal mile, or yard, of audience coverage.
If your mix is too dynamicy then they figure
they are lossing advertising revenue.
I like compression so that it doesn't pump,
but gives a light smoothing of the occasional out of resonable peak signal.
That was it's original design intention.
And most of the time iit s not there, because the normal musician created dynamics is showing through.
Well more on bass especially the upright, since I prefer that ALL my notes are heard.
The when mastering time comes round get it hot as you can,
and maybe 1 peak going red for an instant.
But invisablyif you actually hear it it's too much.
Too many still crush or clamp the dynamics out,
so it makes the DJ's happy.
There you'll also find the graphics comparing old and new recordings.
It's not the compressors that's the problem, it's the people using them,- compression, in one way or another, has been around since the beginning of recorded music. Allthough I do find that the less compression I use, the better my mix sounds, there are places were good use of compression can work wonders to a track.
There's a time and place for everything, just not this ridiculous loudness war we've been witnessing over the last 10 years....
In 1965, a 30-year-old recording engineer would have been born in 1935. In 1975, a 30-year-old recording engineer would have been born in 1945. In 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock published "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care." What more do you need to know?
It's all just tools--take a nail gun--one guy will figure out how to build a fine piece of furniture with it and another guy will nail his foot to the floor with his...
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Postby Dave Mudgett »
John, I think you've 'nailed it'.
It's people that make the technology work or not work. But I think there is a natural temptation to think "Hey, we gotta use all this high-tech stuff - we paid for it, eh?". It can be a slippery slope, particularly when the performance hits some stumbling blocks, and everybody wants to get finished quickly. In the 'old days', that wasn't an option. Too many projects I've worked on started out working ensemble, but then moved to cut-and-paste for efficiency. It seems to be human nature - if a tool is available to get the quick result, it is often used, even if it doesn't really give the desired result.
A lot of this is context also. In computer/electronics-generated or sampled music, extreme cut-and-paste may be entirely reasonable. If we're talking commercial jingles, voiceovers, and the like, I don't see what difference it makes. But in rootsier styles or classical music, I don't care for it. But many people seem to strenuously prefer it. I have friends who just can't resist the temptation to 'scrubb-to-perfection' everything they record. De gustibus non disputandum.
Donny, I listen primarily to vinyl. I'll stack up my old Muddy Waters, Wes Montgomery, and Buck Owens records against anything. Perfection ain't all it's cracked up to be, IMO.
...and when the client is willing to pay to have his feet nailed to the floor, we tend to nail away! That is, unless we'd rather not have much repeat business! Sometimes I approach it as a personal dare, to see just how hard I can pound those nails!
Sorry, but makin' the mortgage payment tends to be a good thing.
Sorry to impune your use of the word "primitive" was negative. Just comparing the old state of the art to the new.
Also the "wierd" reverb thing. Bill Porter told me that when the new RCA console came for studio B in Nashville he had 12 inputs. 4 were HARD wired left, 4 right and 4 center. NO pan pots. In the early stages of the new fangled STEREO sound that most purest engineers actually did not like at all you would hear the limitations of the console a lot. Reverbs on one side. Kick drums on one side and the like. They just make it sound as best as they could with what they had to work with. Most of the beautiful sonic imaging came with setting up the musicians in the room and using the mic bleed to give you a picture.
<SMALL>Why do we have to go backwards in sound quality?</SMALL>
Because the ones running the consoles now, the ones twisting the knobs, pushing the sliders, and tweaking the software, were raised on really LOUD rock-n-roll!
What the <u>hell</u> do they know about <u>quality</u>???
It's like asking a demolition expert to do eye surgery!
(Have you ever seen a really quiet, low-key rock band with a packed house?)
<SMALL>What the hell do they know about quality???</SMALL>
In many cases they know quite a lot actually, more than you would imagine judging from the records being produced these days.
Many recording engineers despair when hearing how the mixes they've spent countless hours perfectioning has been ruined in the mastering stage.
And know what? Many mastering engineers despair also, but they have some moron record company A&R man standing behind their back, yelling; "LOUDER!! LOUDER!! Or we'll find some other to do our business with!!".
It won't go away until the big record companies realize they are losing sales because of the lousy quality, OR they crumble and fall, leaving the market to the independent labels who actually care about the quality of music.
I agree with all, and would add this. The Red Book standard has been around for a while now (44KHz,16bit), and I think it just ain't gettin' it. The industry mandated that everyone's ears will like it. It's new. It's digital. It's compact. It must be good.
A culture was created that forced us to adapt to A/D conversion by creating more digital stuff to smooth out the rough edges and to modernize, by making it “busy”. I agree then that some producers subconsciously take the soul out of recordings by using (or overusing) digital techniques that cause the effects mentioned.
In the days of vinyl, a “fill” may have been created by suggesting to the drummer to simply switch from high-hat to ride cymbal during an instrumental solo. Now, we can’t even have a clean sounding cymbal. Either the cymbal hits all sound the same, or it sounds like white noise so we have to bury it and cover it up with something else. Eventually, the sampling rate takes over, so why bother with trying to keep the personality of the music, when it won’t be heard.
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Mike Barone
Sho-Bud Pro-1, Nashville 112, Goodrich Pedal, BJS 15/16 Bar
