[
Date Prev][
Date Next] [
Thread Prev][
Thread Next]
[
Date Index][
Thread Index][
Author Index]
RE: Why contemporary music sounds terrible
Too bad that the remastered Zep CDs are too loud way too bright...
>Absolutely Brian!those Zeppelin record production
>still amaze me,and they are made to be turned up!those
>drum sounds still sound fresh and the sounds page got
>out of those small amps and guitars are the most
>interesting ive heard in rock n roll history.What ive
>always found brilliant about such a band was the
>passion behind it,there are mistakes all over the
>place like the solo on "baby i am gonna leave you" the
>instrumental "black mountain side" or the bleeding
>echo at the end of "you shook me" or the cut off lost
>part by their engineer which i believe page fired on
>the spot which they had to solve by pasting another
>part at the begining of "celebration day"...
>but is the honesty power and passion,no frills or
>thrills they played back in those days that make them
>so special to this day,almost as if it was the last
>time they were going to live...
>Luis
>
>
>
>
>--- greg williams <gregorwilliams@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Brian,
>>
>> I am also a fan of Page and his production in
>> general in terms of dynamics,
>> but have you heard "How the West was Won"? It was
>> hugely disappointing for
>> me in this regard; it is squashed beyond belief, and
>> so is the sound on the
>> Zeppelin DVD, which was released around the same
>> time. I don't know if it
>> was Page himself who suddenly caved in or his
>> mastering engineer, but I
>> really wish I could hear those recordings with some
>> dynamics still intact.
>>
>> ~Greg
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Brian Kupferschmid
>> [mailto:apparitionapparition@yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 8:48 AM
>> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
>> Subject: Re: Why contemporary music sounds terrible
>>
>> I wholly agree with this, I believe a lot of today's
>> music is crap, not just because the talent is
>> lacking,
>> but the dynamics as a whole is lacking. Aside from
>> super compressed material, the bands themselves only
>> see to know two sounds, clean and dirty. Where's
>> the
>> middle ground? I can listen to a blues song and
>> still
>> hear the dynamics, I can hear the accentuations on
>> the
>> notes being played to create emotion. A lot of
>> today's pop and rock music lacks that. Mind you,
>> Metal in all it's forms, isn't supposed to be
>> dynamic
>> in the musical sense, but why would you squeeze the
>> life out of any song to make it in your face? My
>> favorite stuff to listen to would be anything Jimmy
>> Page produced(Led Zeppelin for sure). He composed
>> his
>> songs and used the studio to enhance his material
>> with
>> what he refers to "light and shade". The
>> combination
>> of close and room micing, soft versus loud and
>> layering acoustics with clean electrics and so on.
>> If
>> you think about it, even some of the heaviest
>> sounding
>> stuff he did, wasn't all that distorted.
>> Ultimately,
>> his use of dynamics traslated over into the
>> mastering
>> part as well, what makes the big parts sound big is
>> the small parts, thus making the song truly
>> engulfing.
>> Another band to use dynamics to it's fullest is
>> Tool,
>> because of the ebb and flow, you can listen to an 8
>> minute tune and not get bored, because the shifts in
>> phrasing and dynamics keeps you there, and what's
>> more, everytime you listen to it, a new part pops up
>> you didn't realise was there before. Anyway, I've
>> spoken what I think, so I have to agree, part of
> > what
>> is annoying about today's music is the lack of
>> dynamics, it wears you out.
>> --- Krispen Hartung <khartung@cableone.net> wrote:
>>
>> > This is an interesting article posted on the jazz
>> > guitar discussion group.
>> > Jeff Kaiser and I had some interesting discussions
>> > about the abuses or
>> > misgivings of compression and the quest for hotter
>> > levels in newer CDs when
>> > I was mastering the discs for the Boise
>> Experimental
>> > Music Festival....all
>> > the different ways you can increase levels (for
>> CDs
>> > to sound comparable to
> > > other professional CDs in your player), yet
>> > maintain natural dynamics, etc.
>> > Now, it has occured to me that often times when I
>> > hear a CD, especially
>> > pop/rock CDs, and I think to myself, wow that is a
>> > really hot and "in your
>> > face" level", the mix also doesn't have much of a
>> > dynamic range...some guy
>> > is screaming his lyrics, or you can tell that is
>> is
>> > practically blowing his
>> > brains out to get that tone out of his horn...but
>> it
>> > is no louder than the
>> > section where he is wispering poetry over an
>> ambient
>> > section. It's like
>> > compress, compress, compress, limit, limit,
>> > limit....turn that wave form
>> > into a solid bar, and then raise it to 0db...in
>> your
>> > face, 100% of the time.
>> > Below is the first time I've seen this referred to
>> > as exhausting, but it
>> > makes sense. Even if you turn your stereo down,
>> > there might be something to
>> > be said of giving the human pyche a break with
>> > natural dynamics and more
>> > space.
>> >
>>
>Tension....release....tension...release....louder....softer,
>> > etc,
>> > etc.
>> >
>> > This article/topic, could I suppose turn into the
>> > discussion of the
>> > pschological results/benefits of adding more space
>> > to one's compositions
>> > (not making the composition "better" or "worse,"
>> > mind you). Can adding more
>> > space and natural dynamics put the human psche at
>> > ease? Is it more condusive
>> > to generating natural emotive responses? (natural
>> > meaning those that one
>> > might expect on the bell curve of a person, day to
>> > day). Good questions. I
>> > suppose part II of the article below could explore
>> > this: "Natural dynamics
>> > in music and 'Horror of the Vacuum'."
>> >
>> > What would be hilarious, or maybe frightening, is
>> if
>> > something happened to
>> > our atmosphere, such that it added a form of
>> > compression and normalization
>> > to 0db to all sound....imagine walking down the
>> > street, hearing a boy wisper
>> > to his mother, a man scream at his dog, a
>> > streetworker jackhammering, cars
>> > beeping, etc...but everything never veered much
>> > from 0db....even the
>> > ambience in the atmosphere (white noise) would be
>> > 0db. We might go insane.
>> > :)
>> >
>> > I included some excerpts from the article below,
>> as
>> > well.
>> >
>> > Kris
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> >
>> > Everything Louder Than Everything Else: Have the
>> > loudness wars reached their
>> > final battle?
>> >
>>
>http://www.austin360.com/music/content/music/stories/xl/2006/09/28cover.html
>> >
>> > "You listen to these modern records, they're
>> > atrocious, they have sound all
>> > over them. There's no definition of nothing, no
>> > vocal, no nothing, just
>> > like - static."
>> >
>> > - Bob Dylan in Rolling Stone magazine
>> >
>> > "There's something . . . sinister in audio that is
>> > causing our listeners
>> > fatigue and even pain while trying to enjoy their
>> > favorite music. It has
>> > been propagated by A&R departments for the last
>> > eight years: The complete
>> > abuse of compression in mastering (forced on the
>> > mastering engineers against
>> > their will and better judgment)."
>> >
>> > "The mistaken belief that a 'super loud' record
>> will
>> > sound better and
>> > magically turn a song into a hit has caused most
>> > major label releases in the
>> > past eight years to be an aural assault on the
>> > listener," Montrone's letter
>> > continued. "Have you ever heard one of those test
>> > tones on TV when the
>> > station is off the air? Notice how it becomes
> > > painfully annoying in a very
>> > short time? That's essentially what you do to a
>> song
>> > when you super compress
>> > it. You eliminate all dynamics."
>> >
>> > For those already confused, Montrone was
>> essentially
>> > saying that there are
>>
>=== message truncated ===
>
>
>www.myspace.com/luisangulocom
>
>
>
>____________________________________________________________________________________
>No need to miss a message. Get email on-the-go
>with Yahoo! Mail for Mobile. Get started.
>http://mobile.yahoo.com/mail
--
...
http://www.zmix.net