Well after reading a host of posts on various audio related forums dealing with the wow factors of this versus that piece of amazing gear I just had to say something, and I am afraid this is going to give my age away but here goes...
I would gladly *down* grade my current studio in terms of overall quality potential in exchange for artists who can write good inspiring tunes and play their instruments. I am totally serious. Listen to some older recordings. They may not be marvels of engineering prowness but that's not what makes them great, or sold them in the first place. Listen to Led Zepplin's #4. Crude but effective. Why? Great songs, great vibe, guys that can lay it on and arrange a tune to move people. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon, one of the best selling albums of all time. Why? Great songs, great vibe, guys that can lay it on and arrange a tune to move people. FleetWood Mac's Rumours, practically a whole album worth of hits. Great songs, great vibe, guys n gals that can lay it on and arrange a tune to move people. Steely Dan stuff, beautifully in tune, fabulous song craft, wonderful engineering. Hey, does anyone remember Al Stewart's Year of The Cat? I could go on and on. Also note that these particular examples are wonderfully dynamic and uncompressed. Very nice to listen to. Dynamics, remember what they are? If not don't be too hard on yourself, cause there are damn few examples out there to remind us music really does have such things any more, which is a bloody shame.
My point. The all time quickest, cheapest way to up the quality of any recording is to simply have great songs and great players. Everything else is of small consideration by comparison. I would sooner listen to a killer song recorded on a Sound Blaster than a lousy one on the most advanced systems available. I was once asked what the most important gear was in our studio. I pointed to the door and said, "Whoever walks in that door will be the most important gear in the studio". What I didn't tell him was that the worst gear also ends up walking through the same door. He left thinking that we really had a "customer first" attitude, which we do, but that was not what I was getting at. What sells albums is songs, and all the greatest gear or the best algorithms in the world will not improve on that. There is no lack of high quality gear. That cannot be said for song writing/arranging and playing ability in general and that, my friends, is what music is supposed to be all about. Or was, anyway. Also, despite the fact that gear has advanced considerably, giving us engineers the ability to achieve greater hi fi potential than ever before we are basically observing a lo fi trend like never before. Talk about under utilization of resources. Geez. Listen to the totally out of control use of compression, limiting and maximising. Lo fi in the extreme sense of the term. Tell me where the sense in fussing over a clean signal path and amazing specifications makes all that much sense when it all ends up taking a quality loss hit in the end through copious amounts of volume maximising? The only valid reason we can find, and the one we use here, is "Oh, hell...the song sucks anyway so I suppose it may as well be loud".
And on that note, I just have to leave you with this lovely story. This was an experiment I recently tried that just about killed me. I was mastering an album and for a gag I did two different masterings on one tune to demonstrate a couple of "approaches" to the band for their opinions and consideration. In the first example I did what I personally felt was a "quality first" approach that preserved the shape of the dynamics and maximised the overall tone and soundstage presentation. This file sounded very punchy, deep and dynamically extended. The second version I deliberatly butchered if you will. This included some entirely inappropriate EQing and compression *and* to top it all off a reversed copy of another tune mixed very low underneath. Then this whole mess was L2ed so that there was *barely* a whole db of dynamic range for the entire song file. It sounded just dreadful. So the band walks in a couple of days later and I play them the two versions and say, "Ok, whatever you decide sounds best that's the direction we take." All five of them picked the one I deliberately wrecked. I nearly died. So did all the other engineers when they heard about it. I tell you I was a long time getting over that incident. Actually the *really* funny thing was that I just went ahead and did the whole album using my original approach and when they came back in for the final approval they thought it was great and off it went for manufacturing. Nothing was even said about it sounding different than they last remembered it. Go figure.
Remember when....?
No offense, but people find it really difficult to read chunks of text that are that long.
I know it hurts my eyes.
Why not editing the post and split the 3 paragraphs into 6 smaller ones with lines breaks inbetween.
More people will read and respond that way.
I know it hurts my eyes.
Why not editing the post and split the 3 paragraphs into 6 smaller ones with lines breaks inbetween.
More people will read and respond that way.
Add life to your days, not days to your life.
Really interesting story. perhaps your "butchered" track was really your subconscious doing its tricks anyway...
I know an engineer (a friend of mine about five years ago) who put subliminal messages like "you love this track" and "you will buy my album called XXX" etc under everything he did.
Never seemed to make much difference, none of them sold too well, but he did get an offer of an engineering job in London and hasn't looked back since
I know an engineer (a friend of mine about five years ago) who put subliminal messages like "you love this track" and "you will buy my album called XXX" etc under everything he did.
Never seemed to make much difference, none of them sold too well, but he did get an offer of an engineering job in London and hasn't looked back since
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Neil B
This article seems to fit with the More Space & Less Density article in the Creativity Forum.
Perhaps we ought to have another project where we go back to bare bones to create a simple 2 or 3 minute track with a limit on the number of voices (synths/samplers) allowed and the number of effects allowed.
We could follow this up by the top 3 voted tracks being remixed by several of the forums gurus. Hmmm, now there's an idea!
Perhaps we ought to have another project where we go back to bare bones to create a simple 2 or 3 minute track with a limit on the number of voices (synths/samplers) allowed and the number of effects allowed.
We could follow this up by the top 3 voted tracks being remixed by several of the forums gurus. Hmmm, now there's an idea!
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paulrmartin
- Posts: 2445
- Joined: Sun May 20, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Montreal, Canada
Question for you Kilroy:
Did any of those band members take a copy home to listen outside the studio or are they that trusting?(or maybe they just wanted the album out as soon as possible?)
I'm not putting down your ability in mastering, you abviously know whta you're doing. I'm just trying to point out that it's important for musicians to take the recordings elsewhere and listen in different environments.
Did any of those band members take a copy home to listen outside the studio or are they that trusting?(or maybe they just wanted the album out as soon as possible?)
I'm not putting down your ability in mastering, you abviously know whta you're doing. I'm just trying to point out that it's important for musicians to take the recordings elsewhere and listen in different environments.
Are we listening?..
The problem whith some of those clients is that when a producer/band/or who ever has already spend thousands of dollars for recording/mixing, and there will be another grand spent for mastering, then he wants to have the finals on a "competetive" level, whith a peak to average ratio that leaves only a few db dynamic range. I am generally opposed to hyper-compression and clipping. If I want something hyper-compressed in a mix I get it done on that (those) individual track(s) in the "mixing stage". That way I avoid ill effects of squashing the whole mix.
In general I find that if I can "anticipate" the end-demands early I can get a better product. For instance, I'd rather go with less hi-bass/lo-mid and a more selective mid in the production and mixing than to try and "preserve" something that I know will only be compromised in the end. By doing this I can reach hot levels with less ill-effects. Keeping the arrangement free from unnecessary decoration... If I only do the mastering bit for a project, I try to inform the client early on, if possible, about what choices he can make, if he's in the level game, not everyone is!! And it is important to "enlighten/inform" the client on possible translation effects/errors hypercompressed mixes might have..
Regards,
Sunshine
In general I find that if I can "anticipate" the end-demands early I can get a better product. For instance, I'd rather go with less hi-bass/lo-mid and a more selective mid in the production and mixing than to try and "preserve" something that I know will only be compromised in the end. By doing this I can reach hot levels with less ill-effects. Keeping the arrangement free from unnecessary decoration... If I only do the mastering bit for a project, I try to inform the client early on, if possible, about what choices he can make, if he's in the level game, not everyone is!! And it is important to "enlighten/inform" the client on possible translation effects/errors hypercompressed mixes might have..
Regards,
Sunshine
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snoopy4ever
- Posts: 367
- Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2002 4:00 pm
- Location: Costa Rica
Sorry Guys...
But I think you all are missing the point KillRoy is bringing up.
This thread is titled "Remember When."..and I'm sure he posted it because the pointless discussion about different hi-tech gears. How old/new our DSP chips are does not make sense if we can't move people's hearts with our music. If this guy takes the old tech guitar and gather a bunch of feelings on a song, he would got his goal perfectly.
Most of you deal with synths and rythm boxes as well, and you know well how the manufactures allways refer to the old analog gear who inspired the new one. In fact, If you have the chance to read Keyboards Magazine, you'll see that there are a lot of people who bougth 30 year old synths for their rigs, all of them huge boxes that would fit my room 10 times, but isn't that "old and obsolete technology"???
Creativity my friends, creativity on our minds and hands, that we can't buy on any store.
Snoopy
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: snoopy4ever on 2002-06-10 14:52 ]</font>
But I think you all are missing the point KillRoy is bringing up.
This thread is titled "Remember When."..and I'm sure he posted it because the pointless discussion about different hi-tech gears. How old/new our DSP chips are does not make sense if we can't move people's hearts with our music. If this guy takes the old tech guitar and gather a bunch of feelings on a song, he would got his goal perfectly.
Most of you deal with synths and rythm boxes as well, and you know well how the manufactures allways refer to the old analog gear who inspired the new one. In fact, If you have the chance to read Keyboards Magazine, you'll see that there are a lot of people who bougth 30 year old synths for their rigs, all of them huge boxes that would fit my room 10 times, but isn't that "old and obsolete technology"???
Creativity my friends, creativity on our minds and hands, that we can't buy on any store.
Snoopy
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: snoopy4ever on 2002-06-10 14:52 ]</font>
"Did any of those band members take a copy home to listen outside the studio or are they that trusting?(or maybe they just wanted the album out as soon as possible?)"
Paul, what makes this so very odd is that I never ever intended to send these guys home with this ratty mastering. It was just for a laugh. What blew my tanks utterly was sitting there expecting them to all smile and get this great kick out of it yet instead there they are bobbing their heads and really digging it. They were totally sold on my screwed up version of this tune based solely on the fact that it was the louder of the two choices. Sonically it was completely inferior in every way, but obviously what really mattered most to these chaps was the overall level of the song. It was very, very loud alright.
If someone brings their work to me for mastering then I expect them to be putting some faith in my abilities. That said, *everyone* leaves with ref copies of *everything* that I do for them whether they think they need them or not. In other words, if they don't think they need them, based on what they hearing through my system...they get em anyway.
Paul, what makes this so very odd is that I never ever intended to send these guys home with this ratty mastering. It was just for a laugh. What blew my tanks utterly was sitting there expecting them to all smile and get this great kick out of it yet instead there they are bobbing their heads and really digging it. They were totally sold on my screwed up version of this tune based solely on the fact that it was the louder of the two choices. Sonically it was completely inferior in every way, but obviously what really mattered most to these chaps was the overall level of the song. It was very, very loud alright.
If someone brings their work to me for mastering then I expect them to be putting some faith in my abilities. That said, *everyone* leaves with ref copies of *everything* that I do for them whether they think they need them or not. In other words, if they don't think they need them, based on what they hearing through my system...they get em anyway.
Could it be, that the lo-fi sound you created fit rigth in on the attitude they wanted to represent themselves with? Like blues singers with overloaded mic channels. Guitarists with distorted guitars. Drums recorded thru ear phones?
Immanuel
Immanuel
Information for new readers: A forum member named Braincell is known for spreading lies and malicious information without even knowing the basics of, what he is talking about. If noone responds to him, it is because he is ignored.
Oh, and I love some of my old 50s Ellington tapes. Good tunes played thru good gear... erh musicians 
Immanuel
Immanuel
Information for new readers: A forum member named Braincell is known for spreading lies and malicious information without even knowing the basics of, what he is talking about. If noone responds to him, it is because he is ignored.
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kensuguro
- Posts: 4434
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- Location: BPM 60 to somewhere around 150
- Contact:
well, what killroy says happens alot.. or atleast from my experience. I've played lots of stuff to producers and artists, but most of them seem to go for the bigger sounding mix anyway... and lots of them tell me exactly, "make it sound LOUD". Sometimes I'm even forced to clip the material.. other times I just turn up the monitors to make everything sound loud.. it does seem to be the "thing".
Luckily, in the theater production I'm involved with right now, I'm free to use all the dynamics I want so I'm taking the liberty to not master, limit, or anything. Everything done in the mix.. man, lemme tell ya, this is total freedom!
Luckily, in the theater production I'm involved with right now, I'm free to use all the dynamics I want so I'm taking the liberty to not master, limit, or anything. Everything done in the mix.. man, lemme tell ya, this is total freedom!
In the old days we were quite fascinated with dynamics manipulation because we found that texturing audio with comp VCAs helped things sit nicer in a mix. I still think that there is nothing particularily evil with this approach.
As the VCAs got better (read faster) all of a sudden you could really go to town leveling a mix out, which naturally gave you a little more room to fill the meters up. Even at this point there was a limit to how hard you could limit the mix, if you were so inclined, (I wasn't) because we were still in the hey day of good ol vinyl.
With vinyl you had to pretty much make a choice of having a loud record, or having more tunes on the plate, because you couldn't have both. Loud tunes ate up the realistate alot quicker than ones recorded at a more moderate level. No only that, but if your highs were on the sizzly side of things going in you could end up with pretty harsh, splattery sibilance. Vinyl is a quirky, flawed, but oh so lovely medium.
As a devout hi fi (call me old fashioned...hell, just call me old) kind of engineer I always take it a little personally when I've tried to carefully craft a tune to best display it's content only to have some guy stroll up an ask if I can make it any louder. "No problem", I say, and I reach up and shove the master up to the amps. That, my good friends, is how you keep the quality *and* have a loud mix.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kilroy on 2002-06-12 22:17 ]</font>
As the VCAs got better (read faster) all of a sudden you could really go to town leveling a mix out, which naturally gave you a little more room to fill the meters up. Even at this point there was a limit to how hard you could limit the mix, if you were so inclined, (I wasn't) because we were still in the hey day of good ol vinyl.
With vinyl you had to pretty much make a choice of having a loud record, or having more tunes on the plate, because you couldn't have both. Loud tunes ate up the realistate alot quicker than ones recorded at a more moderate level. No only that, but if your highs were on the sizzly side of things going in you could end up with pretty harsh, splattery sibilance. Vinyl is a quirky, flawed, but oh so lovely medium.
As a devout hi fi (call me old fashioned...hell, just call me old) kind of engineer I always take it a little personally when I've tried to carefully craft a tune to best display it's content only to have some guy stroll up an ask if I can make it any louder. "No problem", I say, and I reach up and shove the master up to the amps. That, my good friends, is how you keep the quality *and* have a loud mix.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kilroy on 2002-06-12 22:17 ]</font>
