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Old 07-14-2020, 10:26 AM   #41
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D.L. said that most like compression and post processing of some kind... and I mean, that's pretty hard to argue against in terms of what listeners want. As evidence, find a popular recording with no processing done, just straight mics to finished recording. Compression and EQ are the bread and butter of mixing. I don't need to do a poll to determine if people like to eat bread.
Just a note that there's a delineation between fitting the media and/or addressing the listening environment (compression the tool) vs user preference of something more crushed (compression as taste). Yea, technically everything has compression as it has too usually, because soft parts would be too low or loud parts too loud. I personally think the utility part should be removed from the comparison entirely. Obviously people want to be able to hear the music but I'd not count that piece into the user taste piece of compression.

In that regard I agree with numberthirty, where's the data showing a user preference for loudness war smashed is preferred by listeners? Especially since my several non-scientific but reasonably valid tests of unassuming users shows the exact opposite at any moderate SPL.

There is some "excitement" created by over compressing but it has zero staying power at anything other than lower volumes. AKA, one literally can't listen as long without ear fatigue - which is ironic being it's being done that way to "attract listeners". :/

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D.L. didn't say Hendrix would be a nobody without his pedals.
No but I argue that it's much, much, much more that it was Jimi and he'd have achieved what he achieved regardless of the gear. People have a difficult time separating technology from talent which is happening quite a bit in this thread. vdubreeze summed it up nicely in the other thread which is basically the same thing. Even when it is the tech, it's the forethought and talent to use it the way it was used, doing that after the fact is often riding the tail end of someone else's genius and by then, there is already something else that is fresher that matters more. IMHO, chasing mid-2000s techniques in 2020 is terribly behind the times.
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Old 07-14-2020, 10:36 AM   #42
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I would argue for a middle ground, i.e. not talking about loudness wars (and I don't think D.L. was either?) and not talking about very basic compression to work on vinyl, etc. In that wide middle ground I think it could be demonstrated that there is plenty of human appreciation for compression, eq, etc.

Another way of making this point is just to say that, sure, modern tech sounds are in part driven by economics and fashion and marketing and so on, but there has to be some kernel of actual aesthetic appreciation of it for it to be so insanely popular and prevalent. (I don't know that you'd disagree, just shifting the emphasis.) To argue that samples and synthesizers and pedals and modern editing and crazy processing and beat making and AI and everything else only exists serendipitously (or maliciously, or economically, or whatever) and isn't a pivotal part of music now seems like denying that the sky is blue. :-)
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Old 07-14-2020, 10:40 AM   #43
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Even when it is the tech, it's the forethought and talent to use it the way it was used
Yeah I agree. And that's not a new thing as I mentioned before. But I'm not sure Hendrix would have been the Historical Hendrix without the electric guitar. Not because he wouldn't have still been a transcendent genius, just because IMO most of what makes a musician historically great (as opposed to more quietly great) isn't inherent to the musician but has to do with the relationship between them and their context.
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Old 07-14-2020, 10:50 AM   #44
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I would argue for a middle ground, i.e. not talking about loudness wars (and I don't think D.L. was either?) and not talking about very basic compression to work on vinyl, etc. In that wide middle ground I think it could be demonstrated that there is plenty of human appreciation for compression, eq, etc.
My understanding that he was talking about loudness wars. IE: all examples I remember him listing were 2000s loudness war style examples but could be wrong. I was even going to guess the OP is in their 30s (due to how the brain latches on to music between 13 and 16 then burns that in) since the most impressionable examples listed released in the 2000s.

To be clear though, compression as a tool goes beyond fitting the media, it also covers any needed to cover consumer listening environments. All of that should not be part of this discussion because it exists in all the same music the OP discounts.

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Another way of making this point is just to say that, sure, modern tech sounds are in part driven by economics and fashion and marketing and so on, but there has to be some kernel of actual aesthetic appreciation of it for it to be so insanely popular and prevalent. (I don't know that you'd disagree, just shifting the emphasis.) To argue that samples and synthesizers and pedals and modern editing and crazy processing and beat making and AI and everything else only exists serendipitously (or maliciously, or economically, or whatever) and isn't a pivotal part of music now seems like denying that the sky is blue. :-)
I don't disagree with that. I do disagree that the processing mentioned most often is preferred by listeners (you may have to read all his threads to see the theme). That's an assumption that my non-scientific tests debunked to my satisfaction at least. Listeners for one, never had say in the matter, there's just the music available and they like to dance LOL (see the Hey Ya! lyric story). Which brings up the point that pretty much everyone of us are not 'general listeners' causing us to fret over things that truly don't matter to the listener.

The other irony is most of those who become so successful, did so by NOT following what everyone else is doing.
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Old 07-14-2020, 10:56 AM   #45
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Yeah I agree. And that's not a new thing as I mentioned before. But I'm not sure Hendrix would have been the Historical Hendrix without the electric guitar.
For sure, but it is how he used it. My main point don't chase trends and/or make assumptions about what listeners want to hear, you will lose that bet almost every time because "fresh and new" is far more the deciding difference. I personally think trying to make records sound like linkin park in 2020 is like trying to make songs sound like 1985 in 2000, that ship has sailed.
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Old 07-14-2020, 11:59 AM   #46
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It's easy to forget that the electric guitar (a misnomer) and the amplifier are both examples of technology, as are effects pedals. Hendrix was using what was available at the time, as were we all (depending on income) and experimenting with it. Where things have changed, it seems to me, is that with digital tech everything is possible and not everything is desirable. We can't stop people experimenting with it any more than we could in the 60s and 70 s and no doubt, we shouldn't. Doesn't make the excercise any less valid, just not acceptable to some older ears, it was ever thus. I've just listened/watched some music from an artist called Thundercat. I'm appalled on so many levels, but does that make his "music" any less valid to a modern audience than what I was doing in the 60s, or even now? You pays yer penny and yer takes yer choice......
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Old 07-14-2020, 12:17 PM   #47
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Yeah ! What clepsydrae said !

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I disagree with D.L. about the "pre-tech" period -- classical musicians through history were subject to the same dynamic, except that the technology was new kinds of strings, new instrument construction methods, new instruments, new music theory, etc. See e.g. Bach and his well-tempered clavier. Instead of everyone having the same strings, organs, etc, it was more the case that everyone had a different instrument because every local maker made it differently, and they sometimes kept their methods a secret. AFAICT music has always been a combination of your genius, your work ethic, your genetics, and the technology you have available to you. Not to mention your privilege and your luck. So I don't think much has changed recently in that overall sense, but I do agree with D.L. that the tech component of that equation has grown considerably in the last 50ish years, and it's increasingly hard to ignore it, and it does seem like it isn't simply due to the economic incentives pressuring record labels to employ it: it seems like it does press some kind of evolutionary nerve in the human organism.
Yeah you're right actually, I would imagine there were tech advancements even in the olden days of classical, like what you mention.

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As for "Certain Famous Musicians Got Famous Through A Certain Technological Novelty Of Some Sort..."?

Does not compute.

If Hendrix/Floyd/Depeche Mode all had lousy songs? You might have something like a possibility.

As it stands, the idea that it was the technology and not the songs is on really shaky footing.
Yeah actually that's not really my opinion, shoulda phrased it differently, I guess my actual opinion is rather, here's another attempt: the history of music is one of constant change and evolution, so one trend or dominant genre for a time never lasts very long at the top and is eventually replaced by some updated version of itself or by something else. And that's got as much to do with sheer musical creativity, as it does with just, technology. Again like I said in my last post, if this wasn't the case most bands today would be string quartets and plain organic a capella, and probably playing baroque music or sth. So decade by decade, musical instruments change, production methods change... in short anything that modifies the end result sound, changes. And that's the tech component. Modern music for the consumer is about sounding fresh, new; I reiterate trends are quite ephemeral; and the way your music SOUNDS owes a lot to the newest available technology of your time. A lot of newer genres are a bit about musical creativity, and a lot about sound engineering.

One could, for the heck of it, attempt to establish decade by decade what 'percentage' of the music should be allocated to song-writing creativity, and how much to technology. Like how much it is just the guy sitting down with one guitar and his friend on the kit coming up with a song, so pure song-writing ability, versus everything else that goes into making a song sound the way it does. Since the advent of the synth, SOME musicians for eg have produced songs based off how one synth preset inspired them.
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Old 07-14-2020, 12:39 PM   #48
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One could, for the heck of it, attempt to establish decade by decade what 'percentage' of the music should be allocated to song-writing creativity, and how much to technology.
All your points above are good but I don't see ^those being different buckets. Creativity is creativity but post-dissection and trying to predict what mix steps to take like that is it's enemy if not very careful.

IOW, I'm completely on board with you if the subject title is "Why is fresh sounding so appealing".

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Like how much it is just the guy sitting down with one guitar and his friend on the kit coming up with a song, so pure song-writing ability, versus everything else that goes into making a song sound the way it does. Since the advent of the synth, SOME musicians for eg have produced songs based off how one synth preset inspired them.
Most people I work with who are musically creative already have the "music in them", when they hear some technology that inspires, it only facilitates what they already had in some way.
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Old 07-14-2020, 04:02 PM   #49
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My understanding that he was talking about loudness wars. IE: all examples I remember him listing were 2000s loudness war style examples but could be wrong. I was even going to guess the OP is in their 30s (due to how the brain latches on to music between 13 and 16 then burns that in) since the most impressionable examples listed released in the 2000s.

To be clear though, compression as a tool goes beyond fitting the media, it also covers any needed to cover consumer listening environments. All of that should not be part of this discussion because it exists in all the same music the OP discounts.

...
Sure, that is an aspect of it.

That said, radio doesn't really seem to reflect the idea that the public actually want this.

Think about the Metallica tunes that you hear on the radio. If the public truly wants this "Bells And Whistles..." approach, why aren't the songs from St. Anger forward getting more airplay based on that they are recorded/mixed in the fashion that D.L. seems to believe appeals to the public?

The "Modern..." version of it does not seem to have replaced the "Classic Coke..." version.
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Old 07-14-2020, 04:25 PM   #50
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Sure, that is an aspect of it.

That said, radio doesn't really seem to reflect the idea that the public actually want this.

Think about the Metallica tunes that you hear on the radio. If the public truly wants this "Bells And Whistles..." approach, why aren't the songs from St. Anger forward getting more airplay based on that they are recorded/mixed in the fashion that D.L. seems to believe appeals to the public?

The "Modern..." version of it does not seem to have replaced the "Classic Coke..." version.
I don't even need the radio when I've blind tested friends and family, they always complain the moment the smashed material hits the playlist - even when one of their favorite tunes. This isn't something new like this thread, I've been discussing and testing this since the 2000s. What's ultimately more important here is the fool's game of chasing this back to front, it's natural journey we all take at some point but still back to front.
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Old 07-19-2020, 06:53 AM   #51
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This is modern to me :-)

https://youtu.be/Lw2L_vGUMtE?t=262
Much love to Hendrix, but this is what i would call modern:
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Old 07-19-2020, 08:22 AM   #52
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because of influence
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Old 07-19-2020, 08:30 AM   #53
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because of influence
Sorry, did you mean:
Because of Influenza?
Because of Flatulence?
Because of Confluence?
No offence - Just trying to work out what you were replying/referring to...
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Old 07-25-2020, 02:07 AM   #54
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Much love to Hendrix, but this is what i would call modern:
Oh my god, this is sooooo terrible. Is this a famous or popular song?
Although I do not want to ruin my ears by listening too much to Hendrix, I d rather become deaf than mad
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Old 07-25-2020, 03:36 AM   #55
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Oh my god, this is sooooo terrible. Is this a famous or popular song?
Although I do not want to ruin my ears by listening too much to Hendrix, I d rather become deaf than mad
Taste is different. I suspect though that if you could go back in a time machine and play this to Jimi he’d be like “hell yeah!”.
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Old 07-25-2020, 05:31 AM   #56
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Taste is different. I suspect though that if you could go back in a time machine and play this to Jimi he’d be like “hell yeah!”.
He might be like “I might as well just give up now.”
Which is exactly how I feel whenever I hear Hendrix.

And as I type, Hey Joe comes on the radio....

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Old 07-25-2020, 05:51 AM   #57
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Much love to Hendrix, but this is what i would call modern:
Different strokes......I'll take real drums any day over drum machines and the crushed dynamics fatigue my ears instantly....It's all good.
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Old 07-25-2020, 07:00 AM   #58
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And as I type, Hey Joe comes on the radio....
It's a message from Jimi...keep up the playing, he's saying.
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Old 07-25-2020, 07:16 AM   #59
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It's a message from Jimi...keep up the playing, he's saying.
Yeah, I got that! Although this station does play that song way too often....

I probably overheard Jimi's last gig. Unfortunately, I was two years old at the time, and probably didn't appreciate it.
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Old 07-25-2020, 12:06 PM   #60
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If you take the last famous musicians, each decade at a time and move back all the way back to the 60s, lots of them got famous through a certain technological novelty of some sort. Rather than musical genius in and of itself, as it was the case in classical times (everyone had the same technology available: harpsichords, strings, organs, singers and what not). Jimmy Hendrix and his overdriven guitars, Pink Floyd and their psychedelic soundscapes, Depeche Mode and the whole 80s synth scene... or a band like Linkin Park in 1999-2000. And it's never been truer today, arguably. Technology directly influences the musical scene of a time, and if this weren't true most famous bands would just be string quartets but the very tools musicians have used throughout the decades, have evolved consistently.
These people and others got famous for how the current tech was really misused (By that I mean that it was used in ways, that was not even designed for).

Electric Guitar had been around for some time before Hendrix came along, he played it in ways that no one had even though of playing yet. There, is was what made things different.

It's been musicians pushing tech beyond its intended use that has really shaped the music landscape.

Today, the misuse of tech does not impress me (Autotune).

Back then if you wanted a chorus, you got People to do your chorus or you recorded your self doing overdubs and not some "VST" that would create it for you.


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Old 07-25-2020, 01:35 PM   #61
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Today, the misuse of tech does not impress me (Autotune).
You mean like the Bon Iver or Jacob Collier harmonizer stuff? I love that... I feel like the combination of DSP, new AI stuff, and the human voice, might be the most exciting frontier of "new sounds". I have personally failed to maintain excitement for what I once heard brilliantly summarized as the "beeps and boops" of electronic music, but I'm endlessly fascinated by voice manipulation. Must be the accappella nerd in me.

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Back then if you wanted a chorus, you got People to do your chorus or you recorded your self doing overdubs and not some "VST" that would create it for you.
Back in my day (the 1700's), if you wanted to hear music you got some musicians together to play it, rather than resorting to some machine to reproduce it for you! :-) Kids today.

I think the issue is mass-produced corporate-sourced money-driven minimal-effort copycat music, not the relationship to tech, per se?
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Old 07-26-2020, 03:47 PM   #62
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You mean like the Bon Iver or Jacob Collier harmonizer stuff? I love that... I feel like the combination of DSP, new AI stuff, and the human voice, might be the most exciting frontier of "new sounds".
Oh, I like Jacob Collier, his work is great, I feel that he does not misuse the current tech, but uses it in a way that is musical, He is one of the very few that really knows music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLJVvjqMjbo).

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Back in my day (the 1700's), if you wanted to hear music you got some musicians together to play it, rather than resorting to some machine to reproduce it for you! :-) Kids today.
That's exactly how I feel as well.
It just seams that there are people that can't sing and/or Play music and try to use the current tech to mask that (not including someone that is handicapped and using tech to make music).

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I think the issue is mass-produced corporate-sourced money-driven minimal-effort copycat music, not the relationship to tech, per se?
To me, that started in the mid 80"s and is getting worse....


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Old 07-27-2020, 02:05 PM   #63
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Back in my day (the 1700's), if you wanted to hear music you got some musicians together to play it, rather than resorting to some machine to reproduce it for you! :-) Kids today.
For a second I thought that might've been a typo there with that number. The sort of sarcasm that catches you off-guard.

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These people and others got famous for how the current tech was really misused (By that I mean that it was used in ways, that was not even designed for).

Electric Guitar had been around for some time before Hendrix came along, he played it in ways that no one had even though of playing yet. There, is was what made things different.

It's been musicians pushing tech beyond its intended use that has really shaped the music landscape.

Today, the misuse of tech does not impress me (Autotune).

Back then if you wanted a chorus, you got People to do your chorus or you recorded your self doing overdubs and not some "VST" that would create it for you.


Robert
Pardon the late reply, came back to the thread and saw no activity for a while and forgot about it.
And. Well. Yeah you're right. I guess it's actually misuse of the available new technology, most of the time, more so than the actual new technology itself. I mean really music that becomes popular comes down to the combination of how different+coherent it is. Music that's just different could be shit, music that's just coherent could be shit, but music that's both different+coherent has a chance of being popular and a big part of that is technology. There are only so many ways to be creative with pure song-writing, and I'd argue bands that only manage that are not the biggest, and there's often a technological component anyways to highlight that song-writing novelty. You're rarely just listening to pure song-writing innovation when the next new big album hits the scene, it often comes with, I dunno... a brand new guitar tone, or new digital sounds/instruments, or mixing techniques etc. ..

Master of Puppets may've been classic thrash metal with stellar song-writing, but fans are as quick to mention the scooped guitar tone that was about 10 yrs ahead of its time for 1986. Likewise in cinema, 'The Matrix' may've had a brilliant plot and deep subtext to it, but it also came with bullet time and state of the art CGI to help the cyberpunk/dystopian style and universe look (and feel) its best. I think one needs to be VERY mindful of that aspect. You're (often) going to need to impress with how well you handle the technical aspect, and people are very susceptible to technological novelty. They just are.
The Matrix would've been a praised sci-fi flick from niche cinephiles and never have made it to the mainstream if it were just a brilliant story about the real world and the dream world if it didn't have big budget CGI and scenery and tech novelties never seen before in the field.

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Old 07-27-2020, 09:31 PM   #64
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Taste is different. I suspect though that if you could go back in a time machine and play this to Jimi he’d be like “hell yeah!”.
Well, I can not talk for Jimi, but what I miss on this song is "soul", it's not even experimental or exciting. He for sure would not like the drums, he had the best drummers and in every Hendrix song I hear his blues influence, but blues of course is not the only music genre

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Old 07-28-2020, 06:17 AM   #65
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Well, I can not talk for Jimi, but what I miss on this song is "soul", it's not even experimental or exciting.
That's not unfair, but I think it's a blindingly good specimen of a genre in which there is an inordinate amount of utter rubbish. Hendrix wasn't really all that innovative per se - much of what he did had been done first by somebody else. However, Hendrix did it all, and did it better - much better than the rest. Same for Paganini. The jury's still out on Bring Me the Horizon.
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Old 08-05-2020, 07:55 PM   #66
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Default marketing threads dumbing down the internet audience

my informal poll about modern music still gets results like "it sucks"
things that are "successfull" on the internet are relative,...
you tube is a little baised. Classical is still #1 by genre


i have no idea what the op relates to 'modern sounds'
the 808 s 30yrs old. buzzy synth sounds get insta nexted here

i listen to a lot of perfect music but mixing is only one of 5 important aspects its all. live bands or chill lounge modern folk modern blues

songwriting\arrangement
performance \ passions
technical producton
releventness\ genre

what electric guitar sound hasnt been tried
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Old 08-06-2020, 01:30 AM   #67
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Originally Posted by Naji View Post
Well, I can not talk for Jimi, but what I miss on this song is "soul", it's not even experimental or exciting. He for sure would not like the drums, he had the best drummers and in every Hendrix song I hear his blues influence, but blues of course is not the only music genre
First of all I agree with you that Jimi has more soul and I’d rather listen to that too. My point was that Jimi himself was into breaking the rules and creating new stuff. He would have liked this I think because it uses dynamics to great effect and it has a wide palette of rich sonic textures and a tasteful use of dissonance. All Hendrix hallmarks. Listen to how the backing vocals interact with the main line to create these pushes after rests or how some of the pretty angular and abrasive passages get their pad drenched resolution but still has some disturbing elements to retain the tension. I don’t know how experimental or different this is because this is not my genre but it sounds musical and smart to me whether I like it or not. I’m pretty sure Hendrix would have picked up on that too.

Different kinds of music have different qualities and there’s not one way or one sound. I love soul as we sometimes refer to it quite vaguely but that’s not everything there is. Kraftwerk made a point of not having it and their music would not work if it also felt human and emotional. Lots of EDM create massive amounts of energy and dynamics totally without it. And let’s not forget that this is one of the common arguments brought out in the pointless old Bach vs Mozart debate. Wolfgang had soul and J.S. was just playing fast and complicated stuff that lacked “feeling”.
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Old 08-06-2020, 03:39 AM   #68
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Wel for me Ivor and Collier must have something wrong with their power supplies or excessive intermodulation distortion!

Doesn't do anything for me but interesting nevertheless.
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Old 08-06-2020, 05:30 AM   #69
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I love soul as we sometimes refer to it quite vaguely but that’s not everything there is. Kraftwerk made a point of not having it and their music would not work if it also felt human and emotional.
A friend of mine - huge Kraftwerk fan - went to see one of their ultra-rare live appearances in the 80s, on the tour where they were partly represented on stage by robot versions of themselves. He was soooo exited to get the tickets....

.... Came back bitterly disappointed. He'd found the whole experience to be kinda mechanical and unengaging. And I'm like, WT actual F did you expect?!!!
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Old 08-06-2020, 06:21 AM   #70
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A friend of mine - huge Kraftwerk fan - went to see one of their ultra-rare live appearances in the 80s, on the tour where they were partly represented on stage by robot versions of themselves. He was soooo exited to get the tickets....

.... Came back bitterly disappointed. He'd found the whole experience to be kinda mechanical and unengaging. And I'm like, WT actual F did you expect?!!!
Hahaha. They did that? Ze crazy zermans!
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Old 08-06-2020, 06:44 AM   #71
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Every new generation likes what they grew up on.

I have slowly but surely stopped liking current music since the 1970s & only recently have found a few modern acts whose stuff I do like. But it is mot=stly due to the qusality of their songs and arrangements rather than the actual sounds.
This. I find modern mixes draining to listen to. The loudness wars etc have ruined audio quality. I'd much rather listen to 70s mixes or earlier. There's a very good book "Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story Of Recorded Music" which covers this well and surprisingly, cites the late 60's/early 70s pre 24 track as the pinnacle of recorded sound quality when more tape area was available per track.
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Old 08-06-2020, 07:05 AM   #72
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Default its a myth propiagted by engeneeres on themselfs

full scale would be awsome
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Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post

In that regard I agree with numberthirty, where's the data showing a user preference for loudness war smashed is preferred by listeners:
__(there is none):its just a meme keeps propigating in forums

broadcasters still cant play music w 'overs'-(regulations?)
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There is some "excitement" created by over compressing but it has zero staying power at anything other than lower volumes. AKA, one literally can't listen as long without ear fatigue.
crappy speakers and bad excuses for a universaly used problem
its as bad as the 80s SNARE sound!

we live with as much trendy mix wreking as ever!
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Old 08-21-2020, 08:52 PM   #73
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I suggest reading david byrne's book How Music Works.

Hey Max - thanks immensely for turning me onto "How Music Works".
The audiobook is a fascinating listen, without being preachy. I've been wondering why my (and others) music sounds 'flattened', and I don't think it's all due to overcompression. "Stop Making Sense" is one of my favorite albums/videos - so much life and skill. Blows me away, even after all this time!


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Old 08-22-2020, 06:32 AM   #74
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Hey Max - thanks immensely for turning me onto "How Music Works".
The audiobook is a fascinating listen, without being preachy. I've been wondering why my (and others) music sounds 'flattened', and I don't think it's all due to overcompression. "Stop Making Sense" is one of my favorite albums/videos - so much life and skill. Blows me away, even after all this time!


Cheers
let me guess..
it was the arrangement?
people playing live?

ps talking heads were not know as a super instrumentally skilled band.
I think their complete originality was their main draw
amazing lyrics as well
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Old 08-22-2020, 07:55 AM   #75
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"Modern sound" is perfectly recorded and acceptable. There is nothing left to chance that could offend the senses, like a bass guitar sound that favors a particular note for resonance, a novel acoustic guitar sound, a particularly colored room sound.

No chances are taken in modern sound. It never poses the question "do you like my brashness?".
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Old 08-22-2020, 09:47 AM   #76
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Human beings are pattern recognition machines. We've evolved that way. We like repetition and consistency.

This doesn't mean we don't like to be challenged by something original, it just means that we generally want that original thing to be housed within the framework of something we already know and love.

When you're talking about 'modern' production sounds, generally that means strong compression and transient control, increased high and low frequencies (an 'excited' sound), and most importantly - CONSISTENCY.

Hard hitting drums sound cool because they convey the impression of loudness, of a drummer smacking the shit out of the skins with all the passion they've got. Our ears will literally hear a more compressed drum hit as 'louder', even if it's the same (or even slightly lower) peak dB level. This is engaging and interesting to the listener.

An engineer mixing a drum track pre-1980 would be limited as to how hard they could push the snare drum into a compressor, because the hardest hits would push it over the edge. Consequently everything ends up sounding a touch 'softer'. Now we choose the perfect snare hit, and replace all the main snare hits with that one. Instant consistency.

In fact, to the average listener, that consistency is just what they think drums sound like now, and I'm not sure they're wrong - I'd argue that the 'modern' method of mixing drums (crushed room mics, lots of sample replacement) actually sounds closer to the feeling you get in the room with a drum kit, compared to the close miced, over-dry sound of the 70's, or the very roomy but transient-weak drum sound of the 60's. At the end of the day we're all just trying to recreate that amazing sound of the real instrument in a real room, being played well, and unless we're doing a single stereo or omni mic recording of a drum kit (which again, is generally a poor representation of how it sounds stood in the room with the kit) then every production technique we use is technically a 'trick' to try and fool the listener into feeling the hardness of those hits and the deep bass of the kick drum like they're actually in the room.

Yes this is easy to f*ck up so you end up with a terrible, fake sounding end result, but the people who are earning a living doing this know how to do it well, so the average listener would never know (but they'd certainly notice if you took them out!). The same thing goes across every part of the arrangement, careful comping and sound selection provides that consistency that our ears crave. This is not just a mainstream pop thing, it's as relevant to Bjork, Radiohead or At-The-Drive-In, as it is to Camilla Cabello and Bruno Mars.

You can see why the throughout the 60's and 70's a handful of session drummers played on 90% of the big pop hits - because a drummer that provides that level of consistency from hit to hit that our ears desire, is very hard to find.

Bass is exciting, because, well, it's bass! Shouldn't need to explain this - anyone who's been to a live gig or a club knows the power of a powerful kick drum or bass line, when every thud literally feels like it's rumbling your organs through your skin. High end makes things feel more intimate (especially vocals) and adds clarity and 'sparkle'. We were limited for years in how much we could boost high end (due to tape hiss) and low end (due to rumble and the fact that vinyl's are nearly impossible to cut with too many low frequencies). Now we're not. Ironically, all the REAL magic actually happens in the mid-range, and it takes most producers about 10 years to really understand that fact, but I digress.

I'm sure the boomers are on their way (just scanned through - they're already here ), coming to say all the above is the reason why modern music is all crap and over compressed/over produced, happily misremembering the absolute SEA OF SHITE that populated the charts on any given day in the 60's and 70's The crap just gets forgotten and the gems live on. Not to mention, if Jimi Hendrix or John Bonham were here now, they would ABSOLUTELY be taking advantage of any new technological advances they could, just like the rest of us are, and the idea that any of it is somehow 'cheating', or that it diminishes their talent or genius in any way, would be laughable to them. People said the EXACT same thing about Jimi's use of fuzz or wah that you guys are saying about autotune, or crazy dubstop drops 'yes it's original, but it's just a load of stupid noise and it's not impressive'.

Someone mentioned Jacob Collier - great example. Absurd level of musicianship, but not afraid to use any every 'trick' in the book to get things sounding how he likes, including consistently nudging syllables here and there up and down a few cents. Yes he doesn't need autotune/melodyne because he has perfect pitch, so he can instantly hear how flat/sharp it is and pitchshift it accordingly in logic, but it's the same exact process. His harmoizer cover of 'Blackbird' is a great example of bending modern technology in new and interesting ways. Getting annoyed because a specific artist uses this technology in a way you don't like is fair enough (although still pointless) but getting annoyed at the fact that this technology exists at all is weirdly close minded.

Also - 'over compressed' is kind of like 'over distorted' or 'over performed', it's a 100% subjective term. For example - I'm a fan of french electro duo 'Justice', who literally use bus compression like one the instruments, everything is crushed within an inch of it's life, and it's a BIG part of what makes their sound work, same with the best era of Daft Punk actually. If used correctly on the right material it can make a whole track 'breathe' like it's alive, and it's awesome. I think we went through a dark period of loudness and compression in the late 90's during the CD remaster phase, and we learnt our lesson and honestly, that's largely over now.

Having said that, as a songwriter/producer, it does help to know whether the head of A&R at the label has any knowledge of this stuff, and whether they will be 'loudness matching' before listening to submissions, because if they're not, and they don't understand that one track is just crushed harder than another (you'd be surprised how common this is, especially at many of the major labels in Asia that I pitch to) then you will LOSE a potential cut because they perceive your track as 'weak' compared to the others. When I'm submitting to one of these labels, I will limit my track HARD, literally to -1/-2 LUFS. It's painful to do, but once I get the cut, I just turn all that shit off before preparing the stems
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Old 08-22-2020, 01:02 PM   #77
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Our ears will literally hear a more compressed drum hit as 'louder', even if it's the same (or even slightly lower) peak dB level.
it doesnt mean anything your never listening to 2 songs at the same time

chasing a rabit down a carot hole
every song is louder than the last one

also 1.5db louder isnt considerd noticably louder
(unless yr squshinhing yr rms of course by 16db
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Old 08-25-2020, 06:50 AM   #78
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Originally Posted by Naji View Post
Oh my god, this is sooooo terrible. Is this a famous or popular song?
Although I do not want to ruin my ears by listening too much to Hendrix, I d rather become deaf than mad
Yes, this is a band most people have heard of.
Weather you like it or not they are pushing modern rock forward, and a perfect example of what we are talking: poor dynamic range as a choice.




Hendrix, Queen, Michael Jackson.... they are classics that passed its time and still today sound modern because of what they played. I feel the initial question reffers more to sound eng. & production.

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Old 09-05-2020, 06:30 PM   #79
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Yes, this is a band most people have heard of.
Weather you like it or not they are pushing modern rock forward,
In what respect are they pushing modern rock forward?
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Old 09-05-2020, 07:53 PM   #80
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In what respect are they pushing modern rock forward?
....pushing it off a cliff
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