Music quality...
Not in terms of the actual music, but in the overall quality of the recording. Why are is so much of the music of such a poor recording quality? Are these people that inept or what? And yet so much of the music is actually done very well. What gives? Some times same studio, same engineer, etc.
Discussion started by Dave Clark , on 1183 days ago
And no doubt the opposite of what I posted below is also true... is it a true art that only a few possess?
I think it's part black art. There are guys that are very good at setting up mics, getting levels right. I read somewhere about someone complaining about Bob Dylan screwing up his recordings a lot. There might be something to that.
I kind of miss some of those old Sheffield Labs recordings. The Direct to disc thing can either come back an bite you with everyone trying so hard not to screw up that the spontaneity of the music is gone - or- you get something really golden. There was a bit of a deal about The Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session recordings. It's got some incredible spacial queues and all kinds of weird information captured in the recording (air conditioners rattling in the background) foot thumping on the wooden floorboards and feeding up the mic stand. What is considered a great recording then? Most people would try to factor that out to get to the music but I must admit, I kinda thought it was cool.
Muddy Waters "Folk Singer" album, to me, is a thing of beauty. I also feel the Getz/Gilberto Lp from '64 is a real piece of art. Heck, look at most all the Blue Note stuff put out in the 60's or so... a lot of great recordings with few clunkers. You definitely can tell their "sound".
I kind of miss some of those old Sheffield Labs recordings. The Direct to disc thing can either come back an bite you with everyone trying so hard not to screw up that the spontaneity of the music is gone - or- you get something really golden. There was a bit of a deal about The Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session recordings. It's got some incredible spacial queues and all kinds of weird information captured in the recording (air conditioners rattling in the background) foot thumping on the wooden floorboards and feeding up the mic stand. What is considered a great recording then? Most people would try to factor that out to get to the music but I must admit, I kinda thought it was cool.
Muddy Waters "Folk Singer" album, to me, is a thing of beauty. I also feel the Getz/Gilberto Lp from '64 is a real piece of art. Heck, look at most all the Blue Note stuff put out in the 60's or so... a lot of great recordings with few clunkers. You definitely can tell their "sound".
I am back and sober as well as guys:)
what a painfully important subject, that is indeed!
As a sound Engineer and a music lover my opinion is:
In the Studios that i have worked (few but quite well known)............certain aspects that i always considered as very very important were totally neglected....at least during the 90s and the start of 2000!
cables in my opinion were very ordinary and RFI rejection was not taken so seriously.....rather than dealt with standard old fashioned procedures!
power supply was also neglected with the use of UPS machines and other more industrial quality units that generated a lot of heat and noise!
mainly professional recorders and units have blowers and their overall quality is of "industrial" standard as these people use to call it..............meaning good chips in there but nothing special(something to suck the recordings micro-dynamics, sense of space, positioning, etc.)
i personally adore Chesky recordings and especially some being done in wonderful Cathedral Churches......where you can feel the space around performers and tonality is great.......positioning of the microphones is spot on!
A "good" non plastic feel recording needs attention to detail, love for music(not just to finish within certain deadlines!.......which is the most important for studios at the end of the day!).........knowledge of the subject, and sometimes a lot of creativity!!
when deadlines are pushing the envelope forget all these crucial for quality aspects!
finally, some people indeed spend a lot of production money for a good quality recording........but without the knowledge, they just pick the wrong people:(
In your case Dave, you just picked the "right" subject for discussion......and what a subject this is......endless!!!!
what a painfully important subject, that is indeed!
As a sound Engineer and a music lover my opinion is:
In the Studios that i have worked (few but quite well known)............certain aspects that i always considered as very very important were totally neglected....at least during the 90s and the start of 2000!
cables in my opinion were very ordinary and RFI rejection was not taken so seriously.....rather than dealt with standard old fashioned procedures!
power supply was also neglected with the use of UPS machines and other more industrial quality units that generated a lot of heat and noise!
mainly professional recorders and units have blowers and their overall quality is of "industrial" standard as these people use to call it..............meaning good chips in there but nothing special(something to suck the recordings micro-dynamics, sense of space, positioning, etc.)
i personally adore Chesky recordings and especially some being done in wonderful Cathedral Churches......where you can feel the space around performers and tonality is great.......positioning of the microphones is spot on!
A "good" non plastic feel recording needs attention to detail, love for music(not just to finish within certain deadlines!.......which is the most important for studios at the end of the day!).........knowledge of the subject, and sometimes a lot of creativity!!
when deadlines are pushing the envelope forget all these crucial for quality aspects!
finally, some people indeed spend a lot of production money for a good quality recording........but without the knowledge, they just pick the wrong people:(
In your case Dave, you just picked the "right" subject for discussion......and what a subject this is......endless!!!!
In the end though, you can have great gear and not so great gear, but if you do not mix it right in terms of tonality (how it is eq'd) and then mixed, along with compression (little it at all) and such, it is all for naught. I find too many recordings poorly eq'd and mixed... not sure I understand what they were hearing, or listening for when they ened up with this stuff.
I had a conversation with Chris Barret Anderson from one of my favorite groups "Chris and Thomas" about a month ago on this very topic.. to be honest.. he "and I'm sure a larger percentage" of musicians never gave it a second thought.. it wasn't that he didn't care, it's just that he wasn't educated..
Randy, funny that I had a similar conversation with a musician who stuff sounds very good. When I told him that, he was somewhat flustered.. "Really? We didn't try to do anything special, that is just the way it turned out." He was very surprised.
Producers point fingers and demand things like more compression so it "can be played in a car stereo at a constant level without blowing speakers". Engineers often have little choice but to comply as their pay is dependent on it. Equalization always strikes me as something that should be obvious, but when you start to consider the playback systems in the studio booths themselves we get a clue. In the 70's and 80's Crown amps, zip cord and JBL monitors were often a standard, so by the time you'd e.q on that system, it would be bland on anything else due to a zippy JBL top end and a large ported woofer cabinet stuck on a wall above a piece of glass, offering exaggerated bass which would be brought down on the recording so it sounded right, thereby making hte recording lean. To make matters worse, if those same monitors has attenuation controls... Often good results were obtained by the engineers simply taking time to check the mix on the tiny little Auritone cube speakers that were often sitting there with a full range 5" driver in a little cabinet- "if it sounds good on those, then the tonal balance is at least close". Many often wondered why those crappy little speakers are there, now you know.
I'm not saying that good studios didn't have quality reproduction systems, but they are not the norm. Many of the big studios have exceptional reference monitors and amplification, as well as some quality cabling. In the case of a remaster, the damage has primarily already been done and the best you can do is lessen it and remain true to the original's intent, which may be hard to fathom in itself is the recording is really bad. I've even found a few engineers who are trying to faithfully document the original event, bad or good, and they're certainly not trying to make it sound "good" for the like of audiophile weenies like us. In fact, we get roundly abused and used as examples of lunacy. So, while I hate to generalize, sonics may not be the goal of the engineers in general.
Ever heard a bad DAC? There's so much processing and ping-ponging in a studio that it's amazing the event gets recorded at all. Even the last stage of laying something down for posterity can be ruined with a last stage DAC, or ADC. Any processing stage or compression or reverb or any effects loops can cause damage, we won't even talk about patch bays (or the potentially worse software based digital X-Y busses, although the technology is getting better as everything is manipulated in the digital domain and then dumped to analog at the end). Ever wonder why the great recordings are often old? Because it was likely run with minimal processing with a large diaphragm ribbon mic and a tube console laid down onto analog. Kind of Blue anyone?
An example of modern simple recordings would be Stereophile's John Atkinson with minimal setup, good mastering recorders and quality wire. That is not to say you cannot run a simple Nagra analog recorder with nice logically set up mics and reasonable cable and attain great results, the simpler the setup, the more likely the success. Worry about balancing mic pairs for "realistic" presentation is second to correctly capturing the sound and not screwing it up to begin with. Simplicity seems the be key, it can be massaged later if required, but it can't be repaired if it's bad to begin with (not unlike source components in a really good audio system).
We also cannot forget that laying the stuff down on the master is not the ultimate problem either, as I've heard many complain of what comes back from the mass production houses. When no sample is offered for approval, and you get 10,000 copies of a band's new album that all sound like crap, any complaints to the mass production houses are moot. You play it and sound comes out, therefore they want to be paid and don't care about "quality". You can try and correct it on the second run, but again, they don't much care. So after all the studio work, any recording is then subject to mastering or mass production woes. While this scenario is often more related to CD manufacture, it still applies to other mediums. Unless the vinyl stamper is paying attention, it can easily happen to vinyl as well.
I'm not saying that good studios didn't have quality reproduction systems, but they are not the norm. Many of the big studios have exceptional reference monitors and amplification, as well as some quality cabling. In the case of a remaster, the damage has primarily already been done and the best you can do is lessen it and remain true to the original's intent, which may be hard to fathom in itself is the recording is really bad. I've even found a few engineers who are trying to faithfully document the original event, bad or good, and they're certainly not trying to make it sound "good" for the like of audiophile weenies like us. In fact, we get roundly abused and used as examples of lunacy. So, while I hate to generalize, sonics may not be the goal of the engineers in general.
Ever heard a bad DAC? There's so much processing and ping-ponging in a studio that it's amazing the event gets recorded at all. Even the last stage of laying something down for posterity can be ruined with a last stage DAC, or ADC. Any processing stage or compression or reverb or any effects loops can cause damage, we won't even talk about patch bays (or the potentially worse software based digital X-Y busses, although the technology is getting better as everything is manipulated in the digital domain and then dumped to analog at the end). Ever wonder why the great recordings are often old? Because it was likely run with minimal processing with a large diaphragm ribbon mic and a tube console laid down onto analog. Kind of Blue anyone?
An example of modern simple recordings would be Stereophile's John Atkinson with minimal setup, good mastering recorders and quality wire. That is not to say you cannot run a simple Nagra analog recorder with nice logically set up mics and reasonable cable and attain great results, the simpler the setup, the more likely the success. Worry about balancing mic pairs for "realistic" presentation is second to correctly capturing the sound and not screwing it up to begin with. Simplicity seems the be key, it can be massaged later if required, but it can't be repaired if it's bad to begin with (not unlike source components in a really good audio system).
We also cannot forget that laying the stuff down on the master is not the ultimate problem either, as I've heard many complain of what comes back from the mass production houses. When no sample is offered for approval, and you get 10,000 copies of a band's new album that all sound like crap, any complaints to the mass production houses are moot. You play it and sound comes out, therefore they want to be paid and don't care about "quality". You can try and correct it on the second run, but again, they don't much care. So after all the studio work, any recording is then subject to mastering or mass production woes. While this scenario is often more related to CD manufacture, it still applies to other mediums. Unless the vinyl stamper is paying attention, it can easily happen to vinyl as well.
Scott I am so happy you caught this discussion. You and I have talked about this and my ability to reword it would have lacked the knowledge. Thank you for taking the time. I think your greatest point is what is the end market? Radio sells tunes! The intent is to make it sound good on radio, and then on a compressed ipod, but big stereos are not part of the market. Just walk through Best Buy, stereos? Hardly a wise business direction. Now CD's are going down in sales to Internet downloads, so do not expect this trend to reverse any time soon.
The savior in the whole is the reprisal of analog. It is possible studios will pop up that tailor themselves to those who wish to release in analog for the sound quality inherent in the format. This will be niche market stuff, and most likely the "great performances" will be accidental events stuck to some studio that is unaware of what they are experiencing, and thus most great performances will be on poor quality recordings. The high quality recordings will still wait for that one in one hundred event that makes for a great audiophile classic.
The savior in the whole is the reprisal of analog. It is possible studios will pop up that tailor themselves to those who wish to release in analog for the sound quality inherent in the format. This will be niche market stuff, and most likely the "great performances" will be accidental events stuck to some studio that is unaware of what they are experiencing, and thus most great performances will be on poor quality recordings. The high quality recordings will still wait for that one in one hundred event that makes for a great audiophile classic.
Example: Led Zeppelin Mothership LP. Jimmy Page was very involved with the re-mastering of that and it sounded like crap. Where's the bass? The Atlantic label redid the Zep 1 & ll on CD & it's very,very close to the resolve & dynamics of the original release LP from that same label, in my opinion. A bit of a learning curve for me was when I got my first CD/SACD player in 2006- I didn't realize how bad those CD recordings where from the 80's & 90's. There are precious few exceptions- I've got 1 classic CD that does sound very nice but that's all. I had went out and bought a lot of used CD's form the pre year 2000 era and got burned on everyone. The one classical CD was from 1995 and I had bought that from Barnes & Noble brand new. Now that I know better, I only buy CD's with a release date of 2000 & up. I've since traded up my older CD's for newer remastered ones with a more recent release date. The best sounding CD's to me are the ones that are the most recent release dates: 2009/2010. Just my opinion.
Jon mentioned boutique studios... here is a friend of mine Mark Cravotta.. he gets it... the soul purpose of his studio is sound quality...
http://www.hideoutstudios.com/3.0/
http://www.hideoutstudios.com/3.0/
Gosh, you really didn't ask that question-surely a sore point among audiophiles! Here's a brain dump of the many reasons for the decline in recording quality. JGH's rule doesn't even apply to the vast majority of today's recordings.
1. Compression, compression, compression. This has been covered quite a bit by Stereophile. No more dynamic range in music (also applies to TV-and those commercials that scream at you).
2. Recordings are made to the lowest common denominator. If we think the major labels care about the sound, we're sadly mistaken. Most recordings are made to be played on a boom box. Even back in the '60s and '70s, LPs were mastered so that the tables of the day could track the grooves without mistracking or jumping out of the groove. To wit, the Reiner Pines of Rome on RCA that was recalled because there wasn't a table that could track it. Later pressings were compressed so the arm/cartridges could track the record.
3. 80% of the sound of the recording is the hall. Gone are the great US and many of the European halls.
The loss of the best recording halls used for classical recordings (we're not talking about how the great Contemporary recordings were made in their mailroom!).
I do think we have been mislead by some high-end writers on just how simply miked and unprocessed these cherished records were. There was significant compression on all rock, classical and jazz recordings. All one need to do is hear the Tape Project tapes. Or listen to dynamic climaxes on Deccas and hear the gain riding. RCA and Deccas weren't as simply miked as people were led to believe. EMIs were most certainly judiciously used multimiking. Probably the only label that could be considered minimalist was Mercury and later on Opus 3.
4. Lack of talent esp. on the rock scene. I'd also argue that most of todays conductors couldn't hold a candle to the conductors of yesteryear eg. Reiner, Dorati, Paray, Anssermet, Munch, Fiedler, Hanson, Koussevitsky, etc.
5. In the old days, producers and recording engineers used to be musicians. Today, most engineeers are hacks that graduated from some trade school.
6. An overemphasis on technology. This is in part driven by union costs say as with classical music. So it becomes get it on disc and fix the problem after the fact. Don't worry about the sound of the hall--we can add it in later. Much of the ambience on today's classical music has been recorded somewhere else and added back--like echo back in the early '60s.
In the golden age, classical music was recorded in whole movements with some continuity; nowadays it's down to bars because the audience supposedly can't stand imperfection. Hey, mistakes happen with real music!
IMHO opinion, engineers jumped on the digital bandwagon since it gave them a job. They can sit there at their computer console and edit every bar of music.
7. Rock recordings must pass a computer software hit makers test. If it doesn't pass, it doesn't get released. Wonder why all the music sounds the same? Ever wonder why all the female singers sound the same? Many of todays groups are simply studio bands--and a creation of some producer. Look at Taylor Swift's performance at the Grammy's--that was embarassing!
8. Less and less people care about the sound. The other side of the coin, and Villchur talked about this back in the '50s in his book, was the number of people that actually go to hear live music and know what real instruments sound like! Not enough went back then and the situation hasn't changed fifty years later. How many young people do you think MP3 is the best thing since sliced bread.
Then there's the audience that just doesn't know better. All they know is what they've read in crap magazines like Stereo Review/Sound and Vision and that everything sounds the same. Nothing needs to be broken in. Speakers all sound the same save for aberrations in frequency response. I think that Charles Hansen made an interesting statement on Audioasylum a while back that most participants glossed over where he stated that flat frequency response is overated because the ear adapts to many of these alterations. I think Jon Dalquist said something similar in that the ear picks up things are non-uniform deviations from linearity. If there's a consistent coloration from top to bottom, then the ear can listen through this coloration.
The vast majority of the music buying public bought into CDs mainly because they didn't have pops and ticks and could fit in a smaller place; they didn't care for a moment about the sound on the disc. If they did, CD would be dead in the water.
9. The market is fueled by mass production. R2R tapes failed because they couldn't be mass producted like LPs. LPs failed because they couldn't be mass produced like CDs. CDs failed because of internet downloading.
10. Sales. When it comes to jazz and classical, most audiophiles would be shocked by just how few CDs/LPs are actually sold of a given title. A huge hit would 20,000 sales compared to millions with rock music. So the budget for production is commensurately lowered.
And there's the atttitude if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Music labels will look at you and say if I change such and such, how will that impact my bottom line eg. sales. Let's face it, better sound won't generate musical sales. T&A does.
I'm sure there's many more, but these are ten that come immediately to mind.
1. Compression, compression, compression. This has been covered quite a bit by Stereophile. No more dynamic range in music (also applies to TV-and those commercials that scream at you).
2. Recordings are made to the lowest common denominator. If we think the major labels care about the sound, we're sadly mistaken. Most recordings are made to be played on a boom box. Even back in the '60s and '70s, LPs were mastered so that the tables of the day could track the grooves without mistracking or jumping out of the groove. To wit, the Reiner Pines of Rome on RCA that was recalled because there wasn't a table that could track it. Later pressings were compressed so the arm/cartridges could track the record.
3. 80% of the sound of the recording is the hall. Gone are the great US and many of the European halls.
The loss of the best recording halls used for classical recordings (we're not talking about how the great Contemporary recordings were made in their mailroom!).
I do think we have been mislead by some high-end writers on just how simply miked and unprocessed these cherished records were. There was significant compression on all rock, classical and jazz recordings. All one need to do is hear the Tape Project tapes. Or listen to dynamic climaxes on Deccas and hear the gain riding. RCA and Deccas weren't as simply miked as people were led to believe. EMIs were most certainly judiciously used multimiking. Probably the only label that could be considered minimalist was Mercury and later on Opus 3.
4. Lack of talent esp. on the rock scene. I'd also argue that most of todays conductors couldn't hold a candle to the conductors of yesteryear eg. Reiner, Dorati, Paray, Anssermet, Munch, Fiedler, Hanson, Koussevitsky, etc.
5. In the old days, producers and recording engineers used to be musicians. Today, most engineeers are hacks that graduated from some trade school.
6. An overemphasis on technology. This is in part driven by union costs say as with classical music. So it becomes get it on disc and fix the problem after the fact. Don't worry about the sound of the hall--we can add it in later. Much of the ambience on today's classical music has been recorded somewhere else and added back--like echo back in the early '60s.
In the golden age, classical music was recorded in whole movements with some continuity; nowadays it's down to bars because the audience supposedly can't stand imperfection. Hey, mistakes happen with real music!
IMHO opinion, engineers jumped on the digital bandwagon since it gave them a job. They can sit there at their computer console and edit every bar of music.
7. Rock recordings must pass a computer software hit makers test. If it doesn't pass, it doesn't get released. Wonder why all the music sounds the same? Ever wonder why all the female singers sound the same? Many of todays groups are simply studio bands--and a creation of some producer. Look at Taylor Swift's performance at the Grammy's--that was embarassing!
8. Less and less people care about the sound. The other side of the coin, and Villchur talked about this back in the '50s in his book, was the number of people that actually go to hear live music and know what real instruments sound like! Not enough went back then and the situation hasn't changed fifty years later. How many young people do you think MP3 is the best thing since sliced bread.
Then there's the audience that just doesn't know better. All they know is what they've read in crap magazines like Stereo Review/Sound and Vision and that everything sounds the same. Nothing needs to be broken in. Speakers all sound the same save for aberrations in frequency response. I think that Charles Hansen made an interesting statement on Audioasylum a while back that most participants glossed over where he stated that flat frequency response is overated because the ear adapts to many of these alterations. I think Jon Dalquist said something similar in that the ear picks up things are non-uniform deviations from linearity. If there's a consistent coloration from top to bottom, then the ear can listen through this coloration.
The vast majority of the music buying public bought into CDs mainly because they didn't have pops and ticks and could fit in a smaller place; they didn't care for a moment about the sound on the disc. If they did, CD would be dead in the water.
9. The market is fueled by mass production. R2R tapes failed because they couldn't be mass producted like LPs. LPs failed because they couldn't be mass produced like CDs. CDs failed because of internet downloading.
10. Sales. When it comes to jazz and classical, most audiophiles would be shocked by just how few CDs/LPs are actually sold of a given title. A huge hit would 20,000 sales compared to millions with rock music. So the budget for production is commensurately lowered.
And there's the atttitude if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Music labels will look at you and say if I change such and such, how will that impact my bottom line eg. sales. Let's face it, better sound won't generate musical sales. T&A does.
I'm sure there's many more, but these are ten that come immediately to mind.
The problem with recording for the smaller bands is either lack of their own monies or that of a label. Doing it DIY can work, but then you either have to have the gear or access to it. And know how to use it. On the other hand there is the concept of recording individually and then sharing that to add to, but not always easy.
A great source for stereo mics, available in tube and solid state is http://kmfaudio.com/ Kent is an old friend of mine. We worked at the same shop together for almost 14 years and I know him to be a very gifted technician. H developed a really great mic that can simply get plopped down wherever the music seems to sound best at in the room and you're done... it can also be used for ambient recovery in a close-mic'd setup. They have made some recordings themselves, in order to sell the microphones. As Myles and others here have bemoaned, there is little, if any compression to their recordings and all, to the best of my knowledge, have been direct to digital recordings (no multi-track).
Guys like these are very small fish in a very huge ocean. I keep hoping that something really good will come their way. I think they may be at the point of just wanting to sell the technology...
I agree with the statements made about getting tonality right. ( I tend to shop for speakers that way: tonality first and then the rest).
There was an interview with David Chesky where he brought up that very issue about many record labels not paying attention to the tonal quality or balance in their recordnigs. I mean, think about it: musicians who are very passionate about their art will go through great pains in selecting their instruments. The instrument has to "feel" right for playing and its voicing has to appeal to that individual in order for the artist's "voice" to truly be heard... my gosh, the price of a bow for a cello or violin can be mind blowing, let alone the instrument itself. For them to go through that ritual of finding the right "fit", only to have it all sucked out at the recording studio is simply vandalism, in my opinion.
Guys like these are very small fish in a very huge ocean. I keep hoping that something really good will come their way. I think they may be at the point of just wanting to sell the technology...
I agree with the statements made about getting tonality right. ( I tend to shop for speakers that way: tonality first and then the rest).
There was an interview with David Chesky where he brought up that very issue about many record labels not paying attention to the tonal quality or balance in their recordnigs. I mean, think about it: musicians who are very passionate about their art will go through great pains in selecting their instruments. The instrument has to "feel" right for playing and its voicing has to appeal to that individual in order for the artist's "voice" to truly be heard... my gosh, the price of a bow for a cello or violin can be mind blowing, let alone the instrument itself. For them to go through that ritual of finding the right "fit", only to have it all sucked out at the recording studio is simply vandalism, in my opinion.
Indeed, Myles covered most angles of this "painful" subject!
Never knew that Chesky gave an interview about tonal quality!
I met Mr Chesky at the Bristol Hi Fi Show(a decade ago!)in the UK and we had a small talk about tonality and natural recordings, Cathedral acoustics, etc.
I think this subject has generated great interest(as it should!):)
Never knew that Chesky gave an interview about tonal quality!
I met Mr Chesky at the Bristol Hi Fi Show(a decade ago!)in the UK and we had a small talk about tonality and natural recordings, Cathedral acoustics, etc.
I think this subject has generated great interest(as it should!):)
Greg K: the interview came out in a stereophile interview in 2005 and can be found here: http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/1005chesky/# a short article but interesting in this topic.
Great topic Dave. I knew we'd pull some interesting folks out of the woodwork. Thanks for expanding Myles (nice to read you again BTW).
I feel the need to apologize for some of my typos in my posts, when re-reading them I have been doing the "slap to the forehead" too much. Sadly, when I get going on a topic my keyboard fingers get klutzy. Since we can't edit posts after they are added, I will try in the future to proof read better before adding any comments. :)
I feel the need to apologize for some of my typos in my posts, when re-reading them I have been doing the "slap to the forehead" too much. Sadly, when I get going on a topic my keyboard fingers get klutzy. Since we can't edit posts after they are added, I will try in the future to proof read better before adding any comments. :)
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