schneiderguy
Lifer
- Jun 26, 2006
- 10,765
- 52
- 91
I have a question about this - I realize that pretty much all rock/pop/rap/hiphop/etc. songs are heavily compressed nowdays, but is the compression even necessary if the band plays at the same volume throughout the recording? Take classical music for instance. Most of those songs are loaded with dynamic changes. But if you take a look at the sheet music for a lot of rock songs, it seems they are pretty much played at the same volume throughout anyway, so compression wouldn't have much of an effect.
I guess what I am asking is - do the songs have no dynamic range because they are written and performed that way, or because the sound engineers use tools to compress the heck out of the recording?
I think there is some merit to Dylan's comments...
I believe that the analog recording engineers of old spent much more time trying to do more with less verse today's engineers that do less with more. I mean, think about it... 16 tracks of 24 bit high res recorded audio and now we mash it all together to 128kbit and run around with our ipods... Me, I like to head on into my mancave and fire up the tubes for about 15 minutes and then kick back and relax good old 2 channel audio.
HBomb
I believe that the analog recording engineers of old spent much more time trying to do more with less verse today's engineers that do less with more. I mean, think about it... 16 tracks of 24 bit high res recorded audio and now we mash it all together to 128kbit and run around with our ipods... Me, I like to head on into my mancave and fire up the tubes for about 15 minutes and then kick back and relax good old 2 channel audio.
HBomb
Specop 007
Diamond Member
- Jan 31, 2005
- 9,454
- 0
- 0
A combination of both. Its one thing if you want a loud song, its another to force your song to be loud.
Aside from that, theres always small dynamics. Maybe the singer was running out of air and gasping out those last few words, maybe the chord was fading out, the drums were hit a bit harder or softer then normal. There should be very slight dynamics in even the loudest of songs, the problem is though that songs are compressed to make them loud, and quite often compressed to the point of introducing artifacts and distortion into the song where distortion didnt exist before.
When you hear your compression equipment clipping, your just pushing things too far.
Fenixgoon
Lifer
- Jun 30, 2003
- 32,049
- 10,822
- 136
Quoting Bob Dylan:
Noting the music industry?s complaints that illegal downloading means people are getting their music for free, he said, ?Well, why not? It ain?t worth nothing anyway.?
?You listen to these modern records, they?re atrocious, they have sound all over them,? he added. ?There?s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static.?
take that, RIAA!!! your music officially sucks!
Noting the music industry?s complaints that illegal downloading means people are getting their music for free, he said, ?Well, why not? It ain?t worth nothing anyway.?
?You listen to these modern records, they?re atrocious, they have sound all over them,? he added. ?There?s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static.?
take that, RIAA!!! your music officially sucks!
Modern recordings are being butchered in the mastering phase, after it's left the recording studio. It gets sent to a mastering engineer to have the life compressed out of it -- so it will sound GREAT on Fisher Price boom boxes :roll:
There should have been engineering standards implemented 25 years ago to prevent what evolved into the digital loudness debacle, but it's too late now.
Some compression has always been used in mastering to create the final product. Compression in and of itself isn't bad. But when there are no restraints on how much gets applied and your primary concern is to "out-loud" the competition, then it eventually gets out of control. Which is what starting happening in the mid 90's.
Rock music has plenty of dynamics. Unless you're producing a solid wall of white noise (Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, anybody?), there are dynamics. Hyper-compression blurs the details out of the music. It causes me to have trouble focusing on individual instruments in the mix, it's like a barrage of noise that's very fatiguing to listen to. It's not a volume problem, it's not "if it's too loud, you're too old." It's music that has the breath squashed out of it, it sounds like sh!t with the volume knob at 1 or 10.
It's definitely a mastering issue. The songs have dynamics coming out of the studio and final mixing, they're being brickwall limited in mastering at the request of whoever is paying for it.
MikeyIs4Dcats
Lifer
- Nov 5, 2001
- 18,366
- 3
- 0
He's right, in spirit.
Modern recordings are definitely dynamically compressed to an absurd degree, but it sounds better on the crap equipment that most of us care to pay for listening to music. I'm not being a snob, I quite simply don't expect everyone to care about quality like I do...so the least common denominator wins. Because you used to listen to music on a home or car stereo, both of which were expensive. Now you've got ipods with earbuds worth $2, cell phones, crappy computer speakers, music videos played through TV speakers, etc...
Then you publish it on the net, and digitally compress it, and now its double compressed..all of which no one makes a fuss over, because only a small vocal minority cares.
Then you have the fact that the quality of popular music nowadays is like a vast wasteland, with a few diamonds in the rough.
Music has gone from something special, to a cheap, disposable commodity. Like paper cups...it doesnt matter how well they're made, as long as they're good enough to last for one sitting.
Can you imagine how terrible our generation's oldies are going to be? Are we really going to be in our cars, driving our children around, listening to "Craaaaaaaaaaaaawlling in my skin", "That thooooong thong thong..." etc...I shudder just thinking about it.
Video did kill the radio star. It also killed the music. It's more about the image than the actual music. Sure, I know theres still some decent music out there, but its like trying to find a single raindrop in a thunderstorm.
I have been talking to people about this since the mid 1990s. What does my generation have that will carry its weight in the future music wise? I look back and the only bands worth a knob were Pearl Jam and Nirvana, whoopie do! Everything since about 1993-94 has zero lasting power. Yeah you will run into a song here and there worth listening to, but the majority of what is put out is put out for an attention span of about 3-4 weeks, then they crank out the next album.
I honestly cant think of anybody in the past 10 years who has come up and out that will be remembered for anything in 20-30 years. P. Diddy? Jay-z? 50 cent? These are icons future generations will look back on? No, they are a toy, a marketing piece like an iPod or PS3, thrown out with the trash when they are done being used. Not to mention it will be hard for a 60 year old Jay-Z to be "Big Pimpin", it will look silly, even more silly than it does now. There is no life, there is little story behind it like you heard in the 1970s stuff put out by Zepplin, Pink Floyd, The Who, ect....
btw I would have added a rock band to the list above, but I cant even think of one in the past 10 years that is worth insulting.
Specop 007
Diamond Member
- Jan 31, 2005
- 9,454
- 0
- 0
JoLLyRoGer
Diamond Member
- Aug 24, 2000
- 4,153
- 4
- 81
The reason you can't come up with a rock band from the last 10 years is because there ARE NONE!!! The music that would never die is now in-fact DEAD!!!
Further more, if you're not spittin some bullsh*t about "Diamonds 'round my neck, D-Diamonds on my grill! Diamonds 'round my neck, D-Diamonds on my grill." then you can just FORGET about having a top 40 hit!
Exhibit A: K-Fed @ Teen Choice Awards
Listen to how that crowd goes NUTZ for this garbage!!!
The guitar solo's are all gone and even frowned upon. The lyrics are all 1-dimentional and have no depth of meaning. And current music isn't suppored to engage the listener anymore, it's just suppost to pacify them. Because good engaging music like the days of old is too much for our feeble minds.
Today's main-stream music = total crap!
Indie Rock is where it's at.
and this is also the reason i actively seek out -- and pay good money for -- MFSL CD masters.
also, did anybody realize that john frusciante insisted on the new RHCP album being recorded in all analog? it actually has a lot of dynamics in it, but of course the mastering engineer fukced it all up. there will be vinyl released with a different recording engineer and it should be interesting. i wonder if the previous 2 albums were recorded analog (BTW sounds like it was).
also, did anybody realize that john frusciante insisted on the new RHCP album being recorded in all analog? it actually has a lot of dynamics in it, but of course the mastering engineer fukced it all up. there will be vinyl released with a different recording engineer and it should be interesting. i wonder if the previous 2 albums were recorded analog (BTW sounds like it was).
nakedfrog
No Lifer
- Apr 3, 2001
- 59,132
- 13,703
- 136
That's the gist of it. But having seen what youtube and myspace have started, I think the people are gonna take rock'n'roll back from the man. Make music just because, and be able to be heard without having to sign on the dotted line for 1% of what the record company gets. You don't even have to pay for the recording software anymore, you can just use Audacity.
JoLLyRoGer
Diamond Member
- Aug 24, 2000
- 4,153
- 4
- 81
That's exactly why I play in a band too... Can't find anything decent that speaks to to you? Find yourself a group of good mucicians and start writing your own... Probably won't make the charts or get you a record deal unless you're already a marketing tool (Paris Hilton anyone?) But if you're good enough you may get picked up by an Indie lable that will at least foot the bill for your studio time and help you sell a few CDs on CDBaby.com
But mostly it'sjust gratifying to pop in a CD of your own stuff and enjoy listening to good music that you know comes from the heart. And it's equally gratifying when one of your friends happens to crash practice and says it's the most amazing music he/she can remember hearing (even if they are just blowing sunshine up your a$$ because they wish they could play an instrument).
I wish I could agree with that sentiment. Indie can make the music. They can spread it around on youtube and myspace. But it will be a long time, if ever, that they have the power to bring a single song to the masses like the recording industry can. It can be culture, and it can be good music, but it can't be a common pop culture that we can all remember unless we were all listening to the same.
The spirit of rock is dead. Theres still some good stuff out there, but nothing that most people would have heard of.
I remember something a friend of mine said, and he was right. He used to listen to rock, but he stopped. He said nirvana killed rock. That before then, rock was wild and crazy, it was a bit gay for a few years in the 80s, but regardless of their attempts to be as androgynous or feminine as possible, bands like guns and roses still had that stick it to the man vibe. Then nirvana came along, and all of a sudden it wasnt about being cool and wild, it was about being angry and moody. It wasnt about partying and rocking out....it was about hating yourself and everyone, about depression, about everything wrong with your life instead of everything right. Now its not even subtle, its so damn hyperbolic that we name an entire genre of rock on being a whiney little loser, it has become so base and absurd that anything past a single riff repeated over, sung over by a near suicidal schizofrenic maniac is a mortal sin.
Rock has been such a vast wasteland of emptiness that the kids growing up, picking up the guitar, have only known this crap. And they will just perpetuate it.
My friend was right.
GTaudiophile
Lifer
- Oct 24, 2000
- 29,767
- 32
- 81
The real music is still out there. Made by relative no names in many cases...at least to our generation. You just got to fish it out.
Three examples of people I know...
Mark Knopfler
Mary Gauthier
John Prine
And dare I say, you can look to many places outside of the USA to find good music.
Hollywood is 95% dog poo.
Three examples of people I know...
Mark Knopfler
Mary Gauthier
John Prine
And dare I say, you can look to many places outside of the USA to find good music.
Hollywood is 95% dog poo.
It's not so much of a lack of music that will stand the test of time, but a entire pop culture that won't stand the test of time.
I can only hope that in 30 years we look back and look like fools, because god knows what the radio has to sound like in 2036 to look back and say today's music was SOOOO much better.
OrganizedChaos
Diamond Member
- Apr 21, 2002
- 4,524
- 0
- 0
i agree. todays albums tend to have there dynamic ranges compressed because everyone wants to have the loudest cd in the player. i saw a story on slashdot on it some time ago. it had fancy graphs that showed how todays cds almost look like a square wave compared to older recordings.
OrganizedChaos
Diamond Member
- Apr 21, 2002
- 4,524
- 0
- 0
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