name and shame...
flaming lips post yoshimi sound pretty dire.
list the cardinal sins.
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The stuff I've heard
off Black Kids album is horrible
either that
or Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
you are so right
I got my money back from itunes store for tracks 12 & 13 on the Searching For The Hows & Whys album. The static just broke up into long gaps of silence.
After 2 months they still haven't loaded a replacement for track 13 'Better Things'.
I noticed a few gliches of static during his live performance as well; I was taken by surprise as he had live backing available on stage at the time.
I thought this
Muddy shite it is.
IWACS
they could've had so much better for their album, but instead it sounds kinda weird in places. Like the synths were just tacked on top and not given much thought in the mix, and the drums are quite weak, don't like the snare sound.
That foo fighters one, in your honour, just sounds too busy for my liking too.
Drums are weak?
Do you know who produced that album?
Yes...
Hugh Padgham who produced all the Genesis and Phil Collins stuff. But seriously, are you telling me the drums, especially the snare, don't sound kind of lame? A snare is meant to push through the mix and sound kind of snappy, wheras on the IWACS album it just sort of sits there, sounding as if its being hit really lamely. Just my opinion though...
Probably because
it's been compressed to buggery during the mastering process.
oh yes, the blackkids one is horrid.
good call
Every single piece of music in the charts
Producers and engineers who believe that pro tools, compression and autotune are the 3 most important recording studio essentials should be taken outside and shot in the soul for crimes against music.
competing the pre-eminence of chart RnB?
which can arguably, stand such treatments die to lack of instruments/dynamics?
or just cocks.
both probably
*due
^a lot of this
"rock" bands who overcompress/autotune are the real baddies
I have no idea what you just said
R&B music can afford to overcompress
because it contains a lot of natural space. Whilst a pop-rock song will tend to be a fatiguing chug of endless guitars, an R&B song will be Bass-silence-bass-silence mixed with snare-silence-snare-silence etc so there's still a lot of room to manouvre within it. And the fact that they aren't always trying to mimic "real" instruments mean they have a a bit more artistic licence
You could also say that R&B/hip hop producers are more interested in sound, and so use compression in a more pleasing way. Rock bands just compress like n00bs
or, put another way lol ^
Oh right
Well, you said "overcompress" and didn't mean it in a bad way, so... aye, ok.
well..
"use a lot of compression so it removes any sense of dynamism or realism in the sound"
that's bad with instruments/constant noise, but if there is a lot of space then it can work just fine.
Yeah totally
overdoing anything in the studio is badness. A bit of compression here and there is good, obviously. Putting it on the master track of every popular song of the last 10 years and squeezing everything's life out of the radio is like plopping a jobbie into my earhole.
me?
if so, i was just suggesting that a lot of the over compressed stuff on the radio is produced in that way because so many of the biggest selling singles are things such as we have come to expect from timbalaand and the neptunes..this sort of song responds better to the plastic, overly compressed production method because it is often a ver minimal arrangment, just beats, synth, vocal etc... it is the idiots in other genres who belive this approach is transeferable that are the problem.
if you didn't mean me, sorry for the waffle.
Sorry, i just didn't understand your wording
But yeah, i completely understand why these things are used and i know why music is recorded the way it is. It just all sounds absolutely soulless, samey and horrific to my ears, especially coming out of a car stereo (the only time i ever have the radio on).
It's probably the number one reason why i listen to so much 60s and 70s stuff. When records sounded AMAZING.
yeah, i think my sentiment was overcompressed to honest...
completely agree
- all records produced in this way sound 'soulless'
- some records produced in this way sound both 'soulless' AND 'airless', which is bloody worse.
"Soulless"
That term completely nails it. The majority of music these days is so over-produced; it's hard to believe that real instruments were even used.
what's the problem with that?
are non 'real' instruments not as important as 'real' instruments?
the studio itself, is the best instrument any musician could ever ask for.
Pro-tools...
gets a lot of stick, but it's just a standardised set of I/O and a hard disk recording system, so not necessarily anything to do with overproduction.
The same with compression. Compression *is* one of the most important studio essentials, it's the thought that every song needs to sound as loud as possible when it's played on the radio as an essential goal of production that's at fault there.
Not the program itself
It's the reliance on it that is the problem. The basic fact that wrong takes and downright bad musicianship can be "fixed" is almost sickening.
Compression is not essential in the slightest. Used sparingly, it's obviously a fantastic tool to have at your disposal, but definitely not something that makes music better. In most cases, it makes it worse. The idea that songs "need to sound as loud as possible" (as you put it) on the radio is what ruins popular music and sucks the life out of it.
Compression...
is fairly essential when recording vocals, though.
Is it?
I thought a microphone, a voice and a tape machine were the only essentials?
Yeah...
but you'll not get a usable vocal without it, as every time the singer moves about, the volume will change. You generally don't want this.
We listen to VERY different music
And you're completely missing my point. Go and listen to Pet Sounds or something. Compression = good. Thinking it is, in any way, an "essential" tool in the creation of music = bad.
The vocals...
on Pet Sounds were no doubt compressed in exactly the same way vocals have been compressed since compressors have been used. A quick google check confirms this. Most channel strips have them built in. Compressors have got a bad name from th fact that they've been abused recently, but they're still a fairly essential tool in removing unwanted dynamics of a singer moving their head around whilst singing, or getting a whispered vocal audiable.
Of course they were
But, again, you're missing my point!
Before my head explodes
This is pretty much my point...
http://tinyurl.com/5z72a8
That's...
not every piece of music, though, and as you kind of implied, different kinds of music require different approaches to compression. Most tracks don't need a big 5 band ultrasquash on the stereo mix that mainstream pop and rock gets subjected to, but there's a lot more pumping house around than there was in 1983.
I only complained
about the production of most popular radio/chart bands ^
That's all i was talking about, not all types of music. I think we've got kinda mixed up along the way :)
Thing is...
The production of chart/radio music has been about whatever trashy, quick fix technique will get it noticed over everything else being played with as little creative effort as possible for years before everything got crunched under 5 band EQ units. Trashy pop is trashy pop and the production values of crap PWL singles were much worse than the overcompressed modern equivelant.
I meant
5 band compressor units. Clearly.
Re this point
Tape machine has natural compression. That's why you use em. Lolz/
Also...
The Pro tools fixing wrong takes thing has been going on since the 60s, it's just that it was done by splicing the tape of the correct bits of various takes, rather than the quick way of cutting and pasting it digitally. Unless you mean autotune, in which case I suspect that's rarely used in the kinds of things the people on here listen to.
Again
It's not that these methods are all completely wrong and is what makes music sound bad ALL OF THE TIME, it's the fact that, with computers and the ever-growing ease that they bring, a lot of engineers will now OVERUSE them, to the point where the music they are producing sounds worse than if they got the band to either tune up, play it again or just generally be an all round better band or performer.
I'm saying that a really, really good producer/engineer who records proper musicians will have a wildly different list of studio essentials than one who makes "hits".
But yeah, i'm confusing even myself now. Let's stop this :(
Compression - a tale of woe
I was sharing a car with a couple of colleagues recently. We got into the habbit of playing one song each off our ipods in rotation on our journey.
When my friend who liked chart style stuff on played her song it completely filed the car with sound. When I or my other friend put our more 'alternative' stuff on it sounded very very weedy at the same volume (and of course the pop picker would complain if we turned the volume up for our stuff).
Yeah...
this is exactly why producers do it. Who wants their song to sound quiet and weedy after what's just been played?
You can notice it when tuning into different radio stations, as well, as they apply heavy compression to the signal going out, too. Radio 1 and commercial radio sounds markedly different to Radio 2 and 6 Music.
I bet the music you chose was better though
Funny that :)
too damn right it was
I think the problem is that 'radio pop' is mixed to be noticeable even when played as a background, in cars, during conversations etc.
'alternative' stuff is not morally superior, but without the worry of radio play is mixed to be listened to by someone who has actually decided to listen to an album and can appreciate shifts in dynamics, it doesn't have to do the same job of screaming for your attention with every beat.
AMEN!
"Producers and engineers who believe that pro tools, compression and autotune are the 3 most important recording studio essentials should be taken outside and shot in the soul for crimes against music."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
^Good call on the Lips
Wrong side of overproduced.
I would have hated Californication even witout the production though.
*did a CTRL+F for californication*
Times New Viking
"yeah, but they're supposed to sound like that"
wicked
I agree
I was listening to some early Lou Barlow the other day. He made lo-fi in the 90's sound so beautifully fragile and stark, even when it was powerful and abrasive. Times New Viking, on the other hand, just make my brains hurt by completely over doing it :(
i listened to the TNV album
on mini transportable speakers earlier
it made it sound even more tinny, i actually got a headache after 3 songs.
I love them
But they hurt me.
i really enjoyed them live
because it sound more RAWK and less FUZZZZ
Aw i missed them
I enjoy watching their live videos on youtube though, more than listening to their records... which is just plain weird :)
yeah..
times new viking i really dislike. i love a lot of lo-fi music but with them it's so obviously fake and unimaginative. i think they should grow up.
how is distortion 'fake'?
As opposed to what 'authentic' distortion? I like the TNV sound myself.
well that's fair enough,
i just don't like the way that they have submerged the whole thing it. it's completely indiscriminate. obv it's an attempt to sound raw and lofi and like it was recorded super cheaply etc but it just sounds as if they're trying to compensate for a lack of ideas.
I think TNV is so unnecessarily badly recorded
I dont think it is in anyway a continuation of lofi lineage.
Lofi is making the best you can with little means. TNV is trying to sound bad.
and authentic distortion? On old analogue equiptment when the volume goes too high you get tape saturation, an it distorts in a pleasing way.
Im no expert and am sure TNV probably did record using tape but then had it mastered in an extreme and modern way to boost the quiet bits and horribly mangle the loud bits. Its not the lofi way and sounds horrible. Shame as they are a great band.
Fair enough if you don't like it
there's never going to be a consensus on any band on here, nor should there be.
Personally I think that they aren't in any way required to continue any lo-fi heritage. Yes, they use distoriton differently to other bands, but surely innovation can be a good thing?
but they are always presented as a continuation of lofi
its not really innovation it is a mainstream technique they have pushed to an extreme and makes it sound like its playing through a mobile phone. I could be completely wrong, i'd like to hear the vinyl version to see if it is the cd mastering or whether they do geniunely sound that bad
idk
im not really sure how theyre trying to sound bad, all these comments like 'unecessarily badly recorded' are bit weird, i like how it sounds, id imagine they probably do as well
"Its not the lofi way"
this is kinda lame, what is the 'lofi way', if youre gonna take this purists route why is it that so many pioneers of the 'lofi' way think theyre so great
lofi is generally
recording the best you can on a really low budget, so there is a lot of tape hiss, distortion if levels are set too high, mistakes are left in. The imperfections are often part of its charm.
TNV is different, to me sounds like something that has been recorded in a lo-fi way then mastered so badly that the whole recording is too loud, so the quiet bits are loud and the loud bits get clipped resulting in harsh blarring and distortion. I like distortion, I like it when people push tape too far and it saturates and distorts, this is different it is a modern artifical technique that sounds grating and harsh and isnt how lofi people did it.
When I said unnecessarily bad and trying to sound bad I meant it, it is clearly intentional and am certain it would sound infinately better if they just mastered it better
"isnt how lofi people did it"
so what? a lot of the guys who were involved in 'lofi' first time round are involved in some way in and around TNV and related bands, they dont care, why do you (or anyone else who is bothered by it) this purists idea of what lofi means is boring
i get what you meant about it sounding 'bad', the point im making is that it doesnt (at least to me) and i dont really see why people would want it to sound any different than it does, the fuzz is part of the songs
all 3 albums sound like this, the sound is probably something they decided on when they didnt have a record deal or whatever, im glad they havent abandoned it just yet, a lot of the older bands who did that got pretty boring pretty quick
"The imperfections are often part of its charm"
couldnt agree more...
I only bring up the lofi thing because people often defend them
by saying they are continuing in the lofi tradition and paying homage etc. and im just pointing out their approach is very different from lofi it is a method used by the biggest bands in the world they have just pushed it to an extreme.
I actually like them alot but think their music would sound infinately better if it was mastered properly and think anyone who could compare the two side by side would agree, I think it is an objective fact that music compressed until the point practically the whole wave is clipped sounds bad.
I have nothing against fuzzy sounding records but this can be achieved in otherways, overdriving analogue recordings produces natural compresion and distortion that sounds great, rather than mastering of cds to make it sound like a cheese grater to the ear
what i guess im trying to say is
lofi is a relatively meaningless thing, fair enough i have no real idea who or what youre talking about in terms of people defending them like that, also what youre talking about in terms of paying homage to previous bands isnt restricted to the production rly.
having read interviews with them ive seen the band say they 'like how it sounds' and 'dont know why it needs to be more of a statement than that' which i think is fair enough. you have 100s of songs out there that sound the same as each other and TNV are that bit louder and fuzzier and it sounds cool. i dont think theres anything objectively wrong about it, you could make the songs sound cleaner but, so what, i dont really know what thatd improve
the overriding point is, fair enough its not your bag but that doesnt mean there's anything inherently wrong with it
it is a definitive example of bad production
if they and people like it that is fine but it seems abit strange. Listening to their album at normal volume through ear phones is actually uncomfortable and causes ear fatigue, they could have made could sound just as fuzzy without it having this effect if they wanted and it would be alot more pleasurable to listen to.
my response to this
"Listening to their album at normal volume through ear phones is actually uncomfortable and causes ear fatigue"
was to turn the volume down a bit...
i guess we're never gonna agree on what makes good or bad production though, so huh, lets wrestle
it is a solid block of sound
where the peaks and troughs are pretty much at the same level, but the peaks would be at the same level as normally produced stuff. So it is actually forcing you to listen to it at quieter volume than normal because it 'sounds' louder when infact it isnt
Music is more enjoyable loud and by producing it in a way it sound so harsh you have to turn it down to bellow normal level it is robbing people of listening pleasure.
I am all for loud bits being loud but quiet bits shouldnt be loud.
If it was produced properly you could play it as loud as you want
okay
so theyre deliberately doing something which sounds different
again, so what? they arent the only band doing this, why is it 'bad' if the band want it to sound like that and people like it. whats wrong with doing something which sounds different
its not robbing me of any listening pleasure, i like it, i cant imagine im the only one, idk whether id like it cleaned up, maybe i would who knows
'produced properly'/'normal level'/'normally produced' - okay, you dont like how it sounds, because it doesnt conform to certain ways of how you want a record to sound, that fair enough, whatever, i dont have any issue with that
what i do have issue with is the suggestion there's something intrinisically wrong with what theyre doing, if you dont like it you dont like it, thats cool, i do, its not like there's a malicious 'we're gonna turn people deaf with this record'...
anyway, i dunno, here's an interview i read
http://www.donewaiting.com/2008/01/25/an-interview-with-times-new-viking-an-intervention-to-societal-apathy/#more-4431
people have subjective opinions
which is great but to me this is the equivelent of someone saying they prefer to listen to music through their built in laptop speakers rather than a stereo, I would find it hard to believe and I would raise an eyebrow. I still like their records but it is inspite of the production rather than because of it.
I do think there is something wrong with what they are doing, it is contrived and gimmicky, and they have taken to an extreme a style of production that is having a permanant adverse affect on music production.
youre such an old man douchebag