What does it mean?

[Saab]

Have you ever heard any Chesky recordings? They are the most unnatural sounds I've heard.

is that a bad recording then?

 

[ilockyer]

IIRC the Elephant album, including their living and expenses costs, came to something like £6000. Remarkable really, when you consider the advances some record companies provide... and that some here have spent more than that on a single component of hifi gear! The LP is better, but the CD is pretty good!

 

[The Devil]

One that comes to mind is the Diary of Alicia Keys. This is an album that has some good ideas, but which has had the life squeezed out of it.

Hi Joel,

Erm, how do I put this diplomatically? The album to which you refer sounds very good indeed, on vinyl, anyway.

 

[joel]

Hi Joel,

Erm, how do I put this diplomatically? The album to which you refer sounds very good indeed, on vinyl, anyway.

No need to put it diplomatically bub. It sounds fine to you, no doubt as you're driving into work.
That doesn't alter the fact that the album (CD or vinyl - they've both been mastered exactly the same way) has been "normalized" to within an inch of it's life.
What this means in practise is that the dynamic peaks and troughs you would expect have been evened out and the overall volume pushed right up into to 0db.
How do I know this? I ran the album through Sound Forge.

 

[The Devil]

I have it on vinyl. I think it's very well recorded. What is sound forge?

 

[penance]

Sound forge is an audio manipulation software

 

[Bradders]

I love this kind of constructive comment it gives me faith in my fellow man.[/QUOTE]



I was trying to be constructive/helpful!

If loads of your music sounds crap on your system - you should do something about it because it doesn't have to be that way.

 

[The Devil]

is that a bad recording then?

If the Chesky remark, which I made elsewhere, is aimed at me, then yes. I don't quite know what they've done to the sound, but it sounds like "very expensive and mildly screwed-up hi-fi system" rather than "live music".

Analoguekid left me a Chesky ultimate hi-fi test disc, or somesuch. If you were to base your buying decisions on results from this disc, God help you. Better to use real music, i.e. an 'ordinary' CD with something acoustic thereon.

 

[joel]

If loads of your music sounds crap on your system - you should do something about it because it doesn't have to be that way.

Just a couple of points:
Being able to hear that a piece of music is badly/strangely recorded doesn't mean you can't enjoy it.
Most pop music is designed to sound good on "shitty" systems (like mine, apparently). So, following your logic, if pop music sounds good on your system either you are deaf, your system is shite or both
Which is it with you, Bradders?

Sound Forge is audio recording and editing software. I use it most of the time to record vocals / interpretation from events (and usually normalize the output; it's a *really* useful tool). When I'm bored, I run the odd album through it (this sometimes helps with balancing PA sound, too).

 

[PBirkett]

Most pop music is designed to sound good on "shitty" systems

I've never understood, or agreed with that comment.

 

[Bradders]

Most pop music is designed to sound good on "shitty" systems (like mine, apparently). So, following your logic, if pop music sounds good on your system either you are deaf, your system is shite or both
Which is it with you, Bradders?

Urrrr....

I said I couldn't comment on the sound quality of pop music recorded and produced for kids (I think there is probably a difference between 'pop music' and music for children). Then I said that when discussing music of any merit I didn't believe that there were many bad recordings out there. If you are listening to music produced for kids, then fair enough, it might be poor.

My system is alright, I can listen to all my records and they all sound good to me.

 

[julian2002]

most 'shitty systems' (i.e. factory fit car radios, boom boxes, micro systems etc.) have very rolled off frequency extremes i.e. no bass. if a recording was made untouched then you'd not be able to hear the basslines for most of these songs. so the engineers 'boost' the mid bass and turn down the real bass to allow these types of equipment to cope. also 'louder is better' so compressing the music allows these crap systems to be cranked to the max without shooting a bass cone through the back window.
hope that explains what and why engineers do what they do. as for whether it sounds shit or not, well......
cheers


julian

 

[wadia-miester]

Excellent stuff this mind you my sudgen mono blocks used to stuggle a bit with real music, but hey you can't have it all

 

[joel]

I've never understood, or agreed with that comment.

Music can be made so it sounds good on any system. It's just a lot easier to make it sound hot through a pair of videomaxes and in the car stereo, and f**k the rest. Most labels and artists want their track to sound louder over the radio and on MTV than those of their "competitors", and lots of engineers lack the art to do it otherwise. I was listening to Truffaut interviewing Hitchcock about the production of Rope (Hitch's first colour film, shot as a "single" sequence), and Hitch's major complaint is that most of the cameramen of the time, while having plenty of "trade", totally lacked "art". So it is in music IMHO.

 

[PBirkett]

most 'shitty systems' (i.e. factory fit car radios, boom boxes, micro systems etc.) have very rolled off frequency extremes i.e. no bass. if a recording was made untouched then you'd not be able to hear the basslines for most of these songs. so the engineers 'boost' the mid bass and turn down the real bass to allow these types of equipment to cope. also 'louder is better' so compressing the music allows these crap systems to be cranked to the max without shooting a bass cone through the back window.
hope that explains what and why engineers do what they do. as for whether it sounds shit or not, well......
cheers


julian

But most "crap" systems have loudness buttons, EQ's or tone controls anyway. I still dont agree music is written to sound good on a crap system. By definition, a crap system will always sound crap regardless of what is played on it.

Joel said:-

Music can be made so it sounds good on any system. It's just a lot easier to make it sound hot through a pair of videomaxes and in the car stereo, and f**k the rest.

That perhaps suggests they simply did not put the effort or had the budget to make it sound good, rather than going all out to make it sound good on crap hardware.

As for the "loudness" thing, well thats just a radio and TV thing. Although for me, it does not really achieve the desired effect, since if it sounds too compressed I'll just turn it over. But I would do that whether listening on my home hifi or on my standard OEM car hifi.

The fact is, some pop music is badly recorded, but some is very well recorded, as much so as most genres, and ok it does not often have the dynamics of say classical music, but its not an inherently dynamic genre anyway.

Some pop music however, will never sound good on any system no matter how good or crap

 

[joel]

That perhaps suggests they simply did not put the effort or had the budget to make it sound good, rather than going all out to make it sound good on crap hardware.

I don't think they think in terms of crap or great hardware TBH. From the perspective of the engineer/producer/artist that is such a huge black hole it isn't worth thinking about. My problem woith the Alicia Keys album is that the entire album is mastered like a radio/MTV mix. This is not clever.
This week I've been listening to some superb minimalist low-budget pop albums from the late 70s/early 80s. I suspect that Young Marble Giants, Au Pairs and Dalek i simply didn't have the money to f**k too much with the sound. The results are brilliant (and not in the least "Audiophile").

 

[Bradders]

Cracked it!

If an engineer can make music sound better coming out of a boom box than when reproduced on a hifi, then they are a genius. Give them a go with all recordings, we could save a packet on all these wanky expensive boxes!

 

[joel]

But most "crap" systems have loudness buttons, EQ's or tone controls anyway.

Both my systems have loudness and tone controls; This must be why they're crap. You never see tone controls on British mixing consoles, of course

 

[julian2002]

paul, i doubt music is written to sound good on a crap system. but most pop artists (who know the score) and producers tend to aim for a crap system as the lowest common denominator. e.g. there is an apocryphal story about elton john insisting that his albums are always listened to on a car stereo and i believe simon cowell also listens to final masters on a car stereo too - as this is where most people actually listen to music. with severely bandwidth limited systems such as this some tweaking is necessary for it to sound good at all. i.e. the bass must be replaced with mid bass - or you loose the 'tune'. my biggest realisation of this was the sugarbabes 'freak like me' single which sounds really grunty in my car but through my hi-fi sounds quite thin because there is no real bass. whether you think this was intended by the writer / artist when they sat down to rip off gary numan is entirely down to how cynical you are.
cheers


julian (mr cynical)

 

[Bradders]

This week I've been listening to some superb minimalist low-budget pop albums from the late 70s/early 80s. I suspect that Young Marble Giants, Au Pairs and Dalek i simply didn't have the money to f**k too much with the sound. The results are brilliant (and not in the least "Audiophile").

There's the point - it's actually harder to **** up recordings than to get it right or at least decent. This isn't about bad recordings, it's about over production and messing with what's been laid down, which is as much a result of a bad talent to time/money ratio as anything else.

Van Halen used to listen to his albums on his car stereo when mastering, they are all very, very well recorded (some shit music tho, no doubt). Because it sounds good on a car stereo or mini system does not preclude it from sounding good on a hifi.