listening today to a lot of music old and new, i found myself noticing something very difficult for me to describe...

basically the conteporary maximization mixing culture seems to create a lot of really really flat mixes that we call 'professional'. everything has its place in the front line of the mix. there's little noise or (sur)realistic reverberation that implies a virtual space in which the music exists or was recorded. obviously producers have mostly done this in order to make tracks sound loud on a club system.

there's something about this kind of mix that feels like putting walls up around the track, whereas with more dynamic tracks allow you to drift in and out of it freely.. I don't know how to describe it other than I think ears have some sort of focus like eyes, and contemporary production is like a constant focus very close, like the experience of being embedded in a metropolis - no sense of distance, constant congestion, relentless action and intensity... i want to hear more music with some sort of deep space that allows my ears and mind to focus far out into the virtual space they create. (does this make sense to anyone)


a lot of older tracks I listen to seem to have a lot more dynamics and space in the mix, which makes it a lot easier for me to become lost within it. Sven Vath - Ritual of Life, FUSE - dimension intrusion, are some examples.

I'm sure some people would complain about these as being amateurly mastered or something, but I really really appreciate the space and dynamic contrast in the recording.

Especially when there is a reverb that convincingly simulates a space of a certain dimension and character.

For me it's like the difference between seeing a photo or rendering of a space and actually being there (or feeling like one is there)

trance is hardly the only plastic sounding music these days

what artists remain out there that care about dynamics and space? (There are some guys in the netlabel scene and dub techno scene that have some sort of dynamic and spatial sensibility)

ill end this with a plea:

bring back dimensions! bring back quietness to coexist with loudness!


edit - i think im beginning to read like '********'

Last edited by nefardec on Apr-27-2008 at 04:38

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec edit - i think im beginning to read like '********'

lol

And I'm really interested in what you're talking about. Could you give us some examples of some tracks that DON'T have space?

I dont think its an artistic, practice, or talent limitation, rather a hardware and financial limitation that is giving birth to today's spaceless and stripped of dynamics music. Music of the 50s 60s 70s 80s up till the 90s were high in dynamics and space because they used organic instruments, actual hardware, analogue, tape to record their music. Today's producers use dynamics stripping software compressors and EQ's, software emulation of hardware synths. There is a loss in translation at every level.

Edit: personally i try to spend a lot of time thinking about dynamics when creating sounds, and have to avoid certain sounds because I would have to strip it of its dynamics in order to actually use it without the sound being lost in the mix. Usually sounds that give power to the groove can be expendable, but sounds that incite emotion have to be tweaked with procurement of dyanmics in mind.

Last edited by LionsLair on Apr-27-2008 at 11:39

Also 80% of the music you hear on beatport is made by people who have invested very little money on actual sound creating and mixing hardware, most are making music in the least time consuming ways possible, with minimal expense as possible. And we can take this on another tangent and explain why we have a lot of formula driven music...back in the pre-DAW day, saving presets was a pain in the ass, saving a whole template to work off again was unheared of, especially when they were working entirely in Audio.

Now producers like Deadmaus5 (and hundreds of others) for example, can load up the Faxing Berlin template, move the notes around a bit, right click the synth channels and replace with another synth, or use that same synthesizer track and change/tweak the preset. If you listen to Faxing Berlin and Jaded...you have a prime example. A lot of it has to do with the mixing and the time it takes to make a good mix, the templates help in not having to create a new drum machine, and then create a new compressor,eq,reverb, and the settings for each instrument down the line. So I cant hate on producers for using templates, it streamlines production/engineering and sometimes gives birth to greater music because more time can be spent on the actual music.

Last edited by LionsLair on Apr-27-2008 at 11:40

This has been a common complaint of audiophiles for the last decade, a byproduct of the Loudness Wars. There's tons of articles on it.

So, yes, you aren't alone in this line of thinking. EQ'd-to-the-max production has been plaguing music for some time now, but when the average music listener isn't going to be listening to it on anything better than a laptop speaker, cell-phone ring-tone, or iPod earbud, such concerns over things like sonic-space tend to be ignored.

___________________
Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!

quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee This has been a common complaint of audiophiles for the last decade, a byproduct of the Loudness Wars. There's tons of articles on it. So, yes, you aren't alone in this line of thinking. EQ'd-to-the-max production has been plaguing music for some time now, but when the average music listener isn't going to be listening to it on anything better than a laptop speaker, cell-phone ring-tone, or iPod earbud, such concerns over things like sonic-space tend to be ignored.

Yup...a crap sounding mix can sound good in the 128kbps era of streaming online music and IPOD headphones. Its part of the reason why the band and producer population has exploded, crap doesnt sound like crap on the things consumers are using to listen to the crap. Personally I cant listen to too much digitally created music for a long period of time (including my own), because of the fatigue, I can listen to hardware based recordings all day without getting sick or tired. ::Need to save up more money for more Hardware::

Last edited by LionsLair on Apr-27-2008 at 06:51

I'm a big fan of songs that have more "space" or atmosphere in them. depth in synths and things always sounds great. i'm also partial to the crazy weird noises that sort of add to the atmosphere, the crazy noises in 'park it in the shade'. creates a depth opposed to the bassline.

quote:

Originally posted by m1kest4r I'm a big fan of songs that have more "space" or atmosphere in them. depth in synths and things always sounds great. i'm also partial to the crazy weird noises that sort of add to the atmosphere, the crazy noises in 'park it in the shade'. creates a depth opposed to the bassline.

Indeed... listen to better music. Duh

___________________


Check out my Goa and psy Trance mixes!

People keep talking about how mastering techniques have supposedly improved - yet I listen to recordings from the 60s and 70s and they sound so much better than anything released today.

___________________
When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

quote:

Originally posted by Project-K People keep talking about how mastering techniques have supposedly improved - yet I listen to recordings from the 60s and 70s and they sound so much better than anything released today.

the 80s-90s = Golden Age of sound engineering/mastering

As said above, all of this is due mostly to the loudness war and current use of technology.

Today, most tracks are made so every sound is crisp and loud - this is very tiring and probably not what works best with how the ear and the mind perceive music.

Even if there has been advance is mixing and mastering since the '90s it doesn't mean today is the holy grail or even that it should be the standard everything should be judged - far from it. There's indeed older records that sound very good in their own way (even if they don't have that professional sound of today - fuck professional sound) and that have this extra "space" missing in most of todays records. Classical and Jazz still have the best sound IMHO as far as dynamics are concerned.

In the meantime, to lessen the listening fatigue and add some space, I'm using the Izotope Ozone plugin for winamp (works also with foobar2000 which I use), using the "subtle analog modeling" preset (all other preset are over the top IMHO). It works quite well on most tracks, softening the mix by adding slight reverb and equing. And I can tell you in general I'm not too keen on DSPs...

quote:

Originally posted by LionsLair the 80s-90s = Golden Age of sound engineering/mastering

Actually, the 80s saw some of the worst production ever. 'Tin-can' drum sets, hideously flat masters... It worked great for techno, mind, just because it actually added to the whole 'emotionaless futurism' angle. But a lot of classic rock musicians came away sounding awful.

___________________
Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!