quote:

Originally posted by Sykonee 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.

What 80s music are you listening to? Actually one of the main reasons why the 80s remain vital today is because of very high quality engineering and mixing that helped create the sounds that are timeless from a space and dynamics standpoint. Starting in the 80s, the craft was at a technique/knowledge base high and a hardware equipment high, right before heavy PC's usage in sound design hit and watered everything down.


One of the reasons why this song is so good is the excellent dynamics of the guitars, warmth of the pad, and the warmth of the vocals without having to abuse the raspy vocal frequencies that 90% of the music we hear today abuse...without the strong dynamics and space musically its nothing special.

The Police/Sting - Ill Be Watching You (1983)


Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (1983)

Is abuse of compression ur main concern? im sick of simple lead-bass-beat productions... the abuse of compression and eliminating all dynamics is caused imo because u cant make such dynamics with 4 instruments playing... most irritating example is that "bennasy" sound... offcourse you wont hear dynamics when u got only a kick and a bass playing thru an abused compressor...

dynamics can be achievd thru use of a variety of instruments... but thats one kind of dynamics... the other one, a single instrument dynamics, used in classical music and jazz etc. (which you didnt wrote you miss on contemporary mixes...) is very hard to immitate thru a synth, and the stuff ive heard that try to immitate this were lame at the most... one solution i can offer is... play it... on an instrument...

aand it has no relation with hardware/software... its more like hard work/easy work...

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quote:

Originally posted by nefardec 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)

Great post.

In some ways a lot of EDM exists at two extremes -- you have the super-mega-delay-reverb kind of tracks (e.g. Deadmau5 - "Jaded") and then the ones where producers cut out any kind of reverb at all in order to make their tracks sound "electro."

I think this is one reason I like listening to a lot of old EDM -- it seems like producers were less afraid to leave just a few elements running at a time *without* pushing all of them to the absolute max volume in order to give listeners an impression of "fullness." See Orbital's Brown Album, for one example that has a good sense of "space."

Some production techniques are less about making good music than simply a cheap way of inducing a physiological excitation response, and this "maximize every element" thing is one of them.

Last edited by MrJiveBoJingles on Apr-27-2008 at 14:17

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec Sven Vath - Ritual of Life

That probably sounds like it was recorded in a real space because Vath will have sampled all those "ethnic" instruments that actually were, once.

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quote:

Originally posted by LionsLair What 80s music are you listening to? Actually one of the main reasons why the 80s remain vital today is because of very high quality engineering and mixing that helped create the sounds that are timeless from a space and dynamics standpoint. Starting in the 80s, the craft was at a technique/knowledge base high and a hardware equipment high, right before heavy PC's usage in sound design hit and watered everything down.

Well, sure the top-end of the music spectrum got the best studio technicians to work their magic, but it wasn't a smooth transition for many. When you compare the sound quality of 70s albums to their 80s albums from acts like Rolling Stones, Yes, Genesis, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young, the difference is striking (it didn't help many of them were in a musical funk either). Now, they DID eventually work it all out, but it was quite an initial stumble as they struggled to make heads-or-tails out of all this new-fangled digital technology.


And almost all the punk albums of the time sounded atrocious, but that's just due to the DIY ethic they all had.

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J That probably sounds like it was recorded in a real space because Vath will have sampled all those "ethnic" instruments that actually were, once.

no doubt. but the total effect of the mixing has something to do with it too IMO




some one-dimensional tracks (at least to my ears) (non-trance)

and let it be known i mostly like these tracks and own all of them

DJ Pippi & Willi Graff - Hyperspace
Redshape - What's On A Moog's Mind
SLAM - Azure (Samuel L Session Remix)
Kerri Chandler - Vector Graphics
Marko Furstenberg - Strackebrot
Taho - The Elegant Universe
Joris Voorn - Minor
Stryke - I Dreamt Of You Again
Justin Martin - Nightowl (Manoo & Francois A Remix)
Dirt Crew - Deep (We Are) (Francois Dubois Remix)
Andy Cato - Cosmic Force (Soul Minority Remix)
Francois Dubois - I Try (Jamie Anderson Remix/Nic Fanciulli Remix)
a lot of Pryda

nice examples of space/dynamics to my ears

Redshape - Pain
Jori Hulkkonnen - Latin Taiga
Jori Hulkkonnen - Aairirajoilla
Lee Van Dowski & Dachsund - So What
Sven Weisemann - Slices
Staffan Linzatti - Quibble (Efdemin Remix)
Trus Me - Working Nights



i don't know i'm having a hard time separating the psychological effect of the music from the actual mixing so i'm going to stop here

Nefardec, by reading your first post i thought that you were talking about how modern productions are very "clinical" and "overproduced", leading to a loss of interest. But reading again and trying to understand the semi-abstract (lol) nature of your post, i see that by "space" you mean a specific use of reverb or delay effects? That is, you like reverb or delay to not be over-used but neither under-used or something? If you don't like a lot of reverb, never listen to Shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive heh (or Ulrich Schnauss or some trance for that matter...)I personally love the Soundscapes created by the "wall-of-sound" effect.

Petran,

no, I am a huge proponent of reverb. if anything I think we need more if it!

Your initial reaction was closer to the point of my post, which was more about a 'flat', 'dimensionless', 'plastic', 'clinical' sound quality.


i think if you want to characterize my position, it is anti-compression, (or anti-overcompression)

there were basically two things I was protesting:

- flat, sterile mixes

- lack of quietness in dance music

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec Petran, no, I am a huge proponent of reverb. if anything I think we need more if it! Your initial reaction was closer to the point of my post, which was more about a 'flat', 'dimensionless', 'plastic', 'clinical' sound quality. i think if you want to characterize my position, it is anti-compression, (or anti-overcompression) there were basically two things I was protesting: - flat, sterile mixes - lack of quietness in dance music

Oh ok, well yes, if you like Dub Techno and stuff you probably like the extensive use of such effects since these genres are based almost entirely on these effects.


I was confused because "a lack of quietness" could relate to the extensive use of reveb and/or delay, since such effects would tend to create a continuous sound, no?

quote:

Originally posted by PETRAN Oh ok, well yes, if you like Dub Techno and stuff you probably like the extensive use of such effects since these genres are based almost entirely on these effects. I was confused because "a lack of quietness" could relate to the extensive use of reveb and/or delay, since such effects would tend to create a continuous sound, no?

well, it depends on the levels..

quote:

Originally posted by nefardec Petran, no, I am a huge proponent of reverb. if anything I think we need more if it! Your initial reaction was closer to the point of my post, which was more about a 'flat', 'dimensionless', 'plastic', 'clinical' sound quality. i think if you want to characterize my position, it is anti-compression, (or anti-overcompression) there were basically two things I was protesting: - flat, sterile mixes - lack of quietness in dance music

It sounds sterile or flat because they prefer to see the waves of a spectrum analyzer perfectly balanced. The perfect counter example is Trentemoller. His tracks are perfectly mastered but it sounds true (emotionally & technically). Same things apply to Apparat too.

As a producer, I never give my tracks to a sound engineer. I prefer to release an "organic" track (even if it is only made with softwares), which means with some insignificant defaults, than a "perfect", "robotic", soulless track.

It's funny how bedroom producers think it's better to have a 8000$ setup to make good tracks. They purchase 10 000 Vsts that they will never use, they want the best (and more expensive) pair of monitors, etc.

I was discussing with the sound engineer of Daft Punk lately, he told me that they mastered Discovery with a ghetto blaster, a fucking ghetto blaster! It's way more important to focus on originality and creativity than on how professional the tracks sound.

i think in general there is too much a focus on the produced wav file as a 'final result' and the only reason for producing.


The methods of making music these days cater to control freaks and meticulous manipulation of detail rather than to musicians, expression, and creative experimentation.


As vortex mentioned, this has a lot to do with labels having corporate responsibility and needing to keep the floor filled


anyways i think it's more interesting to make something as an experiment, letting it develop its own way without this incessant desire to perfect it, and to give it a life of its own by moving on to the next

im really into method and experimental method ever since i took some classes in college on electroacoustics. we had to do things like make tape pieces ala musique concrete, people made beachballs filled with motion sensors that acted as MIDI controls, laser harps - i did a algorithmic granular resynthesizer that used audio from earlier in the concert in which the actual piece was performed.

i don't know it's gotten to the point where dance music is like thousands of kids who buy guitars and play smoke on the water