colterphoto1:

so pretty soon we'll be banging bones against rocks?

(blame Kubrick- I watched 2001 in HD last night)

 Maybe! You have seen Stomp! right? (a personal fave.)

 

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,3226756,00.html?src=search&artist=Babatunde+Olatunji

 

You won't regret it.

 

Mark,

Back to the original topic.  I kept thinking about this thread last night.  I bought a vinyl copy of AC/DC's Back in Black (1980 pressing) about a year ago and never listened to it.  For some reason I decided to play it past night. 

The drums sounded so right.  They were there and had a huge presence.  It really drew me into the music.  It was really funny to listen to this recording.  I was 11 when it came out and though I liked it, it is not as timeless as Steely Dan, Clapton, etc.  Listening to it on an "audophile" system was really surprising, the separation of instruments, air and naturalness really surprised me.  It is recorded very well and I enjoyed it alot more than I thought that I would.  Its hard to listen to the same type of new music because the recording stinks (except for maybe Tool).  Great evening of listening. 

Anyway, the drums, the drums!! Toe tapping enjoyment. 

 

tigerwoodKhorns:

Mark,

Back to the original topic.  I kept thinking about this thread last night.  I bought a vinyl copy of AC/DC's Back in Black (1980 pressing) about a year ago and never listened to it.  For some reason I decided to play it past night. 

The drums sounded so right.  They were there and had a huge presence.  It really drew me into the music.  It was really funny to listen to this recording.  I was 11 when it came out and though I liked it, it is not as timeless as Steely Dan, Clapton, etc.  Listening to it on an "audophile" system was really surprising, the separation of instruments, air and naturalness really surprised me.  It is recorded very well and I enjoyed it alot more than I thought that I would.  Its hard to listen to the same type of new music because the recording stinks (except for maybe Tool).  Great evening of listening. 

Anyway, the drums, the drums!! Toe tapping enjoyment. 

I have the 45rpm single with Back in Black/You Shook Me All Night Long.

It sounds like the high hats are right there when Back in Black starts playing. \m/

 

Interesting thread, and while I agree for the most part I still feel there are some great drum sounds being recorded today. True, not on the large or popular scale that it once was but there are great modern drum sounds to be found on almost any Patricia Barber album. Try Nardis on "Cafe Blue", about five minutes in all hell breaks loose in one of my favorite drum solos. Just about all of her songs feature terrific drums, bongos, and cymbals and crashes to die for. Of course, she is a small market segment that is not painted with the same brush as popular music, thankfully. Recording engineers and producers are all working for large corporations who took over the recording industry in the 70's and brought with them marketing research and a complete lack of taste in what once was a golden age of recording. I also feel analog recordings and the use of tubes in the recording chain offered a specialness akin to what is experienced when analog and tubes are used for playback. Just my .02

 
Why many modern recording sound the same

I did some studio work a few months back after not having recorded in a studio since 1989, and it really opened my eyes.

While doing the mixdown, our engineer (using ProTools) decided he had found and isolated a perfect kick drum sound in a song - a single kick - and used the system to replace every kick drum sound in the song with the perfect one. He also cut and pasted bass parts to fix errors, duplicated a verse of my guitar playing from one verse to another, and many other things to the vocals, all quite unbelievable to behold. Since I was just playing for another who was paying, I let it all go without comment and just watched "the magic".

By the way, it is a sign of the times that when we were asked to listen to the almost finished project for evaluation before final tweaking, the engineer sent us all out to our cars with a CD to sit in each one and audition the work on our different car systems. Has anyone noticed how few of their friends even have a home system anymore? 

 

I think the answer would be to simply seek out  eras, genres, and groups who avoid this homogenization. Many modern recordings also successfully utilize ProTools and all the rest and still manage to produce wonderful and unique individualistic music in which drums and everything sound real because the artists themselves are indeed aware of this tendency toward homogenization and strive to consciously avoid it.  In other words think outside the box when collecting recordings. It also means doing enough research about the music beforehand to avoid accumulating just another "new" and hyped recording project which will likely dissappoint. Too bad more reviews of music do not include an audio and aesthetic evaluation aimed at us discriminating listeners.

 C&s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He sent you to your car to audition.  Lets all just give up right now. 

Classic rock sounded good in our cars and in our home systems, and the car system was a $49 Kracko am/fm cassette with a Realistic EQ/Booster and a pair of Jensen 6x9's - rock on dude!!

Back in the late 80's, I had a Kenwood 901 amp (I think that was the model) in my Isuzu P'up.  That amp totally rocked.

pauln:

While doing the mixdown, our engineer (using ProTools) decided he had found and isolated a perfect kick drum sound in a song - a single kick - and used the system to replace every kick drum sound in the song with the perfect one. He also cut and pasted bass parts to fix errors, duplicated a verse of my guitar playing from one verse to another, and many other things to the vocals, all quite unbelievable to behold. Since I was just playing for another who was paying, I let it all go without comment and just watched "the magic".

 

Boy no wonder new recordings suck A

 I love this topic! I was commenting to my favorite local jazz group about the same thing. I have an LP by Barry Miles (he plays on a lot of Al DiMeola's albums) and it was a direct-to-disc recording. The transients from the drums and acoustic bass would send today's engineer reaching for the compressor knob. Yet I love that raw sound because it's very natural. Even the guitar, which was sounding like it was plucked, sounded very percussive. I often wondered how a drummer who sits behind a drum set would percieve some of the modern pop recordings of drums. Even non-pop, this jazz group recorded an album recently and though Ilove what they did with the drummer's metal, the skins for me were recoded from too far away, giving it a sound like he was in the back of the room, but his cymbals were right there with you. 

pauln:

Why many modern recording sound the same

I did some studio work a few months back after not having recorded in a studio since 1989, and it really opened my eyes.

While doing the mixdown, our engineer (using ProTools) decided he had found and isolated a perfect kick drum sound in a song - a single kick - and used the system to replace every kick drum sound in the song with the perfect one. He also cut and pasted bass parts to fix errors, duplicated a verse of my guitar playing from one verse to another, and many other things to the vocals, all quite unbelievable to behold. Since I was just playing for another who was paying, I let it all go without comment and just watched "the magic".

By the way, it is a sign of the times that when we were asked to listen to the almost finished project for evaluation before final tweaking, the engineer sent us all out to our cars with a CD to sit in each one and audition the work on our different car systems. Has anyone noticed how few of their friends even have a home system anymore? 

 

I just read the article.  Yuck.  I was reminded that last night I kept thinking about how "raw" the album sounded and how much I was enjoying it.  I also buy a lot of "unplugged" music for the same reason although some hits the mark and other do not. 

AndyKubicki:

 I love this topic! I was commenting to my favorite local jazz group about the same thing. I have an LP by Barry Miles (he plays on a lot of Al DiMeola's albums) and it was a direct-to-disc recording. The transients from the drums and acoustic bass would send today's engineer reaching for the compressor knob. Yet I love that raw sound because it's very natural. Even the guitar, which was sounding like it was plucked, sounded very percussive. I often wondered how a drummer who sits behind a drum set would percieve some of the modern pop recordings of drums. Even non-pop, this jazz group recorded an album recently and though Ilove what they did with the drummer's metal, the skins for me were recoded from too far away, giving it a sound like he was in the back of the room, but his cymbals were right there with you. 

What is the name of the CD and where is it available? 

 I liken this corporate music to corporate food. You can't hardly purchase anything made by a major brand that isn't loaded with HFCS, salt, sugar, and a standad list of preservatives and color. Again, there is a perfect formula or recipe, just like the perfect kick drum sound that must be repeated endlessly ad nasuem. If you want anything genuine, human, artful, or soulful you really, really have to dig into the deep weeds. That applies to music, movies, food, news, TV shows, furniture, restaurants, books, and anything else that is a big "market."

mdeneen:

 I liken this corporate music to corporate food. You can't hardly purchase anything made by a major brand that isn't loaded with HFCS, salt, sugar, and a standad list of preservatives and color. Again, there is a perfect formula or recipe, just like the perfect kick drum sound that must be repeated endlessly ad nasuem. If you want anything genuine, human, artful, or soulful you really, really have to dig into the deep weeds. That applies to music, movies, food, news, TV shows, furniture, restaurants, books, and anything else that is a big "market."

 

It does make you appreciate recordings that were done well. When I go home I will put on a couple of my favorite Jazz CDs.

 

 Whatever happened to the new and improved future magazines used to write about? It seems to be replaced with blandification.

 

Sorry I got carried away.  

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/