KVR Audio

rockstar_not · Post by **rockstar_not** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 6:24 pm

Who says the '80's music was crap?!?!?

Take a listen to 'Vertigo' and tell me that doesn't sound like the best of U2, from the 80's like Electric Co, Gloria, October.

'80's music and the sound of 8-bit video games was the soundtrack to my formative years. It sounds like youth to me.

I couldn't live without spinning CDs by early Simple Minds, U2, The Church, The House of Love (even though they never played them here in the US), Mission UK, even some Howard Jones now and then.

Gear from the '80s is another matter - transistors and ICs. Tubes were 'old-tech' and sneered at a bit.

Well, the revolution has started. You see bands highlighted in TapeOp and other rags that are intentionally using 8-bit synth sounds on purpose, as a 'vintage' sound.

I don't know about you, but right now, the big home electronics rage is buying these Atari 2600 format joysticks, and PacMan format joysticks, with those '80s' games loaded in the joystick. Last night, I was playing 'Tempest' with my 10 year old, and I swear, I smelled the smell of junior high when I heard the sound of moving from one level to the next - you know it old 'Tempest' fans, when you got the superzapper re-charge. What a cool sound; 80's all over it.

It's just weird to hear this stuff on the local 'Classic Rock' station. Man, I'm old.

At work the other day, I mentioned Max Headroom to one of my younger co-workers. They gave me a blank stare.

It's official. I'm old.

-Scott

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 6:43 am

There was some great stuff in the 80s. Seems like a few people are under the misconception that the 80s was all about Duran Duran and Human League (some of which I thought was very well produced anyway).

In the 80s there was still punk, and lots of interesting slants on it - the Stranglers, the Clash were producing some of their best music. bands like Roxy Music and Bowie were starting to mix the weird with sophistication. Jean-Michel Jarre was doing ground-breaking music at the height of electronic technology of the time. There were several Ska revivals, some of which were good. Simply loads of Indie guitar-based musings from jangly to esoteric to Gothic - some mixed in with electronics in new ways. Weird stuff like Shriekback, who started from electronic and moved into real instruments and still remained experimental.
Sly and Robbie were producing some of their tightest reggae and dub stuff for all kind of projects - I wish there was still dub around like they made in the 80s!
New Romantic stuff...OK...best left alone, but there were still the odd good tunes produced.
Then all of the electronic dance stuff exploded at the end of the 80s...all that NewBeat Euro stuff (Front242 etc) followed by the acieed crew, and into all kinds of techno and trance - some of which hasn't been bettered yet. I remember the breakbeat stuff was starting to emerge at the time (personally I hated jungle and all it's associated stuff) but all those D'n'B heads forget that we were hearing similar stuff at the end of the 80s, just.

And most of the above were produced with a mix of analogue and digital media - some only analogue, some only digital, mostly both. And if you can't pick both good music and good production out of that lot, then god help your musical tastes.

For sure, I can do 50 times more things at a fraction of the price nowadays with a PC (and with a small room, rather than an aircraft hangar), but it doesn't make the older ways redundant by any means.

And if I remember correctly...one of the most influential bands ever was still making music in the 80s with old technology ( I don't think they'd split up by then yet?)

The Wombles. Need I say more?

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 6:49 am

Oh, and I forgot to mention Freur...Doot Doot is still one of my favourite all-time LPs. A bit dated, but full of atmosphere, and they later became Underworld. And that was fine production with 80s technology.

Lunch Money · Post by **Lunch Money** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:09 am

rockstar_not wrote:At work the other day, I mentioned Max Headroom to one of my younger co-workers. They gave me a blank stare.

It's official. I'm old.

-Scott

Exact same thing happened to me the other day. We were watching a film, and Matt Frewer (sp?) was in it. I mentioned to the person, "Remember when this guy used to be Max Headroom?" Blank stare.

The sad OR happy thing, depending on your perspective...

The person was my girlfriend.

Hypertone · Post by **Hypertone** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:27 am

mark77 wrote:OK, i've had enough. Through years and years of listening to hype about vintage this and vintage that, and hardware being so much warmer, fatter, and fuller then software, and how vintage hum is great, and how noise is characterful, and all this CRAP, i feel now a line should definitely be drawn. Let's go back in time a couple of decades, to the 70s and the 80s when software or when any of this new so called "harsh digital" technology didnt exsist. and what do we have? a whole lot of CRAP sounding songs. Mind you, I'm not criticising the songs, i'm criticising the production. If new technology is so bad, then how come it sounds better then the stuff all those years ago?

Hmmm. I can think of alot of songs from the 70's and 80's that sound great. I think the production in the 70's was better than that of today. I think the whole louder is better thing has gone too far and I think alot of new commercial music sounds like shit. I recently put the Killers new CD in my DAW for a listen and realized it sounds like shit, I can hardly listen to it. Whoever mastered it must be deaf.

Listen to Pink Floyd Darkside of the Moon or the Wall and tell me those albums don't sound great. I also think some of the Fleetwood Mac stuff is very well engineered.

Listen to some Depeche Mode and tell me that is bad production, that is amazing production. But I agree there is alot of crap in the 80's with weak bass and too much reverb, but you have to remember that was the fad then, just like Autotune and harsh brickwall limiting is today.

mark77 wrote: My advice to newbies is: dont believe the hype! do the best you can with what you got and dont feel bad about not having racks and racks of gear, and dont think that if u had all that, your 'talent' would improve.. coz it wouldnt.

That is good advice and it is true.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 8:35 am

Lunch Money wrote:We were watching a film, and Matt Frewer (sp?) was in it. I mentioned to the person, "Remember when this guy used to be Max Headroom?" Blank stare.

The sad OR happy thing, depending on your perspective...

The person was my girlfriend.

Obviously the answer is that she's just thick.

paradiddle · Post by **paradiddle** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:13 am

To use another example. If you watch godzilla movies from the 50's you'll be horrified about the bad special fx.

You mean the famous Godzilla growl? I think it's awesome. I actually like the way they made effects in the 50's 60's. Theremins and old synths.

Ja.x · Post by **Ja.x** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:34 am

For me the bottom line is that to describe as crap the music from a specific decade is rubish. IMO I never heard so many crappy songs as in the late years and I don't dare to say the music from the XXI century is crap; that is a bold statement any time. We find the crappy music on the charts (most of them), not on a specific time. I know, I know: my prejudice is against the charts, not against a decade, but prejudicious anyway, I know... Neverthless I still keep my point of view.

Once somebody wrote that one of the benefits of getting older is that we have a broader range of women's age to enjoy: from 18 to 20, then 18 to 30, then 18 to 40, 18-50... etc. Got the idea? The challenge is to keep open minded (women and music wise)

suthnear · Post by **suthnear** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 9:44 am

Sturgeon's Law

Karbon L. Forms · Post by **Karbon L. Forms** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:17 am

Stone Roses (

), Jimmy Foetus, Front242, Cassandra Complex...

A lot of stuff I ADORE was eighties.

Charty stuff was gash though, agreed.

MDMAchine · Post by **MDMAchine** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 10:22 am

A real CS-80 is awsome(late 70;s and early 80's)! That is of course if you know how to use it!!! and can get it tuned and modded, to stay tuned (studio usage should be fine) So how can you make some ill informed complaint like this!

Music has different methods every generation, and whats cool to you, wasnt cool to peeps in the 80's

HanafiH · Post by **HanafiH** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 11:43 am

mark77 wrote:hype about vintage this and vintage that, and hardware being so much warmer, fatter, and fuller then software ... Let's go back in time a couple of decades, to the 70s and the 80s when software or when any of this new so called "harsh digital" technology didnt exsist. and what do we have? a whole lot of CRAP sounding songs ... about the 80s, how come it didnt occur to ANYONE that the majority of songs lack BASS??

Well, the thing with the Bass, was as someone else said, was about vinyl mastering standards. To get the kind of kind bass saturation you have on today's CDs you'd need to cut a groove so wide you'd halve the play length of the disc. That's why so many groups then went in for 12" singles - which don't get played on radio stations today - you can lay a deep bassy groove when you make space for it.

That and the whole thing was producers, particularly on the larger labels before the indies really got a handle on the market, had this thing that a 'professional' sound had almost no bass in it. You know, like today a 'professional' sound has almost no dynamics left. Sheesh. f**k fashions. The arguments about bass would get very nasty, I know, I was on the edge of one once, where bands would fight with management.

Now about harsh digital. Well you had to be there to understand it. When the DX7 became the biggest selling electric piano of all time, it had 12 bit DACs. Try setting a 12 bit decimator on any kind of sound and tell me that's not harsh.

Analog became about as fashionable as Margeret Thatcher after the anti-prog-rock thing. The Undertones singing about art school students and the like. Cheesy digital, particularly if sounded like something, like an ocarina or peruvian nose flutes became the thing.

mark77 · Post by **mark77** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:04 pm

Thanks everyone for your replies... some of you really know your stuff.. but some people on the other hand seem to have misinterpreted my point. I am not saying that 80s songs were crap.. hey.. i have many 80s faves too.. i am saying that production and mastering was shit. An if we really wanna dwelve into vintage.. then why not bring up the 60s and 70s? If all that old vintage gear sounds so nice and beautiful and full and warm, then why do the beatles sound like telephone quality?

The aim of my post was to rebel against morons who still put VST and plugins and new technolody down. never mind that a home pc today can potentially sound better than anything else you've ever heard.

rpc9943 · Post by **rpc9943** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:20 pm

www.retrojunk.com
www.x-entertainment.com

80's commercials to be seen, nostalgic articles to be had

'nuff said

RonC

leonard · Post by **leonard** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:23 pm

rockstar_not wrote:
'80's music and the sound of 8-bit video games was the soundtrack to my formative years. It sounds like youth to me.

The same here, pal.

Pretty lame topic, the 80's were like 25 years ago, some stuff sound still fresh, some sounds crappy by 2004's standard.

if vintage gear is so great then howcome the 80s sound crap?