Crimes Against Sound Quality

[The Chase]

i use to have an old 1200 set up just for putting cats on

[robenestobenz]

This is what my friend calls 'the McDonaldisation of Music'. The 'value' of music itself has gone down, a lot. Like you said, image and listening to what your mates listen to, so that you fit in the gang, is the new thing. It used to be cool to be the kid in school that found new interesting bands and showed them to the friends.. now I guess a kid that surfs around the net to find unique music is more likely to be teased as a nerd or freak because they don't listen to *insert current popular band* here.

Kids = money, the BIG money, so that's what everybody is chasing.

just my humble opinion and view on the subject,
bManic

I'd say the homogeneity of music is probably split between public demand and record companies catering to this-- chasing the money, as you say. But at the end of the day, the music business is a business and by many accounts the people operating it aren't bothered all that much about art or originality - so they'll do what a good (in ethically subtracted terms) business does and make as much money as possible in any way they can think of.

As for image and trying to keep in line with the tastes of peers (in whatever regard), I think it goes far further back than our experience gives us licence to say "used to be".

[bmanic]

As for image and trying to keep in line with the tastes of peers (in whatever regard), I think it goes far further back than our experience gives us licence to say "used to be".

I think you might be very right about that one.

Cheers!
bManic

[Sonic Assault]

the thought of some dj's standing precariously atop a 1210 as the platter spins realy amuses me

set it at 45 for pete tong - this would hopefully send him flying

Sounds like a reasonable argument for bringing back the 78

i use to have an old 1200 set up just for putting cats on

A friend of mine couldn't keep his cat off his Systemdek turntable, she used to love going round at 33rpm - used to have us in fits.

[Spe3D]

I was messing about setting up to record a small trimmer – not easy getting the peaks right on the first go, this is one horrendous first take

A little bit of correction and here is a 24 bit stereo wave 44.1 as an example of a crime against sound quality. – 1.45 MB (watch your speakers – its loud)



http://spe3d.com/audio/Spe3d_CrimeAgain ... uality.wav


Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[Sonic Assault]

I was messing about setting up to record a small trimmer – not easy getting the peaks right on the first go, this is one horrendous first take

A little bit of correction and here is a 24 bit stereo wave 44.1 as an example of a crime against sound quality. – 1.45 MB (watch your speakers – its loud)



http://spe3d.com/audio/Spe3d_CrimeAgain ... uality.wav


Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

That sounds exactly like Feeder's Buck Rogers track played on my system - Are you sure its a trimmer?

[Sonic Assault]

This is what my friend calls 'the McDonaldisation of Music'. The 'value' of music itself has gone down, a lot. Like you said, image and listening to what your mates listen to, so that you fit in the gang, is the new thing. It used to be cool to be the kid in school that found new interesting bands and showed them to the friends.. now I guess a kid that surfs around the net to find unique music is more likely to be teased as a nerd or freak because they don't listen to *insert current popular band* here.

Kids = money, the BIG money, so that's what everybody is chasing.

just my humble opinion and view on the subject,
bManic

I'd say the homogeneity of music is probably split between public demand and record companies catering to this-- chasing the money, as you say. But at the end of the day, the music business is a business and by many accounts the people operating it aren't bothered all that much about art or originality - so they'll do what a good (in ethically subtracted terms) business does and make as much money as possible in any way they can think of.".

The McDonaldisation phenomenon has been related to many aspects of art and culture - but its major criticism is that rather than creating homogeneity, capitalism mealy assimilates acceptable aspects of a culture and reduces it to a commodity that can be consumed by the West.

As for image and trying to keep in line with the tastes of peers (in whatever regard), I think it goes far further back than our experience gives us licence to say "used to be".

Yep! Sheep will be sheep - One minute they were all Sex Pistol Punks and the next Spandau Ballet New Romantics - Fads will come and go and the sheep will follow.

[Spe3D]

That sounds exactly like Feeder's Buck Rogers track played on my system - Are you sure its a trimmer?

It gets worse – but I thought ‘better not post that probably blow out tons of speakers’ - but those are actually in the good quality bracket (no clipping etc )

Best regards,

Spe3d

:O)

[eduardo_b]

The most common comment I get from people at the youth media center, when they download stuff off the net from fellow non-professional, "been doing music for 2 years", people is:

'..good song but it sounds very much home-made..'

These songs are, of course, usually very poor sounding and the fault is not always in the quality of the plugins used but rather in the production/mixing...

I'm not referring to truly homemade stuff that is poorly recorded or mixed and then uploaded for general consumption. Nor am I saying that those who make music or are critical listeners won't notice how good or bad obvious and subtle sound qualities are. What I'm saying is that the consuming public does not like or dislike a single or an album because it was mixed one way instead of another or because this reverb was used instead of that one.

Good mixing and mastering engineers will listen to the stuff they're working on via monitors, a boom box and maybe in a car or on a portable because the record label and the artist want the music to sound as good as it can on hardware that fans and listeners typically use. My point is that many of the things that matter to those creating/producing music are not part of the consuming public's awareness or interest. And it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.

When I hear someone (a non-musician) comment on someone's guitar work, I never hear them say how much they like where it sits in the mix or how good the reverb sounds. If the average music buyer/listener is really so discerning, would they still purchase and listen to songs that are considered overly compressed and poorly balanced by those who post here? I'm guessing they would.

[MadPsyance]

Metallica's first album sounds terrible to me, but all my metalhead buds think it's one of the best albums ever. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

[DWb]

Oh, to cut back to the original post, I suspect that Photek himself wasn't thinking in terms of 'send it off to the mastering studio so they can slap the biggest compressor in the world EVAH!!! on it' - from what I've heard of his music, he's got enough taste that he's probably thinking more in terms of gentle compression, minor tweaks to the EQ and other bits of subtle trickery that arguably make a professionally mastered record sound better than an entirely home produced one. Plus he's probably an anal enough producer to care about that sort of thing...

OTOH, the 'there's too much compression on music nowadays' argument is probably also valid.

[eduardo_b]

For anyone who loves to critically listen to music, it’s beginning to look like ‘One giant step forwards for technology – One giant leap backwards for sound quality’.

Any comments?

Let me approach this from a different angle.

Back in the 70s there were endless discussions about "east coast" versus "west coast" speakers. On the east coast were Advent, KLH, AR and so on. On the west coast were JBL and others. West coast speakers had more bottom end, although still fairly well balanced. East coast speakers were flatter in response from top to bottom. Thus, west coast speakers were for rock music, and east coast speakers were for classical, jazz and the like. Or so the argument went. Except for those who said that a good speaker should add nothing to the music no matter what was being played.

Today, the argument is music versus movie surround sound speakers, with the argument being that the spectral content of films is different from CDs. If you look at reviews of speaker systems, they typically evaluate film versus music reproduction.

Frankly, I have several sets of high-quality headphones because the mix and/or mastering of some CDs sound better on one set versus another...at least to me. And the quality of headphones and earphones goes from not too good to very good. The biggest single variable in listening to music is speakers and headphones -- everything else (D/A filters, amplifiers, etc.) pales in comparison.

So when I think about how today's recorded music sounds, I have to wonder if what hardware most people use to listen to music hasn't changed so much that the mixing and mastering processes reflect this. Even the better sound systems in cars can't overcome road noise, so the possible dynamic range of CDs is too large for listening in a car -- it will be too soft or too loud depending where you set the volume.

I think you're saying that flat response should be the norm, but I wonder if that's possible in real world terms.

[deaf dunderkwac]

Slightly on topic...
Most people listen to music in their cars, which can have as little as 3 dB of dynamic range available due to 'noise masking', hence radio is processed that way. The average household (this is changing) with kids refridgeration, heating/cooling TVs etc. has a dynamic range of about 15 dB (when the kids aren't fighting)
experiment.. make a sound on yer system at a comfortable level
now turn it down til you can barely hear it.

In a quiet house this is about a 30 dB range
In a very quite car (don't have one so I wouldn't really know) this has been measured at 18 dB at speeds below 70 kph.
The 'radio wars' have driven popular music stations to maximise their loudness, and in fact (due to the lack of real enforcement) break the rules for modulation levels. Everytime I visit a transmitter site I'm amused by the mod levels of the popular that 'stay' at maximum (or way above), no matter what the signal is.

Most classical productions done in the late 80s- 90s have way to much dynamic range to listen in the car without some form of abuse (turning it up until the loud parts blow yer ears out)

I prefer to master at very low levels on crappy-sounding speakers, but that option is not available to me at home, where I HAVE to use headphones,
my mixes speak for themselves...they suck

[Bruce Bartlett]

The SL1200 wasn't designed for sound quality or the consumer market as such

Actually, it was originally designed as a consumer audiophile table (note the adjustable VTA, something only of concern to the most discerning of audiophiles). It was only later that it was discovered that the 1200 had the perfect design for DJing -- durable, solid pitch, sliders for pitch control... and they just took things from there.

Matsushita/Technics did make pro decks back in the day, but these were more geared towards radio stations. They were huge, they had detachable armboards so that tonearms could easily be swapped in and out, and the pitch control was through precise inc/dec buttons and not sliders. These are still prized by audiophiles, but they're not suited to DJing.

When I hear people say that the 1200 was the "best turntable ever", I'm tempted to get all snotty and inform them that it wasn't even the best table that Technics made. :/

Getting back on track though... it is truly ironic that audio is going further and further backwards, and we're now at the dynamics of the 78RPM age. With vinyl, it's simply a given that some records will be louder than others, depending on how long they are, how much bass there is, etc. But with digital formats, there's an absolute limit -- and it seems that everybody thinks there's something wrong if it doesn't get hit with every beat.

[fac]

average household (this is changing) with kids refridgeration, heating/cooling TVs etc. has a dynamic range of about 15 dB

"Kids refrigeration", eh? Sounds like a good solution.

Why freeze tracks when you can freeze your kids?