kemmler3D
Master Contributor
It's processed in such a way that the spectrum is more revealing... so if nothing else it's "good" for testing speakers with.
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Dr. Sean Olive on 35 Years of “Fast Car”
- Thread starter thewas
- Start date
dasdoing
Major Contributor
yes, basicly they removed all the body from the instrument and we are left with strings and their harmonics. any resonances in a loudspeaker falling on those will indeed be made obvious
Sarah Vaughan in her pomp, 60 or more years back would show them a thing or two. Operatic range, amazing tone, great diction. And those simply recorded LPs of the 50s and early 60s might provide an engineering lesson in ‘less is more’ !
That song desperately needs a bridge.
JayGilb
Major Contributor
Great album with good dynamics.
dasdoing
Major Contributor
That was an all digital recording. She wanted/insisted that her guitar and vocal be played “live” - at the same time, not isolated.
You couldn’t go DI for the guitar back then because of the limitations so Smith had to innovate to isolate the guitar microphone sound from the vocal.
I remember being impressed by your playlist, not just because it had some things I like, but also because of breadth and chronology. As many have observed here, audiophile staples are often overplayed, to the detriment of some nice tracks that don't deserve it.
Olive's commentary on the technical aspects of Fast Car as a test track is interesting for sure. Chapman has (obvious) songwriting talent and a good low-register voice, although the track is a bit old-school for me: the guitar melody goes on and on and the sonic elements are few and fairly simple (but see Olive on suitability as listening test, that sparseness helps). As for bass maxxing out small speakers and modulating the voice, I'm glad I don't have those speakers. Songs from those days are pretty light on. But I've said before if we are going for vehicular works from black female-ish singer/songwriters to listen to on repeat, I'd be choosing Kelsey Lu's Foreign Car (21 years later) instead. Or Down2ridE if we stay on the automotive theme ... nothing from them in DRDB however. I may well be clueless on listening test suitability, inevitably there's more processing.
As a test of equipment I agree. But I am guilty of loving the female voice. Tift Merritt. Tift Merritt. Tift Merritt.
Ok I can't seem to quote @restorer-john's item from the previous page in the same reply here but both of you started me thinking "omg do I like that stuff?" (or maybe it's something different) ... examples?
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
She can actually sing.
What do you mean by never done any real work?
You and I work hard to make money to pay for audio gear and furnish our rooms. Dr Olive, on the other hand, got Harman to build and equip him his dream home theatre that he personally designed, called it the "reference listening room", so he can listen to Fast Car whenever he likes on company time, and have Harman pay him doing it. That's some accomplishment very few can brag about.
On top of that, he got some Revel speakers into his HT, recorded some test tones, and knocked together a bunch of so called Harman headphone curves. Now he have convinced a whole bunch of people EQ'ing their headphones to his curves, which in point of fact, he had them all listening to facsimiles of Revel speakers by Harman (or were they JBL's?) in his HT whenever they put on their headphones.
Hard to think of work more real than these.
/s
I had no idea this was considered a test track staple. I've never been a big fan of the song and don't own a copy, but it does have a unique place in my audio journey. Probably 20+ years ago when I was first shopping for speakers, I went to audio expos and all the audio shops I could find. At one of the shops, I was surprised to hear some live music coming from one of the rooms. I went to investigate it and it turned out to be a pair of Dali floorstanding speakers playing "Fast Car". I have never before or since literally thought that I was hearing live musicians playing when it was just a pair of speakers. I don't know if it was something about the space, the speakers, the recording...but it fooled me completely. That was a fun experience.
Gosh I need to revisit that track on my current speakers now and see if it has anything like the same effect!
Gosh I need to revisit that track on my current speakers now and see if it has anything like the same effect!
i'm probably of the opinion that Dr. Sean and his colleagues are 'of an age'... and that age includes the late 80's and so many have a few songs they've heard a million times on a multitude of equipment over decades and so it becomes a benchmark.
I literally have not heard this song for decades and I dont have much feelings about this song except to say that the radio did play this one on loop... I can understand why its a benchmark track... its simple vocals, guitar and it doesnt seem complex. It would show up bad equipment, it would highlight good equipment... to a degree.
I just played it off youtube and I could wait another 25yrs until I do this again.
I literally have not heard this song for decades and I dont have much feelings about this song except to say that the radio did play this one on loop... I can understand why its a benchmark track... its simple vocals, guitar and it doesnt seem complex. It would show up bad equipment, it would highlight good equipment... to a degree.
I just played it off youtube and I could wait another 25yrs until I do this again.
I found a DVD-A copy of Boz Scaggs “Dig” album
Good stuff
Good stuff
