Reality Is Overrated When It Comes to Recordings (Article from music Engineer/Producer)

[Robin L]

You might like to spend time there, but by what measure is it big?

Size of the catalog---you simply wouldn't believe how many recordings of the Four Seasons are out there. Or different copies of "Kind of Blue".

 

[Robin L]

A genre I happen to love very much. I will often listen to Steely Dan and then let some Pitch Black roll through. I am often having to defend electronica to people who feel that it isn't music at all and any idiot with a computer and a samples library can make good electronica. I have consistently challenged these critics to put their money where their mouth is and create electronic music that others enjoy. To this point, nobody has taken me up on it. I actually think that I almost now prefer electronic music.

Bill Laswell/Material really floats my boat.

Especially with +15db boost @ 40hz:

 

[MattHooper]

Every time I go to rock/pop concert, I am reminded that one does not go to a concert to listen to a particular song in its most optimum presentation (acoustically it's downright awful) - rather you go there for the theatrical performance, ambiance, and to listen to variations of particular songs.

Good point!

I vividly remember attending one of my first rock concerts in the 70's - Rush at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. I was shocked at how bad it sounded, how crude. It was mostly just loud. But of course I still managed to love the experience.

That's been pretty typical of large concert sound with giant PA systems in my experience.

On the other hand, plenty of amplified concerts have sounded fantastic. In smaller venues (we have some smaller concert halls) some truly stellar sound systems have been employed. One of the joys of Pat Metheny's concerts here have been how gorgeous the sound was. I'd easily put the experience both of the "live" aspect and the sonics as better (IMO) than any hi-fi playback system.

(In fact, I'd even say the same about a number of shows my band played in clubs. Our engineer really cared about sound quality and no consumer hi fi system I've ever heard produced the over all quality/character of that sound - everything from how the bass and drums and horns projected, with lots of timbral richness, through those systems. In fact I would sometimes use mixer recordings of our band performances to demo speakers and while all speakers fell well short of the club sound, some speakers did a better job of reminding me how we sounded in the club than others).

 

[IPunchCholla]

Size of the catalog---you simply wouldn't believe how many recordings of the Four Seasons are out there. Or different copies of "Kind of Blue".

I wonder how many versions of “Rocket Man” there will be in 280 years?

 

[watchnerd]

Bring in the comfy chair Cardinal Fang!

I'm just going to horn-load my iPhone and call it a day.

 

[watchnerd]

I never once sat around and listened to those records and lamented how Rudy Van Gelder would have done it differently.

Rudy was also pretty notorious amongst jazz musicians, and jazz recording engineers, for changing the sound.

"Van Gelder would alter the sounds of the individual instruments -- and the entire recording -- with compression, equalization and reverberation both as they were being recorded, and after. He became a relentless sound chaser."

...

"The results were unlike any other recordings, even those of the same ensembles made in other studios. For one thing, Van Gelder cut hotter masters than anyone else, presaging today's “loudness wars” where the goal is to squeeze out every last bit of dynamic range and maximize output. For purposes of radio broadcast, this practice made no more sense then than it does today, but Van Gelder and Lion wanted Blue Note records to play louder on the jukeboxes where the music was largely heard."

....

"Many musicians loved Van Gelder’s Blue Note sound; some (notably Charles Mingus) hated it. You'll find plaudits aplenty in this week's media from musicians, critics and music lovers. But here's just one skeptic, noted -- and controversial -- mastering engineer Steve Hoffman, with his own more technical description of the “Van Gelder sound” (from his own forum post at stevehoffman.tv):"

Take three or four expensive German mics with a blistering top end boost, put them real close to the instruments, add some extra distortion from a cheap overloading mic preamp through an Army Surplus radio console, put some crappy plate reverb on it, and record. Then, immediately (and for no good reason), redub the master onto a Magnatone tape deck at +6, compress the crap out of it while adding 5 db at 5000 cycles to everything. That’s the Van Gelder sound to me.

"Hoffman's not alone in his sentiment. For many of us in the recording trade, Van Gelder might be the most overrated engineer in audio history. But for me, the so-called "Blue Note sound" has always been a musical, rather than audio, innovation, and Van Gelder less a peerless technician than a sonic visionary."

"But many of us are also missing something essential about audio recording for people without dog's ears: human ears don't want “clean” sound. Rather, we’re drawn to harmonic distortion. People don't really want realism or even accuracy; we prefer "larger-than-life." That's what Van Gelder gave the world, to the best of his ability and equipment: the biggest, hottest sound he could form. Like his pioneering home studio setup, that passion for “larger-than-life” sounds among both listeners and music-makers is truly the state-of-the-art today."

Rudy Van Gelder Heard The Sound Of The Future In The Music Of His Time

For many people in the recording trade, Rudy Van Gelder might be the most overrated engineer in audio history. But for audio producer George Hicks, the so-called "Blue Note sound" has always been a musical, rather than audio, innovation, and Van Gelder less a peerless technician than a sonic...

www.wbur.org

Despite his modern reputation as some kind of minimalist, Van Gelder was anything but -- he was just limited by the tech of the time and his Hackensack home.

Maybe Rudy is better thought of as the Phil Spector of jazz?

That being said, I do like most of his recordings; I have more Blue Note LPs than any other label. The picture in the article is my desktop wallpaper.

But despite what many audiophiles think, Rudy's recordings are manipulated to hell and back (like most studio recordings are).

 

[watchnerd]

Then there’s the vast genre of constructed electronic music that often doesn’t include a traditional “musician playing an instrument” at all.

I had a big debate with one of my more audiophile acquaintances about Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories".

He would go on and on about how he could hear the "natural placement" of the musicians on the tracks and "where they stood in the room together".

I told him he was a big ole ding dong.

 

[coonmanx]

The Beatles pretty much blew apart the idea that what they could record had to be "natural sounding"... Tape loops, backwards guitar tracks, actual cutting up of tapes and splicing them back together. Combining two parts to make one song even though those parts were recorded in different keys. All of that stuff is old hat now but back then it was revolutionary...

 

[coonmanx]

Damn if I didn't just listen to that all of the way through. That is difficult.

 

[coonmanx]

And then there is this...

 

[Zensō]

I had a big debate with one of my more audiophile acquaintances about Daft Punk's "Random Access Memories".

He would go on and on about how he could hear the "natural placement" of the musicians on the tracks and "where they stood in the room together".

I told him he was a big ole ding dong.

Many audiophiles would likely be shocked to learn how the music they enjoy was created. I suspect that in many cases their imaginings are far removed from the reality.

 

[Zensō]

A genre I happen to love very much. I will often listen to Steely Dan and then let some Pitch Black roll through. I am often having to defend electronica to people who feel that it isn't music at all and any idiot with a computer and a samples library can make good electronica. I have consistently challenged these critics to put their money where their mouth is and create electronic music that others enjoy. To this point, nobody has taken me up on it. I actually think that I almost now prefer electronic music.

Melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, etc. - it’s all just sound. To some it’s important how the music was created (which in my opinion is old school), to others it’s more about the end result.

It reminds me of the early days of desktop publishing when some pundits predicted the end of the graphic design profession. It turns out that software is just another tool that increases productivity but doesn’t replace the artist’s creativity and skill. It’s the same with music, which still requires creative vision, dedication, talent, etc., whether it was created on a Stradivarius, Stratocaster, or MacBook.

 

[coonmanx]

Watch this... Great show. Soundbreaking...

About the Series : Soundbreaking

soundbreaking.com

 

[coonmanx]

Tracks, tracks and more tracks. Need some of this. Add a dash of that. Slow that down, speed that up, whatever floats your boat.

How about the female vocals on "The Great Gig In The Sky"?

 

[MaxBuck]

Many of the greatest jazz recordings I've ever listened to were engineered by Van Gelder. I have no idea whether his manipulations are the reason they're so great, or whether they'd have been better engineered by someone else.

Bottom line: he recorded a lot of great musicians. So maybe it would've been impossible to screw it up.

 

[watchnerd]

Many audiophiles would likely be shocked to learn how the music they enjoy was created. I suspect that in many cases their imaginings are far removed from the reality.

When I showed him an article where a few of the session musicians talked about how they never even met Daft Punk in person and were recorded solo, he was dismissive.

 

[watchnerd]

Many of the greatest jazz recordings I've ever listened to were engineered by Van Gelder. I have no idea whether his manipulations are the reason they're so great, or whether they'd have been better engineered by someone else.

Bottom line: he recorded a lot of great musicians. So maybe it would've been impossible to screw it up.

I have recordings of those same great musicians in other venues, and it's definitely possible to screw it up.

 

[MattHooper]

I'm just going to horn-load my iPhone and call it a day.

I actually kind of did that quite often, in a way.

When we would travel, ending up in various hotel rooms, if I wanted to listen to music from my iphone I'd "corner load" it, e.g. place it in the corner of the desk cupboard, or even place it in an open drawer in the corner which would enlarge the sound. It could be quite impressive just how big an iphone can sound!

 

[Tremolo]

Recordings are overrated when it comes to music

 

[CtheArgie]

Thanks @MattHooper . I read the piece and found it interesting. I also enjoyed recently watching a few series of videos where musicians or producers discuss what they are doing during the recording process. Apple TV has one and even Phinneas Eilish has done this for his sister's record(s). My missus sings in a Master Chorale group here in SoCA and during the pandemic I had to record her "dry" at home some songs to send in and get produced by an engineer of the group. I did learn a lot in the process as well. But I must confess that her voice was not totally dry, I added a bit of sauce here and there. Minimal. The point is that in the end, musicians produce a record that they want you to listen. They are not thinking of you listening to each part individually, they want the totality to be what you hear. It was by approaching ASR that I stopped all this "purity" of recordings and started thinking differently. And I started to listen to records not to figure out which musician farted five feet from the mic at 3:32 minutes but to listen to the whole piece.

The finished record from the Chorale was gorgeous. My missus voice cannot be told apart form the group. This is what they wanted. In the MAC, the different sound systems at home, it sounds great. And it is cleverly manipulated. It is not the choir singing live at home.

Recently, I was noticing the voice of Peter Gabriel in, as an example, Selling England compared to Phil Collins in his first record for Genesis. Gabriel sounds specifically dry. It seems there is little processing of his voice. The previous records show the same thing. But when Collins became the singer, his voice is heavily processed. Almost as if he was insecure of his singing or that they wanted to make a point of sounding different to Gabriel. Who knows? It doesn't matter. You either appreciate and enjoy what they delivered to you or you don't.

I am sure there are many BAD recordings, but what there are many more recordings where WE don't LIKE the decisions they made while recording or mastering. They liked it and released it. But this was their choice. I think we have to learn to separate BAD from NOT LIKING.

I was curious at the obsession of McGowan for his studio. I tried to tell him he is missing the point. If musicians want to sound a particular way, they will. But they do not want to limit themselves to sound always "artificially natural". Even if his studio was "perfect", the musicians may not want that, they want the ability to "produce" and imperfect....

I heard a few years ago King Crimson live. And I got some of their recent live albums. King Crimson makes a point of sounding live and on record very similar. But they own their records and they are very persnickety on how they are produced. There are many examples like that. I also heard some bands live that sucked. Even if their records "sound" good at home.

Any way. I'll stop here. Thanks again for the piece.