What's the deal with the treble nowadays

[PingWine]

For fun I was browsing the Global top 50 in Spotify to look at what people are listening to. I saw a song from Ariana and said to myself well let's see how offensive the mixing is this time around. I was floored

This is the amount of treble I had to cut to make it sound even somewhat reasonable.

This is the song I'm talking about

Have I just come hypersensitive to treble or does the amount of treble just rise like every year?

 

[sigbergaudio]

Hm, gave it a casual listen - doesn't sound that aggressive here. Maybe a bit. Which speakers do you have and do you have any furniture in your room?

 

[Frank Dernie]

On my system this track is horribly compressed and the presence zone excessive rather than the treble.

 

[LearningToSmile]

It's not that offensive, at least in the treble. On my headphones a bit more fatiguing than on my speakers. The more laid back parts sound decent enough.

But I listened to it on Tidal first, since I don't really use Spotify and didn't want to login - and when I tried comparing it with Spotify I was surprised how much louder spotify was in general, at least on the web app - had to turn down quite a bit to try and match the levels.

 

[escape2]

For fun I was browsing the Global top 50 in Spotify to look at what people are listening to. I saw a song from Ariana and said to myself well let's see how offensive the mixing is this time around. I was floored

View attachment 94869
This is the amount of treble I had to cut to make it sound even somewhat reasonable.

Looks like you're cutting a lot more than just treble.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This is hardly egregious in the treble. It is compressed and uninteresting.

OTOH, when Ariana's beautiful voice is wasted on such meaningless drivel who really cares? She has just as much musical maturity now as when she was 13, which is a shame. The only difference is now she uses the F-word. I'm sure her handlers are making her rich, rich, rich, but what a waste. They really should just program a robot to mimic her mimicking a real singer. Except if the mimicking is very well done it would over-shadow her weak machine-like uncaring work here.

I wouldn't call 3db/octave on a high shelf filter all that extreme anyway.

 

[AnalogSteph]

This is a peculiar mix. It is generally low on lower mids but does add the occasional deep bass. It does sound very clean.

My hunch is that maybe they had playback on phones and such in mind. Those should be able to play this fairly loudly. They usually have highpass filtering so would not even attempt to play much bass anyway, but the midrange tilt would help reduce excursion and thus IMD.

And no, I don't much care for "robot R&B" either.

 

[dasdoing]

what I hear is a very annoying de-esser artifact

 

[HereYaGo]

5db variation is already extreme doing -10db is hilarious. Stop that.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

On my system tonally it seems reasonably well balanced and not offensive in the treble. The track is compressed, but this is par for the course. The music is dreck, but YMMV.

 

[Robin L]

Sounds like modern production for pop music. I'm listening via Drop 6XX eq-ed in the treble according to Amir. Treble is not a problem. I suspect that 90% of this forum [including me] wouldn't get much out of this track.

Dis 1's 4 da yout.

 

[valerianf]

I listened to 34+35 using Amazon Music HD in DD+ 24bits/44.1khz.
This track is a little weird with a lot of treeble.
But nothing that needs EQ and damage my ears.
I found a worst track: Demi Lovato "Met him last night" (featuring Ariana Grande).
It seems to be a new trend in mixing pop music: all in the high frequencies.
May be it is targetted for the miniaturized speakers (intra-auricular, phones...).

Anyway it is a good track to test our systems and detect if the high frequencies are too agressive.
PingWine what are your speakers?