Most of the kids today have NO idea what music should sound like, and this has made me think.

I’m not really sure what *I* think music should sound like any more.

In days gone by … vinyl days… I *thought* I knew what music should sound like. I’m a kid of the 80′s, so Levine, H-17 et al are heros of yesteryear. Back then I had a decent-ish hi-fi set up that gave a good sound (to me) – clear, dynamic, and my Thorens TD-whatever was the muts-nuts as far as I was concerned.

Then CD came along (I leapfrogged Cassette!) and my budget increased to a farily decent Arcam CD player and a series of new amps and speakers. My frustrations grew behind the scenes with my music/audio and I didn’t know why.

Then along came downloadable music from OD2 – super-compressed (sonically and in data terms), and a load of others. At about the same time came the 1st ipod, then the nano…and it’s been pretty much down-hill from there…music has become just a background, hardly listened to, few changes in my equipment because , I concluded, the source material was so universally bad. Yes there were flashes in the pan that made me think that there was still hope, but these were CDs mastered/produced/recorded with the volume set to 11 (AC/DC albums!!) that appeared to be good, and I guess they were in terms of Signal-to-Noise, but still dynamically challenged. The odd Clapton track was OK, the odd small-scale release (Pinetop perkins etc), but the “charts” stuff had all become dull-dull-dull (apologies!)

Much the same for the PC playback too. Crap soundcards, poor software etc etc.

Then I discovered the Cantatis Overture192 product on Amazon and bought one, more out of idle curiosity (and perhaps too much cash!) and stuck it in my PC. Downloaded a few albums from B&W, Linn and HDTracks and W-O-W !! The life has come back into music. 192kHz sample rate, huge dynamic range that makes my old CD player seem muffled. So, it got me thinking that maybe some of the old CDs could sound better, so I ripped a couple of oldies using ExactAudioCopy and let them rip – W-O-W again.

So, please answer this – all you experts…is music mastered to match the crap reproduction equipment (poor CD players, poor soundcards) or are CDs mastered to be “good” in their own right ??? Are 24-bit files always going to be better than 16-bit CDs (they seem to be)?? There’s loads of misleading info on this topic, and I, for one, remain puzzled.

Help….I’ve nearly managed to restore my faith in 2-channel stereo, especially with some of the “stdio master” files that are now (becoming) available.

Ed.

There’s a great article on the complete recording process at http://studiorecordingsolutions.com/the-recording-process-a-z.html.

DB

1/ Problem #1 is ignorance. There is no longer a tradition of quality recording technique handed down from seasoned veteran to their assistants, who then pass them on to their assistants. That chain is broken.
I myself made a bunch of shitty sounding records before I decided to seek professional help. Most people don’t even realize how bad their stuff sounds.
The newfangled recording schools serve no purpose in that matter. I have 6 assistants at my studios, all freshly graduated from various schools. All great people with lots of energy and all musically and technically useless at this point, except for the one who has been with me for 4 years and has worked very hard at listening to everything with a critical mind. People no longer have the time to listen to anything carefully.

2/ The new recording tools and techniques are not helping.
Digital recording is a beautifully accurate thus incredibly unforgiving way to record music. We get no love from the media we use to capture the performance. Tape used to round off edges, provide a lovely kind of non-compression kind of compression, and generated a certain ‘tone’ that required less post production love.
Also, the new fixer tools, like timing and tuning systems have made a lot musicians appear better than they are, and have opened the business of music to people who should really have stayed int he fashion business.
Also, the piecemeal recording techniques consisting of overdubbing every musician one after the other instaed of all musicians playing together, have made the process incredibly tedious and sometimes boring. The fire is gone in most recordings. The reason for this is that most studios lack the equipment to do a truly successful live session because of problem #3 below.
Lots of musicians have also come expect to underperform and ‘fix it later’ and have lost the pressure of studio recording.
Ask yourself how well you perform in your job without external pressure.

3/ Budgets have dropped insanely.
There is no time to make good records, unless they are a work of love. How many works of love can a skilled professional take on for free before they have to take on another job to support the said works of love
Never underestimate this problem. Think of it this way: Singer walks in. Mike is put up, singer performs, sound is ok. Two options:
a/ old school: ‘Let’s try another mike. Mhh. No, let’s try another. Ok nothing we have fits this guy. Let’s rent something. Break and come back in an hour.’
b. new school. ‘ok.that’s all right. Do we have anything else? Nope, that’s our best mike and we have three lead to track today, let’s move on.’

4/ Stupidity.
The shift of the industry from a monetized art from to a commodity business, complete with projections, expectations and end of quarter trepidations, have brought people at the helm of the business with financial savvy but zero music production knowledge. As in every human endeavor, ignorance + pressure to perform have generated much fear driven decisions to be taken everyday. Like, for example but hardly limited to, the loudness war.It is fascinating to watch a six months to a year long painstaking process, with very minute decisions made by committee thru much scrutinization and negotiations, been singlehandedly destroyed and crushed to a pancake on the very last day-by the guy (The mastering engineer)who works on the record for ONE day, usually by himself. Usually because he can’t afford to loose the gig to someone else who will heed the terrified A&R execs ludicrous requests.
It’s trickled down to mixers now. The record is ruined at the mix level. The mastering guys now complain that they have nothing left to do. The whole process belongs in a Monty Python sketch.

5/ Last, and least: lowered expectations.
This is the most easily solved problem. You don’t know a really, really good red wine until you’ve tasted one. Then some people have the ability to retain the memory of that wine and pass judgement on subsequent bottle based on that experience. Some people just don’, but without that first great bottle no taste can formed no matter how apt you are at tasting wine.
Out current problem is that convenience has killed quality. Most people haven;t experienced great sounding music before.My most recurrent comment when I play a finished record to my clients is invariably ‘Wow, I can hear everything’. It’s clockwork. I always tell my artist ‘listen to your record right now, in my room, uncompressed, un mastered, unpressed, unsoiled, this is the best it’ll ever sound. Enjoy this and learn to preserve this feeling for as long as possible when you leave this room’. Most understand, some don’t. Some care, some don’t. But they are aware. They tend to come back to listen to their stuff raw. Gives me hope.

Sorry about the long post, I thought another insider viewpoint might be of interest to this forum.

I welcome comments @ fab@fluxstudios.net

Ciao

Fab

I would like to see cds manufactured with a standerdised high quality materail. rember when people would say cds that were colored gold were better than than silver?

we will never go back to lps , cds are small compact & do last a long time if cared for. only audphiles w/big budgets can afford high quality turntables & eveything else you need to get that high quality sound, we now demand.

my sony sacd via hdmi multi channel w/h.a.t.s. technology makes my cds sound great. (as good as sacd.)

i would just like to see a high quality standerdised medium for cds.

the reason sacd failed is sony would not let go off their tight grip on sacd technology, if they would have been reasonable w/other companies using their created technology it would have flurished & lead to even better quality sound technology because of competion from other manufactures to create even better sound reconding sources.

sonys’ greed killed their created sacd technology & stopped the competive process of deleveloping better sacd tech. & so forth.

kodg man.