|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
70.143.2.130
In Reply to: I've always felt the same way posted by Presto on March 7, 2007 at 11:30:06:
you can just hear the compression in a lot of big money pop recordings. whether rock or even tori amos. blech!yeah, i'm not angry like when i was young. i'd love to sell all my "angry rock", but most of the CDs are scratched (don't skip though). looks like garage sale time. so, i can go buy some more blues and jazz (and scotch ;-)
Follow Ups:
Well, I agree with the idea that most CDs are compressed to snot and DO sound like crap- just look at System of a Down or Mudvayne for example- great music, sucky sound.Most Tori Amos recordings Do use compression, but I hear it as artistic effect on her recordings (LP or CD), not as a mastering trick. Although there still is some compression in the mastering, its nowhere near as bad as the above mentioned bands...
"David! You can KILL a man with a chopstick!" -Keith Charles, Six Feet Under
"Well, I agree with the idea that most CDs are compressed to snot and DO sound like crap- just look at System of a Down or Mudvayne for example- great music, sucky sound."I recently listened to System of a Down on a decent system. The awareness of pitch correction (Clark Johnsen) made me pick it up in unexpected places. This strikes me as a band whose vocals need pitch correction, which in turn provides the band's "signature sound". But to me, its sound was merely another flavor of "generic". Just a little more "high-power" than others, and with multiple vocals. But as a recording, I think it was as good as it could get. You cannot correct what was processed. Any sonic nuance is DOA before it reaches the mixing board.
I recently got an email from somebody who claimed I was way off-base in citing the Who's "Endless Wire" as one of the great rock recordings ever on CD. He thought it was typical compressed garbage. I recently played the CD on a more-typical system (the same physical disc, not a copy or an identical disc), and I couldn't get over how much worse it sounded. The linear excursions were badly blunted, and the recording sounded bloated and distorted. And unfortunately, it's far more representative of typical digital playback, and the best recordings on most of these playback sources have to be compressed in order to be compatible, but otherwise sound decent.
The difference in paradigm regarding digital playback can be immense. And realizing such perspective has made me target what I think are the root problems- The widespread incompetence in digital playback design and the dependence artists have on processing to optimize their performance. And sadly, the latter problem is often mistaken for not just awful recording quality, but poor playback performance which triggers the urge to upgrade.
i hear ya man. it's obvious when a singer's voice is being manipulated. i don't know. maybe it's pride. but if i was in a band and had weak vocal range, i'd work my ASS OFF to learn how to sing on pitch. i'm mean IT'S YOUR JOB!
In observing some recent music on the radio, on various stations, I say at least 80 percent of recent pop and rock releases have vocal pitch correction applied, and the two things common to all of them is the "generic" (and often "synthesized") tonal character, obscured inflections, and pitch that sounds more like it's coming from a keyboard than from a singer.The shocking part of this is quite a few artists I liked had this character. Steve Wilson of Porcupine Tree. Celine Dion. Renee Olstead. Shania Twain. Most country singers. It's depressing.
I've even hear it on the "smooth jazz" station, with Seal and Sting. It's a cancer, in my humble opinion.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: