"only sad musicians and technoheads like to listen to music with full quality and range", according to this article.
For those in here who would not touch an interface that works at fewer than 24 bits etc.. this must come as a shock!


The Guardian

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www.bugiolacchi.com
Songwriter/guitarist

The only shocking thing is that the Guardian employs people who have developed the ability to type without engaging their synapses or checking their 'facts'.

Blogs -- the IT equivalent of landfill!

Hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

Quote bugiolacchi:

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"only sad musicians and technoheads like to listen to music with full quality and range", according to this article.
For those in here who would not touch an interface that works at fewer than 24 bits etc.. this must come as a shock!


The Guardian

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The quality of mp3s is pretty good really. Technically it has huge advantages over vinyl and is pretty damn close to CD quality when encoded at 320. As for the mastering process, that's a different issue. Mastering engineers are doing a lot more damage to audio quality than data compression algorithms.

well - it IS only a blog.

Having supplied equipment for a shoot for the Guardian, I can honestly say - they themselves, have VERY high standards !!!!
But then, its very rare to find a "personality" who understands the equipment they use.....

>Blogs -- the IT equivalent of landfill!

Don't agree. This isn't really a 'blog' anyway. It's a newspaper article packaged as a 'blog' to save money (call a writer a blogger and you can pay him less) and to make it look as though the newspaper is 'with it'.

Most kids don't KNOW what good quality audio is. Low bit rate mp3's and crappy phone speakers etc.

Things are getting better and technology moves on. Quality audio will always be in demand because music is inherent in human DNA.

Quote _ Six _:

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Quality audio will always be in demand because music is inherent in human DNA.

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So how big is your SACD collection then?

However I do agree with the bit above the quoted part!

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

This sounds suspiciously like what my old mum used to call "inverted snobbery". I'll just carry on enjoying music to the best quality I can find, without getting obsessive about it.

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It wasn't me!
(Well, actually, it probably was)

Quote _ Six _:

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....because music is inherent in human DNA.

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Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

Quote Gone To Lunch:

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Quote _ Six _:

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....because music is inherent in human DNA.

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Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

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You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote johnny h:

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The quality of mp3s is pretty good really. Technically it has huge advantages over vinyl and is pretty damn close to CD quality when encoded at 320. As for the mastering process, that's a different issue. Mastering engineers are doing a lot more damage to audio quality than data compression algorithms.

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Oh bollocks! Johnny H and I are in complete agreement.

That has to a first - alert the press.

On second thoughts, don't bother - they will only misrepresent it!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote oggyb:

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Quote Gone To Lunch:

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Quote _ Six _:

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....because music is inherent in human DNA.

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Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

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You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

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I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

Quote Gone To Lunch:

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Quote oggyb:

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Quote Gone To Lunch:

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Quote _ Six _:

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....because music is inherent in human DNA.

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Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

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You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

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I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

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I see.

Well, on the one hand you can't program musicality like eye colour, but you can program the big brain necessary to support it. I guess that's why I questioned you

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Composer;
www.ogonline.org

Quote hollowsun:

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Quote johnny h:

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The quality of mp3s is pretty good really. Technically it has huge advantages over vinyl and is pretty damn close to CD quality when encoded at 320. As for the mastering process, that's a different issue. Mastering engineers are doing a lot more damage to audio quality than data compression algorithms.

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Oh bollocks! Johnny H and I are in complete agreement.

That has to a first - alert the press.

On second thoughts, don't bother - they will only misrepresent it!

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That's not true, we also agreed about the poor sound of Arturia's CS80 plugin.

Politics isn't so harmonious, but lets keep that to the music lounge.

Quote oggyb:

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Quote Gone To Lunch:

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Quote oggyb:

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Quote Gone To Lunch:

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Quote _ Six _:

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....because music is inherent in human DNA.

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Actually, no.

Music is a much higher order process....

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You haven't actually formed a contradiction there.

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I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

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I see.

Well, on the one hand you can't program musicality like eye colour, but you can program the big brain necessary to support it. I guess that's why I questioned you

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I disagree with that as well !

Well as much as I like higher quality files..the truth is that an HD telly doesn't transform a crap film into a good one!..so in that regard I am not that bothered. Dave

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My head hurts!

Quote johnny h:

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That's not true, we also agreed about the poor sound of Arturia's CS80 plugin.

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Ah! True

Quote johnny h:

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Politics isn't so harmonious

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Well, I could agree with your politics but then we'd both be wrong!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Not the best-written article

It's clear there has been a huge shift in the way that many people consume music..... At one point, the industry sold different formats based on 'Audio Quality' or the perception thereof. If you'd told any of us 15 years ago that the predominent system in years to come would go backwards from CD's in terms of audio quality then you'd have had a hard time getting anyone to believe it.

I think SACD's failed due to not knowing what they wanted to be / choice / expense. The person who had the Amstrad stereo couldn't play it and didn't care. The audiophile who had thousands invested in a 2 channel system with a CD player / vinyl was unlikely to jump ship (the marketing folks spent half their time talking about multichannel which meant yet more cash or an 'inferior' home cinema amp so a very mixed message!). Using the SACD failure to say 'people don't want it' is crazy. What is needed is for a superb quality digital format that plays on an iPod and is readilly available at a price people are willing to pay. It's not that people do not 'want' quality. Consumers always want high quality - but it is ONE buying factor. If you can pair quality with convenience with compatibility and sell it right then it's potentially a winner.

I still buy CD's. I rip them to FLAC and to 320k MP3 because 90% of my listening these days is in the car. I think a lot of people care about audio quality but the lure of convenience is strong and, for non-ideal environments, MP3 at a decent bitrate is fine. At home, I listen to the FLAC by one means or another.

There was a discussion on here recently about the difficulty of obtaining decent quality audio files immediately. If Neil Young is able to push higher quality without foresaking convenience then good on him. I received £40 worth of CD's from Amazon this morning; I ordered them last Thursday. I now have to sit and rip them. I don't have anywhere left to store them. For these reasons, I'd much rather have spent that £40 downloading FLACS or similar but, for these artists, could not find them. The whole process is frustrating, wasteful and unneccessary If I can get FLACs or (if Neil Young has his way) better as a download then I'll be a happy consumer.

I'm not sure anything much has really actually changed for the worst in practice, in terms of "quality" and "fidelity", on the consumer end.

Sure, kids are listening to music through iPhones and laptop speakers etc, because they want to listen to music and that's often all that's available to them.

But I remember as a young kid listening to AM radio through a tiny clock radio, recording the radio through a cheap mono microphone onto a crappy tape recorder, buying second hand vinyl and playing them on awful turntables and other such things - the quality was *way* worse than listening through an iPhone - and I still managed to develop a deep love and fascination of music in spite of the poor quality available to me back then.

I clearly remember the first time I listened to a personal stereo cassette player (Aiwa, Donal Lunny Live).

It blew my tiny mind.

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Ohm's Law states, "Your PA isn't as powerful as you think it is".

All true, Desmond. I was the same Used to camp next to the mono radio with a borrowed mono cassette deck and a microphone when the top 40 was on. But we knew it was pants (the announcement that it was tea time spilling over onto the mic was very much of its time ) and lusted after better quality (I did anyway).

Not so sure that everyone these days with an MP3 player is quite as aware that 'better is available' as the marketing messages are focussed on 'get it now, and lots of it with no hassle' and fail to mention the quality aspect. The 'need creation' these days is missing the quality trick on the MP3 front which I hope can come back

Having said that, you are correct - the 'poor quality' of MP3 is a heck of a lot better than most of us had growing up in both quality and quantity terms.

My brother was 10 years older than me. He bought a stereo in the 70's and had it in his room (where I was forbidden to go). I badly wanted that thing, especially as his taste in music was s***e.

It took 2 years of a Saturday job for me to finally buy a MIDI system. It was pants but I loved that thing. Following years saw many upgrades. I only really cottoned on to the 'law of diminishing returns' when I treated the study here for recording purposes. I don't now gladly listen to music in our living room.... Despite it being a reasonable setup, the abundance of rockwool in here makes my little den system sound a lot more expensive than it is

I don’t think anything has really changed. The mass population has always been content with mediocre sound quality provided the music itself is good. In the 50s they were quite happy with knackered 45rpm singles in jukeboxes played through rubbish speakers, and mono AM radio. In the 80s they were quite happy with cassette Walkmans and FM radio through tiny portable radios. In the 2000s they are quite happy with modest rate MP3s.

Most can appreciate better quality if it’s presented to them, but convenience is usually more important. The inherent cost and domestic compromises required to benefit from high quality music reproduction is what stops people from embracing it. 24 bit downloads won’t change that because it doesn’t offer anything usefully new or convenient.

I doubt Young’s 24 bit downloads will go anywhere, because people can already download adequate quality AAC files from iTunes, and the 24 bit aspect is utterly irrelevant to anyone other than the marketing people. I’ve been using 256 and 320kbps MP3s on my iPod for years without any concerns at all – it was more than good enough for listening to on over ear-buds on trains and planes. I can hear the slight quality loss on a decent monitoring system in a decent room, but that’s not a typical situation for most people.

In reality there are precious few listening environments where you can actually enjoy the full dynamic range of a 16 bit system – CD was always and remains perfectly appropriate for domestic music reproduction as far as dynamic range is concerned. Added to which most music is battered to death in mastering and barely uses more than 20dB dynamic range anyway. (I agree with the comments that the breed of ‘mastering engineer’ has done more to damage music than anything else.) The 24 bit option is very handy when you need to record and mix with decent headroom margins, but utterly pointless once that margin is no longer required after mastering. (And let’s not forget that few converters can really achieve more than 21 bit performance anyway…)
SACDs are still being made and purchased in reasonable numbers, largely because the ubiquitous hybrid form is usable as a stereo red-book CD. But the format is flawed (24/96 is technically better…) and few people are interested in surround music at all for the simple reason that it’s just not convenient to use.

Like Gary, I still buy CDs – probably averaging 8 a month. I rip them to Apple Lossless (because of the convenient metadata facilities and compatibility with my iPods) and play them from a NAS via Sonos Connect boxes into my various monitoring systems. Since doing that I’ve actually listened to a lot more music than when I had to go and dig out specific CDs. The convenience is superb, the quality is superb (on decently produced material), and the only thing lacking is the ability to read the sleeve and booklet notes. But at least I’ve got those with the CDs which I wouldn’t have if I just bought downloads…

Hugh

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote Hugh Robjohns:

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the only thing lacking is the ability to read the sleeve and booklet notes. But at least I’ve got those with the CDs which I wouldn’t have if I just bought downloads…

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I'm with you 100%.

There will be a generation of people left with no physical products because of downloads (music, games, books and films). Some time in the future historians will wonder why there is nothing from this century!

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

Quote Richie Royale:

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Quote Hugh Robjohns:

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the only thing lacking is the ability to read the sleeve and booklet notes. But at least I’ve got those with the CDs which I wouldn’t have if I just bought downloads…

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I'm with you 100%.

There will be a generation of people left with no physical products because of downloads (music, games, books and films). Some time in the future historians will wonder why there is nothing from this century!

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...and then they will discover Hugh's buried time capsule of CD releases and all with become clear


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

High Hugh

Myself I never stop listening to CD's in my modest hi-end system (I don't even own a DAC - yet). The wonderful surprise is that as time goes by, more people seem to join me in music listening evenings. First, it was my family, then my best friends and recently I have people visiting just to listen to music. Most of them had never listened to music on a hi-end system. All of them like it so much that they come back for more. I have become something like a small scale hi-fi evangelist.

I think that the one battle the music industry has to win, in order to continue its existence, is to lure people back to listening to music on their living rooms with decent hifi systems. If they achieved that then the sales would increase.

Regards,

my children now seem to be into vinyl as are friends kids - funny story of a friend searching the house for his old record deck - his wife had thrown it out - but all was not lost she had kept her Dansette!

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Nick

Edited by N.icholas (11/10/12 08:05 PM)

Wish I'd known about this sooner, could have avoided equipping for blew ray and just picked up some old videeyo seedy production discards instead.

Wonder if many people would notice if their CDs/downloads were only 8-bit/22k, that could save me some cash too...

this says it all: http://ravehumor.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sounds-good-bro.jpg

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www.soundcloud.com/blackmagicdisco

Someone should really come up with a way of making mp3's sound just as good at half the bitrate. I'm sure that would be so impressive (just think, more space for more mp3's!) it will become widely adopted in no time at all.

Oh, wait...

http://www.mp3prozone.com/

I honestly don't understand why people bother with the mp3 format anymore... It's not like storage or bandwidth is premium. It ain't 1997.

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www.thediplomatz.com

Nothing new there. Even when vinyl was king the average hifi setup was pretty dire and for most people if it was loud it was good.
Not many paid out the few thousand squids needed for pristine hifi on stilts so you could hear the tea boy whistling in the corridor behind John Lennon on the White Album.

And besides it depends whether you like a bit of ambient filth behind your music like you get at a rock or folk concert compared to a classical concert where everyone shuts up or gets kicked out so they hold their breath in the violin solo.
Jazz is never recorded properly as there's never any clapping after every solo.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

'97 was a particularly good vintage for mp3pro's! Much fruitier than the '95 and '96, with a nice dry finish and a hint of caramel overcompression. Nicely accompanied cheezy pop.

No matter how much storage capacity or bandwidth is available, in time (or even immediately) it soon enough becomes full and inadequate to requirements. This is immutable tech law, and has meant fortunes to be made for compression specialists and storage media manufacturers.

I see the move to offering "lossless" versions as a good thing, and hope it trends higher. Mebbe just needs some prestige premium branding and upmarket imaging. Gold (platinum, titanium, unobtainium) ear buds might move it mainstream.

Meanwhile, can I interest anyone in a pristine barely-used RCA (very prestigious brand!) Lyra Mp3Pro player? Latest updated firmware already installed. I'll even throw in a free armband holster and memory card upgrade! Batteries not included.

MP3 is fine for most people under general music listening circumstances. Many people only listen to music whilst doing something else, so top quality is not a priority. Those who actually take time to sit and listen to a piece of music are a minority, so top quality HIFI will always be a minority taste, just like most folk wouldn't know the difference between a good wine and a vintage wine.

Anyone who spent formative years listening to fantastic new music on radio Caroline (fading in and out) on a transistor radio, under the bed covers, and still enjoying it, believe me... MP3 is a perfectly acceptable medium!

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...and you can still listen to Radio Caroline today over the hinternet... and it's just as good! ;-)

H

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Technical Editor, Sound On Sound

And it isn't a sin.

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Success is round the corner. It's also round the bend.

Quote tex:

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And it isn't a sin.

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Kind a takes the fun out of it though

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i'll take my crappy sounding low-fi please

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My Facebook and Twitter pages

Quote Gone To Lunch:

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I mean that I disagree that 'music is inherent in human DNA'

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What about the Arts, Science, "stamp collecting".

Music is a form of communication, plus music doesn't have the same values today because it's all image based and doesn't really have substance like the old days, where an artist, like John Lennon,Bob Marley, could influence a whole society.

As to quality, as I've said before, a fluffy MP3 can make me feel sick, whereas a clear recording of the same music can make me ecstatic.

Quote Music Manic:

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As to quality, as I've said before, a fluffy MP3 can make me feel sick, whereas a clear recording of the same music can make me ecstatic.

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Hang on. What about very early recordings that are all that exists, for example some blues artists, would you refuse to listen the their music because the sound qualirty is not top notch?

You have to listen beyond the limitations of the format and enjoy the music for the artistic connection it provides, no?

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Quote GlynB:

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Quote Music Manic:

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As to quality, as I've said before, a fluffy MP3 can make me feel sick, whereas a clear recording of the same music can make me ecstatic.

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Hang on. What about very early recordings that are all that exists, for example some blues artists, would you refuse to listen the their music because the sound qualirty is not top notch?

You have to listen beyond the limitations of the format and enjoy the music for the artistic connection it provides, no?

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Early recordings are still full fat.

Quote GlynB:

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Hang on. What about very early recordings that are all that exists, for example some blues artists, would you refuse to listen the their music because the sound qualirty is not top notch?

You have to listen beyond the limitations of the format and enjoy the music for the artistic connection it provides, no?

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I recently bought 2 remastered JB Lenoir CDs and the quality was spot on for some of the tracks compared to the "original" vinyl.

Some of the old Elvis and Beatles stuff was bad quality and became tiresome after a while, whereas some remastered Elvis stuff I have is just how I want it.

CDs are the thing for me even though drive based products are very handy.

well, all i know is that i'd rather listen to a 96kb distorted mp3 of a really good song then a 96/24 .wav of a really poor song...

Quote Music Manic:

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plus music doesn't have the same values today because it's all image based and doesn't really have substance like the old days, where an artist, like John Lennon,Bob Marley, could influence a whole society.

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Wow, artists who sadly died in the 1980s are now considered from the old days. How would music from 500 years ago be considered?

Please dont think artists from the old days didnt have a carefully worked out public image. I will remain respectful of the dead, so please do your own research.

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http://soundcloud.com/for-mash-get-ash

Quote fay spook:

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Quote Music Manic:

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plus music doesn't have the same values today because it's all image based and doesn't really have substance like the old days, where an artist, like John Lennon,Bob Marley, could influence a whole society.

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Wow, artists who sadly died in the 1980s are now considered from the old days. How would music from 500 years ago be considered?

Please dont think artists from the old days didnt have a carefully worked out public image. I will remain respectful of the dead, so please do your own research.

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I didn't say they didn't have an image (and some didn't, especially the black blues artists), I said that standards were higher in those days, with regards to talent. Until Elvis sang his version of "That's alright" Sam Phillips didn't think he was cutting the mustard. You were booed off stage at the Apollo theatre if you weren't pleasing the crowd, and look how many greats it produced(not mediocre, but great). That mentality produced higher standards. Now producers don't worry because it's mostly image based marketing and talent has a smaller percentage when it comes to drive.

Raises the whole question of what a recording is for.

Surely the idea of a recording is to listen to a particular performance, captured at a point in time. It's not about taking that performance and filtering it through 'artifacts'... or is it?

Maybe for some people the artifacts you get from listening, say on vinyl, are all a positive part of the listening experience?

For me they're an irrelevance, even annoying. So anything that gets the artifacts of a recording medium out of the way, so i can hear the pure performance, as if the artist was with me in the room, is the best format. And so... I like CD*.

*Yes i appreciate there are issues with CD, but way less intrusive than anything that went before.

That said, to agree with a previous poster, it's ultimately the content that matters, despite the medium by which you come to hear it. Crap content, and it doesn't make any difference how you listen and what quality of the audio it is.

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AKA Tekkno or Tekknozid. Fundi-Tekkno is the opposite of 'Prol-Tekkno' (Proletarier Tekkno) i.e. proletarian techno. The giant Loveparade is the very heart of Prol-Tekkno. The heart of hardcore Tekkno is the Fu¢kparade in Berlin every August. Sometimes it turns into a full-blown riot if the police try to stop it happening. If the OP wants to learn about hardcore Tekkno, Berlin is really the only city on Earth to go to.

I have not been here for ages, but again I see threads shut down with nonsense like this. If you want to be a DJ then obviously you have to understand music, probably from school...It is still possible, listen to Clouds from Glasgow, and Gary Beck. They are proper DJ's but they are musicians making money suprisingly.
It's Techno mate! not Tekkno.

Edited by balvenie (16/11/12 11:29 PM)

I would like to add that Acid Pro 4, keyboards, some bongos. talent and some sneaky bits from spotify can send a crowd on fire. I think you are out of date and need to subscribe to Bob Lefsetz. He gets to the core of out of date groups.

How did we get from a discussion on quality of recordings/playback to this gibberish "bongos with loops sending people crazy", crazed out of their brains with 'illegal substances'...

I followed this discussion and found it rather interesting, up to this point. Yes, in the good ol' days listening to an AM signal or £20 stereo system with cassette player was enough to make us love the music being produced by great and creative musicians and performers. Live, energetic performances captured by engineers which task was to transport this magic onto our homes...

Having said this.. it's still great to hear top notch recordings of great music. Yes, you can eat good tasting food on a plastic pic-nic table, but when it's well served and garnished, it's an extra pleasurable experience.

Personally I am now rediscovering Italian pop-music, in terms of sound recordings and musicianship. STADIO This is nearly 10 years old... but when one of the songs come on my iPod it sounds as I switch from tape to CD, even when I am listening to MP3s! ahhhh

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www.bugiolacchi.com
Songwriter/guitarist

The thing with audio is that, once you've hit a certain point, the returns for increased quality are somewhat diminished, therefore it makes complete sense to use whichever suits your delivery or storage method.

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Apple Certified Technician. One half of http://www.turnbacktospring.com

Quote TBTS:

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The thing with audio is that, once you've hit a certain point, the returns for increased quality are somewhat diminished, therefore it makes complete sense to use whichever suits your delivery or storage method.

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This is so true.

I was at someone home yesterday and they were pointing out the blades of grass visible on the rugby pitch due to the benefit of HD TV... maybe so, but it was still a boring rugby game!


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People don't know what they want (Actually Steve Jobs said that).

If you take good music, and give it to people with quality audio, they will appreciate it.

If you start with bad music, quality audio makes it worse.


It's like the Swamp Thing's magic formula = It just makes you more of what you already are.

Quote DC-Choppah:

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People don't know what they want (Actually Steve Jobs said that).

If you take good music, and give it to people with quality audio, they will appreciate it.

If you start with bad music, quality audio makes it worse.


It's like the Swamp Thing's magic formula = It just makes you more of what you already are.

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I'll keep saying this...... Better quality audio takes me to a different emotional level than it would if were inferior. Your heart won't thump as hard if you listen to a powerful club track on your mobile phone, even though the track is great. It could stir your emotions and memory but there has to be a level of audio quality. We always talk of harsh highs and fluffy basses. All these relate to audio quality and act as a guidance for mixers.

I find some music today quite bad, when it comes to substance and depth of the artists, but the productions are excellent from a sonic point of view.

Totally, again, if you listen to lots of tracks through the years, as you are allowed by the 1:30 of music 'preview' from iTunes, then you realise the (upwards) jump in recording quality in the last few years.
Even classical music recordings are better nowadays.

'Quality' pop has in particularly jumped up in recording quality: I was listening to the Led Zep just released live CD and it sounds just amazing! Also indulge yourself to the new Donald Fegan output, sonically divine. Even Rihanna, with a genre that I abhor, still sounds quite amazing, although if it's 'electronic' flavoured music and forefront of sonic purity that you are after, you can do worse than listen to the latest Muse or Radiohead.

The biggest sound shock I get is playing 'eighties' music: those Synclaviers, Fairlights, and worse, Korg M1/3 etc. pianos and 'classical guitars'... then squashed to death for radio, tons upon tons of Lexicon reverbs all over ... everything really: how could we listen to vocals from grottos (e.g. George Michael..)..?

Here, I am again focusing on recording quality and sounds, not content: I still prefer to watch Casablanca in B&W on a TV set than Avatar on 3D LED screen, for sure!

I still suggest my Anglo-Saxon friends out there who enjoy quality popular music, to adventure abroad a bit. There are some Italian (suggested above), French, German and Spanish productions which are very 'traditional' in terms of instrumentation and arrangements, but at the highest quality in terms of performances! For instance in Italy, since the music market is tiny in comparison to the UK (with US, AU, etc at your immediate disposal and access to) even an average act, if signed by a major, gets full treatment of some of the best studios in the world, top notch seasoned musicians (again, listen to STADIO, for instance), arrangers etc. You can hear the fussy drummer who changed the tom rims to brass to give the extra 'organic' humf to the odd tom roll. Bliss!

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www.bugiolacchi.com
Songwriter/guitarist

Quote bugiolacchi:

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Totally,... recording quality in the last few years.Even classical music recordings are better nowadays.

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as compared to what - vinyl..CD?..DVD audio?

Quote:

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'Quality' pop has in particularly jumped up in recording quality: I was listening to the Led Zep just released live CD and it sounds just amazing! Also indulge yourself to the new Donald Fegan output, sonically divine. Even Rihanna, with a genre that I abhor, still sounds quite amazing, although if it's 'electronic' flavoured music and forefront of sonic purity that you are after, you can do worse than listen to the latest Muse or Radiohead.

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Pop - From Rihanna Led Zep to Donal Fagen .. hang on these are totally different genres - have never heard a club mix of DF...

Quote:

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The biggest sound shock I get is playing 'eighties' music: those Synclaviers, Fairlights, and worse, Korg M1/3 etc. pianos and 'classical guitars'... then squashed to death for radio, tons upon tons of Lexicon reverbs all over ... everything really: how could we listen to vocals from grottos (e.g. George Michael..)..?

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The bit of irony here is that many gear brand names stake their claim based on eighties big verb sound..think Lexicon, TC Electronic, Yamaha, and lets not forget delays, and all sorts of modulation.
The era that probably introduced all the technology we are using today, in retrospect produced the worst sounding examples!

Quote:

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I still suggest my Anglo-Saxon friends ... but at the highest quality in terms of performances! For instance in Italy, since the music market is tiny in comparison to the UK (with US, AU, etc at your immediate disposal and access to) even an average act, if signed by a major, gets full treatment of some of the best studios in the world, top notch seasoned musicians (again, listen to STADIO, for instance), arrangers etc. You can hear the fussy drummer who changed the tom rims to brass to give the extra 'organic' humf to the odd tom roll. Bliss!

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I'm not Anglo-Saxon, and possibly due to this I don't follow you - are you commenting on the recording quality or the performance or both?
The concept of "quality" is always going to be subjective, always...

The ridiculous bit about musicians is that we spend far too much time discussing the tools and forget the art-form itself, if indeed some of us still consider it that... art? Or maybe we've managed to make the 2 inseparable and hence the confusion..is Hendrix still Hendrix on a 4$ wooden guitar.. or was the electric amp the real attraction etc.

If we used the analogy of have-canvas-will-paint; the modern music making process is need-studio will-maybe-make-song.



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C.LYDE
http://soundcloud.com/c-lyde

Edited by C.LYDE (20/11/12 11:48 AM)

Quote C.LYDE:

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as compared to what - vinyl..CD?..DVD audio?

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Just sound reproduction, whichever form.

Quote C.LYDE:

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The ridiculous bit about musicians is that we spend far too much time discussing the tools and forget the art-form itself, if indeed some of us still consider it that... art? Or maybe we've managed to make the 2 inseparable and hence the confusion..is Hendrix still Hendrix on a 4$ wooden guitar.. or was the electric amp the real attraction etc.

If we used the analogy of have-canvas-will-paint; the modern music making process is need-studio will-maybe-make-song.

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Again.....you are talking about two different worlds. Sound reproduction is down to the engineers and academics, music composition is down to the artist. Marry them both and you have the perfect take. Hendrix would never have got his creative sounds down if it weren't for Eddie Kramer.