Prog Production Values Over The Years

Originally posted by freyacat I totally agree with you.  Modern production is not right for your classic symphonic prog sound.  the Flower Kings, for example, compose such fantastic music, but the sound wears my ears out with all of the instruments right out front slamming in my face.  I love the muddy mystery of early Yes records, where sometimes it's hard to distinguish one instrument from another, and everything blends into this amazing witches' brew of sound.  (Bitches Brew - Teo Macero's mix would be another good example of this by the way). I have been drawn to those bands who are experimenting with archaic production techniques to get those kinds of sounds back.  Perhaps my greatest delight has been hearing the Causa Sui Summer Sessions.

Originally posted by richardh Originally posted by twosteves I think Offord did a great production job on some early Yes albums--I wish I could say the same about some early Genesis albums---   Offord also worked on ELP albums up to and inc Trilogy as the main sound production engineer (although Greg Lake took the main production credit). Trilogy is probably my favourite ELP album production. Wonderfull clarity and no messing with Greg Lake's voice which is full ,wamr and rich. Brain Salad Surgery was a noticeably different approach , much more compressed and loads of vocal distortion which I hate. It was about 1973 that the natural warm full production sound seemed to disappear. For me DSOTM , Relayer and BSS were all steps in the wrong direction even if musically the bands were becoming more creative.   The eighties was a real mixed bag production wise. Some brilliant stuff ( Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love and Al Stewarts ridiclulously undervalued Last Days Of The Century) but on the prog side i didn't care much for Marillions Fugazi or IQ's Nomzamo. Rush probably came up with my favourite 80's produced album (Power Windows) followed by IQ's Are You Sitting Comfortably?, the common denominator being Peter Collins. Someone had a clue at least.   The 90's was interesting as Par Lindh Project and Anglagard went for retro production techniques. Gothic Impressions and Hybris almost stand alone. Not sure it really caught on though.   Since then the only album that I loved from a production point of view has been Muse  - Absolution. Apparently they did some unusual things when recording that album (In Ireland I think) like using an empty swimming pool for the drums. The result is certainly unique and very impressive. I quite like the way Radiohead record their albums as well. They seem to have the modern way of doing things off to a fine art.

Originally posted by harmonium.ro ^ The Mars Volta

Oh no.

I dont know what Rogues Gallery is (I suspect that it isnt the thread for self portrait photos on the forums here).  I know what kind of sound you're on about; the big clinical, crystal clear production and I wouldnt describe that as sounding like live since the dirty, more raw sound of the live environment is something I prefer.

And I garuantee that every album of 2011 doesnt sound the same production wise unless all you lsiten too is standard Prog Metal, Symphoinic and Neo Prog (in which case it probably would). Fen's Epoch, White Willows Terminal Twilight, Wobblers Rites at Dawn, Wolves in the Throne Rooms Celestial Lineage, Opeths Heratige, Amplifiers Octopus, Pain of Salvations Road Salt 2, Giant Squids Cenotes, Hakens Visions, hANDS Breathing, Leprous Bilateral, Mastodons The Hunter, No Made Sense New Season/New Blues, Sub Rosas No Help for the Mighty Ones, Tartar Lambs Plyimage of Known Exits, Ulvers War of the Roses, Unexpects Fables of the Sleepless Empire and Van der Graaf Generators A Grounding in Numbers all have very different production values to them and as a result all sound at least slightly different from each other. Its also notable that most of those listed were pretty much home recorded and controled almost entirely by the bands in question, rather than going to someone elses studio and hireing a producer to work with them.

I noticed beyond DT and Opeth you havent said what you listen too.
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Originally posted by Slartibartfast Originally posted by infocat Originally posted by cstack3   I'm still waiting for auto-tune to reach the prog shores....actually, could be interesting if used as a very selective effect!  Bite your tongue, man! As a sparingly used vocal effect perhaps, but the way it's being used throughout mainstream music is just annoying.

I was listening to Pendragon Pure today and I think I heard a couple of seconds of auto-tune.  I forget which song.  It didn't kill me. 

Originally posted by darkshade Originally posted by zumacraig Originally posted by thehallway I favour dry sounds, and this is getting rarer with prog these days....... limited to modern singer songwriters mainly. I just like to hear everything clearly, although at the same time avoiding a clinical, sterile feel. If reverb is to be added, I want it subtle, not "stadium".... because there really is no point in trying to fool people about where something was recorded. I really hope Prog is one of the genres that pushes forward with the binaural thing, because I think the future of keeping the sound of music exciting depends on replicating "being there" as much as possible. Instead of 2 channels, 360 would be rather interesting. It's so expensive to engineer though. They say drums are the hardest thing to get right, but I'd be happy to just get them as punchy and bright as Supertramp or the Mahavishnu Orchestra. They achieved that in the '70s, so it can't be that hard. Keyboards are difficult to record because they can often sound horribly artificial..... I mean, there's no actual sound waves involved in them any more, it's all electronic, so that's understandable. yes yes yes!  this is exactly my sentiment.  studio albums should sound like the studio.  love the drums on the aforementioned albums above.  this punchy, warm, phat snare sound returned last decade a bit within indie rock (wilco-yankee hotel foxtrot),  however, prog has stuck with the digi stadium sounds of the 80s.  why?  there are some outliners though.  i'm telling you, if a band has a nice fat snare sound up front, i'm sold.  roine stole, if you're reading this, please consider it for the new flower kings!! You dont find albums like Unfold the Future, Adam & Eve, or The Sum of No Evil have a fat snare sound up front? The drummer for those albums, Zoltan Czorsz, is quite good and very up front, In my opinion.

Originally posted by zumacraig Originally posted by sleeper I dont know what Rogues Gallery is (I suspect that it isnt the thread for self portrait photos on the forums here).  I know what kind of sound you're on about; the big clinical, crystal clear production and I wouldnt describe that as sounding like live since the dirty, more raw sound of the live environment is something I prefer. And I garuantee that every album of 2011 doesnt sound the same production wise unless all you lsiten too is standard Prog Metal, Symphoinic and Neo Prog (in which case it probably would). Fen's Epoch, White Willows Terminal Twilight, Wobblers Rites at Dawn, Wolves in the Throne Rooms Celestial Lineage, Opeths Heratige, Amplifiers Octopus, Pain of Salvations Road Salt 2, Giant Squids Cenotes, Hakens Visions, hANDS Breathing, Leprous Bilateral, Mastodons The Hunter, No Made Sense New Season/New Blues, Sub Rosas No Help for the Mighty Ones, Tartar Lambs Plyimage of Known Exits, Ulvers War of the Roses, Unexpects Fables of the Sleepless Empire and Van der Graaf Generators A Grounding in Numbers all have very different production values to them and as a result all sound at least slightly different from each other. Its also notable that most of those listed were pretty much home recorded and controled almost entirely by the bands in question, rather than going to someone elses studio and hireing a producer to work with them. I noticed beyond DT and Opeth you havent said what you listen too. rogue's gallery is a podcast that highlights new prog.  i think you kind of made my point...most new prog sounds the same...at least to me.  def that clinical production.  great way to put it.  opeth and wobbler are def outliers.  didn't mention wobbler b/c they tend to get criticized as 'retro'.   gonna check out some of the bands you listed.  haven't heard a few of them.  as far as what i listen to, the disc in my player is  Anima Mundi's The Way.  it has that clinical production, but the melodies are quite memorable.

I guess it just depends on how you defign Prog. I f you keep to a fairly classic sound ideal for prog then this will be a big problem (second only to the lack of creativity that I feel the three aformentioned genres suffer from). As you can probebly tell, I'm not a big fan of msot mainstream prog of the Neo, Symph and DT-clone style. If you have a wider definition then you can be in for quite a surprise.

Originally posted by tamijo The way i look at production, is just a choice. You can choose to use a violin, You can choose to have a long instrumental opening, you can choose no solos on an entire album, you can choose a Hardcore sound, trying to make an illusion of late 70's punk, or you can choose to fuble (4 dubble) the vocal with a lot of bathroom reverb. Production is a part of the process and if you are good at it, it fits the rest of the choices.   If you check out bands like The Fall of Troy, they make it fit perfectly, still they dont sound a lot like neither opeth PT nor DT. Wilson on the last one did the opposite, made an allmost overly broad sound, like trying to top the late 70's Yes or PF sound, and that fits the project well, because the theme is very late 70's.

Little of what you said has anything to do with production and more to do with composition and arrangement, though your second paragraph is spot on, making the sound fit the style of music is very important.

Originally posted by JS19 I actually find it very difficult to enjoy any music which doesn't have a modern production sound. I'm not sure whether that feeling stems from the fact that I'm quite young and most music I heard around me growing up had the same modern values or not, but when I hear an older album, or one produced cheaply it really bugs me. A prime example is Astra: The Weirding. That album should be right up my street, but I can't bring myself to listen to it. It just feels wrong hearing such garbled production. Dredg: Leitmotif is another such album. Older 70s classic albums can sometimes feel the same to me. The drums sound so thin and nothing feels like it packs a punch.  It's always at the back of my mind when I'm listening to something such as Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. I'm sure I have a very modern view here, and I doubt many people share it, but clean, modern production is one of the things I value in my music.

Originally posted by JS19 I actually find it very difficult to enjoy any music which doesn't have a modern production sound. I'm not sure whether that feeling stems from the fact that I'm quite young and most music I heard around me growing up had the same modern values or not, but when I hear an older album, or one produced cheaply it really bugs me. A prime example is Astra: The Weirding. That album should be right up my street, but I can't bring myself to listen to it. It just feels wrong hearing such garbled production. Dredg: Leitmotif is another such album. Older 70s classic albums can sometimes feel the same to me. The drums sound so thin and nothing feels like it packs a punch.  It's always at the back of my mind when I'm listening to something such as Genesis: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. I'm sure I have a very modern view here, and I doubt many people share it, but clean, modern production is one of the things I value in my music.

Edited by rogerthat - December 22 2011 at 21:26