Prog Production Values Over The Years

A nice lesson in technology history from the geek master. 

Production is always the first thing I notice. If it's over produced or compressed, my ears put up a firewall. Getting pristine recordings back in the analog days is completely different, because so much effort was put into perfecting the techniques and ironing out the compositions. Now it's just putting money into rack mounts, EQs and Protools. Not impressive.

They did use processing a lot on vocals in the 70s, I guess.  Of course, I wasn't there and my opinion is based entirely on the classics but my problem with vocal recording these days if at all would be more that it's too dry sometimes.  I don't mind some amount of processing but a lot of people in my generation think processing/effects are cheesy and MAYBE that drives the thinking that favours dryness...just a guess.  Unlike the 70s, there is a lot of emphasis on making it sound 'real' and making sense in rock music in general today, for better or worse.  There was a lot more of playing a part and, well, pretense in the 70s which has its pluses but was voted out eventually by the public.  Then again, did they?  Is that not Lady Gaga's whole USP, really? 

EDIT:  By the way, by 'dry', I don't mind without delay. I mean just that a feeling of lack of embellishment.


Edited by rogerthat - January 01 2012 at 04:35

Dean wrote: [QUOTE=cstack3] [QUOTE=Dean]That looks like fun  - I've used a freeware VST plug-in that converts normal guitar to MIDI (some of the time, if you only play one note at a time and don't play too fast) - for $150 that toy looks more practical than the eKeys-37 USB/MIDI keyboard I have plugged into my laptop for messing around.

Yes many posts here are steered to into composition and not production, Auto tune arguments aside.
There is one process that no one has included in their posts and indeed it is the last important piece of the final production puzzle:
 The Mastering engineer.
He/She can make an excellent recording sound even greater or trash it to bits if they are not experienced.
With the plug-ins available that accurately emulate the compressors, reverbs, etc of days gone by One can effectively obtain the vintage sound within the digital realm.
5 years ago i would not have said the above, but as technology progresses it can only help us.
While the work-flow of recording engineering has streamlined itself nicely,Too many times these days people are rushed to get to the final product.

sleeper wrote: Well said. What has to be remembered is that a lot of prog bands in the 70's were very heavily constrained financially so they couldnt afford the best production techniques and setup available at the time, and quite a lot of them werent actually given that much time to record their albums.

One could argue that the pressure to get it right within a few takes due to the shorter recording sessions actually helped the albums in some cases, though with so many prog bands at their creative peaks during that period perhaps it's a moot point.

More on topic, I mostly listen to remasterings of the classic albums because I grew up in the era where these were the readily available versions on CD, and overall I much prefer these versions to the original mixes. The only time I can really point to enjoying an original mix would be Neil Young's Harvest, which isn't a prog album in any case. I find there are so many added dimensions and previously "hidden" elements to the sound of remasters that the originals can't really compare - though really the only album I can confirm this on is ELP's debut (compared from the original cassette's mix to the remastered Rhino release). Now that I think of it though, a more muddy remaster, which is likely closer to Eddie Offord's original mix, of the ending of Yes' Gates of Delirium always would make my hairs stand on end, while the Rhino remaster doesn't achieve this for me.

Thus I end my rambling post.

Edited by Howard the Duck - May 04 2012 at 08:54

I like the sharp and clean modern production, I just cannot get into the music.