Prog Production Values Over The Years
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URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=83632
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Topic: Prog Production Values Over The Years
Posted By: zumacraig
Subject: Prog Production Values Over The Years
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 18:15
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I find the difference in production values over the decades fascinating. I've recently been enjoying early neo-prog (Marillion) and the early 80s sound of space between the instruments, digital synths, some gated drum, etc. The 'sound' of prog changed over the years. 60s was a vintage reverb psychedelic sound, early 70s was a warm, 'in the room' studio. late 70s got a bigger, more slick sound. 80s was totally slick with that digital delay on everything. then came the 90s, and the sound of prog hasn't changed since. it's always this BIG live sound with everything on a delay and reverb. to me, it's been like this for over 20 years and it really does not make one band sound different from another. i wish bands would get a bit more progressive with their sound. maybe something akin to recent Wilco records which have a nice warm drum sound and compressed guitars along with vocals up front. thoughts?
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Replies:
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 18:21
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Unless it's really bad, production is the last thing I pay attention to and even then I can't name an example I find really bad.
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: freyacat
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 18:51
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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. ------------- sad creature nailed upon the coloured door of time |
Posted By: Aussie-Byrd-Brother
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 18:51
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I was always a little letdown by the murky production of Astra's `The Weirding' from a few years back. The album is full of top-notch material performed by outstanding musicians, however they chose to give it a very lo-fi, flat production to sound more genuinely early 70's. Don't know if they realise that back then, some of the albums ended up sounding like that due to the limitations of the equipment, not likely to the band's wanting the albums to sound that way! I'm sure some listeners find that one of `The Weirding's' strengths and charms, but to me I find is very distracting and I usually don't get more than 30 minutes into the album....and it's a good enough album that it deserves better than that! 
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Posted By: laplace
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 19:09
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i guess one of the things that alienates me from the modern releases is the arena rock-ness of the mainstream prog album. i know that in the early 70s people were just as infatuated with the studio as zey are now, but it's one of those things about the form that has progressed away from my taste ------------- FREEDOM OF SPEECH GO TO HELL |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 19:25
You are very observant! As studio electronics became more sophisticated and lower in cost, producers and engineers had more to play with, and many times this tends to "beat the sound out of the music." I'm a huge Eddie Offord fan, his production on CTTE is sublime! (I have a first-generation CTTE CD that was made pre-digital re-mastering, it is basically a digital recording off of the studio master tapes, so I have all the tape hiss that he would have heard, AND his original mix!). Recording back then was all done very slowly, painstakingly, with many repeated takes, and the songs evolving during the process. It is more homogenized these days, mostly driven by cost concerns. The studio effect that has been over-used the most is compression. This does to music what Botox does to a person's face! A bit of compression does help keep the forte fortissimo parts from blowing out the tweeters, but when applied to all dynamics, well, it becomes very dead. Digital delay is another effect that has been used with a heavy hand. I once spoke with the late, great Michael Hedges, and he said that "Peter Gabriel's voice in the studio was unlistenable before they added delay!" A matter of taste, I quite liked his raw vocals. However, as fashions change, so do studio techniques. I'm still waiting for auto-tune to reach the prog shores....actually, could be interesting if used as a very selective effect!
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zumacraig wrote:Posted By: infocat
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 20:12
Bite your tongue, man!  ------------- -- Frank Swarbrick Belief is not Truth. |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 20:19
| ^ The Mars Volta |
Posted By: twosteves
Date Posted: December 20 2011 at 22:16
| 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--- |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 04:42
| Could somebody throw light on what is the development of recording technology over these last few years? Suppose recording technology itself has hit a ceiling, then I guess the 'sound' won't change much. E.g. while 70s was 'bigger' than the 60s, there was some continuity in the two decades and the major changes were on account of still developing synthesizer equipment, the use of sound effects a la Floyd. From the 80s through to the 90s, digital technology has evolved and maybe there's not much room left now. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 06:04
 As a sparingly used vocal effect perhaps, but the way it's being used throughout mainstream music is just annoying. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: spknoevl
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 07:36
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Steven Wilson seems to be one guy who can make modern prog music and use up-to-date studio techniques. For more complex rythmic music, like Trey Gunn's solo material, I notice the mix is quite dry.
Originally King Crimson's Discipline was given a big modern reverby 80s mix but was then re-mixed, at Fripp's insistence, and the drier version was the one released. The new DGM remastered version also includes both mixes. The drier mix works far better. ------------- http://martinwebb.bandcamp.com The notes are just an interesting way to get from one silence to the next - Mick Gooderick |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 10:25
You may not like the sound of reverb in general. It is only to be used to compliment the sound of the music. A nice warm drum sound with instruments more compressed and vocals up front can be found on the Steve Wilson re-mix of Lizard.
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Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 10:31
What makes you think it hasnt? Clive Nolan has already said he's used it on the vocals for most Arena albums at least. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005  |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 10:37
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. I suggest that the OP doesnt listen to a particularly wide variety of prog styles, because on 2011 albums alone I've noticed a very wide variety of production styles. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 |
Posted By: karenprog
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 11:40
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I also think that there's a wide variety of production styles in current prog releases. Also, autotune is definitely being used on prog vocals! It's just more subtle than in pop music. I think that how much delay and reverb and compression that is used on an album is largely controlled by both the producer and the musician's taste, and there is a wide variety, even within an album. For example, on the ARZ album, the song Twilight has a lot of reverb and delay on it to make it sound luscious and full, and a lot of the other songs are cleaner. |
Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 11:47
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Production techniques from all eras have their merits, in the right hands. I don't really have a preference of analogue over digital, it all depends who's at the desk, and how they make the magic happen. The production on the first 4 Marillion albums - for example - is perfect for the music. The production on the first four Genesis albums, with Gabriel, was perfect for their music at the time. ------------- Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy! |
Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 15:22
I submit you ask what I listen too :) I think exactly opposite of you. Every damn album of 2011 sound exactly the same production wise. Opeth may be the only outlier here. DT had some excellent melodies. Listen to recent episode of rogues gallery...every tune has the same sheen, big live sound, over processed guitars and pitch corrected vocals, etc. just my observation. Fairly conservative rather than progressive? Something new that has some different or older production techniques (wobbler) is what I think would be interesting these days.
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Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 16:11
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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. ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow">  |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 17:00
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.
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 17:23
so right about the flower kings. it's just this giant loud compressed wall of sound. tomas's keys are always way down in the corner. the drums have no dynamics and that incessant wah guitar of roine is in you face. where's jonas? they're earlier cds are a bit more dynamic. was listening to steven wilson interview today from a few years ago and he was talking about all this production stuff. one point he made was his love for the album as an art form with 20 minutes per side. anything more is fatiguing. this is true also for the flower kings, but also other bands. for example, on vinyl the new dream theater album would be a triple disc set! fatigue is an issue...loudness wars and the perceived need to full the 80 min of cps.
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 17:31
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!!
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 17:36
i guess that's my hope...now that digital recording is a given, i think we can figure out how to use it to sound more natural. oh, and songs need to be memorable. this is another issue with recent prog that i won't get into. radio head's recent productions have been excellent. i'm with you on that. thing of what all these prog bands would sound like with nigel goodrich producing. would be amazing. as far as offord goes, what was up with his production on union:) as far a rush goes, i think they found the best sounding production type for prog with moving pictures through grace under pressure. it sounds like and warm at the same time. again, what happened? :)
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Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 18:31
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. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 |
Posted By: Fox On The Rocks
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 19:08
Oh no.   ------------- 
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Posted By: Slaughternalia
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 19:10
MOOOOOOOOOOON safari ------------- I'm so mad that you enjoy a certain combination of noises that I don't |
Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 20:17
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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. [/QUOTE] 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.
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Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 20:35
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. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm 
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Posted By: infocat
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 20:44
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.  ------------- -- Frank Swarbrick Belief is not Truth. |
Posted By: twosteves
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 21:12
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I like what Offord did on the David Sancious album, too---wish it wasn't out of print.
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 21 2011 at 22:56
yeah, drums do sound okay on those albums. could be better though.
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Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 05:21
That's what my impression was too: one can only say that all modern releases have that slick clinical sound if those modern prog releases all belong to a narrow corner of the scene. |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 06:19
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. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 07:04
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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. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 09:23
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. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005 |
Posted By: JS19
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 09:49
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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.
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 20:33
i see where you're coming from. it's all a matter of taste. did you enjoy the most recent remixes of the genesis albums? they sound more modern i think.
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 20:46
i need to broaden my horizons a bit
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 22 2011 at 21:25
You are very correct in saying that older albums would in fact pack more of a punch with better production and they were indeed not always well produced. Not sure I'd say that about Lamb..., but Foxtrot is a prime example of this. The sound may be charming in a certain way but it is really not ideal. On the other hand, there are some 70s albums with excellent sound too, DSOTM and the next few PF albums, Crime of the Century, Songs in the key of life, Aja etc. What I don't like so much about some modern recordings is how 'separated' they sound. I prefer when they blend more as if replicating the effect of a live performance where sounds do in fact blend. I also prefer some light and shade, contrast and contrast of a more subtle degree so I am not so found of a mean level of loudness feel. But that is just a preference and I stop at recognizing these preferences so that they don't bias my views too much. Production may not MAKE an album for me but unless it is simply unlistenable in terms of disturbance, audibility etc (more applicable to live albums), it doesn't generally BREAK it for me.
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Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 03:55
Kudos for the honesty in this post. Even an old fart like myself (I'm 49) finds the 'sensual' satisfaction of modern recordings ( notwithstanding the music) considerably more pleasurable than the relatively 'boxy' and 'unfocused' sound stages represented by the so-called classic Prog milestones of the 70's. I guess we are maybe spoiled now by the massive leap in fidelity as represented by the current marriage of analogue and digital technologies? ------------- 
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Posted By: ProgBob
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 06:57
I can't really describe in technical terms but I tend to find many modern recordings - not necessarily just in the prog sphere - fatiguing to listen to. I don't know if it is the loudness thing or what, but there is a kind of organic aspect that is missing for me that I do find in older recordings. I am interested though. You have mentioned a couple of things there that you don't like. What modern albums would you hold up as representing the sort of sound you like? ------------- Bob |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 09:50
The same was said of the guitar wah-wah pedal back in the late '60s to early '70s. Fripp, Hackett and many others demonstrated how it could be put to good progressive uses! Same with the Moog synth and Roland guitar synths. While originally created for rather "jokey" sound effect roles, folks like Emerson, Wakeman and (again) Fripp showed how these instruments could be applied quite creatively. I can just imagine how Gabriel might have used (abused!) auto-tune during the recording of "The Lamb." He had to do all of his vocal effects with his vocal chords & very primitive processing technology. I'm not saying that ALL prog music MUST have autotune, but I'd be curious to hear how someone like Eno would use it.
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Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 10:52
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^ It would be interesting to use it on instruments. i.e. you play a rhythm with just one note, then use autotune to alter the pitch of different parts of that rhythm, then suddenly, you have a melody. The timbre would be different though, with higher notes artificially squashed and lower notes stretched out. Would be similar to some of the things the Beatles did with tape speeds on Sgt Pepper. You'd have to execute this in such a way that it doesn't just sound like you've recorded something normally but badly! ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow"> |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 11:20
Note: this is a stream of consciousness thought on this ...
I think that YES was spending more time with its sound and how to use its instrumentation to be able to fit the individualistic tendencies that their members had ... than Genesis, that in many ways started out way more conventional than YES did in my book. But this is probably not clear, when you listen to YES's first 2 albums ... and then you hear the 3rd album ... that they called "The YES Album" which I think was sort of like saying ... this is the band we found and want! ... which was not as clear in the earlier albums.
Genesis might be tougher, and I am not sure that I have a take on it, other than their predilection for "fantasy" and the "stories" that were a part of a literary tradition in Europe for some time ... that I think Peter and the band thought would make for better music and material ... than just "songs" ... whose meanings were trivial by rock music ideas. And Genesis, unlike YES, became a very "visual band" in its material for a bit, though it slowed down and died after "A Trick of the Tail" for me.
Compare Genesis to Ange, for example, and you will find that Decamps IS an actor with the microphone, and he sings like an actor, very much like Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill and that time and place, but he also speaks and talks during the words, which most singers do nto do, and this caused the music to create more peaks and valleys and define things differently, which Genesis did for a while then dropped in favor of the conventional song format.
YES, for my tastes and ears, and it stops with "Relayer" is about the massive musicianship between the players and the results from it, and sometimes ... SOMETIMES ... I think that it slowed down in order to be able to get back into radio, which would have been a record company thing more than anything else.
As such, as would be the case in "musicianship" examples, it would be much more important and applicable that each instrument sound good, strong and well. For my ears, Genesis, by comparison would not have sounded as strongly if the "ensemble" feel was not there. As opposed to Ange, that does have the same style of recording that YES took on -- but the theatricality in it, sounds even better ... and it was on their very first album ... "ecoute ... ecoute" he whispers!
Jazz music tends to highlight the individual also, as does most classical music.
I just think that in the end, the best there was about recording FINALLY arrived at rock music ... which before the time and place was not considered important or valuable to spend so much money on a recording that had little value for the public ... how times change and the Beatles helped in this area tremendously ... and this was already in place in classical music, with the Red Label and so many special recordings already in place by that time. I sincerely doubt that this was just about "progressive" music ... but it helped augment and display the musicianship as it deserved to.
You got to see that DVD on Tom Dowd ... it has a perspective on RECORDING that is magnificent and really tells the story of music ... specially in America, but I really doubt that this is that different in England. Probably very similar. ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 11:47
^ loathed as I am to dismiss offhand such a vast number of words, I fail to see what any that has to do with production.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 12:09
Of course not. You're God the ominpotent word on progressive music! And your media word is more important! History doesn't exist! Specially in other worlds and words!
   ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 12:31
i'm with you all the way. i can't get through an entire dream theater album, for example. i think it's a combination of things. you'd be surprised how many musicians have no clue about recording. i think the 70s guys were just a product of their time. however, they had memorable melodies. that is what is missing in lots of prog rock these days. along with that, digital recording has a pervasive, yet subtle effect on recordings as do the loudness wars.
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Posted By: irrelevant
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 12:33
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I just hate those cheesy keyboards on modern prog albums.
------------- https://gabebuller.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - New album! http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7385 |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 12:33
However, that does not explain how the few hundred words of your post has anything to do with production.
I'm not being pissy or clever or funny - it's a honest observation - you quoted a post where the twosteves said he thought Eddie Offord did a great production job on the early Yes albums but thought the early Genesis albums (I guess those produced by John Anthony) were not produced so well. Your post gives your feelings and opinions about the content and musicianship of the early albnums by both bands but says nothing about the production of them, the personel who produced them or the studios in which they were produced. Ergo - I fail to see what any that [post] has to do with production.
So any personal comments directed at me, or my media word (whatever the hell that is) or whether history exists or not (I am not the revisionist who is trying to rewrite it here), or a snipe at geography for some inexplicable reason, are deviod of impact or harm. ------------- What? |
Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 13:54
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Without being patronising or in any way reductionist regarding Moshkito's posts, I think part of the so frequent communication meltdowns that occur is to do with PA being an English-only forum. You can have a wonderful grasp of English but never be able to translate your feelings and ideas that stem from cultural, social complexities. I mean, what does the word 'production' mean to two different people of two different ages from two different sides of the Earth?
------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow"> |
Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 14:07
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^ You think? ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Angelo
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 14:21
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That's what dictionaries (not to be confused with online translation services) were invented for, as well as language classes. ------------- http://www.iskcrocks.com" rel="nofollow - ISKC Rock Radio I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 14:24
------------- What? |
Posted By: SMSM
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 14:31
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Techology today has made it so better to create a quality recording from a limited budget.
Nirvana's bleach showed this with a quality sounding recording at a cost of $799, where in the early 1970's it would probably cost 3 times that much and still not have much better than a bootleg quality recording.
Bands with limited budgets today, if they know how to use the technology right, probably produce better sound quality recordings because the technology to produce such quality recordings has decreased in cost
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 16:00
a blessing and a curse. great to have more music, but there's so much more crap to sift through in order to find the gems.
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 16:03
it's gotten a bit better over the years. |
Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 16:05
honest observations. good one.
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Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 17:50
Somewhat better! As a dyed-in-the-wool Mellotron freak, I really enjoyed the rich palette of sounds this instrument brought to so many of our favorite works. Much of this is from the fact that each note on the Mellotron was recorded by a living musician....so, if you played the violin tapes, you heard the bow inflection of numerous artists playing numerous instruments! Same for other strings and woodwinds. It is impossible to re-create this sonic richness with modern digital technology, no matter how good. Modern synth string patches drive me nuts (I have digital samples from a pristine studio Mellotron that I use, so I trigger ancient analog samples with digital means, quite different). Not that modern instrumentation isn't impressive, but the sound of keys on stuff like Dream Theater leave me a bit cold.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 23 2011 at 21:48
| ^^^ So to an extent, it is also about what the band want and not just technology. Some people here don't like stadium rock so much, especially 80s stadium rock, and melodic prog metal bands do seem to have some stadium rock influence. It is probably everything, from the nature of melodies, the synth tones that sounds less appetizing to people with certain kind of tastes and the loud drums add to the fatigue. Metal as such is an unrelenting beast and it works better for me when the music is really mad and wild; melodic metal doesn't appeal all that much to me. |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 24 2011 at 00:34
I hear you! However, sometimes I enjoy more melodic metal (anything with Ronnie James Dio for example). Here's an MP3 from the Polish metal band "Panzerfaust," I find its composition and use of string synth very progressive! However, I don't speak Polish, so I sure hope this isn't a damn NeoNazi song!! I'm not into that scene! Let me know what you think, the song is titled ulice rozpaczy http://panzerfaust1.mp3.wp.pl/?tg=L3Avc3RyZWZhL2FydHlzdGEvMTQ0MzIuaHRtbD9zPSZrb0xpbWl0PTEwJmtvU29ydG93YW5pZT1uYWpzdGFyc3p5JmtvU3RhcnQ9JmtvV2lkb2s9d2NpZWNpYSZrb1Bva2F6PSZrb01vZGVydWo9NTMyMTYy" rel="nofollow - http://panzerfaust1.mp3.wp.pl/?tg=L3Avc3RyZWZhL2FydHlzdGEvMTQ0MzIuaHRtbD9zPSZrb0xpbWl0PTEwJmtvU29ydG93YW5pZT1uYWpzdGFyc3p5JmtvU3RhcnQ9JmtvV2lkb2s9d2NpZWNpYSZrb1Bva2F6PSZrb01vZGVydWo9NTMyMTYy
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 24 2011 at 00:41
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Nice track! I remember this band from a few years back when I was really into metal. Lately, have been sampling the 2011 album of Unexpect and hope to acquire it sometime soon. But I'd already call what I heard of the Unexpect album as metal music for the 21st century - all the madness and pulverising force of 90s extreme metal but without its repetition and limited basket of influences. Yeah, RJD is definitely one of my all time favourite singers! But not all melodic metal works as well not least because very few melodic metal singers can sing like Dio. I love Rainbow and the Dio Sabbath. |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 24 2011 at 01:23
Thanks for your vote of confidence, Roger! I don't consider myself a metal connoisseur by any means, but "I know what I like!" That song sure has some energy! Poor RJD, what a loss! I saw his tour with his own band after Sabbath broke up, it was a great show! Geezer came onstage to jam with the encore, that was the beginning of the "Heaven & Hell" reunion. RIP Ronny! Anyway, Ronnie was a guy who could appreciate a good keyboard part integrated into metal, I miss that. Rock on & Merry Christmas!
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 24 2011 at 08:01
i def prefer vintage over digital any day. the straight synth leads, mellotron, rhodes and organ have definitely improved when it comes to the digital format. as for dream theater, the thing that keeps me coming back to them is the great songs and melodies that i just sing out loud with :) the icing on the cake is when there is a memorable guitar solo or jordan uses some vintage sounding patch.
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Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 24 2011 at 16:55
Don't get me wrong, I really do love Dream Theater! Patrucci is probably the best guitarist alive right now, except for when Fripp decides to turn it on (rarely anymore). Jordan is quite amazing, hands-down one of the best! I've especially enjoyed their cover versions of other songs, and I once saw Patrucci and Howe onstage together, playing Yes tunes. Poor Steve looked very old and lost, compared to Patrucci! That being said, I think their engineering on their CDs is a bit sterile. I'd enjoy hearing Jordan wail on an old Hammond B3 with all of its clankiness, they are remarkably rich instruments! And, I'm not sure that he plays genuine Mellotron samples, those are a lot of fun! Happy Holidays, listen to good music & be joyful!
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Posted By: BrufordFreak
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 10:56
I've always disliked the gaited drums effect brought on (I've heard) by Phil Collins' rise to rock stardom. The return to more open spectrum and duration of the recording of drums has been 'music to my ears.'  Seems a lot of recent bands have attempted some return to "old" sounds in their recordings (Djam Karet, Dungen, Ritual, Diagonal, Algernon, maudlin of the Well, Ciccada, Frogg Café, Samsara Blues Experiment, Wobbler, The Amazing are a few that come to mind). I like it.------------- Drew Fisher https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |
Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 11:08
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Don't get me wrong, I really do love Dream Theater! Patrucci is probably the best guitarist alive right now, except for when Fripp decides to turn it on (rarely anymore). Jordan is quite amazing, hands-down one of the best! I've especially enjoyed their cover versions of other songs, and I once saw Patrucci and Howe onstage together, playing Yes tunes. Poor Steve looked very old and lost, compared to Patrucci! That being said, I think their engineering on their CDs is a bit sterile. I'd enjoy hearing Jordan wail on an old Hammond B3 with all of its clankiness, they are remarkably rich instruments! And, I'm not sure that he plays genuine Mellotron samples, those are a lot of fun! Happy Holidays, listen to good music & be joyful! [/QUOTE]
agree on all points. recent DT albums have had no dynamics at all. just a wall of sound. i do wish there was some space between instruments like you said. also would to hear the bass higher in the mix. jordan on a B3 would be crazy!
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Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 11:09
Def Djam Karet. they even had great drum sounds in the 90s.
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Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 19:42
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The scope of production techniques and production values are a lot broader than the OP's thesis. Yes, in general terms amongst the artists with the most resources, the productions seem to be fairly generic. That is part of why I have so much appreciation for Pain of Salvation's Road Salt albums. They went out of their way to really flatten and dry out the sound. It really allowed the musical equation to be of more importance than the sound. ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow">  https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: zumacraig
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 19:56
so which is it? you say my thesis is flawed then you agree with it in the next sentence. i would say that PoS' output is an example of that samey, 'clinical ' production discussed in this thread. put a PoS release up against 5 other main releases this year and they all sound the same. glad you can hear the differences.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 20:26
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^^^ Given how scattered and fragmented the music scene of today is, that probably only reflects what YOU have personally heard and maybe you have also not heard all that many contemporary/modern albums, I don't know and can't comment on that. I like the way Radiohead and Dave Matthews Band produce their albums, though the latter can raise the level of drums in the mix a tad too much for my liking. I loved the way Josh Brion produced When the Pawn...for Fiona Apple. The Remember Shakti live album is just terrific. Electric Wizard is pretty raw and 'intentionally imperfect' too. These are all, as I am sure you've noticed, from different genres. I don't think your typical DT or SX release reflect contemporary production anymore than Yes or Genesis reflect the sound of 70s prog, which, in truth, is not a whole lot at all. I also think some of us may be getting nostalgic for the sake of scratches and just flat out poor audio reproduction in the old recordings, which was probably unintentional. I am sure given a choice, most bands would want a clear and full sound. In my country, we got to hear clear recordings only in the 90s and we didn't necessarily miss the flaws of the old. I don't think those bands, other than EW, lack in dynamics and especially DMB even has a good deal of looseness and improvisation, so the clinical feeling you talk about is possibly also a compositional and performing choice. There are listeners and musicians today who do want very clinical-sounding albums. But not everybody is not on that bandwagon. |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 20:33
Well, I THOUGHT Auto-Tune had a place in prog! Hell, we INVENTED it! 2:10 in this classic (old age has its advantages, I saw this tour twice, amazing!!) |
Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: December 25 2011 at 21:50
You do not understand the difference between "general terms" and a specific example? I'll give you a hint: the concepts are not "samey". Nonetheless, if you can't hear the production differences between the Road Salt albums and any of the previous PoS albums, then little value will come of further discussion. ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow"> https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 04:02
This one needs explaing (well to me anyway)
Around the 2.10 mark you get the 'robot voice'
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Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 13:23
That is such a brilliant sounding album. Jon Brian is a great producer (his Eternal Sunshine OST is also fantastic). |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 14:37
I think Rush were at their creative best through those albums you mention but production wise i consider those to be adequate and no more. Power Windows leaps out of the speakers like some possessed thing.
BTW I got it wrong about Peter Collins producing IQ's Are You Sitting Comfortably? , I got my Rush producers mixed up and it was in fact Terry Brown. I still like it though
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Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 15:30
Yup, that was the early prototype of today's "Autotune" craze! You hear nearly the exact voice used for Motorola "Droid" smart phone ads. Similar approach....Emerson would speak into the mike mounted above his keyboards, and the software would modulate his voice, add effects & change the pitch automatically. 1974 technology ripped off by 2011 rap artists!! |
Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 16:39
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Vocoder? ^ ------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow"> |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 17:07
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Eh? What!!! "software" in 1974??? No - any hardware that used software would have filled a small room back in 1974. Karn Evil 9 used a Moog Vocoder - a completely electronic analogue device, and as such wasn't even new in 1974 - anyone old enough will remember http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXUR5g-IPlI" rel="nofollow - Sparky's Magic Piano . Autotune is a different device using a different technology, in terms of product development there is no connection between a vocoder and Autotune, one is not the forerunner of the other.
Autotune can be used ot make robot vioces and weird pitch shifts and modulations in a vocal but that isn't its main use, it is designed for pitch correction and used properly most people won't even notice when it is being used. ------------- What? |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 17:39
Don't need Autotune for pitch correction, engineers have corrected off-pitch vocals for years in the studio by modulating the speed of the tape. Madonna was notorious for her off-key studio work, and she required a LOT of tuning help long before Auto-Tune! My point is that, as a vocal enhancer, the AutoTune effects of ring modulator, flanger, and delay were employed by prog long before popular music. Emerson's vocal treatment are essentially similar to AutoTuned effects we hear all the time. Autotune just bundles them into one package. It is standard in Apple's "Garage Band" program. From Wikipedia: "Karn Evil 9" includes vocal credit for Keith Emerson, and is Emerson's
only official vocal credit on an ELP record. The only vocals he
contributed to the song were those of the voice of the mouse in the
Second Impression, which was sped up, and the computer voice in the
Third Impression. Emerson ran his voice through the Ring Modulator on
his Moog Modular to achieve this sound. Autotune just jazzes it up. We did it first, Hollywood just ripped it off. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 18:26
I never said they needed Autotune for pitch correction, I said that was what it was designed for - because modulating tape speed affects the pitch and timing (tempo) whereas Autotune does not - for example with Tammy Winette her singing was so flat they used to record her vocals, pitch correct by altering the tape speed which changed the timing so badly it didn't fit the backing music anymore so they then re-recorded the instrumentation to the new tempo.
But it's not essentially similar at all - the Moog Vocoder and the Ring Modulator produce different effects to Autotune - and we don't hear Autotune effects "all the time" - Autotune is used a lot but it is rarely used to create robotic effects because it's so cliched, even for Pop.
Yes, and no. The technology used in Autotune can also produce those effects because of how the algorhytm works, but it does not work the other way around - a vocoder, ring modulator and/or a flanger cannot be used for pitch-correction - the development of those effects did not lead to Autotune and Autotune was not created to emulate those effects. The main use of Autotune is pitch correction - hence its name.
(Bob Moog produced a vocoder long before Karn Evil #9, Walter Carlos used it in '71 so I assumed Emerson had one (or at least used it) - if he used the Moog's ring modulator instead then I assumed wrong - but that's still unrelated to Autotune.)
However - Prog didn't do it first - not by a long way - the BBC Radiophonic Workshop used ring modulators back in 1963, Hollywood used them before that in The Forbidden Planet (1956) - ring modulators (double-sideband suppressed carrier modulators) go back to the early days of radio in the 1930s, similarly vocoders were originally designed for telephony in the late 30s - there were several other electronic and electro-mechanical devices used to create robotic singing voices before Prog. Prog was no more the first use of vocoders than it was first use of the electric guitar, the mellotron or the synthesiser. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Angelo
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 18:37
A nice lesson in technology history from the geek master.  ------------- http://www.iskcrocks.com" rel="nofollow - ISKC Rock Radio I stopped blogging and reviewing - so won't be handling requests. Promo's for ariplay can be sent to [email protected] |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 19:54
Bishop takes rook, checkmate! Good argument!
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Posted By: CloseToTheMoon
Date Posted: December 26 2011 at 21:36
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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. ------------- It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen. |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: January 01 2012 at 00:24
Happy New Year, Dean and everyone! No, we had software in 1974 & the first portable IBMs came out about then. I went to college with the University of Illinois group that developed the first graphical browser for the earyl internet (very crude network back then), called "Mosaic." It was a cool time, when little gadgets like HP programmable scientific calculators were appearing, and early PCs were being built. Cool times, the UI network guys invented email as a way of posting maintenance messages on the "Plato" network! I knew computer geeks at UI (some of whom went on to get filthy rich) who were playing around with the big campus mainframes to make computer music, those were great days! They also built small synths & sound processors with bits & pieces. When the Timex Sinclair came out, they used those for all sorts of processing tasks, using BASIC language. Herb Schildt, keyboardist with Starcastle, came out of that group and presently writes programming texts. Bright guys! Back to AutoTune - I had the chance to listen to a bit of auto-tune vocal processing tonight on the New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square, New York and still believe that, as a vocal processing tool, it could have a valid part in prog. I understand the studio-magic "making a lousy voice sound better" aspect which is lamentable, but using it to process a perfectly good prog vocalist & do some very interesting modulation would be fun. Using autotune to make robot voices and weird pitch shifts excites me! I'm going to try doing some on my own. The MacBook Pro has that built into Garageband. On another note, I just bought one of these YouRock MIDI controllers & am going to experiment with it, I'll post some tunes when I record something. US $150, nice toy! |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: January 01 2012 at 04:33
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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. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: January 01 2012 at 05:20
Happy New Year Mr C.
Nice try, in 1974 I was working on a Xerox Sigma-8 computer so I know we had software, what I said was any hardware that used software would fill a room back then. The IBM PC was released in 1981, Mosaic in 1991, however you are correct about HP programmable calculators, the first of those was in 1974 (but it wasn't until the HP41C in 1979 did we get the ability to store and save any calculation steps as a "program"). In 1974 vocoders were not software based, they were 100% hardware - sure large mainframe computers in universities were used to create electronic and electroacoustic music and process the human voice, but Keith Emerson didn't use them, neither on stage nor in the studio.
From the early 70s to sometime in the mid 90s was a great time to build your own electronic music hardware - as with the modern attitude to PCs, there was nothing we thought too big or too ambitious to attempt, I've still got a few boards from an analogue synth I started back in 1973 kicking around somewhere in the attic - the only thing that stopped me then was spending 10 weeks wages on the keyboard switches.
The Timex Sinclair came out in the UK in 1981 (you guys got it a year later) - when I bought mine it was my third home computer - I used it to write some music software back then, but not in BASIC, that was far too slow for audio - to make sounds you needed to go to machine code.
[Sinclair BASIC was so slow I remember using FOR x=1 TO 4E4 .... NEXT in the ZX81 to make a loop that appeared to last forever (four e-four) because it took so long to loop 40,000 times in BASIC ... to process sound that loop would need to execute in 1 second]
I've used it to turn my lone male voice into a female choir - but with all these new toys - they're best used in moderation and not whack all the knobs up to max to produce the full-on effects. As I'm more into the electronic (and electronics) side of music I believe every gadget, gimick and innovation has a place in Prog - anything that can produce a sound can be part of the sound palette.
 - 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.------------- What? |
Posted By: cstack3
Date Posted: January 01 2012 at 20:46
Dean, I wish we could meet!! I think the sparks would fly! You are correct that the formal Mosaic browser was issued in the early 90's, but work on the technology was apace in the '70s. My buddy Len Kawell was part of the Ray Ozzie group (1973-77) working with the Plato network, and Len basically invented the software that became IBM Lotus Notes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Kawell" rel="nofollow - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Kawell I presently teach at the University of Illinois and they lament how they gave the Mosaic browser away for next to nothing! It's hilarious to hear that used over & over as an example of how they shouldn't let patents get away! This is my last issued patent, if you can understand it, please let me know! (sorry, no musical applications just yet) http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6845336.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6845336.html I need to pick your brains on the vocal chorus! For years, I've wanted to use a vocal harmonizer so that I could become a one-man Yes! Alas, I haven't found the equipment that I wanted to invest in and figured I could do it with software. Happy New Year, my friend!
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: January 01 2012 at 21:51
That was one bit of history I wasn't aware of, while I was aware of networked mainframes in the UK during the early 70s any comms was still being done by Teletype at 110 baud (or by sending bundles of punched card by post as that was generally faster and more reliable than the UK telephone system
)Back in the 80s I worked on systems that were controlled by VAX minicomputers, so while i've never heard of Len Kawell before, I have used his VMS operating system (and Lotus Notes/CCMail for a short while).
(can anyone understand US patents?
) It's not my field of expertise so would have to spend quite some time understanding it - also, I should point out that I'm an electronics engineer first and a programmer second, so on a cursory glance I can't tell what is invention and what is system design in this case.
I did it manually one vocal track at a time until I had the number of voices I thought sounded right. Because I was pitch-shifting to make my voice sound female, I could cheat a little on the harmonies by additionally shifting a copy of the shifted root by a further third (for example). ------------- What? |
Posted By: sturoc
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 00:32
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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. |
Posted By: Smurph
Date Posted: May 03 2012 at 08:03
MOSE GIGANTICUS ... hells yes. Also CYNIC.
Personally, I prefer the opposite of what most prog fans prefer. I like crisp, super compressed, too slick for its own good production. I mean, could you IMAGINE hearing Bedlam in Goliath with 70's production. You wouldn't be able to pick out all the weird keyboard parts that lie quietly underneath everything.
The only production I really don't like is all the death metal production from mid 80's until Symbolic.
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Posted By: Howard the Duck
Date Posted: May 04 2012 at 08:51
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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. ------------- MacGyver can do a super guitar solo with a broom and an elastic band. Can you do better? |
Posted By: prog4evr
Date Posted: May 12 2012 at 21:30
| Give the live "Meet the Flower Kings" (2003) a listen. Recorded in a smaller venue, I believe it has the best of "live room" sound with the digitalized dampening that gives a dryer, hence more listenable, sound. Don't know if you even like FK, but this live album / DVD set is worth a try... |
Posted By: Big Ears
Date Posted: July 03 2012 at 02:42
| I like the sharp and clean modern production, I just cannot get into the music. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: July 03 2012 at 02:48
------------- What? |