70's sound and interpretation compared to today

rogerthat wrote: Rabid wrote:   ie: if a drummer played with comparable precision to a drum machine and made no human error, would it not just sound like a drum-machine?     But a drum machine would sound robotic. A drummer playing precisely MAY sound robotic but he need not.  Compare the drums on Aja and Gaucho (where drum machines were used).  It is important to stress here that the problem is not with not making any mistakes at all but with ensuring that there are no mistakes at all at the expense of expression.

Your last sentence is key in this discussion, I think.

mono wrote:  An easy way to make a drum machine sound human is.... to make it "flawed" (flam, humanizer...).

Most modern music software include functionalities precisely for this, to "humanize", they include tiny random fluctuations in the tempo, pitch, etc so that it does not sound so mechanical. But even though, in most cases you can tell the difference.

Edited by Gerinski - August 20 2010 at 12:46

BaldFriede wrote: mono wrote: Flaws are far from being what distinguishes a '70's sound' from a modern one in my opinion. There is a large quantity of musicians who can play flawlessly with their limited studio time. Would they sound sterile? I don't think so. Also, where would the limit be between 'human' and 'flawed'? When do the flaws begin to have a negative influence on the music? I think most of the difference is technological and cultural!!! composition has changed, along with the styles, genre mutations, and the equipment is totally different. There are many bands today that achieve a 70's sound with 'unlimited' studio time.... Plus, in the end, the artist has the decision now! If he wants to have the album sound in some flawless or flawed manner, he will make it that way. In the 70's, the choice wasn't really given. And I think prog artists are aware that they can reproduce 70's "conditions" today. If they choose not to, it means they want something different, something more. I think you can't really make a statement such as "70's music sounds more human, so it sounds better", because this "70's sound" is still reprodceable today, with no penalty for the artist! (it's not like the artist choses to only make vynils and no digital format for example...) If you think that you know better, well... you're either subjective (nothing wrong with that) or pretentious (difficult to say there is something wrong with that either on a prog forum  ) It is the questton what you define as "flaw". The real problem is that music is a communication. If every musician records his track or tracks separately this communication is gone. Hence I definitely prefer it when all musicians play at the same time instead of recording each track separately. The more "live" a studio recording is the better. Of course the 70s sound can be reprocessed; you just have to record the same way. And I don't even necessarily mean use analog equipment. Spontaneity is an important part of music. But spontaneity is risky, and hardly anyone takes risks anymore.

Edited by Rabid - August 20 2010 at 17:48

Rabid wrote: I'm talking about a human drummer playing with such precision and flawlessness to match a drum machine. If a perfect drummer was able to re-create a robotic rythym and make no errors at all, would he not sound like a robot? Logic, no?

But I see that as more of a theoretical possibility (however, if you can show some examples of this, that would be very interesting).  A human drummer is bound to hit the odd fill at least ever-so-slightly differently than the others.  It might sound robotic compared to some other human drummer playing a less robotic rhythm but it would likely not sound as robotic as programmed drum tracks. 

 I think you also need to elaborate what exactly you are looking for here. You mention robotic first, then talk about flawless.  See, a perfect, flawless performance of music would never be robotic.  It would necessarily have expression, dynamics, nuance, these three things go hand in hand to a large extent.  I disagree with any suggestion, not that anyone has said as much, that a merely technically flawless performance is musically perfect. Take Collins's performance on the second half of Cinema Show.  There's so much expression in his performance, so many subtle shifts in his attack. I would be really interested (and blown away, to be honest ) if there are drum machines that can capture THAT.  You can certainly reproduce his performance in terms of pattern, time sigs and tempo with programmed tracks but is that really the same thing?  Absolutely not.   

Yep....I do actually agree with popular opinion, here.....the 'happy accident' can impart humanity into a piece of music, but I don't agree that human flaws can be the SOLE reason.....sometimes mechanical imperfection can add to warmth, too....ie a slight overload on a guitar solo can 'kick' a note into space and really make you go WOWWWWWWWW, but digital recording has mostly killed that off. Digital overload just wrecks a piece of sound.....ugly, ughhh.

rogerthat wrote:     because music is about expression and not precision.

mono wrote: BaldFriede wrote: It is the questton what you define as "flaw". The real problem is that music is a communication. If every musician records his track or tracks separately this communication is gone. ....euuuh, no. not necessarly. Plus, it's not like noone recorded track-by-track in the 70's! Most groups actually did. BaldFriede wrote: Hence I definitely prefer it when all musicians play at the same time instead of recording each track separately. The more "live" a studio recording is the better. In other words, you like live recordings... lots of people do, this is why live recordings are (sometimes) released as CDs! I also believe the ratio of bands that KNOW how to perform live hasn't changed much since the '70's... BaldFriede wrote: Of course the 70s sound can be reprocessed; you just have to record the same way. And I don't even necessarily mean use analog equipment. Spontaneity is an important part of music. But spontaneity is risky, and hardly anyone takes risks anymore. This is more interesting, but I still disagree. Improvisation is still as practiced as ever. So spontaneity is there. When you get to the recording phase, you generally know EXACTLY what you are going to play, so not much left for spontaneity anyways. And this didn't just disappear!!! We now can take MUCH MORE "RISK" as you say during recording, because time is almost unlimited (for the bigger record houses) and we can store much more data than before. I have to agree with richardh on this one, there is a smell of naive nostalgia in this thread.

ahem. I don't quite follow you. time reduces risks

BaldJean wrote: ahem. I don't quite follow you. time reduces risks

Maybe "risk" wasn't adapted here, but your statement is still quite simplistic.
If you have more time, you can take more chances (maybe that word is better). Example: if you have 3 months for your recording instead of 1, you can afford to spend 2 weeks experimenting let's say a new recording technique for the drums...

Producers, engineers and labels have a share in the debasement that tends to make modern sounds so sterile, not just robo-bands.

WalterDigsTunes wrote: Producers, engineers and labels have a share in the debasement that tends to make modern sounds so sterile, not just robo-bands.