70's sound and interpretation compared to today

Rabid wrote: mono wrote: Rabid wrote:   Thats the crux of it.......nobody NEEDS to take risks anymore. Digital recording simplifies the whole process. Bring back analog studios, I say. Tape rules !!!   ps : Also.....I really miss the sound of the tape whizzing backwards at high speed !!     If this is not nostalgia, I don't know what is. PS: analog studios still exist... everywhere.   Yeah, it's nostalgia. Am I not entitled to my opinion?

Rabid wrote: mono wrote: Rabid wrote:   Thats the crux of it.......nobody NEEDS to take risks anymore. Digital recording simplifies the whole process. Bring back analog studios, I say. Tape rules !!!   ps : Also.....I really miss the sound of the tape whizzing backwards at high speed !!     If this is not nostalgia, I don't know what is. PS: analog studios still exist... everywhere.   Yeah, it's nostalgia. Am I not entitled to my opinion?   PS: There is'nt one in my road.......so I guess they're not everywhere, are they?   BTW, you still have'nt answered my question.

You are entitled to your opinion, it's just that someone said : "stop saying it's all nostalgia", and I wanted to make a point.
There isn't a bakery in my road, I guess those aren't everywhere either.
I thought I already answered the question, but here's a clearer form:

Rabid wrote: Ok, you've said that a perfect drummer could play like a robot if he wanted to. Agreed?   So.....assuming he wanted to.....and made a completely flawless performance.....   would the performance sound sterile, due to the lack of imperfection?   If not, why not ?

If sterile means "lacking human feel", then YES. But fortunately, such a drummer does not exist!
Still, a drummer can sound sterile without even trying to play flawlessly.

If a drummer played exactly like a drum machine that sounds sterile, he will sound sterile mathematically yes. But that is like saying: "if 1+1 = 2, then "2 - 1 = 1".
And you still have to define "sterile", as it is quite a subjective description apparently.

Do you think Gavin Harrison's playing is sterile? I find it 'perfect' on many many PT tracks, because perfect is certainly not "machine-like", it's a perfect execution of an idea, a style, a groove. And those are all far from being sterile, because these are personnal features. Just like the composition itself.

I am not saying the only difference between then and now is nostalgia.
I'm saying that, the influence of labels/producers/media/money left aside, and considering the artist has the freedom to make the music he wants in the conditions he chooses (reasonably), he doesn't lose ANYTHING compared to the 70's.

I am not saying that we necessarly have a better sound today, I'm saying that we still have the opporunity, if we wanted to, to create 70's conditions and even better ones.

The 70s sound is indeed great. I enjoy many different sounds, but I don't listen to music past 1990, really, except old bands. I also enjoy the 80s production values and sound, if for a change, but also because I think it is interesting to have such a deep involvement alternately with slickness, electronic sound and atmosphere, along with the instruments and styles used. 60s production is interesting in that it is quite flawed, most interesting about it is when it was actually used to enhance the music's mind bending aspirations, i.e. late 60s. You couldn't have got away with all those cheap tape cut and pastes and silly reverbs in the 70s.

I also find Jeff Lynne's sound/style (as producer) to be very interesting in the early 90s? It is perfectionist, but warm. For instance on Tom Petty's Into The Great Wide Open, Del Shannon's Rock On, Roy Orbisons King of Hearts, etc.


Edited by RoyFairbank - August 27 2010 at 10:57

There is something in the quality of the 6O's, 7O's bands that may be unattainable to this next generation of bands.   Music now has a very strong visual element.  The older music had only an album-cover and the listener's imagination; much the same (or maybe exactly the same) as old radio programs relied on the listener's imagination to construct an inner picture.  

Anaon wrote: richardh wrote: My argument was that nostalgia for a bygone era was overtaking an objective view of what is 'sterile' or not? I can name 3 massive prog albums made in the seventies that sound sterile to me: ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon Genesis - Selling England By The Pound   I'm really curious to know why you find Dark Side Of The Moon sounding sterile, can you explain? Thanks

Always found it one dimensional,flat and lacking any real oomph or warmth for that matter. I can just about get some enjoyment out of it by turning up the volume as loud as my ears can take it. Don't get me wrong I do love most of the songs and in general I like Floyd.However I listen to Wish You Were Here and wonder why DSOTM is so lacking by comparison.Just an opinion of course.

Love the raw sound of vinyl,
Two groups comes to my mind specially:
Creedence y Led Zep.
Love the sound of the needle when the song thats about to start is "Friends"

richardh wrote: Anaon wrote: richardh wrote: My argument was that nostalgia for a bygone era was overtaking an objective view of what is 'sterile' or not? I can name 3 massive prog albums made in the seventies that sound sterile to me: ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon Genesis - Selling England By The Pound   I'm really curious to know why you find Dark Side Of The Moon sounding sterile, can you explain? Thanks Always found it one dimensional,flat and lacking any real oomph or warmth for that matter. I can just about get some enjoyment out of it by turning up the volume as loud as my ears can take it. Don't get me wrong I do love most of the songs and in general I like Floyd.However I listen to Wish You Were Here and wonder why DSOTM is so lacking by comparison.Just an opinion of course.

Sure, only opinion ;) I was asking because Dark Side Of The Moon is considered by many people as a very good example of 70's production model, thanks  to Alan Parsons work for example. I do prefer Wish You Were Here in terms of songs, but Dark Side Of The Moon can be considered as a reference in terms of sound.

richardh wrote: Always found it one dimensional,flat and lacking any real oomph or warmth for that matter. I can just about get some enjoyment out of it by turning up the volume as loud as my ears can take it. Don't get me wrong I do love most of the songs and in general I like Floyd.However I listen to Wish You Were Here and wonder why DSOTM is so lacking by comparison.Just an opinion of course.

DSotM and WYWH are polar opposites in emotional content and I think that showing through in the respective "production" is not entirely accidental. Those famous opening three notes of Shine On are plaintive, longing notes (played with robotic perfection, but with emotion and feeling) that set the tone of the album and encompasses the feeling of loss and separation and the warmth reflects that personal connection between the band and Syd Barrett. DSotM reflects a different set of human emotions, (all be it equally melancholic), again with the opening notes (of Breathe) setting the tone of the album emotionally and reflects the distance between the band and what they are writting about.

richardh wrote: My argument was that nostalgia for a bygone era was overtaking an objective view of what is 'sterile' or not? I can name 3 massive prog albums made in the seventies that sound sterile to me: ELP - Pictures At An Exhibition Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon Genesis - Selling England By The Pound   I'm not arguing whether they have great songs or music or playing. Just a sound that is a bit lifeless to my ears. In ELP's case I'll take the 1970 Lyceum rough and ready mono version of Pictures anyday over the 1971 Newcastle City Hall /Eddie Offord produced stereo version . Both were recorded within about 3 months of each other. As for an example of a modern recording then to me Absolution by Muse has more life than any of the those put together.

Dean wrote: The frustration of a musician in the studio and the desire to do take after take is not always because they are striving for note-perfection, but in imbibing the piece with the emotion he feels when he hears the piece in his head so what comes out of the studio monitor sounds the same to him. It's similar to how your spoken voice sounds to you "in your head" to how it sounds on a recording. Tweaking notes and adding overdubs in ProTools is a compromise that still fails to reach the "perfection" the artist is looking for.