Is our sound over-processed?

[flyfisher]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1323013730' post='1458264']
However there is no such thing as a flat amp or speaker no matter how much their manufacturers want to convince us otherwise.

"Good" studio and hifi equipment tends to colour the sound in a way that most people find pleasing. However this is completely subjective which is why there are so many different manufacturers of hifi and studio equipment all claiming that theirs has the flattest distortion-free circuit.

IMO if it was possible to build a completely flat amplification system most of us would find the sound produced dull and bland. It's those "good" distortions that make our music sound pleasing.
[/quote]

Exactly. I remember the hi-fi industry advertising systems with a "British" sound, which always made me laugh in much the same way as having bass, treble and other eq controls.

The previous point about 'processing' starting with the decision to play with fingers or a pick is also highly valid - that factor alone can make a huge difference to the overall sound.

But we all know that some people claim to have 'golden ears' and can hear the difference between brass and steel screws in their bridge, which provides a good living for many audio businesses.

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1323013730' post='1458264']
IMO if it was possible to build a completely flat amplification system most of us would find the sound produced dull and bland. It's those "good" distortions that make our music sound pleasing.
[/quote]

Pprobably true, but the distortion through decent studio reference equipment or even good hifi gear is a lot lower than what you get through a sansamp etc. You'd be fairly disappointed in your hifi if reproduced speech sounded no less coloured than through a Trace Elliot combo

[Chris2112]

I don't agree that our sound, as bassists, is too over-processed. In most music, the bass tone is a complete afterthought which is often why it sounds piss poor.

Mind you, I do like hearing my basses as opposed to an EQ or an amp. I tend to leave my amp set flat and my bass EQ set flat. If I need to adjust the EQ for compensate for a particular room or venue, I will, but only making minor adjustments. I am not one to go for layers of effects or distortion, just a nice bass tone.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1323013730' post='1458264']

IMO if it was possible to build a completely flat amplification system most of us would find the sound produced dull and bland. It's those "good" distortions that make our music sound pleasing.
[/quote]

Hooray, thanks for understanding! Listen to my example, 'Tighten Up'. Dull and bland. Of course, not completely flat etc, no-one is suggesting its possible, but sounds like an unamplified bass with flat strings.

[51m0n]

Strange this, the very best monitors are the flattest. Its the holy grail for sound engineers (well actually the flattest that work in the room).

Now most people will talk about monitors therefore sounding bland and what have you. IME that is nonsense, care to take a guess at what they have in Abbey Road? B&W 800 series. These aren't even supposed to be monitors, but rather they very best hifi speakers you can buy (short of their Nautilus range).



Probably at least as popular is the PMC range of massive transmission line monitors, now these are put forward as ultra accurate and are used by a very large number of mastering suites and mixing houses alike:-



Now I guarantee that anyone here hearing their favourite music played back on systems with this quality of speaker would say the result was anything but bland. Its startling in that it will show up any flaw in the production. Its is unflattering in that regard, but the fact is it is the best possible representation of the music (or right up there with the best possible).

Why did I draw attention to my sig earlier?

Becaus every single thing you hear is not 'the truth' as in unprocessed, untouched, pure. It is all processed, by the amps, the tone controls the fx, the mic, the preamp, the recording medium.

In the last 50 years no music has been released without colouration of any kind. All music that is played live that involves any kind of amplification is processed.

It is, in fact, all a lie.

The point is, that doesnt matter at all. If the end result conveys the emotion that the artist is attempting to convey then its all win. No amount of processing is too much, if you like it that way, and its a bonus if some other people do to.

Where I personally think things have gone wrong in the last 15 years is the overreliance on brick wall limiting to increase the RMS compared to the peak level. Everything sounds louder, but has less impact and is more tiring, and less musical as a result. And who drives this? Record company execs who are afraid to be quieter than the competition, bands who dont know better, you cant blame the mastering engineers, they are paid to do a job for a client, the client demands the ludest thing ever, and the result is a track with no life, no punch, that is useless to listen to anywhere but in a car.

Edited December 4, 2011 by 51m0n

[4 Strings]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1323040453' post='1458677']
Strange this, the very best monitors are the flattest. Its the holy grail for sound engineers (well actually the flattest that work in the room).

Now most people will talk about monitors therefore sounding bland and what have you. IME that is nonsense, care to take a guess at what they have in Abbey Road? B&W 800 series. These aren't even supposed to be monitors, but rather they very best hifi speakers you can buy (short of their Nautilus range).



Probably at least as popular is the PMC range of massive transmission line monitors, now these are put forward as ultra accurate and are used by a very large number of mastering suites and mixing houses alike:-



Now I guarantee that anyone here hearing their favourite music played back on systems with this quality of speaker would say the result was anything but bland. Its startling in that it will show up any flaw in the production. Its is unflattering in that regard, but the fact is it is the best possible representation of the music (or right up there with the best possible).

Why did I draw attention to my sig earlier?

Becaus every single thing you hear is not 'the truth' as in unprocessed, untouched, pure. It is all processed, by the amps, the tone controls the fx, the mic, the preamp, the recording medium.

In the last 50 years no music has been released without colouration of any kind. All music that is played live that involves any kind of amplification is processed.

It is, in fact, all a lie.

The point is, that doesnt matter at all. If the end result conveys the emotion that the artist is attempting to convey then its all win. No amount of processing is too much, if you like it that way, and its a bonus if some other people do to.

Where I personally think things have gone wrong in the last 15 years is the overreliance on brick wall limiting to increase the RMS compared to the peak level. Everything sounds louder, but has less impact and is more tiring, and less musical as a result. And who drives this? Record company execs who are afraid to be quieter than the competition, bands who dont know better, you cant blame the mastering engineers, they are paid to do a job for a client, the client demands the ludest thing ever, and the result is a track with no life, no punch, that is useless to listen to anywhere but in a car.
[/quote]


Yes, all this about lies is true.

Are you saying that you dislike the brick wall limiting because it flatters the track, sounds less like the original performance and is less good in those respects than if the limiting had been used more sparingly?

[51m0n]

No. It doesnt flatter the track at all, it merely makes it appear louder, but at the expense of transient power, punch, and dynamics. If you play a hard limited track on a system, and a/b it against the un limited original, but add the volume to make up for the processing, the unlimited track sounds better. Every time. But it isnt as loud when compared to the limited track if you dotn turn up the volume knob.

I couldnt care less about the original performance, as I said there is virtually no such thing anyway on modern recordings, the amount of correctional work done at mixdown is unreal, groove is fixed, if not invented, pitch is corrected, transients are demolished or magiced out of mush, all of which is fine since all I care about is that the final production does the song justice, and crushing the life out of a track to less than 5dB of dynamic range as a part of the mastering process just destroys the musicality and power.

IMO....

Edited December 5, 2011 by 51m0n

[LawrenceH]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1323046449' post='1458746']
crushing the life out of a track to less than 5dB of dynamic range as a part of the mastering process just destroys the musicality and power.
[/quote]

I agree with all this and was trying to make a similar point...but also it's worth recognising that the process is reflexive ie people including musicians will adapt and respond to these trends in (bad) mastering which has additional impact. Getting their instrument heard in a mix that's been thrashed to within an inch of its life [i]or, playing in bands that are consciously or unconsciously emulating that 'fashionable' sound[/i] is a challenge that deliberately introducing additional harmonic distortion helps them to meet. Of course, this then makes the overall mix even more busy and fatiguing and it becomes like an arms race, getting even more difficult to give each instrument its own space in the mix.
Also, I absolutely don't buy the argument that flat, accurate monitors are undesirable for real hifi. I think that's a myth, built partly on misunderstanding arising from incomplete measurement information for certain 'flat' speakers. Except, if material is mixed to sound good on ipod headphones or cheap consumer docking stations then it probably isn't going to sound that great on speakers actually capable of reproducing real detail.

[Beer of the Bass]

What sort of date would people say the whole mastering "loudness war" kicked in?
Yesterday we had music TV channels on for an hour or so, and the difference in mastering style between newer stuff and 90s or older stuff was striking. All of the recent stuff was constantly loud and shiny and in-your-face in quite a wearing way.
I view added harmonic distortion on bass as a separate issue from that, as I hear lightly driven bass sounds going back much further than the last couple of years, on records which have a lot of dynamic range. Most 70s prog is an example!
I realise that a "natural sounding" recording is pretty much an impossibility and not particularly desirable anyway. Frank Zappa pointed out in an interview that since multitrack recording and close-micing came in, all recordings are an illusion, as there is no one place in the room you could put your head to hear the combination of sounds that end up on the recording.

[thumperbob 2002]

I remember the srory about Lennon and McCarney speaking to George Martin about why couldnt they sound as loud as a Motown record.....

[JTUK]

Nobody in their right mind would prefer the sound you could achieve in the 60's over the sounds you can get now. IMO.

If you listen to the Beatles or anyone of the day, they had usable sounds, but not good ones.
I am not saying that those sounds don't have a use today..and indeed the vintage vibe is much sought after...but no one wants to
have to contend with the technology..and to a lesser degree the basses and the way they were set up, to get it.

IMO.

.

[51m0n]

[quote name='Beer of the Bass' timestamp='1323073081' post='1458804']
What sort of date would people say the whole mastering "loudness war" kicked in?
Yesterday we had music TV channels on for an hour or so, and the difference in mastering style between newer stuff and 90s or older stuff was striking. All of the recent stuff was constantly loud and shiny and in-your-face in quite a wearing way.
I view added harmonic distortion on bass as a separate issue from that, as I hear lightly driven bass sounds going back much further than the last couple of years, on records which have a lot of dynamic range. Most 70s prog is an example!
I realise that a "natural sounding" recording is pretty much an impossibility and not particularly desirable anyway. Frank Zappa pointed out in an interview that since multitrack recording and close-micing came in, all recordings are an illusion, as there is no one place in the room you could put your head to hear the combination of sounds that end up on the recording.
[/quote]

Well I've seen a pdf of a typed memo regarding the issues with Beatles mixes and masters and trying to get as loud as their 7" singles were, from back in about '65, so its been going on forever.

However with digital limiting techniques and even the use of deliberate digital clipping in order to push average gain higher it is getting so bad now that great music is being ruined. And I dont give a damn how many peoiple are used to the sound, it doesnt make it good!

[4 Strings]

I absolutely agree with all this, its one of my bugbears, but the whole compression and mastering thing is another (hugely interesting) thread though as I'm talking about bass sounds, initially from our rigs even though your comments are making the same point as me but in a slightly different area (ie mastering as opposed to original bass guitar sound).

To use an analogous example; in the US their govt tried to get school lunches to include more fruit and veg but after the lobbying of large food makers have conceded that frozen pizza is a vegetable. If we cast the morals (and bemused smirk!) etc aside for a sec, a commentator noted that:
[i]"Research shows that a constant diet of sugary, salty and fatty products adjusts the taste preferences to the point where simple, real foods taste bland and unappealing, ensuring people keep eating junk."[/i]

We have all been saying that taking off the sugar and salt of the sound processing, real bass guitar sound is bland and unappealing. We can also say 'well I don't care so long as I like it' etc but aren't fresh veg and meat a refreshing change from McD? (I know, we all put on a bit of salt and pepper but you get my drift.)

While the argument applies to mastering and all the other areas people have raised (and now food and, I'm sure, lots of other areas in life) I discovered that I had unconsciously been programmed to be impressed by a sound that has been processed to sound impressive but not like my bass guitar. I need the sugar and salt.

Edited December 5, 2011 by 4 Strings

[51m0n]

Define 'real bass guitar sound' for me....

[BigRedX]

If you don't like the sound of your double bass there's not a lot you can do other than to try some different instruments and see if they sound better to you.

The beauty of electric instruments is because there is this interface of electrical signals between the sound of the plucked string and the sound that comes out of the speakers which gives us so many options to fine tune the final sound. Also because every component in the signal path makes changes to the signal there is no such thing as an unprocessed sound even with the simplest of signal paths.

I can't help but feel that the OP is on a lone quest for some unattainable nirvana of sonic purity while the rest of us have embraced and are revelling in the distortions that occur in the signal path and are wondering exactly what the problem is.

[51m0n]

Well not entirely, you can try different strings, playing techniques (get lessons), different action, rooms, acoustic treatments, mic placement, mics, preamps, pickups, blends of mic/pickup, recording medium, post tracking fx (eq, comp, reverbs etc), masteringg chains etc etc etc.

It all applies equally to db as electric.

As soon as you introduce recording the medium and transducers that we have available to us mean that we have to make compromises in order to achieve the result we want, and by that token it is all a lie, a very beautifully crafted and ingenious lie, but a lie nonetheless.

Edited December 5, 2011 by 51m0n

[51m0n]

At what point in the history of the bass guitar do you see a period where the instrument was 'pure'?

I find this very interesting, since to my mind historical recordings of bass a far from pure, they have massive distortion of the signal in them .

The amps were overdriving like crazy (no where near enough power to handle the output asked of them without overdriving), the Motown studio 1 tube DIs were regularly overdriven quite deliberatley for instance, as were the console channels (all tube desks in there, sounded lovely, but not at all clean).

At the SW mini bash the other weekend we had the pleasure of hearing a full on immaculate vintage Acoustic 360 rig with the 18" speaker cab, now that was massively loud, but also immensely distorted, it produced nothing to speak of over 1KHz, even though the bass in question did, and the amp was not even being pushed. Not my favourite kind of sound at all, but very popular in its day, since at least you could hear some bass with this rig. We went on to listen to an Ampeg from that era (dreadful), a Trace v4 into a Mesa 2x15 (nice warm but clear), some modern Ampeg (awful), some Markbass -> Barefaced (wow), Markbass -> Bergantino (my favourite still), Hartke -> Bergantino (damn fine), Eden (very very clean with GB basses, totally not with a P bass).

Every single rig sounded different, and I tell you what if we had an ultra clean DI, and some humungous mastering suite rig with big monobloc amps and PCM monster monitors, that would have sounded completely different again, and would be arguably the least coloured of the lot.

So what is your idea of pure bass, and when did you think it was not 'overprocessed'?

[flyfisher]

[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1323075191' post='1458824']
If you listen to the Beatles or anyone of the day, they had usable sounds, but not good ones.
[/quote]

That's an interesting point and would suggest that The Beatles were so successful and influential because of their music rather than their sound - another indicator of the futility of this sort of debate. After all, we're supposed to be in the music/entertainment business not a science lab.

Which brings to mind the story about Dave Davies (Kinks) shredding his speaker cone with a razor blade (or a knitting needle, depending on which of the Davies brothers you believe) to get his 'tone' - a novel form of 'over-processing'?

Surely it's all about the music, the feel, the emotion?

Edited December 5, 2011 by flyfisher

[jackers]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1323076028' post='1458831']
However with digital limiting techniques and even the use of deliberate digital clipping in order to push average gain higher it is getting so bad now that great music is being ruined. And I dont give a damn how many peoiple are used to the sound, it doesnt make it good!
[/quote]

and this is why death magnetic sounds like a large pile of poo.........every single instrument clips and distorts, so there are no dynamics and the album is way too loud compared to the rest of my music collection

[EdwardHimself]

[quote name='jackers' timestamp='1323083747' post='1458944'] and this is why death magnetic sounds like a large pile of poo.........every single instrument clips and distorts, so there are no dynamics and the album is way too loud compared to the rest of my music collection [/quote]

+1. What is even WORSE to me is that RR did the same bloody thing with the Californication album! I mean, what kind of nutcase thinks that album would sound fantastic if the volume was ramped up to 12? I know he's got a lot of experience but I think he honestly must have some sort of fulfilment issues where he is unable to be satisfied by any amount of limiting compression in his mixes.

Edited December 5, 2011 by EdwardHimself

[51m0n]

[quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1323084120' post='1458954']
+1. What is even WORSE to me is that RR did the same bloody thing with the Californication album! I mean, what kind of nutcase thinks that album would sound fantastic if the volume was ramped up to 12? I know he's got a lot of experience but I think he honestly must have some sort of fulfilment issues where he is unable to be satisfied by any amount of limiting compression in his mixes.
[/quote]

You may be confusing the mix engineer and producer with the record company driven mastering engineer. Its nto clear to me (yet) that RR actually pushed that level up or not.

[url="http://web.me.com/petercho.blw/Vlado_Meller/Vlado_Meller.html"]Vlado Meller[/url] mastered Californication (and Stadium Arcadium), and was probably driven down the uber loud route by various suited f***wits that have no idea what makes a master sound good.

Rather amusingly the shot of his studio..

...shows some of those massive PMC monitors in the background so he must have heard every tiny detail of the damage that was being done....

Edited December 5, 2011 by 51m0n

[EdwardHimself]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1323084878' post='1458965']
You may be confusing the mix engineer and producer with the record company driven mastering engineer. Its nto clear to me (yet) that RR actually pushed that level up or not.

[url="http://web.me.com/petercho.blw/Vlado_Meller/Vlado_Meller.html"]Vlado Meller[/url] mastered Californication (and Stadium Arcadium), and was probably driven down the uber loud route by various suited f***wits that have no idea what makes a master sound good.

Rather amusingly the shot of his studio..

...shows some of those massive PMC monitors in the background so he must have heard every tiny detail of the damage that was being done....
[/quote]

You're probably right. I suppose it's easy to blame the man who's name is on the CD. It does seem like a big coincidence to me though...

[51m0n]

Oh I know, RR is in the enviable position of being involved in some of the highest profile albums of the last 30 years.

Along with that is the rather unfortunate fact that that kind of high profile stuff attracts immense 'interest' from the execs putting up the cash, and I would like to think that RR is not resposible for the final product.

The vinyl mastering has been far better than the CD mastering on the recent RHCP albums by all accounts, which is just stupid....

[4 Strings]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1323080519' post='1458881']

I can't help but feel that the OP is on a lone quest for some unattainable nirvana of sonic purity while the rest of us have embraced and are revelling in the distortions that occur in the signal path and are wondering exactly what the problem is.
[/quote]

Not at all, just discussing a discovery that the natural sound of a bass guitar is now largely regarded as unpalatable and suggesting this is a result of flattery from sound processing to which I, at least, have become used to.

[4 Strings]

[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1323081477' post='1458903']

So what is your idea of pure bass, and when did you think it was not 'overprocessed'?
[/quote]

Already used examples, here's one again, try the intro to 'Tighten Up' Archie and the Drells for a natural sound of flat strings.

I would also repeat that no-one has ever suggested a 'pure sound' has ever been recorded and reproduced nor even desired, there's no extremes in this argument at all so no point going to them, just a direction. Think of the food analogy and some seasoning (which you can also taste) on a fresh pork chop compared to a McD (about which someone once said the TWO slices of gherkin is to prevent it being classified as a sweet).