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In the End It Really Is About The Recording Isn't It?

M

Mister Pig

Pigamus Maximus
A couple of years ago a family member gave me a burnt disc of a band called Tricky Pixie. This was their first release under this band name, album is Mythcreants. I have listened to this disc a ton, and really enjoyed the music, and always thought it was well recorded. But I had lost track of it since its not in a normal CD case with cover art, and therefore not filed in my library. But I found it the other day....

Now I never listened to it on this Pass DIY amp and pre I bought this year, and I wanted to give it a spin as I enjoy this music. While it sounded great before, this time around it is outstanding!! As good as anything I have heard on my system, and a ton better then a lot of other stuff. Now I like modern folk music, and I tend to buy discs from bands and artists at our local festival. In general I find I get excellent music and recordings this way. It seems that these small bands probably record their music in a semi live take...with all the band playing instead of some kind of multi track arrangement as a commercial recording can be. There is just a liveness and immediacy to the sound that so many other recordings don't get. I don't know the particulars of how this disc is recoded, but I can't argue with the end results. There are some studio tricks mixed in, like rain in the background and a few animal sounds, but even those blend in seamlessly.

It just goes to reinforce all that we think in terms of recording quality. You can have the finest gear in the world, but if the source material sounds like a cat and a chicken stuffed in a burlap bag the stereo is going to suck(no cats or chickens were harmed during this post). As much as I like classic rock and roll that I grew up with, I cannot think of a Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith recording that would ever approach this disc in terms of sound quality. Now the funny thing is "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" by AC/DC seems to be pretty well recorded, and I can appreciate what is done with it. So go figure. And that probably is a slick multi track recording, and it sounds good.....so there are no absolutes it seems...even in this subject.

So if you like folk with a bit of an Irish texture to it, Mythcreants might be worth listening to for ya.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
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Couldn't agree more..its ALL about the recording..nice gear will never polish a turd..make it worse sometimes..lol. When a recording is real good its a magical thing.
 
Yes - agreed 100%. There are many times when you listen to an album - you hit that one track - that was a huge hit of the band's - and the song just sounds terrible - very flat - no sound stage. I would refer to this (perhaps incorrectly) as over produced? Where the original recording probably sounded wonderful - yet the Engineers added their own finishes to really take the life out of it.

You mention Zeppelin - but on their new vinyl releases - many of the songs are quite beautiful - amazing sound stage - yet some songs - ex The Ocean (getting many complaints on the vinyl quality) - do not measure up to other songs. I love that song - but it just doesn't have that - 3D effect- natural sound - as some of the other songs.
 
Couldn't agree more.
Any with vinyl, the pressing, too.
There are some days I reach for certain records, just to remind me how good the old system can sound.
 
Vinylcafe said:
Any with vinyl, the pressing, too.
There are some days I reach for certain records, just to remind me how good the old system can sound.
Click to expand...

I was thinking that as well ... wonder how many folk bought popular albums back in the day ... and said "What's all the hype, this album sounds like crap!" ... the problem was probably just a poor pressing that did not do justice to an otherwise well recorded album.
 
Vinylcafe said:
Couldn't agree more.
Any with vinyl, the pressing, too.
There are some days I reach for certain records, just to remind me how good the old system can sound.
Click to expand...
Same here..I have my "go to" records..I worry about wearing them out, been hit or miss with new vinyl..some quite good and others just lifeless.
 
Yup. I even sub-sort quite a bit of vinyl by sound quality rather than artist.
 
costerdock said:
Yes - agreed 100%. There are many times when you listen to an album - you hit that one track - that was a huge hit of the band's - and the song just sounds terrible - very flat - no sound stage. I would refer to this (perhaps incorrectly) as over produced? Where the original recording probably sounded wonderful - yet the Engineers added their own finishes to really take the life out of it.
Click to expand...

I have to wonder if that is because it *is* a hit - and the band/engineers thought so even before it was released - and mixed it to sound "good" on a typical car stereo over FM radio, or worse yet, compressed and then streamed over Bluetooth from an iPod...
 
N8Nagel said:
I have to wonder if that is because it *is* a hit - and the band/engineers thought so even before it was released - and mixed it to sound "good" on a typical car stereo over FM radio, or worse yet, compressed and then streamed over Bluetooth from an iPod...
Click to expand...

Here is another example that I like to use for Hendrix:
Electric Ladyland

Crosstown traffic - you hear that song - nothing to get excited about as far as sound quality - sounds kind of flat - definitely not worth showing off your system with - then Voodoo Chile comes on and you are blown away. Likewise - the quality in 1983 is phenomenal.
 
As a musician I sometimes have the opportunity to listen to recordings that haven't gone through post production mastering and all else being equal they ALWAYS sound the best. Mastering almost always does more harm than good because other than things like adding RIAA EQ mastering could be described as: "make this full range recording listenable on ear buds and car stereos". Which basically means compressing the hell out of everything.

I've found as my system has become better good recordings sound better and bad ones worse. When you've heard an uncompressed bass drum sound right you don't want to hear a compressed one no matter how much "punch" it's supposed to give but most pop and rock music would sound like garbage on a cheap boombox if the highs and lows weren't compressed.
 
I concur Mister Pig.
When I first started foolin' with this stuff, there was but mono.
Then came 2 channel stereo, the aim of which was to expand the reproduced sound over a wider "room stage", thus trying to mimic the live environment.
But alas by the mid 60's there was a move toward many tracks manipulated for one purpose or another at the discretion of the performers or masterers.
And so it goes.
I have lotsa old folk stuff, some good, some bad, but I listen anyway.
 
Yep,without a doubt... if I wanted to show off to someone what my TT could sound like at it's very best,I'd only choose around 10 of my albums. The albums by Yello would most likely be the first two choices.
 
Not so much for the content, but I found in my CD collection a copy of "A Decade of Hits" by CDB that I'd apparently picked up at Goodwill or something and never bothered to rip it... went ahead and ripped it to FLAC (among some others) and threw it on just for nostalgia's sake... some of those tracks are really well produced in my opinion; nice open sound.

Compare and contrast with whatever Death Cab for Cutie album had their popular song on it... picked it up as well at GW because I know the girl likes them and figured I'd rip that for her as well, and gave that a listen after I was done out of curiosity. I actually flipped back to CDB to make sure that it wasn't a sound system config issue (as I'd originally listened to CDB through the receiver but was trying the BDP this time around because for some reason the receiver drops out occasionally but often enough to be annoying when playing FLAC through USB) and it's not, it's just a flat, lifeless mix that makes it borderline unlistenable (to me.)

It's even more odd that DCFC released that album what, 10 years ago and the CDB was a compliation released in the early 80's meaning all those tracks were recorded/mixed before then. You'd think newer would equal better, but not so much!

Now as for content... haven't stumbled on anything really new and exciting lately, unfortunately.
 
In the End It Really Is About The Recording Isn't It?

Yes, but it's so hard to figure out what is the latest weak(est) link in the chain that gets me there. With each/any small incremental improvement I find it increasingly difficult to sort out and understand what's standing in the way.

Cheers,
James
 
The recording as well as the performance!

Usually the better the performance, the worse the recording...


...except for my friend, Miles...
 
There is a lot of good music that I won't listen to because the recording is bad. Some of it I really like but if it's not pleasing to my ears too bad. With all the quality recordings available for me I don't waste my time with the bad ones.

cubdog
 
cubdog said:
There is a lot of good music that I won't listen to because the recording is bad. Some of it I really like but if it's not pleasing to my ears too bad. With all the quality recordings available for me I don't waste my time with the bad ones.

cubdog
Click to expand...

2X :thmbsp:
 
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