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Indie rock sounds like crap on a nice system!

tentoze said:
Ditto what Chalk says here. There are quite a few fine sounding recordings out there from newer artists. To say that you have to limit yourself to 40 year old jazz recordings in order to find music with excellent sq is nonsense.
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I have to agree here also. I have PLENTY of vinyl that sounds like ****. Dead Kennedys, Parasites of the Western World, Jethro Tull, etc (The Cowboy Junkies is un-listenable, too much vocal "spit"). Digital is not the devil IMO. Go listen to Flim and the BB's, pure digital, recorded at the correct level (I need to run my volume at 12'o clock) to retain the amazing dynamics, etc.. The biggest problem is the CDP's. Most of the older units are crap. The digititus present in the midrange is aweful, or they sound "dead" or "thin".
However, I have heard systems where the owners ditched the TT and went all CDP/DAC that are amazing and easily matched/bettered a very good TT. Not cheap though. :no:
IMHO CD's in a good system will show the flaws in the original recording to a disturbing degree, and I think this is where the "hate" comes from.
I also agree that the new recordings out there are, for the most part, terrible. The Blackeyed Peas/ Monkey Business sounds pretty good, until you notice there's NO headroom! Same with Cristina Agulara's (sp?) newest album. I still like the music, but it's not something that I'll sit down and listen to.
 
Buck Owens recorded his Bakersfield sound so it would sound good on a truck driver's AM radio (or so I am told). It sounds great in CD (Sundazed label) or on the old LPs.

Many punk LPs, new wave (New Order comes to mind) were recorded in a jiffy and sound that way.

Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, and other mainstream "indie" artists have great sounding albums.
 
stuartk said:
I'd also note that I have a Tom Petty CD and it appears that they had problems with dynamic range when recording the drums. They're not very clean.
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The drums are my favorite part. The snare is amazing.
 
nickrobotron said:
But now that I use him to test my equpiment, I've become obsessed. I've been listening to a lot of jazz too, for the same reason. I have a feeling my stereo equipment is going to make me change my musical preference.
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I just started this hobby about 2 months ago and I just have to say that this is SO TRUE! A lot of my favourite songs are recorded or remastered so badly that I just don't play them any more. I find that some genres inherently have superior quality. I think jazz and classical recordings are generally top notch. Luckily for me, triphop artists seem to release high quality recordings as well. However, I am definitely sad that most of my music collection sounds like crap to me now.
 
Kelvin said:
I just started this hobby about 2 months ago...Luckily for me, triphop artists seem to release high quality recordings as well.
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I had to look up the term "triphop" which, according to at least one source (Wikipedia, of course), was first used to describe the :hip hop instrumentals" of one D. J. Shadow of Davis, CA. (and all this time I'd thought he - it or whatever - was an East Coaster). According to Wikipedia, D. J. Shadow is a turntablist. Uh huh. Learn something every day through AK posts.
 
a lot of indie artists do release they're albums on vinyl which helps. I just picked up some bright eyes records on vinyl and they sound much better than their cd's. it may be time to invest in a good vinyl rig, especially if other major labels follow in warner bros. footsteps.
 
If you want to hear terrible recordings the Jimi Hendrix officially approved "Best of" is, in a word...............hedious. :thumbsdn:
 
marantz_marc said:
a lot of indie artists do release they're albums on vinyl which helps. I just picked up some bright eyes records on vinyl and they sound much better than their cd's. it may be time to invest in a good vinyl rig, especially if other major labels follow in warner bros. footsteps.
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Unfortunately, in my experience, not a lot of care is put into mastering vinyl editions of Indie CDs. It's probably because there's not a lot of money available at small labels to spend on the few engineers who still know how to run a lathe.

I had high hopes for Andrew Bird's 'the Mysterious Production of Eggs' Grimsey LP but find the mastering of the CD to be superior. And this makes sense because I'm sure they sell many more CDs than LPs. So that's where the money goes.
 
MMMMMMMMMM......

I don't think so...ever listned to Sparklehorse? Try "Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot" and chances are you will change your mind. It is very (very):music: well recorded (and the music is incredible, but that's just my taste).

You may also want to try "Felt mountain" by Gldfrapp. These guys recorded it in a very simple (borderline primitive) studio, and it is one of the better recorded records I heard.

Bear in mind that Indy and low-fi often go hand in hand on purpose, as some sort of a protest against who knows what, so...
 
i guess I have a crappy system then as Built To Spill's "You In Reverse" sounds pretty damn good right now

SAE Two P10 Power Amp
Pioneer SA-8100 as the PreAmp
Infinity 4000's (just refoamed so giving them a tryout)

and heaven forbid it's an mp3 @ 192
 
I am finding the same thing. A lot of the punk and indie stuff is done on the cheap. They can't afford to mix it for the high end gear or listener.

The more revealing my system gets, the worse the Ramones sound. They sound hollow and flat on my current main rig unless I really crank the volume. I have a secondary system or two that the punk and indie stuff sounds great on.

I got Dinosaur Jr. blasting on my office rig as I type this.

John
 
Dusty Chalk said:
Oh, and look for the name "Steve Albini" -- anything he records is gold. Electronica? Labradford, fixed::content. Indie rock? Electrelane, The Power Out. And on and on.
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Damn, you beat me to it. He is the first person I thought of when I saw this thread.
 
nickrobotron said:
I listen to a lot of new indie rock and folk rock (ie; Ryan Adams, David Bazan, Centro-Matic, Bright Eyes, Death Cab, and so on...) and it just sounds bad. Especially compared to stuff like Tom Petty, James Taylor, Paul Simon, even the purposely awful Bob Dylan! I hate it! The better my system gets, the worse my favorite artists sound. Ryan Adams isn't too bad and either is Modest Mouse. But nothing like Tom Petty! I wasn't even a big Tom Petty fan. But now that I use him to test my equpiment, I've become obsessed. I've been listening to a lot of jazz too, for the same reason. I have a feeling my stereo equipment is going to make me change my musical preference. I don't know if this is a bad thing, but it sucks for indie artists. Do you guys experience this?
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I posted a similar thread some time back that was responded to with derision. I found that I was listening to "well recorded" rather than my favorite music. I was starting to listen to the previously maligned Dire Straits instead of The Fall just because my system begged for something quality to play.
Then I started on classical....... !!@!

I agree........ when i play some stuff where I like "the song" it often is recorded so badly and shallowly that i can't stand to hear it........

Buggered if I know.......

BUT...... if you play the old stuff you liked REAL LOUD it makes up for the lack of sonic quality :banana:
 
I agree that a poorly recorded album will sound worse on a great setup. However, I feel some mp3 files can sound decent so long as they are above 128kbps and --were encoded and ripped in a quality fashion--

How many times have you heard a file someone has downloaded , where its 320kbps but the sound is distorted, muffled, or grainy? Some people have no clue how to master the art of encoding. But some do.

I guess some 'bad' mp3s come from amateurs who have attempted to rip from vinyl to their PC, and drove the PC's input to clipping. Also, many people cannot properly clean their records, which of course is quite essential.

If we are talking "New Rock" like ....EMO (! damn ) I would have to say the majority of it sounds like someone laid down the tracks while they were asleep or something. I actually like some of this stuff, but the quality control is nonexistent
 
Another great recording is pretty much anything by Of Montreal. Also, though I am not so into this sort of thing anymore, listen to Phil Elvrum's projects (The Microphones in particular) for really good sounding bad recordings.
 
A lot of Do Make Say Think is very well-recorded, with very wide dynamic range. The genre that particular music group is lumped into depends on wide variances in sound levels (no compression) and solid reproduction at the extremes of the frequency range. The music borrows a lot from jazz, so I think some of the same production characteristics are present. They release on vinyl, and I'd like to hear it in that format someday.
 
A friend of mine got the new Modest Mouse on vinyl - 'We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank' - it is an "indie" record store only release. Anyhow, there was one part on the record where there was mic feedback so bad we thought his speakers were messed up. I can't remember the track name, but I'll ask. We were using a Kenwood KD2000 TT, a Pioneer SX-950, and a pair of New Large Advents. Apparently that is just how the recording was made.
 
sometimes i record an mp3 of something i might consider buying to minidisc...watching the meters remain solid at 'o' decibel with hardly a consessionary 'blip' to dynamic range pretty much results in me settling for the mp3 instead...unashamedly 'gratis' of course...
the santana album that won a recent grammy was a case in point...
i love santana...but compare his recent 'grammy' effort on ceedee to anything he did in the 70's...and you being to wonder if the grammy selection commitee were given ipod headphones before deciding...
turn it up on a pair of grado sr60's for 5 minutes and you're reaching for the paracetemols...:D
heartbreakingly ..i found the same for azymuth...i love azymuth...bertrami is a genius...anything they released post 90's makes my ears bleed...the quality 'musicianship' is still there...but the waveform clipping headache sets in well before you can appreciate the content...
listen to an album on vinyl by airto called 'free'...with the title track of the same name as an example...
thats sum weird music to be sure...an acquired taste..but like it or like it not...the dynamic range, clarity and acoustic depth just plain draw in you in and mesmerize you...and you find yourself trawling your music collection..digital or analogue.. for something else with that amount of depth and clarity...regardless of the musical content or genre...
 
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