"Audiphools" is the only acceptable title
Listening the way the artist intended
- Thread starter Wigwam Jones
- Start date
Genre, budget, time, patience, label backing, mixing philosophy (artist and studio/engineer), studio used, media for release, etc. all enter into the 'mix'. I am aware of the stories of artists/engineers dubbing a final draft copy to cassette to have a listen in a car as part of the process. Without specific details from the artist, it is pure conjecture as to the artist' listening intent.
elitopus
Addicted Member
I watch a lot of the artist interviews that Rick Beato does. It’s interesting how many artists never listen to their own albums. And when they are listening (during the tracking process etc), the most common place they listen is in the car.
Rick asks the artist “where do you listen to the tracks to get an idea of how they sound?”, about 90% answer the car. Most of them don’t have a Hifi system at home.
I honestly don’t care how they intend me to listen to their music. And sometimes I wish they would record it more in the way that I want it to sound
Rick asks the artist “where do you listen to the tracks to get an idea of how they sound?”, about 90% answer the car. Most of them don’t have a Hifi system at home.
I honestly don’t care how they intend me to listen to their music. And sometimes I wish they would record it more in the way that I want it to sound
The only thing I can deduce about what the artist intended is the order of the songs / pieces on the record / CD.
Your mileage may vary.
i made a similar comment the last time this subject came up and i was told that i was wrong
that's a good one!only once have i heard dsotm sound really good and that was through dbx soundfield 1a (with 12 tweeters and the eq.) it sounds muffled or veiled on anything else i've ever heard it on. it just does not sound good to me.
i'm never embarrassed by my beliefs.
nobody remembers the good ones anyways.
dsotm is the one that gets over hyped and that is what i am referring to. i don't care how many he did and how good they may sound, he dropped the ball on dsotm and people still rave about how great it sounds.
I’m not sure there’s a “one size fits all” answer to this query. I think it varies from artist to artist. Mark Rothko was very specific about how high his paintings were hung off the floor and how they were lighted and where they were installed. He refused to have them installed in a restaurant, for instance. Picasso sometimes told people who owned his work that it was not by his hand—just to f*ck with them.
My friend who is a painter happened, as he was walking past a house and looking through the window one afternoon, to notice that one of his paintings was hanging upside down in someone’s living room. He knocked on the door, introduced himself, and pointed out the error. The homeowner told him that he thought it looked better that way, that it was his to do with as he wanted, and, basically, to mind his own business and promptly get off his porch.
Another friend of mine grew up next to Billy Joel and spent time listening to music with him—on big stacks of McIntosh equipment. Joel is an audiophile who is very passionate about playback.
I’ll also add here that one of the reasons I’m in this hobby is because I like to hear what the artist intended. I’m sometimes flabbergasted that my stereo reveals instruments or sounds that, listening elsewhere, I never knew were there. I think if a tambourine is on the record, the artist intended for us to hear it—just as an author intended for us to read all of his or her words written in a poem or novel.
I consider this hobby to be, in some measure, a way of respecting artists’ works.
My friend who is a painter happened, as he was walking past a house and looking through the window one afternoon, to notice that one of his paintings was hanging upside down in someone’s living room. He knocked on the door, introduced himself, and pointed out the error. The homeowner told him that he thought it looked better that way, that it was his to do with as he wanted, and, basically, to mind his own business and promptly get off his porch.
Another friend of mine grew up next to Billy Joel and spent time listening to music with him—on big stacks of McIntosh equipment. Joel is an audiophile who is very passionate about playback.
I’ll also add here that one of the reasons I’m in this hobby is because I like to hear what the artist intended. I’m sometimes flabbergasted that my stereo reveals instruments or sounds that, listening elsewhere, I never knew were there. I think if a tambourine is on the record, the artist intended for us to hear it—just as an author intended for us to read all of his or her words written in a poem or novel.
I consider this hobby to be, in some measure, a way of respecting artists’ works.
malden
Lunatic Member
The first Rothko I saw was a "screen saver" on a Macintosh Quadra 700. The first time I heard Billy Joel was from a cassette played through a "boom box" in a Marine Corps barracks. Neither of these were as the artist intended, but they had an impact on my perception of art and music
malden
Lunatic Member
That's a great story.
A friend and colleague is an artist, he painted portraits of some wealthy people for a few years in the midwest. Years later, his nephew moved to NYC to go to college and was drinking in a bar when he noticed a portrait hanging that was signed by his uncle.
As the artist intended doesn't have to be the end of the story
Wigwam Jones
Caesar non supra grammati
My ears are not capable of hearing much above 12khz. I know I'm missing things. I'm OK with it. But I am prepared to be flogged by those who believe I'm creating a social faux pas by being so blase about it.
So, when Bob Dylan sings "Everybody must get stoned..." do you listen the way the artist intended?
twiiii
Lunatic Member
Some artists listen to recordings in their homes on average systems before approving the mix for an album. Other don't or have the kind of systems we wish we could have. The ear is a pretty miraculous gift and our brain is able to weed out a lot of issues so we can interpret the sound very accurately if we have trained ourselves to do so. I use to do live remotes for radio stations and make live recordings from which LP's and and cassettes were made. So my speakers from that era gave the best recreation of the sound I was recording in the middle 60's through early 80's. I also have newer speakers with drivers with much lower distortion and much better definition. But when I want to now if a recording is a good one I listen to it on my original speakers from the past. If the recording meets that criteria then I will listen to it to the much newer speakers if I want to listen further into the recording. With some recordings that not always a good idea has been my experience. Digital releases of original analog recordings are the ones I hate the most, because the remastering engineers a lot of times have their own idea of what the sound should be and not what it was actually.
This whole debate is stupid — it’s like we have to be in a certain chair, by a certain window, with a certain drink on the side table before we can read ”The Great American Novel“ the way the author intended. I say BS. Damnit, if I want to read it on the subway, what’s it to you?
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It would not make me happy, were I a living artist, to find out that someone was reimagining my work without my approval.
