Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Musicfan 
Here are some things the digital audio age has going against it :
* 1) The most creative/innovative era of rock and it's genre-branches was in the non-digital 60's, 70's and 80's. -
** 2) The common features of the main phase of the digital era were 16bit resolution, and the smiley eq (extreme bass freqs and extreme treble freqs boosted unnaturally). --
*** 3) Ironically, as society became more hectic and stressed, the perpetual & mandatory compression wars started (it's time for a peace treaty). ---
**** 4) Bands/Singers/Artists in the digital era are usually founded and funded to replicate previously fruitful music/image/dance/marketing formulas, with much less artistic progressivity required and allowed.... this leads to more mechanical and predictable sounds. ----
***** 5) Many modern artists can't (or won't) play an organic whole note (like plucking an open acoustic guitar string & letting it ring for 4 beats). Without organic notes, based on instrumental wood resonance and sonority, the original and ultimate manifestation of warmth doesn't exist. -----
****** 6) The subtle, ambient natural distortion (via tubes or tape) referred to in the wiki article is paradoxically PLEASING to the ear. The only type of distortion the digital audio era gives us is the harsh clipping effect - truly abrasive and annoying. ------
CONCLUSION : The digital age should now try to capture organic instrumental warmth in a nice, padded warm room with a flat/neutral recording system with the 24-bit standard. Employ some of the sweet reverb sounds from the 60's, 70's and 80's. Throw in some Tritone Colortone Pro and / or Antress Modern Analoger. Let the artist invent and explore, take risks. Capture their natural vocal nuances. Stop the compression wars. Allow more dynamics, more melody, complex chord patterns, intricate & agile rhythms......... let digital be warm and musical. |
I agree with all the points you made about digital. I'm 32 and have a burned in righteous arrogance towards a lot of music productions since I discovered and loved the sound of breakbeats that hip hop started sampling in the 80's. Man they sounded so other worldly. Maybe it was the looping that contributed to the freshness of the sound.
But they had a gritty fatness that causes people to go and search mostly the late 60's and 70's. Yep rock and roll etc. I am a huge listener of Jamaican recordings and the 70's is really cool.
Fill me up!
I giggled when I read your statement that a plucked string in air is the ultimate in warmth. Can't really argue ha ha.
I take particular interest in ubk's postings and illacov because they express opinions I enjoy and agree with and learn from.
I am still chasing the fat hip hop sound of the late 80's early 90's. And the rootsy warmth of 70's Jamaica.
I've got the hip hop beats nice like Pete Rock but as soon as I pipe them into my M-Audio sound card it loses way too much. Live monitoring through my analogue mixer is in the room and thumping. Through the sound cards 14 inputs it goes flat and distant. Very bad.
Should I follow my research info and buy an Aurora 16 sound card and then sum out of the computer through a Nicerizer 16 to an Otari MX5050 2 track tape machine.
All this for mix recall and automation. Or should I save $20K New Zealand dollars and just mix on my Mackie 1604vlz and bounce through an Apogee Duet?
Will the Aurora 16 still rob alot from the audio? I hope not. But so far digital has kept me struggling and not making music because of the false promises of plug in effects that don't sound good and what ever is killing the sound when it goes into the computer.
I want to send from the sound card to a spring reverb, tape delay and mutron bi phase that are all piped into the summing unit. Yea everything is recallableish and autmatableish.
But just like HappyMusicFan said, recording into good converters using real reverbs. He's kind of summed up my concusions. Because impulse responses of spring reverbs sound like a joke. They are a sonically predictable pattern that get's really annoying and sound stink. That's not gonna get me closer to Lee Scratch Perry of King Tubby's sound. And I wanna process heaps of tracks through the tape machine. UBK, will it work?
I can spend money. I just need this solved quick so I can live a healthier more productive life.
I need to Private message illacov and ubk.
My email is
reubennz@live.com
Peace yall.