Quality of Instrumentation VS Quality of Recording

[Minimalism]

Hello Everyone, this is my first post....I just came across this site searching for mic reviews and i see there are alot of very knowledgeable people here so i thought i would ask you all something that has always seemed to intrigue me.

Im a huge fan of vintage psychedelic folk music and most of my favorite albums have been ripped of vinal due to never being re-issued....Most of the quality of the recordings are muddy yet they have a much warmer feeling and much better instrumentation than current recordings... I feel back then more time was put into the instrumentation side of things and less in the recording process....

In some cases i will prefer a live version of a song over the studio version due to the fact that the studio version sounds too clean and premeditated.....I feel that by trying to make every thing perfect it takes away some of the soul and feel of the music....For example if the beatles or pink floyd were to record one of there first albums in todays studios with modern recording techniques i think it would ruin the sound....Compare the sound on pink floyds saucer of secrets to the sound on the final cut album.......back then it seems it was less about hitting
every note correctly and more about how it sounded and how it made you feel..

I think now a days by relying on modern recording techniques to perfect everything that it is being used as a crutch by musicians and making the instrumentation secondary, while using primitive recording techniques forces the musicians to rely on there skill rather than smoke and
mirrors...i would prefer to hear a good musician recorded on an answering machine than a mediocre one in a pro studio,but that is just my opinion as i know everyone has different tastes, im just curious what everyones opinion on this is any input wanted

[Les]

Last year myself and some others on the Rickenbacker forum did some '64 era beatles covers for fun.
You know, acoustic/electric folk rock.
The idea was to use modern dead clean gear that almost anyone can afford these days. We weren't hampered by tape saturation, noise, or all the other issues concerning squeezing 140 db of dynamic range into a medium that was capable of about 60.

But...we tried to keep the musicality and basic production quality. We attempted to preserve as well as we could their artistic choices rather than ours.

It was kind of like " what if George Martin had the gear we have" sort of thing. By that I mean the recording gear...we used the same or similar insrtuments/amps etc that the originals did.

Fun stuff.

Les
L M Watts Technology

[pour the cure]

The Beatles would sound good no matter what ... those songs kicked ass.

[cavern]

Originally Posted by Minimalism

i would prefer to hear a good musician recorded on an answering machine than a mediocre one in a pro studio,but that is just my opinion

that is my opinion as well.

[space2012]

Originally Posted by Minimalism

Hello Everyone, this is my first post....I just came across this site searching for mic reviews and i see there are alot of very knowledgeable people here so i thought i would ask you all something that has always seemed to intrigue me.

Im a huge fan of vintage psychedelic folk music and most of my favorite albums have been ripped of vinal due to never being re-issued....Most of the quality of the recordings are muddy yet they have a much warmer feeling and much better instrumentation than current recordings... I feel back then more time was put into the instrumentation side of things and less in the recording process....

In some cases i will prefer a live version of a song over the studio version due to the fact that the studio version sounds too clean and premeditated.....I feel that by trying to make every thing perfect it takes away some of the soul and feel of the music....For example if the beatles or pink floyd were to record one of there first albums in todays studios with modern recording techniques i think it would ruin the sound....Compare the sound on pink floyds saucer of secrets to the sound on the final cut album.......back then it seems it was less about hitting
every note correctly and more about how it sounded and how it made you feel..

I think now a days by relying on modern recording techniques to perfect everything that it is being used as a crutch by musicians and making the instrumentation secondary, while using primitive recording techniques forces the musicians to rely on there skill rather than smoke and
mirrors...i would prefer to hear a good musician recorded on an answering machine than a mediocre one in a pro studio,but that is just my opinion as i know everyone has different tastes, im just curious what everyones opinion on this is any input wanted

beleive or not, in those days, they were pioneers, usign the latest technology available.
they were putting incredible ammounts of effort,time&money to make records sound the best they could.

the problem with today musicians is TV.
those days... there was not TV, there was music instruments.

and yes... some music styles need a sound to work.
i like Disco music, for example Chic,
when i heard Chic on live italian TV last year with latest digital sound, was annoing.
how could it be?
i like that song, how can be that annoing?

[Chris Lago]

I think if you want to live in the past, that's fine, I'd rather look into the future and see what I could bring with the new technology out there.

Oh, and last but not least, please turn your radio off!

[aclarson]

I think these things aren't mutually exclusive, the best records are great on both accounts. My opinion is write a great song that would sound great no matter what, and then engineer it in a way that makes it that much greater or more creative. Sounds like...all my favorite albums.

[Paulie]

The minute producers started making records instead of solid song writers, the whole thing went in the crapper. It's so rare to find good song writers now because they are all too busy learning how to engineer so they can record themselves.

[BOWIE]

Records these days are tighter, cleaner, and perfect all-around and that's why the music industry is so strong right now... ...oh, wait... nevermind that

All kidding aside, many of the popular techniques these days are designed to grab someone's attention, not to make a work of art. I don't think anyone is overcompressing and cranking the treble because it actually sounds better that way. This becomes very irritating to listen to across the length of a whole album. I find myself becoming more interested in discovering old bands on vinyl than newer CDs (even ones that I like) because the production on most of the newer stuff is juiced too hard. Even the re-masters of old material are getting annoying. I'll give a thumb's-up to places like Daptone for keeping it real though.