Grind Sounds? (aka louder drone sounds)

[BouncyJones]

Hi,
first of all, I wasn't sure what forum to put this under but I decided that mastering engineers have probably heard more records from the last 40 years than anybody.
I realise that there are numerous discussions on the loudness wars, but one thing I haven't really seen discussed by you guys is the growing predominance of "grind sounds". When I say grind sounds, I'm thinking of something where the attack is gone, and the rest sounds not unlike a chain saw or lawnmower. I'm consistently blown away at how open 80s music sounds compared to the latest pop tune. It just seems that most of the popular music these days always has a consistent r, rr, rrr going on in the background (although hip hop music is somewhat of an exception).
Any takers?
Cheers,
Jon

[finetuner]

Probably the loudness war in combination with a dense mix ..
The fuller the arrangements, the greater the challenge to mix AND master while keeping it open and clean*

I think the reason you'll find hiphop style music less suffering is because that type of music usually has a more open sound (e.g. simpler arrangements - no offence - , short-sounding / staccato sounds, at least no guitar walls filling up the last dynamics). It's easier to raise a few dB's without artifacts on that, than to a blazing garage-rock mix.

*on the other hand, open and clean may not always be the goal and distortion or other 'dirty' sounds will be used on purpose to make it sound .. aggressive or whatever ?

Peter

[streaky]

I know what you mean, I wouldn't say it was something I hear across the board but in some cases, definitely.

I'd say it was a combination of a LOT of factors, including compression, limiting, double tracking, effects - used both in the mixing and mastering stages, combined with whatever is done in the recording process where the artist is looking for an intentionally dirty, gritty sound.

As for comparing music now to 80s music and beyond...it's something that gets talked about a lot, and gets a lot of people hot under the collar about exactly when the loudness wars started. Some people like to try and narrow it down to a specific album which is ridiculous. And though I agree with you about the comparison between now and 20 years ago, there are always going to be some people going against current trends.

I'd still like a little clarification on 'grind sounds' - can you think of any particular songs so we know exactly what you mean?

[Alex Niedt]

Originally Posted by finetuner

(e.g. simpler arrangements - no offence - , short-sounding / staccato sounds, at least no guitar walls filling up the last dynamics)

I don't think anyone will take offense since hip-hop producers pride themselves on well-arranged, open, and therefore hard-hitting stuff.

I personally cannot listen to current rock music because of the combination of ridiculously dense arrangement and ridiculous loudness maximization (i.e. My Chemical Romance).

[BouncyJones]

Originally Posted by streaky

I'd still like a little clarification on 'grind sounds' - can you think of any particular songs so we know exactly what you mean?

Well, I guess I'm thinking of two different kinds of phenomena, one of which is definitely the grind sound, but the other would be more like air. In both cases it serves the purpose of filling the silence in the background of the song. For a couple of examples of grind sounds, check out Papa Roach's To Be Loved, early in the song the guitar is on its own, and to my ears it sounds pretty close to a lawnmower (I say that for no humourus effect). I think Oasis' My Big Mouth may have been an early example of this. Other examples could be Linkin Park's Numb, or even Hinder's Lips of An Angel for the chorus. To find these examples, I just went to the Top 20 rock chart to find some tunes. Another could be The Killers When You Were Young. So my definition of a grind sound would be a guitar that comes in, has virtually no attack, and goes consistently throughout the chorus (or the whole song). Compare that to Keith Richards' Wicked as it Seems, or even early Weezer where the guitar is definitely distorted, but it's still punchy and you can hear the strums.

The Air sound I would cite examples like Madonna's Jump, or Coldplay's Talk, or Nelly Furtado's Say it Right. All of them have distinctly air or wind like sounds going on for virtually the whole song as a kind of sonic background. Compare that to say Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Corey Hart's Never Surrender or even Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight. I'm trying to think of examples where there is a similar synth–like wind sound but not nearly as prevalent or consistently there. Clearly a lot of songs back then didn't have it at all.

I know that this could be related to the loudness wars, but I think it's slightly different in that these mixes could be less maxed out and would still have these consistent drone sounds going through them. I'm not necessarily criticising its use either, although I'm not thrilled about it, as much as wondering if others have remarked upon its presence.

Cheers!

[Darius van H]

Maybe the idea is introducing these "grind" sounds as a deliberate part of the production somehow masks the distortion created by over limiting / processing / clipping. I doubt it's a conscious decision on the part of the producers, just the natural evolution of pop music + technology.

[streaky]

Originally Posted by BouncyJones

my definition of a grind sound would be a guitar that comes in, has virtually no attack, and goes consistently throughout the chorus (or the whole song). Compare that to Keith Richards' Wicked as it Seems, or even early Weezer where the guitar is definitely distorted, but it's still punchy and you can hear the strums.

The Air sound I would cite examples like Madonna's Jump, or Coldplay's Talk, or Nelly Furtado's Say it Right. All of them have distinctly air or wind like sounds going on for virtually the whole song as a kind of sonic background. Compare that to say Soft Cell's Tainted Love, Corey Hart's Never Surrender or even Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight. I'm trying to think of examples where there is a similar synth–like wind sound but not nearly as prevalent or consistently there. Clearly a lot of songs back then didn't have it at all.

Cheers!

I'm getting an idea of what you're talking about now and I would fairly safely say it's not something that occurs during the mastering stage at all. It's almost a wall of sound kind of approach, wouldn't you say?

A couple of other examples from a bit further back are a couple of songs off Foo Fighters' debut album, and Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream, both of which are similar to your example of Weezer- still punchier than more recent examples but a similar kind of technique nevertheless. Also a lot of Death In Vegas stuff.

Air-wise...I'm not sure you can compare Coldplay Talk (one of the most over-produced songs from one of the most over-produced albums ever, IMO...) to the stripped down, tight analogue keyboardness of Tainted Love, but I know what you mean...it's anything from reverb to jet to wind to hiss, just to fill the gaps.

But then you get tracks where there is intentionally pretty much nothing of anything, but it works so well, like most of the Neptunes' production and some decent sounding garage rock.

I don't know how I'd explain the phenomenon you're referring to, probably just to call it a trend in current recording techniques that will probably phase out (no pun intended) in due course.

Cheers,
Streaky