hit productions aren't good productions

[Noise Commander]

Hi!

Just listened to paramore.

Although it is obvious that the producers knew how to put the spot light on the right things, the snare has punch, the typical standard 8th note guitars fit the genre and have a nice tonal balane, nice vocal sound (although she sound like a indie bi**which I don't like lol)
I still think that for those super modern hit productions you have to IGNORE sound asthetics in a way. Have to do things that you usually would describe as ugly.
Not warm enough, to edgy, everything has an emphasis between 2-4 kHz.

That's a general problem of rock music. To get it loud you have to be a loudness *****.
And I think the negative side effects are worse in rock music than in hip hop. Which is kind of unfair, as most people nowadays tend to blame rock music for this.

I'm writing songs for major publishers, but I'll never be a top producer or mixer, as I just do not allow myself to destroy the tonal balance and the dynamics in the same way those top producers do.
They seem to have no problem with it. Of course they know how to do it with as little side effects as possible but it still is unbearable in my opinion. My instinct and my ears tell me much to fast to stop eqing, compressing and limiting for te sake of modern rock n' roll loudness. It's "low-quality-strident-hurting-I-do-not-have-ears" loundness for me!

They should produce consumer cd players, radio devices, amplifiers that jump from 0 % gain of the volume knob to 10 % right to 50 % ! So that only the not so squashed mixes have an accectable listening loudness
Maybe they stop to **** up our beloved music then...
Or they could define a minimum crest factor by law! (Minimum of 10 dB)

Or there could be a law that labels are NOT allowed to influence the recording process of the artist and the producers.

Thanks for the memories by fall out boy has a bridge with only drums and vocals, the drums have punch , when the chorus starts again, you only hear a little snare click lol
Very bad sound! Although you can still hear the professionality of the involved sound engineers.

[rhythmic5]

i think this might just be the way CLA mixes (not to point the finger at him, this 'loudness' mixing/mastering involves many other mixing engineers, mastering engineers, and politics from labels and other stuff, but CLA did mix the latest paramore record so yeah), as I heard some raw tracks from other projects pre-CLA and he definitely seems to EQ to fit that range to some degree...I really do like the production on the record though.. it definitely fits the modern zeitgeist of pop music for better or worse

i really dont think its fair or healthy though to try to revive the dead and bring back old perceptions and sensibility to modern music, plus it seems like its always the old people saying this! (which i'm sure the parents of 19th century kids despised jazz music, with the jazz generation(s) proceeding to despise 'rock n roll', and so on and so forth)

i think we should embrace progression, and though it could be argued that we are 'regressing', i suppose if current trends are bad enough, like the loudness wars, then they'll soon become a thing of the past regardless

[effitall]

yeah yeah yeah....This has absolutely nothing to do with musical genre and everything to do with sonics. This isn't a chamber vs. jazz vs. rock vs hip-hop thing. This is about music sounding like sacks of runny, smelly stuff.

There might be some parallels between genre and sonics, but generally...I don't have a problem with the music being produced...I have a problem with the way the music being produced sounds. Squished, distorted, lack of body, lack of space, lack of depth. There's very little beautiful sounding pop music these days. I think that was the point of the OP's post.

[dream]

The thread title says it all. I agree

[Lrmusic]

Paramore is awesome . However, I agree they could be better sonically.

[T_R_S]

Originally Posted by Noise Commander

Or there could be a law that labels are NOT allowed to influence the recording process of the artist and the producers.

Those that pay are 'In Charge"
When a label wants the micx changed or they want it louder you pretty much have to do it. Otherwise they will be paying someone else to do it.