[[email protected]]

....influences how music is produced:

http://personal.crocodoc.com/downloa...3-2286b6dc4f67

[William Sommerwerck]

wrote in message ...

...influences how music is produced:

http://personal.crocodoc.com/downloa...3-2286b6dc4f67

But this has always been broadly true. It was only in the late '40s (when tape
recording became commonplace), and in the '50s and '60s (when genuinely
high-fidelity playback equipment began to appear), that recording engineers
started to get serious about making recordings that actually sounded like the
musical source.

This lasted until multi-track recording arrived, at which point the sound of
the orchestra was dissected and reassembled to produce an "idealized" sound
that lacked a strong relationship to to the original.

Of course, the phonograph record itself had limited dynamic range, and the
mastering engineer would often pull up the quieter passages. (Bud Fried told
me on several occasions that the original masterings of the Solti "Ring" had a
dynamic range of barely 20dB.) If you've never heard a dbx II encoded LP,
you're in for a surprise.

The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an end,
but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and Compact
Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the SACD and BD-Audio
disk arrived that recording engineers started taking absolute fidelity
seriously * -- because they knew these recordings would be played on very good
equipment.

"A worrying trend: there is no place for neutrality and fidelity in today's
music business. Discuss."

No place? There is for classical music. I never thought I'd live to hear such
lifelike commercial recordings. The dynamic range is sometimes so wide that,
even if the level is up where the loudest passages blast you out of the room,
the quietest passages can be covered by nearby traffic.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. On the one hand, most of this music doesn't
deserve "high-fidelity" recording. On the other hand, the recording engineers
are breeding a generation of listeners who have no idea what "fidelity" is
about. As long as classical listeners continue to get great sound, I couldn't
care less.

PS: Most SACDs have good-to-outstanding sound. But if you want to hear really
lifelike recordings, get some Linn recordings. Yes, from The Company That
Hates Digital. (I also like AliaVox.)

* No offense, Herr und Frau Fine.

[[email protected]]

Link expires after a while, go he http://personal.crocodoc.com/Uz7pslS?embedded=true

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
But this has always been broadly true. It was only in the late '40s
(when tape recording became commonplace), and in the '50s and '60s
(when genuinely high-fidelity playback equipment began to appear), that
recording engineers started to get serious about making recordings that
actually sounded like the musical source.

That's rather a broad statement. There are many fine recordings (within
the limits of the then current equipment) from perhaps the '30s onwards.
Across all types of music.

--
*Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message ...
In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:

But this has always been broadly true. It was only in the late '40s
(when tape recording became commonplace), and in the '50s and '60s
(when genuinely high-fidelity playback equipment began to appear), that
recording engineers started to get serious about making recordings that
actually sounded like the musical source.

That's rather a broad statement. There are many fine recordings (within
the limits of the then current equipment) from perhaps the '30s onwards.
Across all types of music.

"within the limits" is, I think, the qualifier. It was only in the late '40s
and early '50s that //true// high fidelity, without serious qualifications,
became possible.

Of course, the term "high fidelity" dates from the early '30s.

[[email protected]]

William Sommerwerck wrote: "Of course, the term "high fidelity" dates from the early '30s. "

Of course, the term "high fidelity", even in an early '30s context, would not accurately describe most new recordings from this century.

[geoff]

On 30/08/2014 1:36 p.m., William Sommerwerck wrote:


The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an
end, but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and
Compact Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the
SACD and BD-Audio disk arrived that recording engineers started taking
absolute fidelity seriously * -- because they knew these recordings
would be played on very good equipment.

Absolute f'n bull**** !

geoff

[[email protected]]

geoff wrote: On 30/08/2014 1:36 p.m., William Sommerwerck wrote:


The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an
end, but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and
Compact Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the
SACD and BD-Audio disk arrived that recording engineers started taking
absolute fidelity seriously * -- because they knew these recordings
would be played on very good equipment.

Absolute f'n bull**** !

geoff


Yeah, those higher res formats became just as prone to suitcase mastering as did formats preceding them.

[Sean Conolly]

wrote in message
...
geoff wrote: On 30/08/2014 1:36 p.m., William Sommerwerck wrote:


The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an
end, but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and
Compact Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the
SACD and BD-Audio disk arrived that recording engineers started taking
absolute fidelity seriously * -- because they knew these recordings
would be played on very good equipment.

Absolute f'n bull**** !

geoff


Yeah, those higher res formats became just as prone to suitcase mastering
as did formats preceding them.

To think that the industry went from producing good music depite the
hardware limits, to producing crap with no hardware limits. Can't blame the
gear for today's crud.

Been listening to Blue Eyes and Nelson Riddle in the car - 'I've got the
world on a string, sitting on a rainbow...'

Sean

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article ,
Sean Conolly wrote:
Been listening to Blue Eyes and Nelson Riddle in the car - 'I've got the
world on a string, sitting on a rainbow...'

Quite. To suggest the only well recorded stuff is recent is crap.

--
*This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for extra security *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[hank alrich]

geoff wrote:

On 30/08/2014 1:36 p.m., William Sommerwerck wrote:


The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an
end, but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and
Compact Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the
SACD and BD-Audio disk arrived that recording engineers started taking
absolute fidelity seriously * -- because they knew these recordings
would be played on very good equipment.

Absolute f'n bull**** !

geoff

Yeah, a bit much.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[William Sommerwerck]

"geoff" wrote in message
...
On 30/08/2014 1:36 p.m., William Sommerwerck wrote:

The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an
end, but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and
Compact Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the
SACD and BD-Audio disk arrived that recording engineers started taking
absolute fidelity seriously * -- because they knew these recordings
would be played on very good equipment.

Absolute f'n bull**** !

Near-absolute truth.

Most classical CDs have (on an absolute basis) poor sound, because they were
recorded and mastered with the same "attitudes" that controlled the LPs,
cassettes, etc.

Do you REALLY think the best SACDs and BD-Audio disks have such great sound
//by accident//? Like, wow, man, the Moon just happened to be in the seventh
house, and this amazing audio karma fell on us from, like out of nowhere.

I forgot to mention 2L, whose recordings are sonically comparable to Linn's.

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

Most classical CDs have (on an absolute basis) poor sound, because they were
recorded and mastered with the same "attitudes" that controlled the LPs,
cassettes, etc.

Sadly, this is the truth. And sadly, it's mostly because listeners demand
it. Some of this is because people are listening under conditions where
they aren't able to properly experience the accurate sound of the orchestra.
Some of it is because people have in great part forgotten what real live
orchestral sound is like. They go to pops concerts where everything is close
miked and they expect the record to sound like that. DG is happy to provide
that sound for them.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
Most classical CDs have (on an absolute basis) poor sound, because they
were recorded and mastered with the same "attitudes" that controlled
the LPs, cassettes, etc.

More crap.

--
*Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[William Sommerwerck]

I'll throw this at all of you...

For those of you who //don't// listen to or record classical and jazz -- what,
exactly, is it that you use as your standard for a "good" recording? That's
not a rhetorical question.


I'll say it again... Once multi-track recording became commonplace, any
lingering belief that recordings should sound like a live performance went out
the window. The introduction of CD, which removed the limitations of LP and
CC, should have "reset" the industry to Living Stereo and Living Presence, but
it didn't -- presumably because recording engineers "knew" that multi-tracking
made a "better" recording.

It's interesting to listen to the Solti Ring in the order the operas were
recorded -- R, S, G, W -- because "Reingold" has the best sound. As Decca's
recording equipment got more complex, the sound became subtly less-natural.

The superb sound of the best SACD and BD recordings is partly due to the
improvement in recording equipment over the past 20 years, but is mostly the
deliberate result of engineers making recordings they know will be most-often
played on good equipment -- that do not need to be compromised for listening
on compromised equipment.

The title of this thread is "What you buy to listen to music on... [affects
the way the recording is made]". This has /always/ been true. The recording
industry (with a few exceptions -- mostly smaller labels) has /always/
pandered to the lowest common denominator of playback equipment.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article ,
William Sommerwerck wrote:
I'll say it again... Once multi-track recording became commonplace, any
lingering belief that recordings should sound like a live performance
went out the window. The introduction of CD, which removed the
limitations of LP and CC, should have "reset" the industry to Living
Stereo and Living Presence, but it didn't -- presumably because
recording engineers "knew" that multi-tracking made a "better"
recording.

It's interesting to listen to the Solti Ring in the order the operas
were recorded -- R, S, G, W -- because "Reingold" has the best sound.
As Decca's recording equipment got more complex, the sound became
subtly less-natural.

The superb sound of the best SACD and BD recordings is partly due to the
improvement in recording equipment over the past 20 years, but is
mostly the deliberate result of engineers making recordings they know
will be most-often played on good equipment -- that do not need to be
compromised for listening on compromised equipment.

The reasons that made multi-tracking 'the way to go' many years ago
haven't changed today. Nor have the disadvantages. It's a total red
herring.

--
*Eschew obfuscation *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
I'll throw this at all of you...

For those of you who //don't// listen to or record classical and jazz --
what, exactly, is it that you use as your standard for a "good"
recording? That's not a rhetorical question.



That's a good question. I'd say I listen for arrangement, with the
recording supporting that.

My musical perception was trained around radio, so whatever would work
on radio works for me.

I'll say it again... Once multi-track recording became commonplace, any
lingering belief that recordings should sound like a live performance
went out the window.

It was a new toy. People tried to do things that could not easily be
done in live performance.

I was not around, but I imagine that Les Paul & Mary Ford's "How High
The Moon" caused quite a stir. And I think it sounds marvelous.

Records by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra used relatively close-micing
"crooner" vocals.

This has been going on for a while.

The introduction of CD, which removed the
limitations of LP and CC, should have "reset" the industry to Living
Stereo and Living Presence, but it didn't -- presumably because
recording engineers "knew" that multi-tracking made a "better" recording.


Should have? Not after people because accustomed to nonlive methods of
arrangement and production.

I'd say that CD eventually brought back live performance as a revenue
generator*. And that there are certainly DVDs of live performance where
the sound is of high caliber.

*CD plus home CD burners with the Innernets thrown in...

It's interesting to listen to the Solti Ring in the order the operas
were recorded -- R, S, G, W -- because "Reingold" has the best sound. As
Decca's recording equipment got more complex, the sound became subtly
less-natural.

The superb sound of the best SACD and BD recordings is partly due to the
improvement in recording equipment over the past 20 years, but is mostly
the deliberate result of engineers making recordings they know will be
most-often played on good equipment -- that do not need to be
compromised for listening on compromised equipment.


I have no way of evaluating the truth or falsity of that.

The title of this thread is "What you buy to listen to music on...
[affects the way the recording is made]". This has /always/ been true.
The recording industry (with a few exceptions -- mostly smaller labels)
has /always/ pandered to the lowest common denominator of playback
equipment.


Right. And I have no problem with that myself.

--
Les Cargill

[[email protected]]

My whole premise is that if people start buying "real" equipment again - stereo/surround components with 50-150 watts/channel and full-sized speakers, demand for squashed music could be offset by demand for higher fidelity material.

It won't happen overnight, but it will.

[William Sommerwerck]

"Les Cargill" wrote in message ...

The superb sound of the best SACD and BD recordings is partly due to the
improvement in recording equipment over the past 20 years, but is mostly
the deliberate result of engineers making recordings they know will be
most-often played on good equipment -- that do not need to be
compromised for listening on compromised equipment.

I have no way of evaluating the truth or falsity of that.

And I admit I'm speculating. I just find it "interesting" that, since the
introduction of SACD and BD Audio, the number of really fine-sounding
recordings has significantly increased.


The title of this thread is "What you buy to listen to music on...
[affects the way the recording is made]". This has /always/ been true.
The recording industry (with a few exceptions -- mostly smaller labels)
has /always/ pandered to the lowest common denominator of playback
equipment.

Right. And I have no problem with that myself.

And I acknowledge that it has often been a necessity. I'm bothered, though,
when necessities aren't abandoned because they are no longer needed.

[Scott Dorsey]

William Sommerwerck wrote:

This lasted until multi-track recording arrived, at which point the sound of
the orchestra was dissected and reassembled to produce an "idealized" sound
that lacked a strong relationship to to the original.

This happened long before multitrack recording. The notion of spotmiking
orchestras to allow additional tonal control and to create a closer and
larger than life sound dates back to Toscanini.

Of course, the phonograph record itself had limited dynamic range, and the
mastering engineer would often pull up the quieter passages. (Bud Fried told
me on several occasions that the original masterings of the Solti "Ring" had a
dynamic range of barely 20dB.) If you've never heard a dbx II encoded LP,
you're in for a surprise.

Not just the mastering engineer, often the recording engineer would be
doing some very aggressive gainriding.

But more than that, it was common especially in the early days of the LP
for orchestras to perform differently, with restricted dynamic range, just
for the recording.

The Compact Disk ought to have brought these musical "perversions" to an end,
but it didn't. The CD was a mass-market replacement for the LP and Compact
Cassette, so these atrocities continued. It wasn't until the SACD and BD-Audio
disk arrived that recording engineers started taking absolute fidelity
seriously * -- because they knew these recordings would be played on very good
equipment.

What happened was that in the 1950s we start getting some attention to
deliberately realistic recordings, with the work of Bert Whyte and Bob Fine
and those crew. But, these recordings were always a very limited item,
made for a very limited market. That continued throughout the CD era;
even as DG was making horribly multimiked recordings, there were cleaner
and more realistic recordings from labels like Telarc and Pope Music and
M-A and Sheffield Labs....and some of those labels changed as they grew and
some didn't.

"A worrying trend: there is no place for neutrality and fidelity in today's
music business. Discuss."

I think there is a place for neutrality and fidelity, but I don't think it is
a huge place and I don't think it has ever been. I think it will remain the
domain of small labels and while I think that's a shame (since it pays my
salary, I'd like to see it become as popular as possible), I don't see it
changing.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 8/29/2014 8:01 PM, wrote:
...influences how music is produced:

And so now we have books such as "Mastering for iTunes."


--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[[email protected]]

Mike Rivers wrote: "And so now we have books such as "Mastering for iTunes."

Ahh yes, boutique - or, a la carte - mastering!

smh

A wonder we don't have 7 different masters for all the different outlets and playback formats.

[Mike Rivers[_2_]]

On 8/30/2014 9:52 PM, wrote:

Ahh yes, boutique - or, a la carte - mastering!

It's quite common for a pop song to be mixed (and mastered) in several
different versions depending on where it's going. iTunes is just another
way of hearing a song, and it's not necessarily the same audience as a
radio or a TV audience, or a live audience in a dance club. Each has its
own "boutique" version.

--
For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

[[email protected]]

On Saturday, August 30, 2014 10:48:52 PM UTC-4, Mike Rivers wrote:
On 8/30/2014 9:52 PM, .com wrote:



Ahh yes, boutique - or, a la carte - mastering!



It's quite common for a pop song to be mixed (and mastered) in several

different versions depending on where it's going. iTunes is just another

way of hearing a song, and it's not necessarily the same audience as a

radio or a TV audience, or a live audience in a dance club. Each has its

own "boutique" version.



--

For a good time, visit http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com

Ridiculous isn't it?

Back in the day mastering meant a track didn't throw the stylus on a record, and that the tracks were all *close enough* in volume that reaching for the knob wasn't necessary.

We didn't cater to fans listening on this or that device. It was up to the listener and their budget to afford a decent enough stereo to listen on. It wasn't like, "Oh, all the teeny boppers listen to music on http://cdn.radiolive.co.nz/radiolive....jpg?width=800 - have the studio chop off all the bottom and top, and compress the rest!

You chose to listen on that thing, you got what you paid for.

[PStamler]

On Saturday, August 30, 2014 9:17:45 PM UTC-6, wrote:

Back in the day mastering meant a track didn't throw the stylus on a record, and that the tracks were all *close enough* in volume that reaching for the knob wasn't necessary.



We didn't cater to fans listening on this or that device. It was up to the listener and their budget to afford a decent enough stereo to listen on. It wasn't like, "Oh, all the teeny boppers listen to music on http://cdn.radiolive.co.nz/radiolive....jpg?width=800 - have the studio chop off all the bottom and top, and compress the rest!



You chose to listen on that thing, you got what you paid for.

Not so; there are multiple accounts of how Berry Gordy, president of Motown Records, insisted that their singles be mastered to sound best on the cheap little portable phonographs owned by many of their customers. Indeed, he'd audition test pressings on one.

Peace,
Paul

[William Sommerwerck]

wrote in message ...

We didn't cater to fans listening on this or that device. It was
up to the listener and their budget to afford a decent enough
stereo to listen on.

Ironically, even "cheap" audio equipment has gotten very good. Pioneer sells
$250/pair tower speakers that actually do justice to Mahler. I use a pair of
KLH Audio mini speakers on my TV. (They cost $15 total, due to a Best Buy
pricing error.) The sound is amazingly neutral, and they can play at high
volumes without "splattering".

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:

Back in the day mastering meant a track didn't throw the stylus on a record=
, and that the tracks were all *close enough* in volume that reaching for t=
he knob wasn't necessary.

Depends. Sometimes that was the case, sometimes it wasn't.

We didn't cater to fans listening on this or that device. It was up to the=
listener and their budget to afford a decent enough stereo to listen on. =

Not at all! In fact, sometimes there would be different mixes made
altogether (or even different recordings) for stereo and mono versions
of a record issue.

It was very common for promo 45s to have different processing than 45s
cut for record store sale, or for jukebox sale. Jukebox discs would
often be equalized differently too, to allow them to be cut much hotter.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[hank alrich]

wrote:

Back in the day mastering meant a track didn't throw the stylus on a
record, and that the tracks were all *close enough* in volume that
reaching for the knob wasn't necessary.

We didn't cater to fans listening on this or that device. It was up to
the listener and their budget to afford a decent enough stereo to
listen on. It wasn't like, "Oh, all the teeny boppers listen to music
on


Who the **** is the "we" you think you represent? You are unbelieveable
dense and arrogant. Tweny minutes _legitimate_ study of the subject
matter would allow you to disavow every ignorant thing you have written
above.

You goddamn right "we", as in people who have made _records_, catered to
this or that playback medium, with individual mixes tailored to the
anticpated playback system.

Have you ever considered talking about stuff you know something,
anything, about? Or is the situation so bad that adopting that approach
would leave you mute?

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic

[hank alrich]

Mike Rivers wrote:

On 8/29/2014 8:01 PM, wrote:
...influences how music is produced:

And so now we have books such as "Mastering for iTunes."

Don't waster your time on a book, dude, because there's an app for that.

--
shut up and play your guitar * HankAlrich.Com
HankandShaidriMusic.Com
YouTube.Com/WalkinayMusic