Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
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Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
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Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#2Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
"Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies, digital audio had rapid improvements in the first 10 years but has mostly leveled off as we have reached the limits of physics, signals and sampling. Good audio equipment is still expensive and power hungry in every part of the chain.
Technology won't save what are fundamentally psychological issues. We respond emotionally to louder signals. We like songs that sound similar but not identical to things we've heard before. We listen to things that our friends like. All of this points to why top 40 songs sound the same, but "all records" is pretty broad. There has never been a better time to create something new in music, and yet we lean heavily on what has worked before -- in songwriting, in arrangement, in production -- so that others will like and identify with the creative output.
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#3[deleted]
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#4Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies,…
You beat me to posting Monty by a few minutes. I agree on the psychological factor and think the article gave unnecessary focus on the tech. Beyond "it is now possible to X" the tech bits were irreverent to, if not detracting from the overall point.
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#5> Worse still, the technology behind systems like Waves Ultramaximizer could easily be built into an iPod, automatically remastering all those dull old Neil Young records into BIG LOUD IN-YOUR-FACE BANGERS.
I believe Museum of Techno has done some work on this problem.
http://archive.museumoftechno.org/exhibition_detail.php?id=5
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#6Found this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPQiHyJj7Wk
introducing the Google Radio Automation suite which seems to be what came after the SS32 thing mentioned in the article. Seems like Google got out of that business in 2009:
http://www.wideorbit.com/wideorbit-acquires-google-radio-aut...
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#7Stuff like this reminds me a lot of sugary simple-carb-laden junk food. The holy grail of popular marketing is to find a way to tap into some kind of simple and probably very evolutionarily ancient "craving" or "desire" pathway in the brain. Seems like they've learned a whole collection of hacks to do this with music, and are now just cranking out manufactured pop music full of those hacks. Combined with repetition in the radio (familiarity, another cognitive bias), they can churn out predictable hits.
The question is whether people will ever get smarter and start being picky. We've seen a bit of this in food. The whole/natural/craft/whatever foods movement contains a fair amount of superstitious nonsense, but at its core it's ultimately about consumers being a lot pickier about what they eat. I think the overall effect is good -- people eating healthier food and deliberately turning down addictive nutritionally devoid junk. Maybe we'll eventually get an equivalent movement in music.
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#8Nitpicks: "A great deal of quality is lost as those huge files are squished to the CD format, before being further squished into MP3s on your iPod." Not true, AAC files at high bitrates are proven to be indistinguishable from the original. http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html "Every part of the signal chain—from earbuds to digital/audio converters—is improving and getting cheaper." Like other technologies,…
And you should be so lucky as to get even 8 bits of dynamic range out of a LOUDNESS WARS production.
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#9This is why I enjoy listening to records that people like Alan Parsons have engineered (Dark Side of the Moon, Al Stewart's Year of the Cat, as well as his work with The Alan Parsons Project).
Also good are those remasters reissued by Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. www.mofi.com
I'd probably enjoy modern pop music (even teen hits like Meghan Trainor) if it didn't all sound the same.
Re: Why Do All Records Sound the Same?
#10Mainstream music, sure, but there will always be bands like The Flaming Lips, or My Bloody Valentine releasing records that are completely counter to this approach.
I would argue that any 'true artist' - aka one that is consumed with the perfection of their art - is not going to be swayed to produce a 'hit' no matter what the studio wants (they simply won't sign with a big label to begin with, I know plenty of musicians that feel this way and are happy on an indie label).