Downsides of being an audioengineer

[ahjteam]

...is that you notice things.

I was just browsing thru something to listen to and I noticed an old favourite of mine: The Offspring - SMASH. Helluva good album, but then I popped it in... WTF! That album has pretty much nothing under 80hz in the bass.

I made a quick comparison how it sounds and how it should sound in my opinion: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1338211/quickie/3.mp3

 

[egan.]

The original sounds better to me.

 

[Wolfeman]

Yeah I think that for music like that, not having a lot of low end is better.. But just my opinion

 

[Fox Mulder]

I developed a disgust for musicians.

 

[mick thompson]

I developed a disgust for musicians.

being more of a musician then an engineer i developed a disgust for engineers

dam bastards with there click tracks, late hours and tuning - we just wana rock! hahaha JK

 

[deanbailey]

...Is that you can't go back to your high school days where you enjoyed music for music and you're not always listening to how awesome/shit that snare sounds. or how well that guitar sounds with the drums.

...is that you have no or little social life.

 

[006]

Yeah I really can't even listen to any band's CD that sounds bad, which is why I can't stand black metal really Punk either. Any genre where the "norm" is to sound like it was recorded in 1927 or what the fuck ever, just can't listen to it. I have so many friends that try to show me new bands but I have them turn it off like 5 seconds in if it sounds like ass. How do enjoy music for music again?

 

[AudioPhile777]

Yeah I really can't even listen to any band's CD that sounds bad, which is why I can't stand black metal really Punk either. Any genre where the "norm" is to sound like it was recorded in 1927 or what the fuck ever, just can't listen to it. I have so many friends that try to show me new bands but I have them turn it off like 5 seconds in if it sounds like ass. How do enjoy music for music again?

I'm right there with you... the only way I can listen to crap production is if its jazz or blues or a jam band of some sort...

 

[Saculus]

from the womb forum....

The question was: What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started?

************************************************** ***************************


Slipperman's 10 commandments of AE beatdown.

1.) Expect nothing other than a long litany of suffering. You'll be less disappointed. In fact, soon you'll learn to LOVE the suffering, and will become, for all intents and purposes, indestructible.

2.) Attach some sort of price to EVERYTHING. Things that don't have a price attached to them are usually perceived as worthless, no matter what their ACTUAL value is. It's human nature.

3.) Realize that, with the best of intentions, the nicest people in the world will hurl you under the bus if they have something/someone else who holds more REAL(usually $$$) sway over them. Get over it. Get used to it. Cover yourself accordingly and feel no guilt for doing so.

4.) Assume the worst at all times... then multiply that by 3.

5.) Expect that, when the brass tacks are down, your worthy competition, often posing as good friends... are going WILDLY out of their way to shit talk you and your work. Ignore it and refuse to return the favor. Let your work do the talking. You will suffer IMMENSELY in the short run for doing this. Refer back to 1.) and 3.).

6.) In the words of the immortal Rev. Billy Milano: "If yer doing me a favor... you're NOT doing me a favor".

7.) Stop expecting to like your own work in the long run. If it ever happens, be very concerned, it usually means you've peaked, and worse yet... yer probably in decline.

8.) Everything matters. Everything. HOW MUCH it matters, and what you do with that hard earned knowledge is what separates you from the rabble.

9.) Everybody knows a little bit of something. We're all pretty silly and small in the face of God. It's a good thing. Your failures, and HOW YOU DEAL WITH THEM DEFINE YOU. Nobody ever learned SHIT from YOUR OWN successes. Resist the impulse to examine them... they are nothing but smoke and mirrors. In the same respect... Feel free to make as many mistakes as you like. It's all about graceful recoveries and a steadfast determination to not make the same mistakes again.

And finally, and MOST IMPORTANTLY:

10.) Accept all the above and refuse to let it alter your basic love for the craft and your desire to better yourself and your works. The fricative elixirs that surround you in the course of doing this as a LIFE PURSUIT will either be allowed to pool around you and EAT YOU AWAY as a corrosive agent... or you will learn to BURN THEM AS FUEL. It's your choice. There are no victims who didn't cast themselves in the role, knowingly or unknowingly.

 

[Nebulous]

...is that you notice things.

I was just browsing thru something to listen to and I noticed an old favourite of mine: The Offspring - SMASH. Helluva good album, but then I popped it in... WTF! That album has pretty much nothing under 80hz in the bass.

I made a quick comparison how it sounds and how it should sound in my opinion: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1338211/quickie/3.mp3

Damn good album! I use to listen to it tonns back when I was a teen.
Can't say your version fits better though. That may just be because I got so use to it the other way.

 

[jangoux]

Many albums i liked i cannot listen anymore due to being an audio engineer. I am all 'this bass rules!', 'what a middy bass drum tone....' and things like that. Smash rules tho'.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah I really can't even listen to any band's CD that sounds bad, which is why I can't stand black metal really Punk either. Any genre where the "norm" is to sound like it was recorded in 1927 or what the fuck ever, just can't listen to it. I have so many friends that try to show me new bands but I have them turn it off like 5 seconds in if it sounds like ass. How do enjoy music for music again?

The thought of 1927-era black metal and punk brought some hearty guffaws

 

[Metaltastic]

And as for OT, I'm happy to say there haven't been too many instances where I've gone back and listened to stuff I used to love but been unable to because of the production; I guess that's probably because most of it is pretty well produced, but there are moments (e.g. Insomnium's "Above the Weeping World" perpetually pumps so unpleasantly, but I still dig it). However, I have noticed that I find the cymbals on Evergrey's "In Search of Truth" to be a bit harsh/piercing now, which is unfortunate, because it makes listening to such awesome music a bit fatiguing

 

[egan.]

I have no problem listening to albums I already love but I can be a bit too production focused when listening to things for the first time.

 

[GarethSE]

Since I became an audio engineer, I started being a total cunt about how really bad sounding albums could sound 100x better in the right hands while still maintaining the atmosphere inherent in the poorer quality recording.
As much as I love Annihilation of the Wicked, I still believe it to be ridiculously true that it could get away with sounding a lot nicer without any detriment to the music or atmosphere. I do love the production on that album after a song or 2 and a couple of bongs though.

That and I have huge amounts of trouble getting into stuff that isn't nicely mixed that I perhaps would have appreciated otherwise.

But like AudioPhile, if it's a jam band or jazz or blues or something, I can tolerate lesser quality recordings.
And actually in general, for Avant-Garde shit I will take less clean sounding, MORE interesting sounds tonally ANY fucking day over really clean production.
All the Painkiller stuff sounds putrid as fuck but at least it sounds interesting.
I mean look at SunnO)))'s tone as well, it's muffled and scooped as fuck by all conventional metal standards but it more than works for them.

But as far as straight up metal goes, there's almost zero excuse to have a bad sounding DEMO these days, let alone a bad sounding album with the amount of young, talented engineers out there.

 

[Line666]

I periodically don't give a shit, unless its really terrible - the sort of terrible I wouldnt have listened to anyway even if I wasnt an engineer then I generally wont care. I can deal with clipping, pumping and generally not that awesome production, because I've always been able to just phase it all out and listen to it as a whole rather than single elements.

 

[GarethSE]

Since I became an audio engineer, I started being a total cunt about how really bad sounding albums could sound 100x better in the right hands while still maintaining the atmosphere inherent in the poorer quality recording.
As much as I love Annihilation of the Wicked, I still believe it to be ridiculously true that it could get away with sounding a lot nicer without any detriment to the music or atmosphere. I do love the production on that album after a song or 2 and a couple of bongs though.

That and I have huge amounts of trouble getting into stuff that isn't nicely mixed that I perhaps would have appreciated otherwise.

But like AudioPhile, if it's a jam band or jazz or blues or something, I can tolerate lesser quality recordings.
And actually in general, for Avant-Garde shit I will take less clean sounding, MORE interesting sounds tonally ANY fucking day over really clean production.
All the Painkiller stuff sounds putrid as fuck but at least it sounds interesting.
I mean look at SunnO)))'s tone as well, it's muffled and scooped as fuck by all conventional metal standards but it more than works for them.

But as far as straight up metal goes, there's almost zero excuse to have a bad sounding DEMO these days, let alone a bad sounding album with the amount of young, talented engineers out there.

 

[ze kink]

For me it's a bit different, I've started to appreciate a far wider range of different kinds of production. It's kind of weird, like I used to not be able to listen to some raw souding black metal for example, but now I'll even be digging how it's been done

Instead, I've started to dislike overproduced stuff. I mean, there's stuff that sounds fucking amazing, and then theres stuff that sounds plastic and lacks dynamics etc. and it definately doesn't fit some of the stuff it's applied on. When a metal or rock band sounds like Kanye West or Britney Spears, it really makes me feel like there's something wrong with it.

But yeah, overall, I have been able to avoid that effect very well.