Modern production techniques vs. yesterday´s
- Thread starter jangoux
- Start date
Bush is one of my favourite bands ever. I don´t thing they´ve changed that much going with "today´s modern production" in terms of tone. Here´s a picture of the song "Machinehead" followed by a picture of Bullet Proof Skin (from Institute, Gavin´s new band)
John_C
formerly Skeksis268
Bush is one of my favourite bands ever. I don´t thing they´ve changed that much going with "today´s modern production" in terms of tone. Here´s a picture of the song "Machinehead" followed by a picture of Bullet Proof Skin (from Institute, Gavin´s new band)
woooo square wave!
Sacha
Throbbing Member
I see the point of the argument a little bit, but that's what naturally happens, someone innovates or sets a standard and most other people try to follow it.
The music is still the important thing to 99% of people; as long as the production enhances that and doesn't detract from it I don't mind.
It's up to the new generation of mixers to set new standards if they are up to it. I don't think all Metal releases coming out sound the same myself...
The music is still the important thing to 99% of people; as long as the production enhances that and doesn't detract from it I don't mind.
It's up to the new generation of mixers to set new standards if they are up to it. I don't think all Metal releases coming out sound the same myself...
sorry if that came out weird...
what i meant was.. a competition thread trying out weird production techniques(just experimenting with all sorts of stuff).
so we have someone supply all tracks necessary for a song. everyone then gives a go at it? does this clarify the previous statement?
Bullshit.
There was once a time when not every metal record released sounded like a damn near carbon copy of the rest of the year's releases.
Metal is a genre I got into because of this. Lots of bands with hugely differing sounds, styles and atmospheres. Production goes hand in hand with the writing as I'm sure most of us here will agree, and tasteful production only helps to enhance this.
People say "if you don't like it listen to something else" but there's nothing wrong with expecting 110% of bands.
If a band isn't willing to go the extra mile and really carve out a niche for themselves, really make themselves their own unique creature then I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they don't quite deserve success.
Listen to a fuckton of metal from the 90's and you'll go "oh yeah, it does all sound totally different."
Nowadays we're too obsessed with 5150's, Rectifiers and V30's, 1 inch away from the speaker, between the cone and the dustcap, and andy's amp settings to realise that we're killing this era's music by making it all sound exactly the fucking same and you're saying he should listen to something else as though it's something HE'S doing wrong?
There's a reason I've damn near stopped listening to metal and it's this contentment with near complete stagnation while anyone else who DARES question it is clearly in the wrong.
Bullshit man, total bullshit
Nothing else to add. You know what the fuck I hate ? John Doe produces an album for a band. Then another band hear it, likes it and wants him to produce their album. And when you read about it you already know how the fuck will sound the second band's album because John Doe uses the same drum samples, the same amp/ amp sims, same frequencies on the bass, same impulses for every fucking single band he produces. so, band A sounds like band B, band C...
THANK GOD I HAVE ENOUGH OLD RECORDS TO LISTEN FOR LIFE (and some newer ones too). People want perfect results today. Well, guess what: PERFECTION SUCKS. I'd rather take Bonham's squiky drum pedal over a perfect machine drum kick anytime.
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
I think we had this conversation sometime ago:
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/sound_of_modern_metal.mp3
Andy Sneap
Metal Guru
no its prob not squarewaved to be honest. Everyone takes these pics of wav forms zoomed out, that still has plenty of dynamics by the looks of it. At the end of the day, how does it sound. Limiting can sometimes work well for a mix.
ahjteam
Anssi Tenhunen
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
The thing that has really bothered me is that since I started listening to older music and became aware of the loudness wars, you will notice that all the instruments jump out of the mix, the kick and snare really jump out but hold their own space, not fighting for volume with the guitars or vocals, you can clearly hear every nuance in every instrument. For example Nirvana'a Nevermind, I have had that CD spinning in my CD player for months now and it has yet to get old. I have gotten quite sick of when I post clips I hear comments like, snare is to loud etc etc and when I listen to other professional released band's albums, you can't hear the snare at all, or the kick for that matter, they are so quite that they are completely lost in the mix and as a result the entire song as a whole has absolutely no punch to it. But that is the result of mastering, heavy limiting kills the dynamics and forces the instrumentation to fight fro volume and space and the feeling it leaves on me is like the feeling of needing to yawn but it won't come out or the feeling of needing to crack your fingers but you can't, the achy feeling leads to me getting pissed off or getting a headache and I find myself not being able to listen to that CD anymore.
Another thing that has really ticked me off even more is in the vibe. We used to be about micing the instrumentation so that the room acoustics come into the recordings. The biggest influence of that is in the drums. I love to hear the sound on an album as if I am there listening to the drums in person, but with all the compression, eq and emphasis on the close mics and avoiding the room mics, you have lost the vibe of the band, you have lost intelligibility, the clarity of the small nuances that are apart of the emotion, atmosphere and detail of every instrument is lost and its an ear strain to search for the details in the music.
This world of quantizing and sample replacing has gotten quite annoying, not only does it not give the same amount of detail as the real thing, with the same samples everyone is going to sound the same. When you have multiple bands in the same genre with the same exact gear, producers, samples, they are all going to sound the same, I can't tell a difference between many of the hardcore/deathmetal bands other than the fact that they all try to sound the same musically, their production is identical, and I think that is why the bands I listen to really stand out to me. Behemoth, Mercenary, Nightwish (dual rec, sounds a lot different from the typical recto tone), Jeff Loomis, Devin Townsend, Evergrey, Lacuna Coil just to name a few, they record all their music, no fucking samples (or at least the same typical ones used) and the result isyou hear everything and THEY DON'T SOUND LIKE EVERYONE ELSE...their own guitar tone, their own drum tone, their own bass they stand out, they aren't like the 20 thousand different core bands that you never hear of or have been around forever but never reached as much massive fame, and that is because when you are that generic and that much of a carbon copy of everyone else, you will never be known as a large band, or a band to go down in history.
Another thing that has really ticked me off even more is in the vibe. We used to be about micing the instrumentation so that the room acoustics come into the recordings. The biggest influence of that is in the drums. I love to hear the sound on an album as if I am there listening to the drums in person, but with all the compression, eq and emphasis on the close mics and avoiding the room mics, you have lost the vibe of the band, you have lost intelligibility, the clarity of the small nuances that are apart of the emotion, atmosphere and detail of every instrument is lost and its an ear strain to search for the details in the music.
This world of quantizing and sample replacing has gotten quite annoying, not only does it not give the same amount of detail as the real thing, with the same samples everyone is going to sound the same. When you have multiple bands in the same genre with the same exact gear, producers, samples, they are all going to sound the same, I can't tell a difference between many of the hardcore/deathmetal bands other than the fact that they all try to sound the same musically, their production is identical, and I think that is why the bands I listen to really stand out to me. Behemoth, Mercenary, Nightwish (dual rec, sounds a lot different from the typical recto tone), Jeff Loomis, Devin Townsend, Evergrey, Lacuna Coil just to name a few, they record all their music, no fucking samples (or at least the same typical ones used) and the result isyou hear everything and THEY DON'T SOUND LIKE EVERYONE ELSE...their own guitar tone, their own drum tone, their own bass they stand out, they aren't like the 20 thousand different core bands that you never hear of or have been around forever but never reached as much massive fame, and that is because when you are that generic and that much of a carbon copy of everyone else, you will never be known as a large band, or a band to go down in history.
P-E
Munchkin
Sadly, this has happened to rap/hip-hop, just happened sooner than metal, and it is starting to worry me that we're heading the same way.
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
P-E
Munchkin
Well, the Kanye/T-Pain/Drake autotuned shit is getting on my nerves.
But yeah I get what you mean, metal used to be so diverse and original in the early nineties and now it's all mixed in a melting pot (with a dose of core added) and almost all sounds the same.
drew_drummer
Dancefap
It's up to us to sound different, and part of that is by ignoring each other and just doing what is in our hearts; rather than trying to appeal to each other. No-one made anything any good by trying to appeal to all metal fans, or all pop fans, or all rock, rap, fans.. etc.. etc...
- May 9, 2006
- 1,808
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It is just not metal that's all equal. Everything is. And that's what differs today's from yesterday's.
I am mixing a CD for a buddy. He has a power pop band and at the beggining of the job he asked me to mix it just like In Utero. I was like 'huh?!'. Then he completed he wanted that because it is one of the last CDs he reminded the band sounded like, well, a band playing together. So i took the CD home and listened and yeah, it is completely different from now. It doesnt sound anywhere near perfect, but sounds really cool, well, it really sounds like a band. But doing that today seems really off, and most bands react to this with something like 'This is sounding just like a rehearsal recording', so most of the time i aim for the radio rock polished product thing.
For me both are cool, but the perfection aimed today is too much, IMHO. It doenst leave space for the band being and sounding like the band it is.
I am mixing a CD for a buddy. He has a power pop band and at the beggining of the job he asked me to mix it just like In Utero. I was like 'huh?!'. Then he completed he wanted that because it is one of the last CDs he reminded the band sounded like, well, a band playing together. So i took the CD home and listened and yeah, it is completely different from now. It doesnt sound anywhere near perfect, but sounds really cool, well, it really sounds like a band. But doing that today seems really off, and most bands react to this with something like 'This is sounding just like a rehearsal recording', so most of the time i aim for the radio rock polished product thing.
For me both are cool, but the perfection aimed today is too much, IMHO. It doenst leave space for the band being and sounding like the band it is.
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