The Fans Deserve Better

[userchanged1]

I'm not into AE for profession or even aspire to be an amateur. I'm just a guy with too many guitars and a wish to record songs in better quality than I did back in the day when I did it with cassettetapes.
I do get some of the frustration, but this evolution is here to stay guys. Its not only in AE. Same thing happens in video editing, graphic design, etc. And those guys whine about it just as much. Only one thing to do about it, and that's accept it.
Shit used to be an art, now not so much anymore. As I said, I get the grievances. Hell I work at the movie theatre, job was way cooler back when i had to handle actual film, now its all digital and sucky programming on a pc.
But it is what it is and we all need to get over it. This 'things used to be better in the old days' is really something that literally has been around for centuries and probably in 20 years we will all say that back in 2014 things were way better.

I remember watching the 'Apocalypse Now' documentary; Heart Of Darkness if I remember correctly. In which Coppola prophecized at one point he hoped to see the day that any random guy could afford a videocamera. Because he imagined that this could bring so much new creativity into the industry that otherwise would remain untapped potential.
Now a few decades later we all have a HD camera in our pocket and yeah, you can look at the crap on youtube and whine about how fucking wrong he was. But I say go onto Vimeo and watch some staff picks. What is happening there is exactly what the guy predicted. And I guess even though in absolute numbers the crap outweighs the good a 1000 to 1, in my opinion it is worth it for the people that are willing to dig a bit deeper to find a gem.

Because even though you Audio engineers apparently increasingly deal with crappy bands/attitudes, there are those occasional great records that still are being made today that would never have left the bedroom if it wasn't for this evolution. Like everything in life, it works both ways i guess.

 

[Winston Wolf]

'things used to be better in the old days'

That's perfect description of the OP. He's too old for this job.He's stuck in the past.
What if CLA or Bendeth had this attitude? They would be out of business very quickly.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

Yesterday I was reading a interview from Mikael Akerfeldt from opeth and he sums this subject in his point of view, that is also shared by a lot of people, including Glenn.

Here some excerpt of the interview:

You've talked about being "discouraged" with current metal - is this part of what you were talking about?

Yeah. I think many of these records - and I'm not even talking about the music on there but I'm thinking soundwise - would probably benefit from having more of an old school sound to them. The musicians themselves I think would also benefit because less cheating would probably push yourself as a musician.

You're talking about using digital technology where you can play one bar perfectly and then cut and paste that for an entire song.

Many of these metal records, you listen to them and it's no better than drum machines to me. It's all quantized and fixed and everything and it sounds like a typewriter with added bass. Like the bass drum sounds like a typewriter - clackety clack clack clack - and added bass. Everything is supposed to be clearly audible, which is not the case with real records or real sounds. You have to take one for the team and maybe one bass drum hit won't be there in the mix if you know what I mean.

Opeth was guilty of making those types of records?

Definitely. Oh, yeah. "Ghost Reveries" was one of those records and everything was just perfect. You could solo every channel on the "Ghost Reveries" record and you wouldn't find anything wrong. You wouldn't find a single mistake on there and to a certain extent the same thing with "Watershed." And those records prior to that too, I guess. But you solo "Heritage" and it's gonna sound like, "That guy can't play" but in context with the band it sounds great and it sounds real and human because after all we're human, I guess.

I think this is the main message of glenn video.

 

[Flow Of Time]

And that might be the reason, why Watershed is Opeth's best sounding album.

 

[Ermz]

Watching the utter abortion that Opeth gradually turned itself into, I find it hard to take anything Mike has to say without a tremendous grain of salt. Typewriter kicks or no, Heritage isn't even one sixteenth the album that Ghost Reveries is, musically. That's the thing, so many of these dog and pony show debates about production are just trying to divert attention away from the music suffering irrespective of anything the production aesthetic has to do with it. You can quite comfortably do a natural, and somewhat 'raw' sounding record without it sounding like it was done by an assistant struggling through their first mix (ie. Heritage). Similar thing happened to Porcupine Tree. They went on this big kick about how loudness was destroying music after Deadwing. Lo and behold, their best sounding record is still In Absentia aka. the one not mixed in Logic on someone's laptop, with the levels deliberately kept low to preserve the full shittiness of the mix. As much as I'm about moderation and taking the best from both worlds, that kind of purism reminds me of the utter trash Dave Grohl seems to predicate his career on spewing everywhere. That the only 'real' records are ones cut through a console onto a tape machine, with everyone playing in unison. It's hard to imagine a more self-important and narcissistic attitude toward music.

There is a fine line. It's all about intent and executing it effectively. I imagine the intent with Heritage was to recapture the atmosphere and vibe of mid to late 70s prog recordings. In actuality it ended up just sounding like a mundane, pedestrian imitation, both musically and production wise. Other bands thrive on a super polished aesthetic. That's their right. Other bands yet stick to raw recordings, yet manage to execute them competently, and in a way where they hold up to the edited stuff. The parameters of success are set by the intent of the artist - not by some arbitrary purist ideas on what constitutes real music.

 

[SocialNumb]

That's a pretty big grain of salt.

What's with the drum machine bashing? I love them.

 

[indecizo]

I love some records that are quantized to death. I love others that are mostly natural. As long as the music is coherent and joyful to my ears. People will always whine about things, haters gonna hate, etc. It's just the mentality of newer bands of "you'll fix this later" and not actually practice like they should that is a bit terribad. I got this when I did some audio work years back when I recorded some bands, and I admit that mentality did rustle my jimmies a little bit, ended up polishing turds anyway and sounded great. But that's mostly because the bands had real jobs, do other things and not much time left for music so at least that's a good justification. I would love that the guy in the video shared more examples of "shit" in "big" productions. I'm sure there must be reasons why some kinda big bands do the quantized thing, triggers and all.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

Watching the utter abortion that Opeth gradually turned itself into, I find it hard to take anything Mike has to say without a tremendous grain of salt. Typewriter kicks or no, Heritage isn't even one sixteenth the album that Ghost Reveries is, musically. That's the thing, so many of these dog and pony show debates about production are just trying to divert attention away from the music suffering irrespective of anything the production aesthetic has to do with it. You can quite comfortably do a natural, and somewhat 'raw' sounding record without it sounding like it was done by an assistant struggling through their first mix (ie. Heritage). Similar thing happened to Porcupine Tree. They went on this big kick about how loudness was destroying music after Deadwing. Lo and behold, their best sounding record is still In Absentia aka. the one not mixed in Logic on someone's laptop, with the levels deliberately kept low to preserve the full shittiness of the mix. As much as I'm about moderation and taking the best from both worlds, that kind of purism reminds me of the utter trash Dave Grohl seems to predicate his career on spewing everywhere. That the only 'real' records are ones cut through a console onto a tape machine, with everyone playing in unison. It's hard to imagine a more self-important and narcissistic attitude toward music.

There is a fine line. It's all about intent and executing it effectively. I imagine the intent with Heritage was to recapture the atmosphere and vibe of mid to late 70s prog recordings. In actuality it ended up just sounding like a mundane, pedestrian imitation, both musically and production wise. Other bands thrive on a super polished aesthetic. That's their right. Other bands yet stick to raw recordings, yet manage to execute them competently, and in a way where they hold up to the edited stuff. The parameters of success are set by the intent of the artist - not by some arbitrary purist ideas on what constitutes real music.

You are taking all too serious man! He expressed a opinion not a bunch of rules that must be applied to music or production, I don't see his opinion as pretentious. It´s clearly that new opeth sound its not something you like and you show very well your dissatisfaction but the man didnt said anything that doesnt deserve some thoughts, even if his lastest works arent up to your standards. The quality of his work in opeth it´s one thing, his thoughts and ideas of music industry its another.

Anyway, of course much of this is subjective and related to our concepts, opinions, ideas about the music, production e.t.c but once again he has a point, well, some valids and solid points about the music industry.

I like and I love good sounding albuns but I also like raw things. Like everything there are some bands, albuns and genres that benefit raw productions and others not.

The album the heart of winter by Immortal has a awful mix but suits perfectly the feeling and the lyrics there and I cant imagine that shit quantized to death, big fat drums, e.t.c would be utterly ridiculous.

I think his point it´s that in the end we are humans and some imperfections here and there are natural. So the balance between the perfection and imperfection seems something to look for.

 

[ArthurD]

 

[Melb_shredder]

Not a fan, but they seem like a pretty good band live to me?


I'm pretty torn about what Glenn is saying in this one. Because, he's really right for a lot of it.. A lot of those genericore bands today (and it's other genres, let's not get picky) but they aim for an aesthetic and then just aim to replicate it for the most part. And even good music is going to seem pretty mediocre if the production is a copy paste of X other band you like. Remember when albums sounded different? When you could tell which band it was by the mix/ vibe?
Clayman, Slaughter Of The Soul, Black Album, Master Of Puppets, Seasons Of The Abyss... A lot of those bands have a SOUND and those albums had a SOUND and it was signature to them by using the gear and playing they way they did. But if every kid is gonna use podfarm and SD2 etc, then the music may change but it's still going to sound as soulless as the next band. So there definitely is a good point in there. But at the same time, bashing for bashing sake is silly. Any of those tools used correctly is still a tool used correctly. Autotune CAN be used right, amp sims CAN be used right, drum samples CAN be use right, and all of those things ARE being used by some of our favorite producers to produce AMAZING albums by AMAZING bands.

Why can't we just blame shitty music made by shitty bands???

 

[HCL]

Like I said on facebook, jumped the shark on this one. If people think organic/interesting sounding heavy records don't exist anymore, in abundance, it's because they're out of touch olds.

 

[HOFX]

I think people must get confused between the song and the band.

From an audio engineer perspective, I can understand someone wanting to give a song the best possible treatment: time aligned drums, powerful mix, pitch perfect vocals, super tight performances (even if that means a solo comprised of 13 takes).

Though, as a fan, I also like to listen to a band - their own amps, guitars, getting it down within 5 takes, the drummer on his own kit in a nice sounding room - and I think that's the sound that gets lost in production. I don't think a lot of bands have the confidence to put themselves out like that.

 

[Gujukal]

This guy need to understand that no one gives a fuck if the singer used pitch correction if its not noticeable. If you just use it to make a good vocal take great i dont understand the problem.

 

[UncleBob]

I'm trying to imagine how much WORSE the core bands would sound if they were all natural sounding and played for real?

 

[JamieK]

 

[He's Dead, Jim]

Watching the utter abortion that Opeth gradually turned itself into, I find it hard to take anything Mike has to say without a tremendous grain of salt. Typewriter kicks or no, Heritage isn't even one sixteenth the album that Ghost Reveries is, musically. That's the thing, so many of these dog and pony show debates about production are just trying to divert attention away from the music suffering irrespective of anything the production aesthetic has to do with it. You can quite comfortably do a natural, and somewhat 'raw' sounding record without it sounding like it was done by an assistant struggling through their first mix (ie. Heritage). Similar thing happened to Porcupine Tree. They went on this big kick about how loudness was destroying music after Deadwing. Lo and behold, their best sounding record is still In Absentia aka. the one not mixed in Logic on someone's laptop, with the levels deliberately kept low to preserve the full shittiness of the mix.

Now tell us how you really feel about Heritage I agree on most counts, and absolutely about In Absentia and Porcupine Tree, although it's interesting that that sort of dovetailed with Opeth's reversion to 70s prog at the same time Steven Wilson decided to go a similar route musically. But the difference is that, while I also dislike most of Wilson's post-Deadwing music, it still doesn't sound like dog shit the way Heritage does- even though Wilson mixed Heritage, and has a similar ethos about production, apparently.

 

[DanLights]

I'll just say, whoever has listened to Steven Wilson's The Raven That Refused to Sing and dismisses the production as lame retro shit, either has their ears up their ass or just has a personal bias against the guy.

 

[Gujukal]

I'll just say, whoever has listened to Steven Wilson's The Raven That Refused to Sing and dismisses the production as lame retro shit, either has their ears up their ass or just has a personal bias against the guy.

I dig his bass tone at least

 

[Boerboel666]

I'll just say, whoever has listened to Steven Wilson's The Raven That Refused to Sing and dismisses the production as lame retro shit, either has their ears up their ass or just has a personal bias against the guy.

Great record and band on this one, fantastic live too.

 

[UncleBob]

I'll just say, whoever has listened to Steven Wilson's The Raven That Refused to Sing and dismisses the production as lame retro shit, either has their ears up their ass or just has a personal bias against the guy.

Not sure if I just listened to what you referred to (I'm sure I did though) but that's probably the furthest thing from metal I can think of, the production for that type of music is pretty spot on for me.