How dumb have music listeners and musicians become?

[fas42]

Well, I am very, very pleased that I obtained Adele's album. Because, in the final round, it may end up being the "worst" album I own. And if I can rescue that, then I will really feel I've accomplished something.

What's fascinating is that I ran the album from the system being cold: as I've said many times, being a low quality dude the HT beast needs a good workout, a solid hammering to get everything, especially the speaker drivers up to scratch. And so far the messages I'm getting from this album have been confusing, it hasn't been like anything I've tried before.

So far my conclusions have been that the mastering engineers are obviously getting lower and lower into the audio signal, from each instrument, getting it as absolutely raw as they can. Then they start playing games with the sound, putting it back together again, just the way they want it to be. An analogy would be to create the perfect margarine, a perfect copy of butter, except that they believe they can make it better than butter! And the trouble is if you get it very, very close, but it's still not quite there ...

What appears to have happened with this album is that they have left nothing alone: everything, but everything is "fake". It has been put back together again to sound better than the real thing, but almost nothing in there is "real", for your ear/brain to grab onto and make sense of. Even, and especially, her voice.

Now I could be wrong, my system hasn't properly hit its straps yet. Maybe, just maybe, enough real sound, some tiny smidgeon, still exists somewhere in there to fool the brain, but I haven't hit it yet. In any case this disk could be the ultimate test CD: how a particular system handles it, makes sense of it, will tell you a huge amount.

Frank

 

[RBFC]

Her Adele: Live at Royal Albert Hall Blu-ray is staged much better. As much as my wife and I like 21, it's grating overall.

Lee

 

[Soundproof]

A couple of years ago, I had an interesting experience. During a dinner I was invited to, a female singer/songwriter I had never heard of came to sing. The tables were in a horseshoe, in a large dining room. She sat a little back from the middle, picked up her guitar and began to sing.
Snap! A wonderful voice, with lots of genuine sentiment, good guitar, excellent blend. She sang three songs and was off - and the last one brought tears to the eyes of the listeners. It did to mine, and I'm a cynic.
Had never heard of her. But was told she had a CD that was just coming out, and bought that.

Took it home - and heard nothing, absolutely nothing, of the nuances her voice was capable of, which I had heard in that room. Her sensitive guitar playing was gone, a bad orchestra wallowing through the tunes together with her, instead. Not saying they should have gone with her and the guitar, but someone without ears did the orchestral arrangements and recording - totally missing the point of her talent.

While I could have spent quite a bit of time listening to what she delivered during those three songs, I only played that CD once for disappointment and a second time to confirm that I wasn't crazy. Then I got in touch with the artist, and asked her about the quality of the recording and the difference I perceived between her live skills and what had been released. She was intent on going on with the people who had recorded that first CD, released another, and now is heard of no more.

How did she become known? Through her early and simple sets on live stages, that captivated listeners. How did she become forgotten? Through overproduction by apparently deaf people intent on showing what their equipment can do.

Here's that first CD. As you can see, they had a crowd of musicians in the studio, and should have been able to do better, because they had platina in their hands, and turned it into chrome.
http://www.haakonberre.com/whywewoo.htm

I came across a well-known music reviewer who lamented in her review that the CD was without the rich emotion evoked when listening to the artist live, which confirmed that I wasn't going deaf!

 

[fas42]

From Wikipedia, 21 (Adele album):

Critics also suggest that the album's understated musical production and relative lack of artifice are striking deviations from the "bombastic theatrics" of the mainstream music industry.

I wonder where you can buy this version ...

Frank

 

[bblue]

...
So far my conclusions have been that the mastering engineers are obviously getting lower and lower into the audio signal, from each instrument, getting it as absolutely raw as they can. Then they start playing games with the sound, putting it back together again, just the way they want it to be. An analogy would be to create the perfect margarine, a perfect copy of butter, except that they believe they can make it better than butter! And the trouble is if you get it very, very close, but it's still not quite there ...

What appears to have happened with this album is that they have left nothing alone: everything, but everything is "fake". It has been put back together again to sound better than the real thing, but almost nothing in there is "real", for your ear/brain to grab onto and make sense of. Even, and especially, her voice.

Now I could be wrong, my system hasn't properly hit its straps yet. Maybe, just maybe, enough real sound, some tiny smidgeon, still exists somewhere in there to fool the brain, but I haven't hit it yet. In any case this disk could be the ultimate test CD: how a particular system handles it, makes sense of it, will tell you a huge amount.

Frank,

I think you should refrain from trying to suggest where and how (and who) was responsible for the sound you describe. It doesn't sound to me that you know enough about the things that happen during the tracking/recording/mixing/mastering processes to assign their roles.

Bad audio and poor sonic judgements can start off with the artist or producer (and to a lesser degree, the engineer most of the time) during tracking. How the instruments, percussion and vocals lay down affect most everything thereafter. Even the arrangement can have a profound effect. If the producer has good ears and a reliable feel of the monitoring system, he should be able to guide the entire process from beginning to end.

If the original engineer is also the mixer (and whether or not he's at the same studio) the sound and production characteristics will more than likely be carried on to the mix. If it's a different mixer he/she may have a different idea about how it should sound (which enters in if they were not given specific instructions). Usually, a good mixer with his own ideas will end up improving the situation and tame things down, but not always. They may push the envelope in the same direction. Whether the project producer was involved through this stage is also important.

How much compression and limiting (and effects) is used during tracking (usually not much) and then mixing (a lot) and on the main mix buss will have a great effect on the way it is mixed. Some mixers mix through a heavy limiter and make it sound a certain way with that limiter engaged. Others might use a lot of compression on individual tracks, and not much on the mix buss (just enough to help 'glue' things together). Sometimes it's both. Entering into this is the quality of the audio of that board, is it analog or digital and how are the outboard hardware interfaced, all influence in various ways that resulting sound. And of course, how does the producer want it to sound, or did he leave that entirely up to engineering.

THEN the poor mastering engineer gets the results and tries to get it tonally balanced to a standard that he feels represents a well balanced recording. Ultimately, that might not really happen because his hands are tied by his 'instructions' (typically from record co. execs), or there just isn't enough he can do to improve it.

Now I'm speaking of what we might consider a 'poor' recording. It can be poor just at one point with following points all trying to fix it, or it can start out pretty decent and be destroyed by bad decisions or instructions downstream. It's almost impossible to determine how it really came to be without hearing samples of the intermediate steps, like rough mixes of the original tracks, roughs of 'working mixes' for evaluation, etc.

All FYI.

--Bill

 

[garylkoh]

Thanks, Bill. That needed to be said by someone with experience. I highly appreciated your comments.

I begged a set of original tracks from a recording engineer of a live session I was at - and it's been 12 months, and I still haven't managed to get a rough mix that I can even remotely compare to the live event. We are far, far from the "truth".

 

[Steve Williams]

Frank,

I think you should refrain from trying to suggest where and how (and who) was responsible for the sound you describe. It doesn't sound to me that you know enough about the things that happen during the tracking/recording/mixing/mastering processes to assign their roles.

That "needed" to be said.

Thanks Bill for your insight

 

[Soundproof]

What was particularly galling in the episode I described above, with the female singer/songwriter, was that she seemed completely uninterested in the "problem" I described to her: that her soul, her personality, was not coming across in her first CD-release. She was inexperienced, had never recorded before, and was probably impressed by the number of musicians and the process.

Reminiscent of a conversation I had with the pianist Hélène Grimaud, about her recordings, which she puts a lot of energy and effort into. When she was very young, she recorded at Abbey Road, and because she was young and inexperienced, she didn't object to what was being done, in spite of the fact that she abhorred recording in their studio, because she got absolutely no response from the room, and they asked her TO PLAY WITH HEADPHONES ON!!!

True, from her lips to my ears. (This was the work she recorded there: http://www.classicalstore.com/store...off-sonata-no-2-etudes-tableaux-op-33#5193615)

She is completely dependent upon attuning her playing to the feedback she gets from the room she is in, and recording at Abbey Road, with their method, took her sight away, in her words, because she is a synesthete, and plays the colors she perceives during performance. Having the headphones on was like putting a filter on that colorscape. I had brought along the CD to show how long I had been following her playing, and instead got a very good insight into a top performer's challenges. As an aside, she was also extremely critical of most top-end hifi-systems she had heard. When touring around the world, it was customary with receptions in the home of one of the principals of the concert hall she would perform in, and they would often be eager to demonstrate their impressive looking sound systems. Her judgement: "Exaggerated bass and dull treble, with too warm mid - without exception. Not at all what an orchestra actually produces."

 

[RBFC]

I'd imagine that many artists will knuckle under to the prospect of actually getting paid for their work, even if the production values aren't up to their personal standard. It would be hard to risk your livelihood and complain under such circumstances.

Lee

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

What was particularly galling in the episode I describec above, with the female singer/songwriter, was that she seemed completely uninterested in the "problem" I described to her: that her soul, her personality, was not coming across in her first CD-release. She was inexperienced, had never recorded before, and was probably impressed by the number of musicians and the process.

Reminiscent of a conversation I had with the pianist Hélène Grimaud, about her recordings, which she puts a lot of energy and effort into. When she was very young, she recorded at Abbey Road, and because she was young and inexperienced, she didn't object to what was being done, in spite of the fact that she abhorred recording in their studio, because she got absolutely no response from the room, and they asked her TO PLAY WITH HEADPHONES ON!!!

True, from her lips to my ears. (This was the work she recorded there: http://www.classicalstore.com/store...off-sonata-no-2-etudes-tableaux-op-33#5193615)

She is completely dependent upon attuning her playing to the feedback she gets from the room she is in, and recording at Abbey Road, with their method, took her sight away, in her words, because she is a synesthete, and plays the colors she perceives during performance. Having the headphones on was like putting a filter on that colorscape. I had brought along the CD to show how long I had been following her playing, and instead got a very good insight into a top performer's challenges. As an aside, she was also extremely critical of most top-end hifi-systems she had heard. When touring around the world, it was customary with receptions in the home of one of the principals of the concert hall she would perform in, and they would often be eager to demonstrate their impressive looking sound systems. Her judgement: "Exaggerated bass and dull treble, with too warm mid - without exception. Not at all what an orchestra actually produces."

I think a lot of young artists, particularly pop artists, have rough experiences when they first encounter the business and are overwhelmed/overrun by producers, engineers, A&R men, and end up producing products that don't souind like themselves. It's sad, but common. What's really sad is when they develop the voice, the style, the clout to make the art that's in them, but they never develop the ears. This is also pretty common. So common that it's easier to name the artists who have developed the ears than the ones who haven't. From the perspective of my own tastes, artists who immediately come to mind are folks like Van Morrison, Dianna Krall, Mark Knopfler, Dwight Yoakam. They have strings of albums recorded in different studios, with different engineers, different producers, different musicians, even deliberately in different styles...and they all sound good.

The young Adele should learn from them and take control of her art in time for her third record. If only 21 sounded as good as, say, Shelby Lynn's Just A Little Lovin', it would spend a lot of time at the top of my personal playlist.

Tim

 

[bblue]

Thanks, Bill. That needed to be said by someone with experience. I highly appreciated your comments.

I begged a set of original tracks from a recording engineer of a live session I was at - and it's been 12 months, and I still haven't managed to get a rough mix that I can even remotely compare to the live event. We are far, far from the "truth".

Hi Gary,

There's a lot of excitement just by seeing the event as you listen to it. If it's a really good sound system and well mixed live, it'll be hard to capture what you remember!

But if the musicians *really* played well on that live set, and it was recorded, it should be possible to mix something that is close. If the band wasn't so hot on stage and it wasn't noticed because of the energy and excitement of the whole event, it'll be very hard to mix to the level you recall it. Very frustrating to say the least.

What format are your live tracks in, and what type of music is it?

--Bill

 

[garylkoh]

It was a really good sound in a room that worked extremely well - a small jazz trio. Even the musicians said that they really got into the groove that evening and totally enjoyed themselves.

The tracks came directly off a Tascam 5-channel recorder 24/96 PCM.

 

[fas42]

Frank,

I think you should refrain from trying to suggest where and how (and who) was responsible for the sound you describe. It doesn't sound to me that you know enough about the things that happen during the tracking/recording/mixing/mastering processes to assign their roles.

Bad audio and poor sonic judgements can start off with the artist or producer (and to a lesser degree, the engineer most of the time) during tracking. How the instruments, percussion and vocals lay down affect most everything thereafter. Even the arrangement can have a profound effect. If the producer has good ears and a reliable feel of the monitoring system, he should be able to guide the entire process from beginning to end.

Bill, I appreciate what you're saying, from the point of view of someone who's actually using the equipment that allows one to do all these manipulations. My response in that post was a reaction, somewhat emotional, to the degree of overly obvious manipulation that had been done. Now, if the producers choose to alter sound in specific ways, then they should do so such that the end result does not make it clear what's going on. And in this album they have failed, and failed badly -- you can literately audibly see the hands of the engineers playing with the dials: where does music fit in that scenario? Art is no longer art, when you become too aware of the man holding the paintbrush ...

For example, the producer of the album overall should be shot for not maintaining a consistency of sound across the album, track to track. One can play a game of "Name the effect used on Adele's voice" for this musical section, let alone track, and have plenty of material for the competition. Of course, if that was the point of the album, to be a showoff piece for the latest gizmos available in the studio, that's fine if that is your cup of tea, but it's not what I would call music.

Ultimately the album fails because the ambient clues and cues have been so stripped away that there is nothing to remind you that this is "human" music making. Again, it's like very clever margarine, fine if you don't pay attention while eating; but the more you tune into your taste buds, the more you realise you're sampling a complex aggregation of chemicals.

In terms of where the compression occurred, this unfortunately is all within the individual tracks, the mix buss compression is virtually zero. Hence it would be extremely difficult, certainly impossible at the moment, to recover the end result: de-mixing is still very much at the learner's stage.

Of interest, there's a decent thread on the Gearslutz website I came across last night where they rip this album to threads, in terms of the "bad" decisions made by the people responsible ...

Frank

 

[fas42]

So common that it's easier to name the artists who have developed the ears than the ones who haven't. From the perspective of my own tastes, artists who immediately come to mind are folks like Van Morrison, Dianna Krall, Mark Knopfler, Dwight Yoakam. They have strings of albums recorded in different studios, with different engineers, different producers, different musicians, even deliberately in different styles...and they all sound good.

I was impressed to hear, ages ago, that Cat Stevens was extremely particular, and that Frank Sinatra had tremendous control over his work ...

Frank

 

[MylesBAstor]

Frank,

I think you should refrain from trying to suggest where and how (and who) was responsible for the sound you describe. It doesn't sound to me that you know enough about the things that happen during the tracking/recording/mixing/mastering processes to assign their roles.

Bad audio and poor sonic judgements can start off with the artist or producer (and to a lesser degree, the engineer most of the time) during tracking. How the instruments, percussion and vocals lay down affect most everything thereafter. Even the arrangement can have a profound effect. If the producer has good ears and a reliable feel of the monitoring system, he should be able to guide the entire process from beginning to end.

--Bill

100% right The producer calls the shots and the artists usually have a minor say in the matter.

 

[treitz3]

Bad audio and poor sonic judgements can start off with the artist or producer (and to a lesser degree, the engineer most of the time) during tracking....If the original engineer is also the mixer (and whether or not he's at the same studio) the sound and production characteristics will more than likely be carried on to the mix. If it's a different mixer.....Whether the project producer was involved through this stage is also important......Entering into this is the quality of the audio of that board, is it analog or digital and how are the outboard hardware interfaced.....And of course, how does the producer want it to sound, or did he leave that entirely up to engineering.....THEN the poor mastering engineer gets the results

Maybe this is also part of the issue. Too many chiefs and not a lot of Indians. Listening to a Mark Knopfler CD [any of the ones I own], I get none of the disaster I hear on the final result of Adele's 21. I'm not at all claiming to know or pinpoint where the issue comes from or where it is stemmed from but I can clearly tell you that there is an issue with regards to the final result. Mark apparently has little issues with all aspects from the artist(s) all of the way to the mastering engineer to the end result as to what hits our ears. Adele seemingly has issues as soon as the sound leaves her beautiful vocal chords.

Thank you, by the way, for an insightful post bblue.

 

[fas42]

Okay, Adele '21' again: there's something very, very strange going on -- I had a suspicion that not all added up, and so far it's been confirmed. Track 3, "Turning Tables", on the CD is one of the worst, the piano, the whole sound has been dulled down, definitely "distorted" in that sense.

Now, I have an MP3 of that same track, and resampled it to 24/384, and I thought it was sounding pretty good over the super ordinary PC setup. So, on a hunch I ripped the CD, resampled to 24/384 and did the AB on the PC. Guess what? The MP3 original trounces the WAV from the CD, when playing the 24/384 -- where the PC actually sounds half reasonable -- versions thereof!! In what ways? Sparkle, life in the piano, in the backing strings, the voice -- everything. For comparison, I have a couple of top notch hi res files donated by Bruce and Basspig in earlier posts, so I know what the tonal balance is of the setup with quality files.

So what's going on?! Have the MP3 files been EQ'd differently, the CD mastered differently to suit a "different" crowd? Already, looking at the gross waveform characteristics there are very distinct variations between the 2.

Anyway, before I dive in, and work out exactly where the differences are, maybe people here with experience with such matters can offer up some clues ...

Thanks,
Frank

 

[bblue]

Okay, Adele '21' again: there's something very, very strange going on -- I had a suspicion that not all added up, and so far it's been confirmed. Track 3, "Turning Tables", on the CD is one of the worst, the piano, the whole sound has been dulled down, definitely "distorted" in that sense.

Now, I have an MP3 of that same track, and resampled it to 24/384, and I thought it was sounding pretty good over the super ordinary PC setup. So, on a hunch I ripped the CD, resampled to 24/384 and did the AB on the PC. Guess what? The MP3 original trounces the WAV from the CD, when playing the 24/384 -- where the PC actually sounds half reasonable -- versions thereof!! In what ways? Sparkle, life in the piano, in the backing strings, the voice -- everything. For comparison, I have a couple of top notch hi res files donated by Bruce and Basspig in earlier posts, so I know what the tonal balance is of the setup with quality files.

So what's going on?! Have the MP3 files been EQ'd differently, the CD mastered differently to suit a "different" crowd? Already, looking at the gross waveform characteristics there are very distinct variations between the 2.

Your conclusion is seriously flawed, Frank.

You might prefer the sound of your resampled MP3 to the resampled CD rip, but only because there is less detail in it. The resampled CD rip (assuming equal quality resampling) will be far more faithful to the original than the MP3. Your perception of that difference is a red herring and (I think) what is steering you repeatedly to the wrong conclusions.

You can only compare like source in these types of evaluations. For example, the 44.1k Cd original to the resample. Forget MP3 entirely. It simply doesn't matter and is not criteria for evaluation of a signal path or gear, or anything except MP3 encoding algorithms and sample rates. If you EVER find any type of MP3 sounding superior to the original, it's only because of loss of significant musical information and the inability of your system (or ears) to resolve it.

Think about it.

--Bill

 

[JackD201]

Sorry Frankie, I gotta go with Bill on this one.

 

[bblue]

Maybe this is also part of the issue. Too many chiefs and not a lot of Indians. Listening to a Mark Knopfler CD [any of the ones I own], I get none of the disaster I hear on the final result of Adele's 21. I'm not at all claiming to know or pinpoint where the issue comes from or where it is stemmed from but I can clearly tell you that there is an issue with regards to the final result. Mark apparently has little issues with all aspects from the artist(s) all of the way to the mastering engineer to the end result as to what hits our ears. Adele seemingly has issues as soon as the sound leaves her beautiful vocal chords.

Thank you, by the way, for an insightful post bblue.

Thanks.

I'm wondering if her vocal chords aren't really fully 'back' yet, and some of these production values are an attempt to hide the flaws and at the same time produce something commercial. It certainly won't be the first time...

--Bill