Why Modern Music Production Sounds like Ass....

[harddriver]

fuck em

 

[DanTravis62]

With no budgets for recording, I can see why so much music sounds the same. Not being able to record a live drum kit, guitar amp etc makes a difference. Takes alot of effort, expertise and money to get a good live drum sound. 90’s still had bands going into studios to cut tracks. Not much nowadays most likely.
Also all the guitars recorded with tons of tracks of each part kill it for me. Nice to have some space.

That's not what takes up the space 99% of the time so I don't know what you're listening to. It's generally the gigantic, dry drum samples, and the screaming 12db louder than the rest of the band doing that. The guitars are generally high and low passed within an inch of their life, so even if there are 16 tracks hard panned for the rhythm it would objectively make up like 7% of the space in the mix.

And honestly even with drum samples and amp plug ins, you could still make a recording that has some personality - like I laid out earlier, this is a problem of creativity, not of technology.

 

[CJ7]

HA!! I find I listen to very little that came out after 2000. Everything took a nose dive around 2000, so I only listen to a small amount compared to pre-2000.

I guess that depends on your music of choice. Generally the only time I'm going pre-2000 is for Jazz or Fusion (Holdsworth, MacAlpine, Howe). But I listen to mostly Tech Death or the more modern instrumental prog and shred (AAL, Intervals, Scale the Summit, Tigran, Their Dogs Were Astronauts, etc.).

 

[Noch]

i think much of it also has to do with the modality of recording being so plug in dominant. very rare to think when listening they had mic'd a cab. people move mic's on a screen now. i have a big bias for analog.

 

[DanTravis62]

i think much of it also has to do with the modality of recording being so plug in dominant. very rare to think when listening they had mic'd a cab. people move mic's on a screen now. i have a big bias for analog.

That may be part of it, sure

I don't think it's because of the plug-ins themselves though - I think it's because people get lazy because of the plug ins

And it's not like that with just guitar stuff, I think it works that way for all digital. That it isn't inherently the problem with digital itself, but the way that people get lazy with digital solutions to problems

 

[Rackman]

Digital as a recording medium is awesome - tape is a huge pain in the ass. It's just expensive to get enough digital channels to do drums well, but that's always been true.

Digital as an editing and mixing medium has upsides and downsides. But I find it more positive than negative. I use mostly outboard with a small amount of stock plugins in locations I consider non-critical though.

 

[skoora]

With no budgets for recording, I can see why so much music sounds the same. Not being able to record a live drum kit, guitar amp etc makes a difference. Takes alot of effort, expertise and money to get a good live drum sound. 90’s still had bands going into studios to cut tracks. Not much nowadays most likely.
Also all the guitars recorded with tons of tracks of each part kill it for me. Nice to have some space.

I don’t think It’s wholly a budget issue, more a laziness and talent issue. Even with a budget the people making those killer records were very talented with good ears and sensibilities. They certainly could make a great sounding record in the box, even now, without a big room and the 3K mic’s and pre’s, outboard gear etc. The price of entry dropped radically and it has allowed a flood of people who were never going to be that creative or take the time and care to craft something special.
Just someone who really knows how to tune a kit and what cymbals and heads to use is going to get a killer result in a small room or somewhat treated basement. Or at least someone who really knows how to deep dive into drum software and give it some feeling. So many of the records sound like they literally loaded a preset and hit record. No tweaking, no time to mess with things to shake it up.
Lot of “engineers” it seems took some dude’s advice on a YT video short and then go on autopilot for every application.

 

[DanTravis62]

I don’t think It’s wholly a budget issue, more a laziness and talent issue. Even with a budget the people making those killer records were very talented with good ears and sensibilities. They certainly could make a great sounding record in the box, even now, without a big room and the 3K mic’s and pre’s, outboard gear etc. The price of entry dropped radically and it has allowed a flood of people who were never going to be that creative or take the time and care to craft something special.
Just someone who really knows how to tune a kit and what cymbals and heads to use is going to get a killer result in a small room or somewhat treated basement. Or at least someone who really knows how to deep dive into drum software and give it some feeling. So many of the records sound like they literally loaded a preset and hit record. No tweaking, no time to mess with things to shake it up.

Yep, blaming it on the budget and digital is ironically lazy thinking IMO - there's plenty of records that we were all gushing about a couple pages ago in the thread that were recorded in the box, and on shoestring budgets. Even in the 90s.

I personally go absolutely insane doing deeply programmed, as-lifelike-as-possible drums, and I'm pretty sure there's tons of other people that do too.

It seems like that is blaming it on the tools, instead of the people who take shortcuts with the tools

 

[Klauth]

i think much of it also has to do with the modality of recording being so plug in dominant. very rare to think when listening they had mic'd a cab. people move mic's on a screen now. i have a big bias for analog.

Something to be aware of is that's rarely talked about (most likely because its complex) is bad plug ins. I got turned on to this knowledge by a producer engineer that's in the know and the game. some of them have phase issues (amongst other issues). Ive tracked enough 4x12 cabs with mics to hear it pretty quick. plug ins don't have a specification like hardware does. and there is no standard it has to be held by/to. in most cases users don't know what's actually going on behind the glass, and so, most likely won't hear when something isn't "right" but what's important is. they didn't have to leave the house (or chair) to track their ultimate sound with the IR they got from (....fill in the blank) it just gets worse and worse when you're in the digital realm, and most likely you/they won't know why, as there is no way to trouble shoot. my heart goes out to those who fell for the plugin/IR thing. but I get why they did.

 

[Noch]

Something to be aware of is that's rarely talked about (most likely because its complex) is bad plug ins. I got turned on to this knowledge by a producer engineer that's in the know and the game. some of them have phase issues (amongst other issues). Ive tracked enough 4x12 cabs with mics to hear it pretty quick. plug ins don't have a specification like hardware does. and there is no standard it has to be held by/to. in most cases users don't know what's actually going on behind the glass, and so, most likely won't hear when something isn't "right" but what's important is. they didn't have to leave the house (or chair) to track their ultimate sound with the IR they got from (....fill in the blank) it just gets worse and worse when you're in the digital realm, and most likely you/they won't know why, as there is no way to trouble shoot. my heart goes out to those who fell for the plugin/IR thing. but I get why they did.

true, rather unfortunate.