The Death of High Fidelity

Rolling Stone ^ | December 26, 2007 | Robert Levine

[ovrtaxt]

I remember when INXS released the first all-digital record. It sounded really punchy and crisp, but after a couple of decades of this, that organic texture of the 70s is hard to come by.

[Mr. Blonde]

It is interesting to me that two of the three listings for well mixed albums by RS are from artists who have been around the block. Bob Dylan and Robert Plant (with Alison Krauss). Some of this is probably they have the stature to demand their music is made a certain way.

[ovrtaxt]

I got into a band called Rock and Roll Worship Circus a couple of years ago. They use old minimoogs and theramins, weird electronic stuff that run on vacuum tubes, things you can’t find anymore. They also use vintage guitars and amps.

I’m not sure about their recording processes, but any band that went exclusively to analog recording would likely make news.

[Mr. Jeeves]

As for recent releases, I think anything by Porcupine Tree is mixed extremely well.

Absolutely. Steven Wilson is as good a producer as he is a performer. And PT is one of the best live bands I've ever seen - they get their sound just right.

[Mr. Blonde]

I know The White Stripes newest album is the first one produced in a modern studio. I don’t know if they used exclusively analog equipment but I would say it is very likely. And certainly they weren’t using any studio trickery to make Meg’s drumming more even. :)

[ovrtaxt]

I haven’t seen them live yet, but I’d sure like to.

[Grammy]

You are correct about the “art” of recording being all but dead. This is an excellent article.

I will add one more dimension to the battle. The improvement of the gear means that you don’t have to know what you are doing to use it. Therefore, many many many (did I say many?) musicians feel that they can do great work in their bedrooms and save oodles of money on studio costs.

They can. But they lose the dimension that a real engineer brings to the project. Mr G has been told on more than one occasion that he is as important to the project as any of the musicians are.

And so many of these young musicians have never *really* used their ears. They have only listened to the crummy stuff that is out there, and figure if they can get “almost as good” by themselves, they will be doing great. Thus begins the downward death spiral of the quality of music.

Mr G was just involved in the rerelease of a truly classic project he recorded 30 years ago. The recording was done on 24 track analog tape, and mixed without automation. (This was before there was automation, or auto tune or digital editing or any of the fun stuff kids use now to create perfection) The recording is still awesome, and the sound beats the snot out of most of what is released today.

[ejonesie22]

Amen. Good sound is becoming a lost art.

I will on occasion pull an actual real album out of my closet, pick the correct styli cartridge for the record and put it in my Technics 1200 (The sole survivor of my first "Audiophile" phase in 1980) and enjoy the good old days.

I just wish I had kept my Maggies and my Bryston amp...

Everything now is compromise.

[Yardstick]

Rush Limbaugh is a huge fan of compression. Every now and then he'll go on a tangent about how much he loves it. He actually recompresses his albums -- reburns them to CD after a trip through a maxed-out compressor -- because the original compression isn't enough for him.

Of course he's got those cochlear implants, so who knows what that's doing. But I think Rush was a compression fan even before his hearing problems began.

An interesting case study in compressed versus (relatively) uncompressed is ZZ Top -- their mega-platinum 80s albums versus their earlier ones. In the 80s they wanted big pop hits and it shows in the production. Gimme All Your Lovin is a perfect example of radio-friendly super squash. That song sounds great in a car or on a dance floor.

But to compress a symphony or a jazz quartet of course would be sacrilege. Compression can be good or bad depending on the type of music.

[listenhillary]

From Fark, just this morning.

[Yardstick]

Heh — that’s pretty good.

[Afronaut]

Good discussion and great comments!

The best sounding material to my ears is the Chess Studio recordings - 1950"s-60's

When I listen to them I feel like I am a silent member in that studio. I get the feeling and the vibe that the players are experiencing at the exact moment of the recording. When the song hits the pocket I can visualize the players making eye content and see them sitting back in their seats and digging deeper on their parts. I can feel the rush sometimes at the end of these song that the players must have felt, knowing that they nail it!

I can also hear the soundstage of the room, the drums off the walls, the amps making some noise, the picks on the strings, the vocals moving into pitch. I hear real people playing and singing.

Can anyone fnd me something that even comes close to this in 2008?

[Nowhere Man]

Some do say that they had better fidelity when they used amplifiers with vacuum tubes than with transistors. I have a 1964 Sherwood amp with 9 tubes and it has a good sound to it. I just need to add some components to it. Still, I have a JVC-S100 receiver and a Panasonic RA-6500 cassette/receiver that has good sound too even if they are solid state. Most of my stereo equipment is 1970's vintage although I do have a CD player I found dumpster diving, it is a GE component player made in 1984. I also have a 1964 Sony reel-to-reel tape deck.

Maybe I'm a little off the subject, but I always liked to listen to music over AM radio, maybe because I never really had an FM radio until I was 12 (1978). Still, I like to listen to the oldies show WABC, 770 kc, out of New York City plays every Saturday night on my Grnadfather's bakelite 1953 Philco 5 tube radio and the sound is beautiful. Even the sound is great from my 1965 8-transistor "Maggie" (Magnavox) AM only radio. One thing I learned from that oldies show is that in the 1950's to even the early 1980's, they mixed the music in a way that it would sound good over AM radio.

[Afronaut]

Buck Owens alway mixed his Telecaster up in the mix to cut through those pickup truck radios! I like Country sounds in a 60's Pickup truck with a little sweetie siting right next to me...