Phil Spector and George Martin Killed Audio
discman -- Sat, 06/28/2008 - 17:28
I just listened to M83's very nice and highly praised album, RedSeas&LostGhosts. It hit me that this type of music is much more common now than 30-40 years ago. I have a very high end system (cost > $20k). This album sounds good on my system but honestly I think it would sound about the same on a system at 1/10th the price. The reason is that the design of the music doesn't have much to do with the actual sound of instruments or the way they are artfully played. The music is wall of sound stuff. Good wall of sound stuff. The move to production values and design of innovative soundscapes makes great sound less possible or less important. If you are 25 and this is what you listen to, an iPod will do.
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I have not heard the album in question, but I have a difficult time believing that ANY kind of music, no matter how processed or artificial would not benefit from a higher bit rate that the ipod default of 128 kpbs.
If you are referring to the improvements between 320 kbps and Apple Lossless, your argument has merit. Personally I like the added harmonic fullness of Apple lossless over mp3 at 320 kbps, but at least the high bit-rate mp3 is musically involving.
Steven Stone
Contributor to The Absolute Sound, EnjoytheMusic.com, Vintage Guitar Magazine, and other fine publications
discman wrote:I just listened to M83's very nice and highly praised album, RedSeas&LostGhosts. It hit me that this type of music is much more common now than 30-40 years ago. I have a very high end system (cost > $20k). This album sounds good on my system but honestly I think it would sound about the same on a system at 1/10th the price. The reason is that the design of the music doesn't have much to do with the actual sound of instruments or the way they are artfully played. The music is wall of sound stuff. Good wall of sound stuff. The move to production values and design of innovative soundscapes makes great sound less possible or less important. If you are 25 and this is what you listen to, an iPod will do.
I agree with your title more than your general argument (though I don't disagree with your general argument).
George Martin (& his engineers) I hold partly responsible for the inevitable current disaster that is the direct result of the idea that sound engineering can be considered an art.
As soon as this idea became popular (Beatles), the entire industry began to go down hill, as the development of both microphones & speakers is a feedback process, which, without aim (towards the natural sound of instruments) simply 'changes' with taste/fashion but does not progress.
The better your speakers, the worse these compressed, distorted engineering-as-art recordings sound.
As a Beatles fan, this makes me sad. As a recording engineer it makes me furious and as a microphone designer it makes me despair.
Andy
www.SimpsonMicrophones.com - Next Generation Microphones
www.SimpsonMicrophonesArchives.com/Early_Music_A.mp3 - www.SimpsonMicrophonesArchives.com/Early_Music_B.mp3
Let take two examples:
1. A singer/songwriter singing and playing an acoustic guitar in a small space, but not necessarily a studio.
2. M83
I understand why my ultra-high-bandwidth amps, linear speakers, low distortion preamp, high s/n D/A converter, and acoustic treatment are effective in case #1. The resonance and decay of the guitar and voice are central to the beauty of folk-style music. These beautiful cues are heavily composed of low-level signals that high-end audio delivers effectively.
In case 2, I don't know that more accurate reproduction of the edges of the distortion patterns are intrinsic to the enjoyment of M83. That might help, but better (or rather more accurate) handling of that stuff might just be annoying or different. M83's sound design is also pretty low in dynamic range, so my 2400 watts of amplification don't help capture what isn't there (though I can play it pretty darn loud if I want to).
Though audio technology has advanced hugely in the last 40 years, sound design has evolved too. And I would argue that it has evolved in a way that makes it less dependent on difficult to engineer subtlety and more dependent on easy-to-deliver punch (cf car audio). If you want to reach a big audience, that makes sense.
There are debates about whether the Long Tail is a valid theory, but assuming it is roughly correct, the hope for high-quality music in the traditional high-end sense my lie there.
discman wrote:Let take two examples:
1. A singer/songwriter singing and playing an acoustic guitar in a small space, but not necessarily a studio.
2. M83
I understand why my ultra-high-bandwidth amps, linear speakers, low distortion preamp, high s/n D/A converter, and acoustic treatment are effective in case #1. The resonance and decay of the guitar and voice are central to the beauty of folk-style music. These beautiful cues are heavily composed of low-level signals that high-end audio delivers effectively.
In case 2, I don't know that more accurate reproduction of the edges of the distortion patterns are intrinsic to the enjoyment of M83. That might help, but better (or rather more accurate) handling of that stuff might just be annoying or different. M83's sound design is also pretty low in dynamic range, so my 2400 watts of amplification don't help capture what isn't there (though I can play it pretty darn loud if I want to).
If we take case 2 - of 'artificial music' - then logic would lead us to the control room where the music was 'mixed' with a pair of microphones to record the sound of the mix via the monitors used.
This way there will be no issue with using high performance monitoring to reproduce the distortion of the low-end monitoring used in the original mix.
If we take any other approach to this question we immediately spiral off into a feedback cycle which can only lead nowhere (much of the industry illustrates this).
Andy
www.SimpsonMicrophones.com - Next Generation Microphones
www.SimpsonMicrophonesArchives.com/Early_Music_A.mp3 - www.SimpsonMicrophonesArchives.com/Early_Music_B.mp3