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G650

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Posts posted by G650

  1. 9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    And I think this is where digital rears its head.

    In analog days, most recording engineers wouldn't have dreamed of doing this because "leveling up" would have required analog amplification by tube or transistor, which would in addition to the squashed sound, would introduce yet another layer of non-linearity and other distortion.

    Nowadays, that can be done without such traditional amplification and the associated distortion.  But that doesn't mean it doesn't sound like shit.  And, digital signal processing is not without audible penalty, entirely, but it's not measured in terms like "THD," usually.

    I think digital signal processing enables a lot of things that you "can" do, but probably "shouldn't" do most of the time.

     

     

    Actually no. Digital has given us tools to mangle sound in easier ways, and different storage media (vinyl did have physical limitations) but as Paul alluded to, this has roots in terrestrial radio. Specifically in New York in the 70s. Multiband compression, which was invented by a guy named Mike Dorrough, allowed stations to really compress the sound without pumping, which is an artifact of heavy compression. Without getting to in the weeds, different frequencies have different energies, low frequency carrying more, so dividing the frequency band into smaller slices you can compression them more even and achieve a higher average level.

    So why this is important is people perceive louder as better, for a time, due to Fletcher Munson. Like Paul said, a band will come back and cry if their song isn't as loud as the next guy because they perceive it as worse. Also why commercials are so loud. other side of the coin is its ultimately fatiguing.

    The real start of this is by a guy named Larry Berger who was a program director at a NY station back in the day. He was the first to apply multiband compression to broadcast radio because he knew being louder would get listeners. And it just spiraled from there. The RHCP album Californication is really recognized as album that went over the top, and Death Magnetic as the loudest ever.

     

    As I said though in the second post of the thread people have backed off it quite a bit, it's been pretty well recognized as not good. Not that its great now by any stretch, but at least the problem has been recognized. I honestly wasn't 100% sure where ztejas was going with this, but I suspected the brickwall limiting may have been it, which is why I brought that up initially.

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  2. 2 minutes ago, Party_Taco said:


    Let’s just say, if you hear the greatest rock band of all time start to play, make sure the women in your life are watching.

    Motorhead is playing the Superbowl?

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  3. 13 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

    IMO - many people that I know who say Trump is a good/great president, are saying it as a comparative statement. In their minds and words, he is better than Obama, than Hilary would have been, and than Sleepy Joe. 
    Let's face it, this past election was the worst choices - for varying, and different reasons - that I can remember. But then again I have only been following these things since the 1976 election. And I did some work for the Udall campaign (and you know why....there were more and better looking girls in his office). 

     

    The problem with that view, and I know plenty of people who espouse it, is it's empirically incorrect. Under Obama, the government and society functioned as it was supposed to, even if you didn't agree with it. Under Trump the government cannot even provide basic services correctly.

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  4. 7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Yeah, I got to work on one of those once.  Not as the engineer, just an old band of mine.  Holy shit that thing sounded great even when the "artist" didn't!

    It's funny, because this actually raises a point that is always in the back of my mind when these discussion invariably arise, that of what is pleasing to the ear. Fidelity has increased measurably, but that isn't what makes something pleasing necessarily. The way in which a lot of old gear distorted the sound was actually what made it so appealing (I realize you know this, this is just talking to the group), old Neve saturation, how tape knocked of the highs, etc.. I find delicious irony in the proliferation of saturation plugins to mimic the shortcomings of old gear. Of course the ease of working digital is a big selling point, but I still get a chuckle when I think about it.

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  5. 2 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Ironically, a huge number of great records have been made by using the console preamps almost exclusively, especially if they are classics like Neves and APIs and even SSLs (hey to Paul W). 

    I was actually having this conversation a few weeks ago, maybe on Gear Page, maybe gearspace, can't remember, but either way, it used to be you recorded with "the" console. Which to me gives a unified sound. I am sympathetic to the argument that you can use different flavors for different things, but it's just not my preferred way of working. That said, I do have a few 1073s, 4 Daking, 4 API 512s myself, so I guess I'm not immune. IIRC Paul had a rack of outboard 1073s? 

     

    Anyhoo, you forgot the greatest, the Trident A Range.

     

    images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ-ST8fT4vUlILY2HDDQnm

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  6. I'm not sure where you are getting that from, mixing is at a higher level now than it's ever been.

     

    You are probably talking more about stylistic choices, though I believe that the peak loudness war has probably passed.

     

    Just off the top of my head, go listen to the latest Chris Stapleton album. Vance Powell did an amazing job.

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  7. 16 minutes ago, honolulu horn said:

    Yeah, I was actually trying to think of what musicians were on the precipice of going in a new, interesting direction but for their death. I think some people here have replied along the lines of "I wish I had seen so and so live" or "Geez I really miss that artist." Both are fine, but I was actually more interested in the former. 

    Layne Staley was a good pick, as were Biggie and Tupac. Buddy Holly of course. You can see threads of more deeper stuff, more introspective and complex stuff starting to emerge in each of their catalogs. Artists tend to mature and it would have been cool to see what stuff they came up with had they been given the opportunity. 

    Yep, sames.

  8. 21 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

    Well I’m still on Twitter, so I’m not sure you are coming from a position of authority on this one. 

    ryan reynolds hd GIF

     

    The weirdest thing about this argument you guys are having is it's predicated on the assumption that Twitter is relevant to, well, anything, anymore.

  9. Just now, InkaUtexas said:

    OK, so work with me here. What if, and a big if, there is a game afoot. Elon gets to be the baddie. He crosses the line (told he can do it, but nothing is signed) and hung out to dry. Feds take over all his assets, sell them off to the highest bidder, and deport his ass. Teslas for all. NASA gets Space X, and twitter replaces the government messaging system that is not that great.

    All these "government employees" who are laid off are hired by these groups and everyone is happy. Just a hiccup here and there, but it was that damn South African's fault. He ran amok. Trump saves the day, budget is cut, etc.

    It could happen right? Right?

    I mean, can get behind this fanfic, but nah.

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  10. 9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Syd Barrett lived to be an old man,  but he was “gone” by late 1968. Would have been interesting to see where he would have either taken Pink Floyd or what a solo career would have looked like if he had not fried his brain.  His output would have definitely changed.  

    I've definitely come to be of the opinion Syd was going that way regardless. The acid didn't help matters but he was not built for spotlight

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