SlimChances wrote: > Seems a bit cynical and rather doubtful. Yes recordings for the last 20 > years or so have been baly influenced by the Loudness Wars and other > forms of compression but there are still producers, engineers and > musicians that care deeply about the quality of the music they make. see > this explanation of what has gone wrong > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFaRIW-wZlw
Yes the loudness wars have had a huge impact (and I think everyone is very familiar with that) - for around 25 years recording quality was seriously compromised - one of the many things that highlighted what was wrong with the music industry as a whole. Other factors also influence the quality of the recorded material released to the public. RobbH wrote: > Without disagreeing with that statement, I think it's worthwhile to > remember that, for the people who do it, sound recording can be many > things: an art, a science, a skillset, a passion, a sacred mission. But > in most cases, it's also a job. And, as with most jobs, there are good > days and bad days, and there are tasks that must be done, even if they > don't work out as one would like. And there are often compelling > incentives to do the job in ways that are incompatible with accurate > audio reproduction. Yes agree totally - there are many competent and many excellent recording engineers and/or producers out there - but as you say they will still have the off day, combine that with a lot of mediocre work and the loudness wars mentioned above I think we have been through a period where a very large amount of recorded material produced for public consumption isn't what it could be. And I don't think it's a cynical view - its just realistic and based on real world experience. It is heartening to see so much high quality recording & production these days, the outputs from many record labels are consistently high (such as Stockfisch, Blue Coast, Chesky, etc), the loudness wars seem to be over and there are more recording engineers and producers seem either more capable or more committed to the quality of output. I guess one could argue that recording engineers may well have always been generally good, but the producers are the ones who have undermined the output for consumption (e.g. due to the loudness war directives from the big record labels, etc). As I think has been mentioned elsewhere artists also often have little or no input into the final production version of what gets commercially released, even if they have had a big say in the actual recording sessions. It's also important to remember that artists like Mark Knopfler, Sting, etc, are rare as they both (a) have the power to control exactly how their recordings are produced and released, and (b) even more importantly have very good 'critical ears' for listening to create the best sound for consumer release (and that may not mean they have physically good hearing - as many artists ultimately end up with mild to badly damaged hearing - but in a more esoteric sense of understanding recording and playback capability & quality). While I only worked in the Hi-Fi & Professional Music area briefly it became apparent from experiences both during that time and outside of it many musicians may have fantastic 'ears' for live music and creativity, etc, and create and play amazing music but can still have a very average appreciation for playback of consumer recorded music (e.g. happy to listen to MP3s on earbuds and never listen in the way a music enthusiast or a positive* 'audiophile' might). This is by no means intended as a negative, its just a reality - when your music is often 'live' and intimate, or in concert type performances with PA systems and other wise in a recording studio the profile of the sound is quite different to how a consumer's home hi-fi, headphones, or similar designed for playback of a consumer recording, will sound. There are quite a lot of great artists out there who can produce their own recordings extremely well, but again this seems a recent phenomenon and previously they were probably very few and far between (given just how many recorded artists there have been over the years)... * i use 'positive' to exclude from the term audiophiles the rivet counters and snake oil types who focus on unquantified effects or highly subjective differences in hardware and such which has no bearing on, and usually detracts from, actually enjoying the music. Things are definitely better - but I think you would have to be the eternal optimist to think that the most recordings are produced for consumer playback as well as they could have been (at least over the modern period of the last 50-60 years). Anyway just my 2 cents. 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