what is going on in your musical life

some otherwise good records can be ruined or made less enjoyable by bad recording/mixing/mastering, and other records can sound terrible and still be great. it all depends, y'know? some kinds of music are way more dependent on sonics than others.

if the listening public/music writing body understood how their musical experiences are so definitively created by not the songwriter, or the producer, or the performer, but by the mixer and the mixing process, 90% of all fun rhetoric would dissolve. You can't really sling mud as effectively when your opinions are defined exclusively by who's behind the desk

Oh god yes. Final mixing on good speakers is like getting your teeth pulled through your brain, you doubt your aesthetics and your sanity. It's like a process of systematically removing everything you found intrinsically interesting during composition. But things like low end are important.

More Sunday broadcasts followed, but Stokowski was unhappy with them. He disliked the sound of the radio signal, which was compressed (tamped in at its low and high ends) so as to travel through the air without grave loss of fidelity. He loathed the surrender of aural control that the process called for. Before conducting the musicians, he conducted the technicians -- supervising the placement of the microphones, scrutinizing the recording equipment, and quarreling with his new rival behind a mixing console. "He was at the conductor's stand, and off to the side in the wings there was a man sitting at a sort of keyboard with dials," Evangeline Johnson recalled. "He was called the mixer. Stokowski stopped the orchestra and asked what the man was doing." When the need to compress the sound for broadcast was explained, he retorted: "Then you're paying the wrong man. He's the conductor and I'm not. I don't want this to be broadcast under my name if I'm not controlling the pianissimo, the mezzo forte, and the fortissimo."

As the story goes, for the next broadcast Stokowski made the technicians place a portable mixing board near the conductor's podium; as the story goes, the technicians disconnected the wires at their end, placating the maestro with the illusion of control.

pg 138, Reinventing Bach, Paul Elle

(eventual story is that Stokowski settled on sitting the mixer within the orchestra, where he could be conducted.)

there's no Stokowski thread on ILM. what are we, amateurs?

xp I think that is a rose-coloured view that I wish were the case but ime is not the case, especially in the current climate, where quantitative number crunching has mostly usurped verbal criticism as being the primary method in which records are talked about.

thanks for that, Milton

I am in the middle of recording an LP, I start tracking vocals tomorrow, tracking and mixing is supposed to be wrapped up in the next 3 weeks, I feel pretty much 24/7 anxiety about it these days

Reading these last few posts isn't helping :(

my record is finally coming out next month. feels like i finished it forever ago but it was a long process of finding a label, getting together artwork, video, an EP w/remixes leading up to it, etc etc etc.

meanwhile i've been messing around doing production for a few different rappers and singers. who knows when any of that stuff will come out but it's nice not having to worry about the mastering, promo, etc for it.

also the record went through a last-minute round of remastering after a lot of agonizing about it, so yeah.

recently had a record come out that went through 3 rounds of mastering

it can drive you just a little bit crazy, especially if you're already halfway there (e.g. I'll listen to various masterings of albums to figure out which I like best)

I think some of the inherent disconnect between mastering engineers and musicians is that the former are trying to obtain something that will sound the same across a wide variety of playback situations, and that may involve squelching frequencies that the latter are quite fond of

not to mention the inherent differences in LP/CD and digital audio

don't get me started on 24bit->16bit dithering

the former are trying to obtain something that will sound the same across a wide variety of playback situations, and that may involve squelching frequencies that the latter are quite fond of

well put. saving you the heartbreak of how all the parts you're currently the fondest of are going to sound on other systems.

I am tagging along for this: http://vague-terrain.com/2013/exploring-the-nebulous-cloud-like-three-dimensional-sound-space-at-the-center-of-four-speakers-does-this-space-evoke-comedy-cavernous-terror-reassuring-pastoral-birdsong-inhuman-wire-mother-blee/

i thought i was happy with how my new EP sounded but then i heard it on Spotify via my girlfriend's laptop's speakers and i wanted to die.

what is going on in your musical life, Milton? You are going on tour soon, yes?

i thought i was happy with how my new EP sounded but then i heard it on Spotify via my girlfriend's laptop's speakers and i wanted to die.

I like to mix the vocals on laptop speakers for this reason

me too

that's a good idea, this was more no bass (duh) and some slightly harsh mids from a bell tone, which sounded like it had a lot more sustain on the laptop speakers vs any decent stereo where those frequencies blend in more.

a lot of great music doesn't sound like anything on laptop speakers

I pushed for using a different master for the vinyl vs digital release

this was not a popular decision among all involved in the process but I think it was the right one

does anything sound good on laptop speakers?

that shit ruins whitehouse

I am tagging along for this: http://vague-terrain.com/2013/exploring-the-nebulous-cloud-like-three-dimensional-sound-space-at-the-center-of-four-speakers-does-this-space-evoke-comedy-cavernous-terror-reassuring-pastoral-birdsong-inhuman-wire-mother-blee/

― Milton Parker, Tuesday, October 8, 2013 5:26 PM (57 minutes ago)

awesome, see you next week brah

got the video back last night from my community theater version of Jesus Christ Superstar (Pilate) yesterday. really amateur quality video (small black boxy theater):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84ewZfdKrjk

a lot of great music doesn't sound like anything on laptop speakers

true i'm not too worried about it but mostly got anxious because she was like "is that what it sounds like? i liked it better at the show." and i mean yeah, i hope it sounds better over giant speakers & subs compared to tinny laptop ones.

That was great, Neanderthal! I grew up listening to JCS. I performed Pilate's Dream at my induction to the thespian society in high school at age 16 or so, probably looked like a total goofball, but I always wanted to play Pilate.

if the listening public/music writing body understood how their musical experiences are so definitively created by not the songwriter, or the producer, or the performer, but by the mixer and the mixing process, 90% of all fun rhetoric would dissolve

Definitely.

A flimsy song with fantastic production is much more likely to do well than a fantastic song with lousy production.

Depends what you mean by "do well."

not sound like shit

Neanderthal, that is GREAT

I don't know, it seems like having shitty songs is a good way to sound like shit. Anyways I just feel like saying it's ok to have boring songs if your production is good is a glib statement and I doubt you really believe that.

I've always known I don't have "good ears" but more and more I realize that I just have no idea what sounds good or bad to other people. I hear some stuff and I know it's well-produced or well-mixed but I rarely hear something that is ruined for me solely by having bad production or a bad mix. Which is not to say that those things aren't important but just to say that I am totally unable to gauge them.

I can't listen to the first Smiths album despite loving pretty much every song on it because of the way it sounds

@ NA, when I say "do well" I typically mean "will find resonance in 2013 with the music writing community and the consumer-listener base".

And I'm not trying to say that "a shitty song" can be made to sound good. I just don't think there are that many shitty songs. Can you form a complete sentence? You can write a song. Beyond that it's performance (almost arbitrary in 2013), production and mix

I was responding to this:

A flimsy song with fantastic production is much more likely to do well than a fantastic song with lousy production.

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Wednesday, October 9, 2013 5:57 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm a massive fan of lo-fi stuff but I kind of agree about production/mixing? Though I wouldn't go so far as to say 'a shit song can sound great with good mixing', I do think the line between a good and bad song is often small, and a lot of it is to do with arrangement, production, mix. And the caveat that I love lo-fi is kind of irrelevant, because the bands I love that sound for are bands that suit no production/rough production/anti-production or whatever. The form suits the content, man.

What I was trying to express is that there's external success (how much other people like a song) and internal success (how happy you are with a song you write) and they are both valid measures of success. I have trouble with defining the success of a song solely by how much other people like it because there are lots of other factors with this that aren't related to the song itself (i.e. even getting your song to the ears of the music writing community and consumers) and because lots of people like shitty songs. I also don't really understand saying that performance is almost arbitrary - not in a "I disagree with this" way but in a "this is just a confusing statement" way.

There are also things like cultural moments/trends and the connotations of certain sounds that put you off songs, of course. Things like, when Nouvelle Vague first came out, I thought the arrangement was kind of charming, but now if I hear people doing covers like that I want to murder them horribly.

xpost to myself, there.

Oh and production/mixing can definitely push a song from good to great. I'm not even arguing with anyone. I just feel like when I was starting to write songs and play music, there was an attitude of "I write these songs for myself and I don't care what other people think about them as long as I'm happy with them." I realize there's a percentage of bullshit in that statement but it still makes me a little sad when people only think they're doing well if they're reaching a significant commercial audience and getting good reviews. If that's your measure, then there are plenty of artists who are now canonical who never "did well" in their lifetime.

I guess 'performance is arbitrary' is a reflection on the number of things one can do to 'fix' performance flaws in the modern age? I was a little confused by that at first, too.

I do not believe "how happy you are with a song you write" is a valid measure of success

I mean, I write lots of songs for myself and I sell records to myself and I go to all my own shows and license these songs to commercials selling myself to myself

Really? I mean, fair enough, it's not a good measure of success if your aim is to make a living writing music, but it's perfectly valid if your aim is just to write good songs. 'Success' is not a monolithic thing.

The production conversation is interesting because I tend to have this feeling like a lack of production sheen has maybe held my material back in the past from reaching more people, but at the same time I know there are albums that I love and that also have tons of fans that don't sound objectively outstanding either. It's like I can think lo-fi is a cool aesthetic except when it applies to my material, when it doesn't sound like an aesthetic choice as much as just mediocrity. Although I guess there's still good and bad aesthetics as far as production goes even among lo-fi stuff, or "less than super hi-fi" stuff.

But with vocals too I often find myself being able to accept and even enjoy a lot of roughness from other singers, but when it's my own performance it makes me cringe if it's not right on because I feel like it just doesn't work. Maybe it's psychological, or maybe it's just a stylistic mismatch or something.

If that's your measure, then there are plenty of artists who are now canonical who never "did well" in their lifetime.

I have a whole song about this idea on the album I'm recording now, it's called "Vincent van Gogh." Titular lyric: "It worked for Nick Drake and for Edgar A. Poe / Franz Schubert, John Toole, and Vincent van Gogh." Of course I'm not really convinced yet and haven't figured out how to not be miserable about not being more successful.

fgti is operating in a different musical world from most of the rest of us here

The form suits the content, man.

^^^this. i think i get away with a lot of things in my own recordings (noise, hiss, etc) because it's part of the aesthetic that would never fly if it was supposed to be a polished pop or rock record. it's also a lot easier to make a good sounding record when you're working with a lot of samples vs a lot of live instruments, imo.

Damn xposts, I was going to make a hilarious aside about 'Edgar Allan Poff'.

ha crut well on one hand I feel like "why don't more people aim high and write songs with listeners in mind instead of seeing songwriting as a kind of therapy?" and on the other hand I'm like "remember I approached music-making with enthusiasm and joy? oh yeah that was when it was a hobby"

*"remember when I approached..."

Steve otm about vocal takes. It's super important that singers work with somebody to help them through their own psychodrama.