1970s the dark age of recording?

[Felix_dup1]

I think Kraftwerk sounded absolutly great.

[KenElevenShadows]

Originally posted by Jimbroni:

What about the quality of the Drums themselves? Not the drummers, but the actual drums. Alot of coated skins, no resonator heads, big , all lead to a dead sound. Which was necessary to get rid of all the ringiness. Now days drums are tuned to be resonate without the ringiness, and you have better skins and moon gel, rim mounting, etc. I dunno I think drums sound alot more lively today before you start talking about recording them. What do you think?

I'd agree with you, although that said, I must say that there are some really bad sounding drums on major label albums out there, although I suspect that much of this is "intentional".

 

I think that the dead drum sounds from the '70s seemed appropriate for the music, though, and let a lot of the other instruments shine through.

[the stranger]

You haven't listened to enough 70's recordings.

 

The 70's was more like the space age of recording. It wasn't until the late 60's that a studio became an instrument unto itself. And considering that all of the major innovations in audio happened in the 70's, I would be hesitant to call them the dark ages.

 

Of course, you don't mean that, but I'm not one to let a good rant go to waste. And cool thread, by the way.

 

And you refer to this dark tendency of the seventies as a bad thing, but taste is totally subjective. Cool concept, bad you have to take art on a one by one basis. And maybe the seventies will be refered to as the dark ages (in terms of sonic coloration), but that don't mean it's a bad thing.

I think shitty sounding albums are just that and reflect more on the person/band who recorded/mixed them than some stylistic trend of the day.

[hard truth]

Two things inspired me to make this observation.

 

One is that I've been listening to more jazz and country from the fifities through the mid sixties. I am often astounded at how clear and crisp the sound is on many of these records, even though they were not big budget recordings. (this is much less true with 50s blues and early rock) Compare say, Elvis on Sun records with an early Black Sabbath album. It sounds like somone put a pillow on the speaker when you listen to Sabbath. I don't think that the difference is merely an intentional stylistic shift.

 

I also noted it when listening to Kid Rock. He incorporates a lot of seventies influences in his music, and I find the sound (not necessarilly the performace) much more powerful when recorded with late 90s audio engineering. Compare his version of the Bad company song. He doesn't sing it all that well, but the recording rocks compared to the original.

[Bejeeber]

It sounds like somone put a pillow on the speaker when you listen to Sabbath. I don't think that the difference is merely an intentional stylistic shift.

Watch out for bad re-mastering done from decrepit tapes. I've heard CDs of 70's stuff that sounded like a pillow over the speakers too, but it was the crimminlly negligent mastering for CD that was responsible - the originals were fine.

[miroslav]

Originally posted by theblue1:

...I really do love it. Just the way it is. But there are a lot of technical flaws. To me, that just emphasizes the importance of serving the music -- not the tecnical quality of the recording. So, in that sense, I would agree that Dowd did a perfect job.

Sure...a "perfect" album may have it's merits...

...but most of the stuff from the 60's-70's has tons of flaws....and those flaws have become small signatures that we have grown to love...either consciously or unconsciously.

So when ever someone comes along and tries to remix that stuff into "perfection"...it never quite comes across like the originals.

 

And...to tie this in to the "Emotion/Technology" thread of a few days ago...

...that is what is wrong with a lot of music being made today...it's too perfect, but most of the creators think that's what makes it good...when in fact, that's what makes it sterile.

You have to have those "ghosts in the machine"...IMO...

that stuff that only happens once...by accidentduring a session...

...that is gold!

 

.And then the PT tech goes and edits it all out!

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by Bejeeber:

Watch out for bad re-mastering done from decrepit tapes. I've heard CDs of 70's stuff that sounded like a pillow over the speakers too, but it was the crimminlly negligent mastering for CD that was responsible - the originals were fine.

Yeah that is a good point actually. I have a CD copy of Aerosmith's "Toys in the Attic" that sounds really dead... the vinyl doesn't sound like that at all.

 

The Stones' early 70's stuff on the other hand, sounds better on CD, because they did a good job of cleaning up nasty tapes when the remastered.

[GZsound]

Speaking of Bad Company..am I to understand some of you don't want your snare drum to sound like it's made from an old newspaper? geez..

[techristian]

This is hysterical. It is like saying that the striped bell bottoms of the 70's were ugly. We liked the striped bell bottoms back then. We bought them by the millions. WE LIKED THE GATED REVERB ON DRUMS BACK THEN and we bought those records by the millions!

 

The striped bell bottoms will come back and so will the gated reverb some day !

 

Dan

 

http://teachmedrums.com

[Joe Cole]

The more you try to make your music sound "now" instead of aiming for a solid sound, the more your music will sound dated in a few years.

 

Think of it this way, a Rhodes, B3, Wurli, Strat, Les Paul, Marshall, Twin, P or J bass.... record these correctly today without gimmicks, and it will sound great in 10 years.

 

Conversely, record the latest Zoom pedalled guitar, or latest soft synth and in 2 years it will sound sooo retro.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by hard truth:

Two things inspired me to make this observation.

 

One is that I've been listening to more jazz and country from the fifities through the mid sixties. I am often astounded at how clear and crisp the sound is on many of these records, even though they were not big budget recordings. (this is much less true with 50s blues and early rock) Compare say, Elvis on Sun records with an early Black Sabbath album. It sounds like somone put a pillow on the speaker when you listen to Sabbath. I don't think that the difference is merely an intentional stylistic shift.

Ok, a lot of what you describe above I would attribute to the lack of bass response in radios and sound systems of the day. They didn't hype bass much because nobody had a system capable of reproducing it. As speaker/amp systems became more capable, a shift from mid-range emphasis to more highs and lows followed. So of course the bass on a 1950's or early '60's album will have more highs and less lows. The rest of the 1960's were split with albums that mimicked earlier techniques and those that embraced the increased bass response of loudspeakers. The 1970's was a time when nobody could ignore the low end as quality woofers had become ubiquitous in stereo systems.

 

I also noted it when listening to Kid Rock. He incorporates a lot of seventies influences in his music, and I find the sound (not necessarilly the performace) much more powerful when recorded with late 90s audio engineering. Compare his version of the Bad company song. He doesn't sing it all that well, but the recording rocks compared to the original.

Ok, this makes more sense. First, I love most Bad Company. Second, I've never liked the production on their albums. Specifically, the drums always sounded like a**, IMO. Again, the overall impression was still very good and the songs rock. The acoustic guitar tracks are wonderful (particularly on Seagull), the clean guitars on {edit: Oops! That should read; Shooting Star end edit} and most of the distorted guitar tracks rock. Oddly enough, I have no interest in playing songs with the distorted tones they used.

 

I should ammend my earlier responses to say my whole childhood through my teenage years the recording and delivery systems for music improved sonically, yielding more high and low end, increased detail, and better separation of instruments. I noticed it then, but I see it as an independent variable from the dead room sound you ascribe to the generalization that the 1970's sounded dark. It seemed, for a while, that every year several releases would redefine my impression of how clear and wide imaging could be on musical sound recordings. In particular, I remember Boston Boston and Don't Look Back in the 1970's and Yes' 90120 and Billy Squier's Signs Of Life (Rock Me Tonight) in the 1980's as albums that sounded more detailed than previous releases.

 

Nowadays some types of genres tend towards a narrower focus in most production while other genres have stretched the focus beyond what was done in the 1980's. I like both kinds, and I've heard great albums and sh*t albums in both styles. It's all about the production values, not endemic to the 1970's or one particular style.

[phaeton]

Let's see a picture of Dan wearing striped bellbottoms and playing gated drums!

[Philip OKeefe]

There were some pretty dry and thuddy sounding records in the 1970's. Skylark's Wildflower is a good example of such a mix (no offense to David Foster, but IMO, it's not a very impressive sounding recording)... not very clear, thuddy drums, etc. However, all 1970's era records are not created equal. If you want an example of some very well recorded 1970's era stuff, with great tones and mind boggling performances, toss on a little Tower Of Power and get with the funk.

[John Sayers]

I find the original statement very strange i.e. the 70s being a dark age.

Heres brief list of some the contributions the 70s made to recording.

 

1) the variable speed multitrack recorder.

2) digital sound starting with the primetime through to digital verb.

3) the stomp box and the ability to play with msec delays thus phasing, flanging, chorus, ADT.

4) The iso booth, drum booth and variable acoustics, the bass trap etc.

5) High spl condenser mikes for close miking.

6) soffit mount speakers systems with bi/tri amping.

7) Noise reduction systems Dolby / DBX.

8) multi channel film sound using mag stripe film.

9) Digital Pitch change and harmonizers.

10) - The variable pitch vinyl disc cutter

11) - The midi sequencer and midi driven keyboards.

12) - The drum machine.

13) - The guitar tuner.

14) - PCM digital sound.

 

I could go on.

 

Cheers

john

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by John Sayers:

I find the original statement very strange i.e. the 70s being a dark age.

Heres brief list of some the contributions the 70s made to recording.

 

...11) - The midi sequencer and midi driven keyboards. - Whoa! Wrong, John. Midi began as a meeting of minds at the 1982 NAMM Convention. Information I've read suggests that the initial meeting was called for by Dave Smith, then president of Sequential Circuits. The first midi equipment didn't hit showroom floors until 1983. This is documented in many places. I verified my memory of this at this page on the Middle Tennessee State University website. MTSU has one of the best recording programs in the country. Prior to 1983, those keyboards that had the ability to share control information with one another used cumbersome, proprietary connections.

12) - The drum machine. - Though analog drum machines were, technically, manufactured in the 1970's, it wasn't until the 1980's that most musicians ever heard one. And well into the 1980's before one was worth listening to. (IMO, the Linn-drum 9000, in 1984.)

13) - The guitar tuner. - The Peterson Strobe-tuners go back to the 1950's and their earliest, handheld, battery powered units go back to the 1960's. Check out their website history....

[hard truth]

Lots of interesting points have been made here. But I would still say that the sonic quality of most recordings, or you could also say, the average recording, made in the seventies is worse than any other era since the mid-1950s. Worse in that most of the recordings sound from that era sound relatively dull and lifeless.

[fantasticsound]

I heartily disagree. But you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

[John Sayers]

Yeah Neil - I'll give you the midi and maybe the tuner but not the drum machine.

 

The first commercial album that was totally drum machine (Linn Drum) was "Dare" by Human League released in 1981 in the UK i.e. the Linn Drum was released before then and wasnt the first drum machine, just the best. If I remember correctly it also had midi in and out. I was using a drum machine for tempo lock in the late 70s - Dr Rhythm. You could select different patterns/feel and set the tempo

 

Cheers

john

[Prague]

Originally posted by hard truth:

... the seventies is worse than any other era since the mid-1950s...

Monaural 1960's Hi-Fi sounded better?

[techristian]

Let's see a picture of Dan wearing striped bellbottoms and playing gated drums!

 

If I could find my old bellbottoms they wouldn't fit me !

 

Dan

[coyote]

I hated gated drums then, moreso even than now. God what an horrendous sound.

 

But I do like the 'darkness' of the tone that emerged on many recordings from that era. In those days it was not neccessarily required that your record be the loudest, brightest, most sparklingly trebly recording available. The tonal darkness was a GOAL and was actually something that could NOT be done earlier because of tech limitations; previously you could not induce that mood in a recording.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by John Sayers:

Yeah Neil - I'll give you the midi and maybe the tuner but not the drum machine.

 

The first commercial album that was totally drum machine (Linn Drum) was "Dare" by Human League released in 1981 in the UK i.e. the Linn Drum was released before then and wasnt the first drum machine, just the best. If I remember correctly it also had midi in and out. I was using a drum machine for tempo lock in the late 70s - Dr Rhythm. You could select different patterns/feel and set the tempo

 

Cheers

john

Yup, John. MIDI wasn't even conceived as an industry standard until that meeting of the minds in 1982. Before that it was all proprietary. There was no standardization whatsoever.

 

Do you mean your Dr. Rhythm could send a sync tone to other electronic equipment? If so it would have been over a signal unique to Roland. It would not have been possible for any other equipment to read that sync tone. This had pissed off enough touring musicians for their complaints to be taken seriously by keyboard manufacturers. Before that, each keyboard manufacturer was in it for themselves, hoping to dominate the market and force musicians to loyalty because their gear wouldn't communicate between manufacturers.

 

The first analog drum machines are actually dated to the early 1970's. But like you said, the Linn drum made drum machines worth listening to as pseudo drum replacements. But it was the 9000 that really upped the ante. It was, as some have labeled it, the original MPC60. (A nod to the sampler that was THE standard in trigger pad, hardware sampling and sequencing.) The 9000 was amazing, but ahead of its' time. A time that wasn't ready to make the 9000 economically viable.

[BOOKUMDANO]

Overall, I like the captured sound of a lot of 70's stuff...there was a lot of variety from the beginning of the decade to the end.

 

Lots of different approaches that hold up..."Won't Get Fooled Again" with it's massive delayed plate stuff, to Al Green dry stuff with all the out-of-whack mic techniques (according to Terry anyway) that actually make for a cool dry bunch of sounds.

 

I liked all the Philadelphia stuff engineered in 72-74. I liked the way Carly Simon's things were engineered in 72-73. I liked the way Temperton and Heatwave were enginnering things like "Groove Line" around 77. I thought Lou Reed's 1974 "Walk On the Wild Side" was a great mix of dry and ambient engineering. I liked the dead dry engineering Roger and SD were doing in 73-75. I even liked 1975's Katy Lied and didn't think the dbx screwup affected the final album. A little strange sibilance, but sounds great to me. I thought Yes' 1975 Relayer album was the weirdest engineered thing I had heard in a long time...in a good way. And on to 1978-79 and the Police stuff.

 

All the Criteria 70's stuff was brilliant imo. If you ever get the chance, take a look at the track sheets for stuff like B Gibb's "How Deep Is Your Love". How he quintuple tracks his lead line voice so well is an absolute mystery to me. But listen to that one and others. Fat. Clean. Great balance. Great ambience. Some people knock MCI equipment, but I certainly like the results Criteria always got out of it.

 

Listen to all the Eagles stuff (no..never mind...sounds like towels over every single mic..don't know what Symzyck was thinking, but as long as the cash was rolling in, hey whattaya gonna do)

 

From a technical standpoint, we got lots of cool new tools at the time...we got workable console automation (hurray for people like Michael Tapes), we got tape machine sync that worked really well for syncing up multiple 24 tracks. Better dc motors in the machines. We got the Polymoog in late 1974 (uh..never mind about that one. I still cringe whenever I hear that on a 70's record). Just as 79 was reving up, we got things like the Prophet 5 and 10.

 

From a sound engineering and "final sound" aspect, I thought that decade was pretty cool.

 

As far as the 80's..which I know isn't the topic...I was pretty much breathless at the 1983 and 1984 Namm winter show. If you were there, you remember the massive massive massive explosion of products that midi provided at those two shows. It was unreal. I had bought my first Linndrum in 1982 and between that and the Oberheim ob8/dmx drum thing, I thought we had gone into an incredible new era for song production...and that was two years before midi. Yeah...everything changed massively at those two Namm shows. It was great. Just like the rush the first time I used console automation.

[John Sayers]

I do remember the terrible problems the drummers went through as bands wanted to lock tempo to drum machines and wanted the drummers to play along - many furious and passionate fights went on in the studios and many a drummer stormed out of the studio never to returm

 

remember this beast?

 

http://www.hollowsun.com/vintage/cr78/roland-cr78.jpg

 

cheers

john

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by techristian:

This is hysterical. It is like saying that the striped bell bottoms of the 70's were ugly. We liked the striped bell bottoms back then. We bought them by the millions. WE LIKED THE GATED REVERB ON DRUMS BACK THEN and we bought those records by the millions!

Not me! I ALWAYS thought gated reverb sucked and have never thought otherwise! If anything I hated it even more back in the day, because I was engineering full time and practically every band who came into the studio where I worked wanted that sound. UGGHHH.

 

Striped bell bottoms, on the other hand, were always cool. And they're still cool!

 

The striped bell bottoms will come back and so will the gated reverb some day !

They both already have!

[Philip OKeefe]

I used to have some cool striped bellbottoms... similar to the ones pictured on the inside of Matthew Sweet's "100% Fun" album. I'm with you on that Lee - bellbottoms - gated reverb all over the place, not - and I've never thought otherwise either.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by Philip O'Keefe:

I used to have some cool striped bellbottoms... similar to the ones pictured on the inside of Matthew Sweet's "100% Fun" album. I'm with you on that Lee - bellbottoms - gated reverb all over the place, not - and I've never thought otherwise either.

And you call yourself a Marine! You should be ashamed, Phil!

 

 

(He, he, he! )

[Philip OKeefe]

Hey I was like, 12 or something.

[Philip OKeefe]

And of course, if we can combine this thread[/url with the one we're currently on, I could tell you about the time in 1st or 2nd grade when I dressed up as a hippie for the school's holloween dress up day... but I got the day wrong and came in dressed like that a day early.

[fantasticsound]