Sparse Vs The Full Sound

[Maindrian]

Before I start out, I should point out that is not a rant or a pick at the scene in any way, it's more something I've noticed, something that got me thinking. This line of thought was bought on by Waz's comment on a recent, very small sounding Sanxion remix. I'm not disputing his opinion, it just struck me that I probably have a very different opinion the importance on sound quality perhaps. No problems with his thoughts on the tune at all.

Is there a bias here towards going for the biggest, most "studio" production sound possible? I don't have problem with this, but I've wondered often, does noone ever feel the need to dirty their sound even a little? It strikes me that a majority of recent remixes are centred around big, full on, professional sounding, epic stuff.

It could just be me really. Over the years, I've gained a big love for outsider music, warped Boards of Canada style electronica and scratchy old recordings on cassette and vinyl. I love anything that sounds analog.

Once again, I must stress, this is not a swipe at the scene. I've got a lot of love in my heart for the clean sounding stuff too, especially some of the really wham bang, monster sounding orchestral stuff that's surfaced over the last four/five years. I also enjoy a good dance beat as much as anyone else. In fact, the sheer musical diversity available puts other remix sites to shame. Mentioning no names of course.

Dunno, just curious to hear your opinions on the subject I guess.

[Analog-X64]

For me it all depends on the song and how its mixed.

Some Examples:
Gol - Spy vs Mushroom: although very short, it is minimal and gets the job done and doesnt sound like its missing anything.

Hazel - A Sad Trip To You: Full sounding production very clean has that anlog (x ) sound to it.

I dont think there is any kind of bias towards biggest productions. I think artists like Moog and Dafunk are always pushing their limits and the result of that is great production and fuller sounding remixes.

I dont like every remix that is released on R.K.O. I like some more than others.

It all comes down to matter of taste in the end.

[Maindrian]

Yes, that's the more the word I was thinking of, minimal. In the analog sense, I meant more along the lines of a tape, rather than digital sound.

A few years ago, I saw a documentary about the making of a Green Day video, and the director had these very strong ideas about the look of the thing. Towards the end of the doc, he'd got it all on film and took that film, chopped it to bits, started stamping on it, pouring coffee over it, burning it with lit cigarettes, just basically abusing it. Resulted in a very striking video, for an admittedly rubbish song.

I dunno if it makes sense, but in a lot of my own stuff, I tried to do that with sound. Muddy it, dirty it, add scratches, flickery background whispers, so it sounds like the recording has been put onto an overused cassette tape and it's picking up bits of an older sound, just out of range of hearing. I've not got the greatest sound set up in the world anyway, so that helps a bit as well.

Remix wise, lets see. A lot of older ones. RBT's Auf Wiedersehen Monty one is a great example. I don't think the muddy sound is deliberate, but it gives it a lot of character. In many ways, I think it's my favourite remix ever. I remember a Treasure Island Dizzy remix that was pretty fantastic too. It sounded basically like a taped recording of someone playing along to a drum machine. Have to go search that one out.

I don't really think you hear that style of sound in most electronic music anyway, BOC excepted of course.

[xo]

I'd like for there to me more remixes like that. I don't think it quite succeeds and in particular it's beginning reminds me of More Music From Gladiator - Maximus (slow acoustic guitar), but this performance doesn't bind together that well. Dispite this - I really crave this acoustic sort of thing. And it really doesn't have to be produced with lots of compression (on the contrary). Another similar example is Mahoney's Armageddon Man with nice vocals and powerful piano. More of that, please.

http://www.amazon.com/Gladiator-More-Mu ... B000058TJG

http://moviemusic.com/soundtrack/gladiator-more

[xo]

If you by analog mean scratchy, muddy, etc. then I disagree with you Maindrian. You can capture sound cleanly and reproduce it cleanly, without digital sharp treble. It requires high quality equipment, especially for reproduction. I really don't wish to hear "dirty" tracks that immitate tapes. But something that sounds acoustic and live unedited and pure with a human touch, that is stimulating. Not something where the fine details of the artists' play is removed or overemphasized or muddied. Just my oppinion/taste. Of course it's not easy to play so well that the performance may stand on it's own feet perhaps..

[Waz]

This line of thought was bought on by Waz's comment on a recent, very small sounding Sanxion remix. No problems with his thoughts on the tune at all.

Thanks for that Maindrian. I did think pretty long and hard about just what I thought on this one, and "valiant effort" sums it up nicely. I could see that it was trying to be something different with what's essentially a much-covered SID tune, but for me personally, its overall slowish pace and initial high level of sparseness might actually put people off listening to it. Nothing wrong with its craft or anything like that, as I can see that there's some playing in there and a definite feel as such, but it just could have been done a bit better than it was. I'm sure if it was tweaked and maybe with just a bit less sparseness (but keep the single guitar as that's the strength I think you found in it) it would actually work pretty well for more people and have that wider appeal. I hope that explains my mode of thinking after I'd listened to it a few times.

Is there a bias here towards going for the biggest, most "studio" production sound possible?

In terms of bias towards the most productive studio sound possible, I'd hope I don't feel that way. As an example of note, some people really hated the "fake" sax used by Mixer in his remix of Nemesis The Warlock, and that meant that they downmarked the tune somewhat. However, that was a bit unfair in my eyes because ultimately Mixer had succeeded in getting the feel of the tune across in the right way. After all, we don't all have real life sax players to call upon just for a free to release production, do we?

Besides, you can overkill a productive process so much that it may sound clean and crisp and well produced, but if the feel of the tune's gone in the process, then that means it wasn't a good idea, too. It's a tricky balance to get right, really. With Markus Schneider and Romeo Knight's version of Mutants, the balance just tipped the other way, it was a case of over-production that spoiled it slightly for me, no matter how good the playing it just didn't carry the feel because there was too much going on. Not least as Mutants is one of my all-time favourite SIDs and the man who composed it on the C64 I've actually had the privelege of staying at my place :)

I think that's what you were hinting at to some degree, Maindrian, and as I said, it's a tricky balance.

As for the sparse stuff, some of the stuff released on RKO might fit into that category. One that springs to mind is Andrea Baroni's piano version of Erebus. That's absolutely beautifully sparse and minimal and just has the right level of sparseness for me to sound just right, not to mention the lush piano playing. Part of me actually mentioning that in my review of the 2006 ROTY awards was that I felt it was criminally overlooked then, and now it seems to have got a few more reds since I last looked. Excellent.

As a fan of minimalist stuff (ever heard Johann Johansson's "Virthulegu Foresetar"? Buy it, it's a perfect example) I really felt that I wanted trv's mix to work, and I was absolutely gutted when it just missed the mark. I was torn between grey and yellow as it stood now, but tweak it and it'd probably score higher.

[Mayhem]

I have to back up what Waz said... to me it doesn't matter particularly if a piece is specifically big production or small production, if it SOUNDS right to me for that instance, then that's what gets the higher voting marks.

However... I will say that some people appear to get swayed that way, if the voting marks on RKO are anything to go by... they seem more concerned with how well it's produced than the actual final result and whether it is actually a good tune/remix. Which is where I generally disagree on things...

[xo]

I don't get it. You can't separate good "production" and mastering from the overall result - how could you?

I really don't believe anyone judges like that. That said, I personally value acoustic productions with *very careful* application of compression. Playing acoustic guitar like the Maximus track may be a bit tricky to pull off, but I believe it is exactly that playing style this track tries to assume (not immitate, it's just the same ballpark). The Maximus track is not that well mastered, but masterfully played and very very slowed down. And it works.

You can't first say that the overall result is what matters and then say that certain aspects are unimportant. It all plays a role, the overall result is just the sum of its parts, all its parts. But surely horrible mastering can ruin or degrade a track, just as well as a lack of musical flow cannot be masked by masterful clean production techniques.

It's only natural to be concered with the archilles heel of any construction. That is what the designer should focus on and that is what we as listeners regard as the final obstacle to perfection. We say "oh no, it was so close to perfection, but this bit just degrades it that little bit from that red hot smiley. (Perfection is used relatively here, nothing will be perfect.)

As a final note. It doesn't matter if it's reasonable or possible for us to hire world class musicians to perform acoustic parts. It doen't change the absolute estimation, but naturally we will judge mildly the amateur who does his best with what he has available to him.

[Romeo Knight]

But surely horrible mastering can ruin or degrade a track, just as well as a lack of musical flow cannot be masked by masterful clean production techniques.

I tended to add a few words to this topic but IMO this sums it up perfectly in one sentence.

[Waz]

But surely horrible mastering can ruin or degrade a track, just as well as a lack of musical flow cannot be masked by masterful clean production techniques.

That it can, and that's a pretty nice summary, xo!

In terms of the latter, you can't polish a turd, as they often say over here. In terms of the former, there's been times where for me the idea's been there but the execution's just lacked something, which I've sometimes mentioned in my small shout reviews. And as Mayhem said, it has to _sound_ right, which is crucial. If it's an amateur production but with a right sound and well mastered within those limitations, then that'll come across too.

As I said, it's often a tricky balance and those that get it right are often the ones rewarded from myself for their efforts.

naturally we will judge mildly the amateur who does his best with what he has available to him.

I think this is what Maindrian was hinting at, in that some people may not be actually doing that - they're just looking at the production values alone and not actually how well the tune represents value in terms of it being a good remix of the original SID.

[Makke]

Waz and xo has pretty much summed up my thoughts on this. You can't hide a bad tune under state of the art production - you just have to turn your ears to the real-world commercial charts to realize this. Good production quality rarely harms a track though, and even so called lo-fi tracks usually have a lot of thought behind them so that the "degraded" sound works.

However, I'd also like to add that sometimes deeper analysis of a track is not needed. Most of the time I go with my, sometimes irrational, gut-feel. I may know with my brain that this is far from state of the art, and could've been polished a whole lot more. But it still works, and I love it, with flaws and all. Perhaps even because of the flaws. Sometimes a real newbie track gives me goosebumps, because I can hear what their trying to do but not quite getting there. For me personally, there's a lot of joy in that as well. It may not warrent a red smilie, but at least knock it up one pin-hole on the vote.

[Tonka]

A good remix let down by bad production is far more tolerable than good production let down by a bad remix, IMO.

[Maindrian]

Ah, that's what I love about this place. You guys can discuss things intelligently, getting to the root of the topic without resorting to the whole "No, shut up you! My opinion is BEST!" type argument you'd find on other forums. If there's a disagreement, it's a polite one.

Ahem, back on topic, sort of. I think perhaps bias was a strong word for me to use. I think it's more a preference by most musicians to shine their sound to perfection. And that's really good, simply because like I said, the big ones blow me away. As has been said, sure, overproduction can't hide a bad remix, but I don't often feel the reverse is true, unless it's a case of going for great production and failing miserably.

As for the whole degraded sound thing, you can take it as read that I've spent too much time knocking around at the WFMU.org blog, listening to really old, shabby sounding stuff. It's gotten under my skin a little.

[LMan]

Since I produce everything digitally, I employ distortion and tape emulation effects to add dirt. Some songs need the dirt.

Tonka said what I would have said, btw.

[Razmo]

...and I just buy the real old stuff from the 80's to do the trick ... it's no dance on roses nonetheless... quirky bad functioning keybeds, slow OS'es, lacking MIDI implementations, scratchy loose outputs and a hell of a lot of other "illnesses"... but the sound..

...but sigh... I long for the day when digital sounds 100% analog and dirty and alive... there is so much automation to long for using digital solutions.