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smitty_one_each (243267)

smitty_one_each
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http://www.emacs ... ChristopherSmith
Middle aged would-be F/OSS hacker. Emacs, Python, C++ preferred. Gentoo by choice, Windows in chains.

Journal of smitty_one_each (243267)

High Fidelity Isn't Dead, It's Just Resting

[ #191526 ]
Friday December 28 2007, @09:04PM
Music
Some years ago, Slashdot had an article featuring an analysis of Rush recordings. Rolling Stone updates this "Death of High Fidelity", showing that, if anything, the situation has worsened.

Computer programs like Pro Tools, which let audio engineers manipulate sound the way a word processor edits text, make musicians sound unnaturally perfect.

and later

It's not just new music that's too loud. Many remastered recordings suffer the same problem as engineers apply compression to bring them into line with modern tastes. The new Led Zeppelin collection, Mothership, is louder than the band's original albums

While the article describes in some technical detail the basis for "The Death of High Fidelity", I'd contend that this is by no means a bug. Sure, all contemporary music may be tending towards Motörhead, but the article points out that

a wide dynamic range creates a sense of spaciousness and makes it easier to pick out individual instruments -- as you can hear on recent albums such as Dylan's Modern Times and Norah Jones' Not Too Late. "When people have the courage and the vision to do a record that way, it sets them apart," says Joe Boyd

However, the scary note that

...even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular, and superior-quality disc formats like DVD-Audio and SACD flopped. Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost.

is over-sold. So what if the current hi-resolution formats have crapped out. The causal analysis that this is due to lousy formats is like saying that no one enjoys serious literature because Danielle Steele sells well. Pshaw. The right artists in the right format with the right DRM-free material are going to drive plenty of hardware sales. Putting great material in deluxe packaging of, say Rush or Joe Satriani is going to bring in plenty of sales. The challenge to the industry is to market the artists as artists, and not "product".

Aside: props to Rush for the Grammy award nomination for Malignant Narcissism. We'll see if an instrumental with a soundbite from "Team America: World Police" can make up for political incorrectness with blistering play.


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  • The imminent death of the **AAs should hopefully help with this, as actual artists and recording engineers get a say in the process as opposed to some MBA with no technical clue.

    • actual artists and recording engineers get a say in the process as opposed to some MBA with no technical clue
      Which begs a philosophical question: why is art exhibiting great integrity such a hard sell? This seems counter-intuitive.

  • ...even most CD listeners have lost interest in high-end stereos as surround-sound home theater systems have become more popular, and superior-quality disc formats like DVD-Audio and SACD flopped. Bendeth and other producers worry that young listeners have grown so used to dynamically compressed music and the thin sound of MP3s that the battle has already been lost.

    is over-sold. So what if the current hi-resolution formats have crapped out. The causal analysis that this is due to lousy formats is like saying that no one enjoys serious literature because Danielle Steele sells well. Pshaw. The right artists in the right format with the right DRM-free material are going to drive plenty of hardware sales. Putting great material in deluxe packaging of, say Rush or Joe Satriani is going to bring in plenty of sales. The challenge to the industry is to market the artists as artists, and not "product".

    Well home theater systems aren't the death of high-fidelity. Film soundtracks have a huge dynamic range and need decent gear to sound good in a home theater environment. Any decent home theater receiver is going to be able to match any decent receiver of the 70's or early 80's such as the mid to upper end Pioneers or Yamahas of the period.

    Even the speakers of today are better than they used to be. Unless you buy Bose it is hard to get poor-sounding overpriced speakers. New materials, computer based simulat

    • Interestingly, the DVDs I own that I stand up to repeated viewings tend to be musical performances by the likes of Rush and Satriani.

    • Well home theater systems aren't the death of high-fidelity. Film soundtracks have a huge dynamic range and need decent gear to sound good in a home theater environment. Any decent home theater receiver is going to be able to match any decent receiver of the 70's or early 80's such as the mid to upper end Pioneers or Yamahas of the period.

      But on the other hand, many (most?) people crank up the dynamic compression on their home theater systems. I do, only because I watch TV a lot at night when people are asleep, and it's a pain to switch back and forth.

      But, speaking of Modern Times as in the original article ... man, that is one of the best-sounding albums I have. Maybe the best-sound Dylan album of all time. I love listening to the sparse (sorry, "dynamic") arrangement of "Spirit on the Water [bobdylan.com]." It's just amazing. The technology is not

      • I think Dylan has written some of the best lyrics ever, thinking of Blood on the Tracks.
        But his vocal style is a greater challenge than Geddy or Lemmy, IMHO.

        • I think Dylan has written some of the best lyrics ever, thinking of Blood on the Tracks.

          But his vocal style is a greater challenge than Geddy or Lemmy, IMHO.

          If by "challenge" you mean "challenge for you to like or appreciate," I disagree. I love Dylan's style. It works for him.

          Also love? Every Monday night at 5 p.m. PT, I listen to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour on XM channel 40 (840 on DirecTV). He plays songs centered around a specific theme each week, like night, hair, love, whatever. Last week was, of course, Christmas. Awesome stuff. He has a voice -- and face -- for radio.

  • The challenge to the industry is to market the artists as artists, and not "product".

    Sorry, I think the challenge to the industry is to survive in an era when they've become irrelevant.

    The whole reason for existence of the RIAA labels is to make money, and they do that by selling recordings. They sell recordings by marketing the hell out of popular bands. (The way the contracts are set up, bands make their money only by touring; most never see any real profits from the sales of their recordings.) At

    • I would point to the increasing popularity of things like micro-brewed beers.
      With increasing affluence comes increasingly discriminating tastes. Non-classical music that doesn't sound mixed in a toilet merely needs the right mix of ingredients to sell it.
      • You nailed my point exactly.

        How many micro-brewers are billionaires? I'm guessing substantially fewer than one. Sure, some are doing well and a few could even be considered well-off; but a micro-brew by definition is not a global product raking in billions of dollars. It's usually a labor of love, produced by a master craftsman to please himself and a small audience.

        The larger record labels are like Budweiser or Miller -- produce tanker-trucks full of moderate-quality brew and market the hell out of

        • But neither is going to get filthy rich doing it.
          Money is like lines of code: an easy metric, but not one all agree is meaningful.

          • Money is like lines of code: an easy metric, but not one all agree is meaningful.

            That doesn't even make sense. You might claim to ignore the money aspect, but the record labels sure as hell aren't, the artists aren't, and the venues and the scalpers and the roadies and managers and engineers and everyone else in the business aren't ignoring the money.

            Yesterday, the labels were rich, and money was pouring in. Today, the labels are not so rich, and the money-rivers aren't flowing as hard and as fast as W

            • What I am saying, and thanks for making me elaborate, is that there are several motives in play, and that these motives have a different sort order for everyone.
              Money is the lowest common denominator, and the simplest, and so it becomes the main means of keeping score.
              However, there are plenty of artists, Radiohead rather prominently of late, who have the courage to operate outside the standard rut.
              While I would never expect money to be unseated from its throne, I would expect that the internet is going

              • ... the variation on his theme I'm arguing is that transaction costs are low enough that, for those that care to, new distribution channels will form to support music that doesn't suck.
                And there you have the real fear of the big media companies. Not that people will download creative product they produce without paying the toll, but that those who make the creative product will be able to bypass them entirely.
                • Sure, but the dis-intermediation is a separate conversation alongside the fact that, once the executive debris is cleared from the channel, better stuff will flow.
                  Dreck will always have its audience, though.
              • OK, thanks for explaining it, I get your point now.

                I'm kind of arguing that new bands won't have the cache of Radiohead's name, and will look to other ways to increase their audience. Just creating myMythicalMetalBandsWebSite.com will get you no traffic, and no audience. But if they start chatting people up on heavyMetalBandsRUs.com, they will get some attention, and start increasing ticket sales. Money is now a factor.

                And I understand your point to be that some bands are doing it 100% strictly for t

      • With increasing affluence comes increasingly discriminating tastes. Non-classical music that doesn't sound mixed in a toilet merely needs the right mix of ingredients to sell it.

        Well classical, jazz, blues, zydeco, and bluegrass are each enough of a market that new releases come out every day for those genera. Of course almost anything outside mainstream country, rock, or pop is still produced sanely. Generally people who have non-mainstream musical taste insist on decent sound quality. Now sometimes the best you have is a low-quality recording from the first half of the century, but even then you want to hear as much as you can given the limits of the sound recording technology u

        • Go, Nora.
          Actually, I was thinking that we should start to see more blog posts that are really a YouTube index.
          People could easily walk you through an artist in depth, or several, like a mini radio-show.

  • Yes, kudos to the most awesome band Canada has ever known, however I really don't think the venerable ones will receive a Grammy, which is a shame, because "Malignant Narcissism" is an excellent example of their musicianship. Frankly Rush has never received their due, either as a group or individually. Look at the fact that they are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They were the fathers of Progressive Rock, though other groups had proceeded them in starting the movement. They brought into the mainstre

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