I've noticed that A LOT of songs from the ~1973 time have a certain... warm, low pass sound to them. Was there some unique piece of gear used at that time? I don't hear that in music from any other period...
Some examples:
Browning Bryant - Blinded by love, 1973: https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=Clz6fXwTOs4
Vincent - Don McLean, 1972: https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=ajX26nIYpUE
Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers - Coffee Cup, 1973: https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=Ck6YKqfL3y0
And when trying to compare songs from that period, it's hard to tell what "the sound" I'm hearing is, but whenever I hear a new song with "that sound" I instantly think it's 1973, which it always has turned out that it indeed is.
The odd thing is it's not just american records, it's also songs from the UK.
Some examples:
Browning Bryant - Blinded by love, 1973: https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=Clz6fXwTOs4
Vincent - Don McLean, 1972: https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=ajX26nIYpUE
Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers - Coffee Cup, 1973: https://inv.n8pjl.ca/watch?v=Ck6YKqfL3y0
And when trying to compare songs from that period, it's hard to tell what "the sound" I'm hearing is, but whenever I hear a new song with "that sound" I instantly think it's 1973, which it always has turned out that it indeed is.
The odd thing is it's not just american records, it's also songs from the UK.
I notice this a lot on my records.
Pop music from the first half of the 1970s had a "lush" sound that came from real orchestras, vocalists who sang well, and mature vacuum tube technology. Not much processing was used. The sound was natural and pleasant.
I hear this sound on early disco and Motown recordings too.
I think the reason is that pop music was competing against easy listening (aka "elevator") music, and so it had to sound nice.
That all fizzled by 1980 when the loudness wars took over.
Ed
Pop music from the first half of the 1970s had a "lush" sound that came from real orchestras, vocalists who sang well, and mature vacuum tube technology. Not much processing was used. The sound was natural and pleasant.
I hear this sound on early disco and Motown recordings too.
I think the reason is that pop music was competing against easy listening (aka "elevator") music, and so it had to sound nice.
That all fizzled by 1980 when the loudness wars took over.
Ed
Well I don't hear that pronounced sound in late 60s records, and even in late 70s records, while still having a mostly low passed sound, they kinda seem to have lost that warmness.
I thought it may be some early solid state mixer modules or something that were used only for a short period of time. Or more likely perhaps it was in the mastering stage.
Or perhaps it's like you say... matured technology and technique only to be ended by the loudness war
I know exactly the "warm" sound you are referring to. It is unique to early 1970s music.
Economics was another driver. Orchestras were expensive and tube equipment broke down too often. Synthesizers and solid-state electronics did not sound as good but were less expensive.
Ed
Economics was another driver. Orchestras were expensive and tube equipment broke down too often. Synthesizers and solid-state electronics did not sound as good but were less expensive.
Ed
I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, but I read on rec.audio.pro newsgroup back 20+ years ago about a studio 'fad' thing going on in the early 1970s. It was recording in a virtually anechoic room with lots of sound absorption, and close micing of instruments to further reduce any trace of "room tone" in the recording as well as increasing isolation between instruments. Any reverb (like in the Vincent song) was added in the mix rather than being recorded in a large, naturally reverberant room. This supposedly gave better/full control of everything in the mix, allowing different amounts of compression, EQ and reverb for each instrument/track but it gave a different sound. I suppose it was the "extreme" of multitrack recording. This didn't last long, and studios went back to having more 'natural' recordings with mics placed to pick up more of the room's natural reverberant sound.
benb - That is Wall of Sound which you can hear on the Beatles' "Let It Be".
My picks are:
Beatles - Let It Be
Apollo 100 - Joy
Climax - Precious and Few
Blues Image - Ride Captain Ride
Lobo - I'd Love You to Want Me
Nilsson - Without You
Sniff and the Tears - Driver's Seat
Pablo Cruise - Zero to Sixty in Five
Kiss - Beth
Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time
All are on Youtube.
Ed
My picks are:
Beatles - Let It Be
Apollo 100 - Joy
Climax - Precious and Few
Blues Image - Ride Captain Ride
Lobo - I'd Love You to Want Me
Nilsson - Without You
Sniff and the Tears - Driver's Seat
Pablo Cruise - Zero to Sixty in Five
Kiss - Beth
Linda Ronstadt - Long Long Time
All are on Youtube.
Ed
It´s easy.
Up to late 60´s/first 70`s most recording gear/mixing consoles were tube/discrete solid state.
Then in mid 70´s (like a brick in the head) LM741...... the worst op-amp of all conquered most of that gear,
resulting in a decade or two of uninspiring sound.
Those studio´s, which still kept the old gear, produced exellent sound up though the 70´s. A&M to name one.
Up to late 60´s/first 70`s most recording gear/mixing consoles were tube/discrete solid state.
Then in mid 70´s (like a brick in the head) LM741...... the worst op-amp of all conquered most of that gear,
resulting in a decade or two of uninspiring sound.
Those studio´s, which still kept the old gear, produced exellent sound up though the 70´s. A&M to name one.
You can see this on the spectrograms of said music tracks vs. those after 1983 (the year that CDs were introduced into the marketplace) when digital mastering (a.k.a., Pro Tools) started to replace discrete electronic mastering boards. If you want to blame this "50s, 60s & 70s sound" on tube/valve electronics or on early bipolar transistor technology, you can do that--but I think the real source of this sound is the people pushing the slides around.
When I go to demaster my music tracks of that vintage--tracks originally recorded pre-1983--I can hear how some mastering guys chose to really push down the highs above 1 kHz. (Note that bass attenuation below 100 Hz has been present since the inception of recording, probably mostly due to the use of ribbon microphones and analog tape recorders.) I can re-EQ the highs to more "actual performance" levels, and hear a totally different sound in some recordings. Sometimes the level of the highs above 5-6 kHz is really attenuated in the original recordings, and when re-EQed yields either one of two outcomes:
1) the sound is a revelation and drum transients are restored to near-actual levels, or
2) you get to hear the real limitations of the recording and mixing/mastering equipment of that era.
When you get recordings like "1)", the results can be startling and lead to much more enjoyable subjective listening when EQed back to "flat" response for the musical instrumentation used.
When you get to type "2)" recordings, you immediately realize why they attenuated the highs in those old recordings--because to not attenuate the highs would result in unpleasant results.
On another note, I also find that the old "Aphex Aural Exciter" recordings of the 70s and early 80s have a odd "trashy" sound signature in voices that can't be undone. This I think played into the attenuated highs of that period of music production., since to boost any of the highs after the vocals are mixed into the downmix would result in a not-so-desirable result. YMMV.
Chris
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Here's a nifty comparison between:
Compare the drop from 1KHz to 10KHz. "Precious and Few" sounds pleasant. "Enter Sandman" sounds grating.
"Enter Sandman" has much more high-frequency energy than one would encounter in any live performance. "Precious and Few" may have soft highs, but it is closer to natural sound.
Ed
- Climax - Precious and Few (1972)
- Metallica - Enter Sandman (1991)
Compare the drop from 1KHz to 10KHz. "Precious and Few" sounds pleasant. "Enter Sandman" sounds grating.
"Enter Sandman" has much more high-frequency energy than one would encounter in any live performance. "Precious and Few" may have soft highs, but it is closer to natural sound.
Ed
Music from the old millennium sounds pretty dull when streamed from Spotify or Tidal or played from CDs. Having a high bit rate and lossless formats is just a waste of internet bandwidth. MP3 would be adequate for much of the streamed content.
Instead of remastering, as in engineering, there should be recordings made by cover bands who can play old hit songs perfectly. I might buy some CDs from that.
Instead of remastering, as in engineering, there should be recordings made by cover bands who can play old hit songs perfectly. I might buy some CDs from that.
it's not the streaming that causes the dull sound. It's terrible remasters. They ruin classic songs because modern sound engineers don't know how to properly mix a song to make it sound pleasing instead of just loud and in your face.
For some of the most severe examples of this check out Sam & Dave's Hold On, I'm coming. The original had an oddly quiet vocal track, but since the other tracks weren't pushed against a compressor so hard, it sounded just fine. But of course that's unacceptable nowadays and modern remasters push it against a limiter like they were trying to broadcast it on radio, sounds like ****.
Also there's Yakety Yak
And many more examples of this.
There's a channel on youtube which rips a ton of original records, 45prof, 78prof, anotherprof.... idk if there was a 33prof or if it was called something else... You can add "hits archive" to your query to get results from his channels. 99% of his rips are without problems.
For songs that aren't on his channels I try to find the earliest "- Topic" autogenerated videos I can. The earliest ones usually have the closest mix to the original.
For some of the most severe examples of this check out Sam & Dave's Hold On, I'm coming. The original had an oddly quiet vocal track, but since the other tracks weren't pushed against a compressor so hard, it sounded just fine. But of course that's unacceptable nowadays and modern remasters push it against a limiter like they were trying to broadcast it on radio, sounds like ****.
Also there's Yakety Yak
And many more examples of this.
There's a channel on youtube which rips a ton of original records, 45prof, 78prof, anotherprof.... idk if there was a 33prof or if it was called something else... You can add "hits archive" to your query to get results from his channels. 99% of his rips are without problems.
For songs that aren't on his channels I try to find the earliest "- Topic" autogenerated videos I can. The earliest ones usually have the closest mix to the original.
It's not just the equipment, it's also the media. You can't just put 80+db of dynamic range with heavy bass on a record and then wonder why the needle always skips when you put on Daft Punk...
That remastering thing reminded me... For the old 78 era records you would think they couldn't screw up the mastering on those... but somehow they still manage it. And when it's not the mastering it's the speed... it took me a good half an hour to find Going up the Country at the correct speed since a ton of those uploads were way off.
idk who rips the records that then go onto those auto-generated uploads... maybe it's the same people that upload those "professional vynil audio rip" and it's a video of a crosley...
That remastering thing reminded me... For the old 78 era records you would think they couldn't screw up the mastering on those... but somehow they still manage it. And when it's not the mastering it's the speed... it took me a good half an hour to find Going up the Country at the correct speed since a ton of those uploads were way off.
idk who rips the records that then go onto those auto-generated uploads... maybe it's the same people that upload those "professional vynil audio rip" and it's a video of a crosley...
IMO one reason could be what monitor loudspeakers were used. "British classics" with closed boxes have thin bass and bass was elevated to get good sound.
This was beneficial also for end users who had even more bad speakers and electronics, until in 1980s subwoofers came. Applies also to car audio.
Third notion - acoustic jazz and classical recordings don't have such genenral trends, but certain labels/producers have distinctive sound.
This was beneficial also for end users who had even more bad speakers and electronics, until in 1980s subwoofers came. Applies also to car audio.
Third notion - acoustic jazz and classical recordings don't have such genenral trends, but certain labels/producers have distinctive sound.