Why records all sound the same

[fluffy]

The guy who writes <a href="http://musicthing.blogspot.com/">Music Thing</a> has also written an article for Word Magazine about <a href="http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/w ... -same">why mainstream music is so dang homogeneous these days</a>.

[Hoblit]

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I'm gonna make a few guesses before I read the article to see if some of my own suspicions are confirmed.

1. Producers coming from the same batch of schools in competition with each other have learned and are utilizing the exact same 'tricks' therefore confining everything into their tiny little box.

A. One of those tricks is cutting the highs out of the guitar distortion during recording while encouraging digital effects exclusively. THEN adding back the highs artificially, therefore watering down the sound to make it easier on the ears. (and erasing any 'edge' that ever existed)

2. Marketing. This is easy and cheap for 'us' to produce with the highest profit margin, so we are going to blast you with it from every angle. You don't even realize it because you have 'learned' to love it. You sing along with it because if anything is played enough times you become accustomed to it...and hey, if the pretty girl likes it, so will you.

A. Snap Crackle Pop, Rice Crispies. You wanna go to a place where everybody knows your name.

B. Utilize samples from songs that have already been hits on their own. Utilizing familiar algorithms that have been human studied.

3. Image.

A. Sexy Lyrics perpetuates more sexy lyrical cliche.

B. Money and possession themes have each artists similarly outdoing each other on the same subject over and over. (Think Rap)

C. I'm tougher than you, and here's my song about it.

D. Politics (but this is common through time and its not fair)

Off to read article to be disappointed.
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[fluffy]

I think you'll be either disappointed or pleased in that the article doesn't really touch on any of that.

[Hoblit]

I think you'll be either disappointed or pleased in that the article doesn't really touch on any of that.

While I'm slightly disappointed, I AM PLEASED that they touch on compression. I remember once saying something to Blue about his compression fetish and how I thought this tactic was changing the overall sound of a particular song.

I also like how it touches on how the artists (including the producers) are competing on levels of technology over the actual listener's attention. And when they are competing over the listener's attention, it's a set demographic already predetermined and in seven second tension spans. Thats a condensed way of levying the real world of listeners.

That is a very good article.

[obscurity]

While I'm slightly disappointed, I AM PLEASED that they touch on compression.

Really? You don't think that's nothing more than a vaguely horse-shaped bloody smear on the pavement by now?

[Hoblit]

While I'm slightly disappointed, I AM PLEASED that they touch on compression.

Really? You don't think that's nothing more than a vaguely horse-shaped bloody smear on the pavement by now?

I don't follow... do you mean that it's been talked about and everybody should know about this already?

Or... do you think I am *pleased* with the idea of compression?

For the record, I believe that dynamics are way more important than the treatment they are receiving. Equalization is important... frequency crushing is something else entirely.

[obscurity]

While I'm slightly disappointed, I AM PLEASED that they touch on compression.

Really? You don't think that's nothing more than a vaguely horse-shaped bloody smear on the pavement by now?

I don't follow... do you mean that it's been talked about and everybody should know about this already?

Yes, I mean that particular dead horse has been flogged so much I'm surprised the whip hasn't fallen apart.

If there's anyone with any interest in music who hasn't already read about the 'loudness war', well then I can only assume that they have a very-recently-discovered interest in music. It seems like telling a film director that a lot of jump cuts can be dizzying, or a lighting engineer that overuse of the strobe can trigger epilepsy.



(On a side note - the vocalist in one of my old bands would introduce a particularly strobelight-heavy song at a gig with 'Any epileptics in the audience...get ready to mosh!', which I'm still finding amusing even now :) ).

[Reist]

Now that radio stations are entirely digital, they can go much further. Commercial stations now routinely edit songs themselves, trimming intros, chopping out boring bits, editing in station idents and – I’m not making this up – speeding up songs which they think are too slow or boring for their demographic. Some stations routinely play every track at +3%.

That surprised me.

[Hoblit]

Now that radio stations are entirely digital, they can go much further. Commercial stations now routinely edit songs themselves, trimming intros, chopping out boring bits, editing in station idents and – I’m not making this up – speeding up songs which they think are too slow or boring for their demographic. Some stations routinely play every track at +3%.

That surprised me.

It shouldn't, by the end of next year all TV stations will also be digital. We're just lucky radio stations don't have to broadcast digitally, yet. Then Satellite radio will become more popular and you may find yourself listening to the radio through your TV.

[EmbersOfAutumn]

Now that radio stations are entirely digital, they can go much further. Commercial stations now routinely edit songs themselves, trimming intros, chopping out boring bits, editing in station idents and – I’m not making this up – speeding up songs which they think are too slow or boring for their demographic. Some stations routinely play every track at +3%.

That surprised me.

It shouldn't, by the end of next year all TV stations will also be digital.

Does that mean all of my favorite TV shows will be sped up 3%? I'll be watching The Simpsons thinking it's a Benny Hill skit.

[Paco Del Stinko]

It is a very good article and perhaps someone is just getting tuned into these ideas for the first time, here or elsewhere. I'm sure that to many, the loudness thing is the norm and they don't have any clue as to what dynamics are. Not picking a fight, and I'm sorry to offer yet another flog to the horse, but as exciting as change is, there are some things that need to remain rooted. And whether by flute, Moog, or Mac, music shouldn't sound like it was shat out of a machine. It's organic, man. Share the love.

[roymond]

Yes, I mean that particular dead horse has been flogged so much I'm surprised the whip hasn't fallen apart.

And therefore it should never be discussed again? Sounds like a pretty dogmatic approach: I have opinions, I will never change my opinions so please, just move on and adopt mine since they're obviously superior. Also, I will never gain any further insights and I assume you all have accompanied me for this ride and every course I have ever taken should be removed from curriculum the world over. Wait...why did I respond to this thread again?

I think it's worth while discussing ideas with different people at different points in their experience. Sometimes even on seemingly simple subjects.

[fluffy]

Does that mean all of my favorite TV shows will be sped up 3%? I'll be watching The Simpsons thinking it's a Benny Hill skit.

Sometimes they do, most often in syndication. I can always tell when they do just because voices are at a slightly higher pitch. It's very unnerving.

[obscurity]

Yes, I mean that particular dead horse has been flogged so much I'm surprised the whip hasn't fallen apart.

And therefore it should never be discussed again? Sounds like a pretty dogmatic approach: I have opinions, I will never change my opinions so please, just move on and adopt mine since they're obviously superior. Also, I will never gain any further insights and I assume you all have accompanied me for this ride and every course I have ever taken should be removed from curriculum the world over. Wait...why did I respond to this thread again?

WTF? I expressed surprise at Hoblit's reaction, and then explained to him why I found it surprising (using hyperbole for, hopefully, comic effect). And all of a sudden I'm some dogmatic, closed-minded, arrogant, censorial asshole? Go fuck yourself.

[Adam!]

Yeah, that was kind of an uncharacteristically harsh response there, Roy. I suspect some kind of miscommunication.

I personally wouldn't have a problem with all these anti-loudness war rants, if the people writing them could at least keep their terms straight. They rail on and on about the evils of "compression", but the negative effect they're usually describing is distortion. Calling distortion "compression" in an article aimed at laymen is doubly confounding, as most people think of lossy data compression (ie MP3) when they hear the term. "Distortion" is a term that's much easier for people to understand.

[jimtyrrell]

Does that mean all of my favorite TV shows will be sped up 3%? I'll be watching The Simpsons thinking it's a Benny Hill skit.

Sometimes they do, most often in syndication. I can always tell when they do just because voices are at a slightly higher pitch. It's very unnerving.

A good example: Try watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV sometime. It's friggin' ridiculous. Practically turns the song 'Linus and Lucy' into ragtime.

[roymond]

WTF? I expressed surprise at Hoblit's reaction, and then explained to him why I found it surprising (using hyperbole for, hopefully, comic effect). And all of a sudden I'm some dogmatic, closed-minded, arrogant, censorial asshole? Go fuck yourself.

In my feeble mind I was pressing the opposing hyperbolic lever. To ill effect. Point taken.

[mkilly]

I was ready to say "I sure am sick of articles about compression/hotness," but that was pretty good.

[fluffy]

Yeah, if it were just a compression/hotness article I wouldn't have posted it, since I'm sick of them too.

[JonPorobil]

That surprised me.

It shouldn't, by the end of next year all TV stations will also be digital.

Does that mean all of my favorite TV shows will be sped up 3%? I'll be watching The Simpsons thinking it's a Benny Hill skit.

In early (and I assume later, but I'm not sure) episodes of The Simpsons, they often had a hard time cutting an episode down to the proper length, so they'd "ten-percent" it. Yep, made the whole episode 10% faster. For the original broadcast. Both parts of Who Shot Mr. Burns?, for example, were ten-percent episodes. Whaddaya know?

I agree with Hoblit; it's a very good article, but I'm a little surprised that it doesn't talk about independent musicians using the same tricks. Hell, if it weren't for the ProTools revolution and the "spaceship" turning into one guy at a computer, most of us would never have recorded a song!

[roymond]

Now that radio stations are entirely digital, they can go much further. Commercial stations now routinely edit songs themselves, trimming intros, chopping out boring bits, editing in station idents and – I’m not making this up – speeding up songs which they think are too slow or boring for their demographic. Some stations routinely play every track at +3%.

That surprised me.

It shouldn't, by the end of next year all TV stations will also be digital. We're just lucky radio stations don't have to broadcast digitally, yet. Then Satellite radio will become more popular and you may find yourself listening to the radio through your TV.

Most all TV operations are digital already. What will change in Feb 2009 is that terrestrial TV will be broadcast digitally rather than analog. This will only affect people who use antennas to receive the signal, not cable, satellite or IPTV which is already (with very few exceptions) sent digitally. To address this congress has created a coupon program for people to get a set-top box that allows their analog TV to receive the new digital signals. It's estimated that ~30 million people in the US do not have digital-ready TVs today.

In both cases (TV and Radio) the bandwidth savings mean they can either transmit more channels, or more content such as advertising, metadata or interactive applications. Plus, they can play around with compression techniques more easily and thus the noticeable difference between the quality of news vs sports vs feature films. Some of the bandwidth savings will be used by emergency response systems.

[HeuristicsInc]

In early (and I assume later, but I'm not sure) episodes of The Simpsons, they often had a hard time cutting an episode down to the proper length, so they'd "ten-percent" it. Yep, made the whole episode 10% faster. For the original broadcast. Both parts of Who Shot Mr. Burns?, for example, were ten-percent episodes. Whaddaya know?

Heh, I always had the impression watching Simsons that they did a ridiculous amount of story in their 20 minutes or whatever (compared to other shows) such that the episode would start in one place and end with something completely different - musta been the 10%!
well, that and weird writers.
i like this about the simpsons, don't take this as a pan.
-bill