Ye Old Tootsie Roll

O_o

That is unreal.

Nice dynamics.

That's Adobe Audition.

Yeah, that's Audition Ed; I just pulled the most offensive track with Audition and then took a screen shot of it.

Larry, The Glass Harp started getting back together about 7-years ago and doing some occassional gigs and have recorded three new records. The first was a live double CD with the Youngstown Symphony behind them called Strings Attached. I think that was 2000 or 2001. Then came Hourglass in 2003, and a year or so later came a triple CD, Stark Raving Jams, of nothing but live recorded jams mostly recorded since 2000, but with a few older things as well. I think Phil and the boys did the mastering on Hourglass themselves, and unfortunately it shows.

Not that I'm beating up on such a great band as this or singling them out. It seems like every other CD you buy today looks and sounds nearly this bad. I was listening to an oldies station in the truck yesterday and they played a CD of the Monkees doing "Valerie" and it was so hard limited that it had that shrillness of an old 45 with worn out grooves. I can't hardly bear to listen to the radio anymore. They're even ruining the old songs now. I sure hope this silly trend goes away soon.

Larry, I'll bet you've just not heard him enough. He's a great singer--one of the best out there. I've got a picture of him at Paul McCartney's sister-in-law's wedding where they're sitting on a bed afterwards jamming to some old Beatles tunes, and Paul actually quit singing during the jam, and told Phil, "I wanna hear you." There's also a pic of Paul at the wedding standing on his toes trying to look over people so he can watch Phil perform (Keaggy was asked to sing at the wedding).



I don't know if I can change your mind or not, but here's a hodgepodge of a few segments of some of his best singing:

Keaggy Hodgepodge

John Martyn?
I aquired him decades ago. Solid Air is still one of my all-timers. (He recently did something with Dido, but I've not heard it).

ORIGINAL: Joe Bravo

Never heard of Martin. I found a vid of him at YouTube playing acoustic that was interesting. Do you know what type of mic that is on his acoustic?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_reEJwIudc&mode=related&search=

LOL!
No I don't but 25 yeays ago I taught myself to play that style of guitar - picking with the fingers and slapping with the thumb - by listening to that song over and over. Took me weeks, but I can still do it! I think Clapton covered the song. What a blast!
Thanks for the link.

Hey Larry, Keaggy did a record that got really good press in the early 90's called "Crimson and Blue", and there were several cuts where they purposely distorted the vocal purely for the effect. I would bet that's what you heard before. Anyhow, thanks for giving him another chance man.

Worry ye not Ken, took me a while to 'see' it as well - I'm used to seeing the waveform in black, not green.

Enlightening thread for me.

Now I know what "Ye Old Tootsie Roll" is.

Thanks Joe.

Anyone heard a song that's popular on alt rock radio right now, some thing by a group called Evanescence or something like that, with a chick singer? I can't even listen to the thing, sounds like the chick is screaming her boobs off and everyone in the band is cranked to the point of bleeding ears. A wild guess is that the tune was squashed in the manner described above. It's absolutely annoying to listen to because it's so over-pressurized that your eardrums never get a chance to rest. The sound just goes into your ears so hard and keeps going in so hard that your eardrums are pinned back against your brain. Awful production. I've literally never been able to listen to the whole thing, I have to turn it off after a moment or two. And not because it's a bad song or I don't like the group. Rather, I just can't take the sound.

That one is almost as bad as Rush - Vapor Trails... modern recordings suck.. and just think those are the same studios that are trying to sell us time saying we can't do quality recording at home... LOL !

It's the whole point.

ORIGINAL: Clydewinder

yes, between the equal temperament 100% autotune and hack mastering engineers the difference between a song on the radio and white noise is not much.

Except that white noise can be pleasant.

You wonder if the use of so many tracks, overstuffed arrangements, novelty, sensationalism, etc., in today's music is often just compensating factors for the lost expressive capacity of dynamic range.