The Troggs arguing in the studio..very strong language warning; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En4ase-1-FA

sharke

A bit like Donald Fagen's "The Nightfly" for the more sophisticated among us 

I know it's heresy but I could never get into Steely Dan or Fagen. Intellectually, I know it's good stuff and amazing production, but for some reason, it eludes me.


OTOH, maybe it'll hit me later. Like, it wasn't until I turned 35 that I finally got Bowie. I could appreciate what he was doing, I dug a couple of songs, but it just didn't connect. He's now one of my all-time favorites.

honestly I don't get Steely Dan as well except that one song and comparing him to Floyds is rather ridiculous.
 

If you want to appreciate Steely Dan you have to place your self in a time before CDs existed. A time when some people still had 8-tracks in their cars and good cassette decks cost $800.

It was also a time when average people had awsome sounding amplifiers and really big good sounding speakers.

Steely Dan succeeded at making LP records sound as good as any LP record has ever sounded. They delivered full range frequency response and great punchy dynamics with arrangements that were designed to sound good for goods sake.

It was sonic candy, it made your stereo sound awesome.

The lyrics, even the ones that see nonsensical, seemed topical for the nonsensical times that were the late 1970's.

The other thing Steely Dan did is that they used only the very best performances, by the very best studio musicians, recorded on the very best sounding gear available.

They did all that for music destined for the radio... where we would compare them to many exciting bands and singers that usually didn't have the same polish.

Steely Dan set a standard that may be easy to take for granted now... but they were certainly "astonishing" in their hey day.

Anyways, I still like them a bunch... but probably more so for a sense of nostalgia and light listening enjoyment than anything else.

They weren't life changing; They never wrote anything that changed the way I think or act... not like those bands I mentioned that didn't always play or sing in tune... but they certainly taught me a lot about how to listen to, and enjoy, a great mix.


all the best,
mike

I was talking to friend of mine who also teaches where I work and he is a great mastering engineer. He was telling me he had to master an album recently for vinyl release and he was amazed at how hard it was and restricting compared to mastering for digital.

I have forgotten myself as I mastered a few vinyl releases myself many moons ago. So we are in a new age in terms of our playback medium and it sounding the best it has ever sounded IMO. As for Steely Dan the last two releases were all digital productions and they sound amazing and by far the best Steel Dan sounding mixes ever. Viynl can sound very good for sure. One great period for vinyl was the Sheffield Lab series they did sometime back where live performances were mixed live and sent direct to the cutting lathe without any tape multi tracking involved and they do sound amazing. I have got a very high quality turntable set-up here so I can say it IS good.

Just because pop music may be sounding worse due to loudness wars and mp3's and such many other styles and genres are forging ahead. Pop music is just such a small percentage of what is out there musically. I have been listening for the last 55 years say so I have heard how things sound Jazz wise and many other styles wise from say 1960 but all the music that came before as well. We invested in good Hi Fi setups early which was a great thing too.

Jazz especially is sounding just so good now and there is no comparison period. Just listen to the very latest modern Jazz recordings and hear the detail and sound. We can record now the way it was done then and still get that sound and probably better as a result of modern technology but we have other options now making the music sound incredible. Transients and the noise floor has never been better. Big band music sounds the best now, small ensembles you name it everything sounds better. 

I am an electronic music enthusiast too and the finest digital productions of this type of music kill even the best vinyl productions from years ago. Some great music came out of all that of course and I am not talking about the music at the moment so much anyway. 

If you set you standard on something was not perfect and quite inferior actually you will only ever get to that point and then you will start to think that better sounding technology is worse than your reference. Instead make the finest digital productions we have done your ref standard and try to always meet that instead. As a result of modern technology my own productions have never sounded better than they do right now.

I'm listening to Norah Jones, Come Away With Me... which is 10 years old... and I couldn't agree more Jeff.

It's a great time for finding great music to listen to.

all the best,
mike

mike_mccue


I'm listening to Norah Jones, Come Away With Me... which is 10 years old... and I couldn't agree more Jeff.

It's a great time for finding great music to listen to.

all the best,
mike

love that album Mike - you have to be in the rigt mood to listen though.
 
Norah Jones' latest is a milllllllllion miles away from that - she really has reinvented herself

Donald Fagen has a new album out. Really looking forward to getting it, I loved his last solo offering. And it was, of course, superbly produced. 

I listened to Axis: Bold As Love (again) today and it still amazes me.

I tried listening to some current pop, Q-100 in Atlanta yesterday afternoon while driving home. I liked one song, tolerated another, really did not like some Rihanna crap song.. none of it amazed me. The song I liked was Bruno Mars: The Lazy Song. 

Still, the stuff that Jimi got done in the studio was truly amazing. 
Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is amazing if it was truly recorded on a 4 track deck. 
Pet Sounds is amazing.

Frank Zappa made some amazing records.

Leadbelly made some fine recordings but for all the hype I have yet to hear a Robert Johnson recording that I like enough to listen to twice.

Tommy was an amazing record to me... the 1st Allman Brothers Band record was amazing as was Idlewild South. Those two impressed me more than the Fillmore record... guess I am an oddball.

Live/Dead is an amazing recording. It was recorded in 1969 at the Filmore West and the Avalon Ballroom. From wiki: The songs were recorded with a mobile 16-track studio Owsley "Bear" Stanley also asked Ron Wickersham to invent a mic splitter that fed both into the PA and the record inputs with no loss in quality.




I visited the Height in 1968 but I didn't see the Dead... I saw some other stuff though, heh.


J

Having some fun listening to 1920's jazz today and stumbled on this recent homage recording. The "sound" just dropped my jaw: http://grooveshark.com/s/...ng+Oliver/1OUTms?src=5

That is amazing for something from the 20s. BTW, I got a malware warning about the Grooveshark website from Google. I listened to a bit anyway, malware doesn't bother me much anymore... it is just like a fly, I can kill it... but I don't think I got anything, Norton didn't give me a warning and N-360 is pretty good at it. It has kept me computer clean, I think W-7 has helped too. Anyway, the trumpet fidelity is pretty amazing for that time period, I agree.


J