How hard core is too hard core?

[nobby]

I recently recalled an incident from a few years ago. Forum with a large number of recording engineers, which is when you get "interesting" viewpoints.

It was a thread in which the subject was pitch and the engineers began to bitch.

One complained about how out of tune Frank Sinatra sang.

I'm like, WTF?

Too bad they can't go back in time and auto tune his vox -- he might have sold some records

I mean, unless they are referring to a couple of really short duration notes that were out by a cent or two, I have no clue. The rest of the planet managed to not notice. If Frankie's vocals aren't good enough, the rest of us should probably hang it the fuck up.

What made me recall that was a recent discussion, on Mixerman's or Kenny's FB page discussing incongruences in mixes. I mentioned Jethro Tull's Aqualung, how the piano was equally as loud as the guitar through a Marshall plexi (or whatever).

Someone then proclaimed it to be an awful sounding album, someone else agrees and again, I'm WTF?

I hadn't listened to the album for a while and I went to listen to the CD at my older brother's place. He has a sick sound system with Bryston amp, Theil speakers, JL subs and a California Audio Labs CD player -- it reveals detail that standard consumer gear won't.

I guess I'm still one of the millions of fools who have been gulled into thinking it's a great sounding album

The only thing I noticed that I though was unusual was at the end of the album there was tape/ console/ outboard noise that virtually nobody would have ever heard on their 1971 stereo which I think they could have gated out for the few people listening to it at 90dB on multi thousand dollar stereos.

[John Eppstein]

I recently recalled an incident from a few years ago. Forum with a large number of recording engineers, which is when you get "interesting" viewpoints.

It was a thread in which the subject was pitch and the engineers began to bitch.

One complained about how out of tune Frank Sinatra sang.

I'm like, WTF?

Too bad they can't go back in time and auto tune his vox -- he might have sold some records

I mean, unless they are referring to a couple of really short duration notes that were out by a cent or two, I have no clue. The rest of the planet managed to not notice. If Frankie's vocals aren't good enough, the rest of us should probably hang it the fuck up.

What made me recall that was a recent discussion, on Mixerman's or Kenny's FB page discussing incongruences in mixes. I mentioned Jethro Tull's Aqualung, how the piano was equally as loud as the guitar through a Marshall plexi (or whatever).

Someone then proclaimed it to be an awful sounding album, someone else agrees and again, I'm WTF?

I hadn't listened to the album for a while and I went to listen to the CD at my older brother's place. He has a sick sound system with Bryston amp, Theil speakers, JL subs and a California Audio Labs CD player -- it reveals detail that standard consumer gear won't.

I guess I'm still one of the millions of fools who have been gulled into thinking it's a great sounding album

The only thing I noticed that I though was unusual was at the end of the album there was tape/ console/ outboard noise that virtually nobody would have ever heard on their 1971 stereo which I think they could have gated out for the few people listening to it at 90dB on multi thousand dollar stereos.

If Tull had had modern processing maybe they could have done something about the tone of that weird wheezy sounding instrument!

[meloco_go]

The music you listen to forms the expectation of what is right/wrong. If people hear only vocals which are corrected to perfect pitch all the time, they would expect this perfect pitch everywhere.
It's a pity, as it diminishes vocal expression, but that's the way it is...
Same (or worse) with drummers and quantization.

But I have to admit, many of the renowned records from the '60s and the '70s are not sounding right to me. After all, I grew up listening to the records from the '90s mostly.

[nobby]

I think people usually don't focus on whether the pitch is out a cent or two on short duration notes because they're listening to the music and not focusing intently on the pitch.

I love the music of the '90s but it doesn't make me think records from the '70s or '80s are out of tune. I get the difference in technology and production.

Mixerman did a recent podcast and he mentioned something about the difficulty of wearing different hats in the process.

Basically, if, for example you're listening intently to the sound while mixing, you aren't listing to the music.

I recently noticed that as I was mixing a track, the words didn't register at all, and they were a vital part of the song. You can only focus, really focus, on one thing at a time.

That makes me think that if a couple of recording engineers notice something on a record that sold a ton of units and nobody else does, it isn't of vital importance.

It's like whether to pan drums drummer's or audience perspective. If you're watching a close up of the drummer on a video and wearing headphones it might be odd if they are panned wide and not audience perspective, otherwise if anyone notices I'd be inclined to place the blame (for anyone noticing the panning perspective) elsewhere for not making the track interesting/ exciting enough.

[meloco_go]

I think people usually don't focus on whether the pitch is out a cent or two on short duration notes because they're listening to the music and not focusing intently on the pitch.

Yes, it may be. OTOH pitch sensitivity can be trained to a large extent. When I just started to play guitar, my friend and I recorded a song on cassette tape. He played chords and I played a simple solo on top. At the moment we have recorded the song we thought it sounded cool, but a couple of years had passed and I founded this cassette and it made me cringe how out of tune my guitar actually was.

I love the music of the '90s but it doesn't make me think records from the '70s or '80s are out of tune. I get the difference in technology and production.

I didn't mean pitch but the way music sounded generally. It seems this is totally context and fashion related and there's no way around it. I was amazed recently when I read reviews of A Day to Remember recent record and some people commented on how they thought the record sounded too raw and sloppy.