Peregrin Toker wrote:
Okay, it should have really read "Why MOST music nowadays is so gawdawful". There are, btw, still some music which is not recorded with this over-compressed production which is fashionable nowadays - eg. The White Stripes.
Be careful of taking audio advice from the White Stripes. Anyone who is stupid enough to use a ribbon mic on both a snare and a kick deserves to be smacked. As one engineer who attempted to mic a snare with a ribbon said: "It sounded good for the first 10 seconds before the ribbon snapped!"
That being said, this "loudness race" involving heavy use of limiting and compression is a commonly lamented trend amongst the engineers in the industry. Sadly, recording engineers who are more than perfectly capable of engineering a perfectly good sounding recording are forced by the A&R reps, as well as the higher brass to keep on pushing the levels, causing many albums to be released nearly devoid of all dynamics.
The good news is that this trend seems to have been pulling back a little bit. You really can only push the "louder is better" ideal for so long, until you hear enough recordings and finally are forced to say "gee, this sounds like utter crap!"
Now, I initially thought this post would be on the subject of the low levels of musicianship today, and I suppose I should touch on that too. There IS good music out there, but most of it isn't mainstream by any means. I am one to believe that the reason for the popularity of the schlock that is injected into the marketplace is due to a multitude of reasons. For one, I have found that many people have ceased to actually LISTEN to the music. People just don't seem to have the attention span anymore to pay attention to what is going on, letting it drop into the background.
Second of all, it appears to me that many people (at least within the United States) simply don't even know WHAT to listen to, nor can they put any of it in any sort of context, which I'm sure Zaia might agree, is at least partially due to the declining level of education in the arts.
Finally, I think that part of the declining level of acceptable musicianship can be directly attributed to the abuse of technology. Even back when we were using ADAT machines, it was by no means as easy to tweek a botched track than it is now. A screwup in a track either meant a punch-in (playing back the recording with the musician playing along, hitting "record" just before the botched spot) or a re-do of the entire track. With the modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) programs and plugins, it is possible to pitch-correct an out of tune vocal or re-align a missplaced note. Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, but unfortunately, there are all too many cases of the engineer playing the "additional band member" by working to gloss over the musicians shortcomings in the studio.
