Peak Production Era
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State of Epicicity
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I wonder if there is a sort of "Peak Production Point of Diminishing Returns"
that has taken place. Like, a point where it becomes more about the "production,"
and how its role has grown so significant that it can surmount or circumvent
the music and the performances.
Certainly feels to me like something like that has happened with the 2000s
to the present.
Then it becomes more and more impossible to "sound like the record" live
unless you use tracks, and have a bunch of elements pimped/pumped into the
performance. Like Sub Bass being everywhere, on every record. Guitar mixes being
so dense that you cannot possible recreate those tones live without some ... uhmmm.....
help. And the Synth.... Synth.... everywhere these days.
This is not to say that production was not dense in the past. Just not as dense as
it is now. So dense sometimes that I can't chew it.
Many years ago I saw an interview with the then dean of audio production at Berklee, and he said that he grew up with all the analog gear, so he really appreciated what digital allows, but what he found in his students was a sense of option paralysis, that the analog gear forced you to make decisions, and so many things are possible now that you could too easily get stuck in your own head.
Obviously the sonic quality that was capable in the 70s was enough to make the best sounding albums ever, but I think what really set it apart was, broadly speaking, the style that many engineers and producers chose, and the ability for that particular style to translate superlatively to other playback scenarios.
I think today producers in genres are pressured by groupthink and artists who want to sound like other artists that have banked well in their genre, and it's to everyone's detriment.
I think it's important to keep the ideas of great separation and low compression. A great example is A New Day Yesterday by Bonamassa. I love that album, because of the audio production, but at a certain point he became surgically attached to Kevin Shirley, who thinks it's cool to give everything antiseptic clarity then push it so far into compression that, instead of sounding like a master quality analog board summing signals into harmonic heaven, it sounds like an amateur trying to create the sonic equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting.
I can't tell you how much I hate it. To me Shirley ruined the Black Country Communion stuff purely with bad decisions.
On the other side, you have guys like Paul Northfield, who said he had a tremendously difficult time recording Neil Peart because he was so hard on the drums. Northfield still managed to create one of the most sonically pleasing works of art in the canon.
State of Epicicity
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I love the Mindcrime album despite the production. I think Tate's vocals are treated right, but the guitars are not EQ'd well at all with way too much harsh upper mids and ridiculous amounts of gain, and the drums are too effected to be as powerful as the performance. I love the writing and performance, but I hate just about everything about the production. I wish that album sounded like Rage for Order.
Achilles
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State of Epicicity
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sounds familiar.......
Haha, you mean like with guitar tone? That's why, with my Axe-FX III and FC12, most of my presets contain four blocks! I could've gone for the FM3 and been fine!
TSJMajesty
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TSJMajesty
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I used that album and DSoTM to audition floor speakers at Circuit City for my stereo back in the day!
State of Epicicity
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I think one of the most interest Yes albums to listen to for production is Union. The music itself is so varied because of the different lineups and how unusual the whole concept is, it leant itself to very very cool and thickly layered production too. To me a standout song to try is Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day.
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Achilles
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The musicianship doesn't hurt either.
I think that's what makes it most impressive.
You can clearly hear what each guy is doing at all times even though there's so much going on.
Blix
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I LOVE listening to Big Generator in headphones!
The beginning of this:
Never been all that into Yes, but I LOVE that album.
TSJMajesty
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This counts, right? Talk about a next level step in "Production" that blew people's
minds. Makes me think Boston's debut was the Def Leppard Hysteria of it's time.
Kind of.
From the second the needle dropped!
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