grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Is lo~fi, presented as a deliberately artistic choice, merely covering up for poorly recorded music ?
There are songs that were big hits that sound (to me) absolutely horrible. One example that always stood out was Go Now by the Moody Blues. Heavy distortion everywhere, especially on vocals. Everything sounds like it was recorded at +10 on meter!
Of course, in 1965, coming from the 6x9 dashboard speaker of the AM radio in the car, who could have told it was any different than any other song.
I remember when I first heard it. Late 70s, my uncle's girlfriend did me a tape of 60s stuff and that was on it. It takes me back to the front room of the house we lived in in Nigeria and my plans of trying to raise the money to run away and get back to England.That's a really great song!
It does. This was around that time when a few English engineers were involved in cutting American discs {that used to be part of mastering} and they were trying to work out how the Americans got such great and punchy bass, loud recordings that blew one's face off but never skipped on the vinyl and distortion that actually sounded cool and they eventually caught up. I believe "Go now" was part of that chain of discovery.I think the distortion adds to the feeling of despair he's singing about
He was really inventive. When he left the Moodies in the mid 60s, he formed an electric string band, complete with violin. Years ahead of its time but unfortunately they bombed.Denny Laine did a great job with it...I was a fan during his years with McCartney and Wings.
I'd never seen her. She was hot. But she had an old woman's name ! Sounds like some old headmistress from some 1940s film with Alistair Sim in the lead role.Honestly, I had never heard Bessie Banks' version
Interesting you say that, I've always thought the Rolling Stones' 60s output, while magnificent and containing some of my favourite songs ever, were really shittily recorded and they were Decca's premier act for a while. I know a lot of them were recorded in the USA but they did use quality engineers. I don't know how much Andrew Oldham actually had to do with the mixing but as the producer of their stuff until '68, he was among the 60s worst { along with Kit Lambert}.Still, you would think Decca would be somewhat like EMI in wanting to have quality recordings
Curious. I'm trying to get as far away from lo~fi as it is possible to get. Because I transferred a lot of my cassette portastudio stuff over to my Akai DAW, I've been mixing a lot of stuff over the last 16 months that, frankly, was poorly recorded. I've done a number of salvage jobs that I'm actually quite pleased with, considering. But I've been ever conscious as I was mixing that "these would probably be counted as lo~fi or even worse, subterranean~fi."Are you thinking of doing some of that yourslef...or just curious about the opinions people have of it?
Back in the day {we're talking 90s, early 2000s}, I wasn't averse to recording hot, even though the Manual of the Tascam 488 said don't set the fader above 7. At 7 the signal never looked strong and when I'd play back, it was so quiet with little definition, especially on my mono drums. Whereas 8 and 9 got healthy signals. Too healthy. Obese, actually. And of course 8 tracks on a cassette became too limiting so I did so much bouncing {combined with track sharing} you'd think I sold speed.I often wonder if that's true. The distortion and muddiness...
This is what mainly got me thinking about the topic though. My older son has been listening to a lot of both indie stuff and rap stuff and while I have a relatively open head musically, I think a lot of what he plays me sounds awful. There's clipping of all kinds, utterly overdoing it on effects and deliberately so. He'll play me something, I'll be rolling round the room scratching myself like an old time junkie and he'll be like, "I love that guitar !" or "that's a lit beat" when what the artist has done is sampled some keyboard and a bit of drum, wobbled the keyboard sound until it's like jelly, turned the phaser and chorus up full on all settings and then applied the same to their out of tune warbling.My understanding is that the kids coming up found what we consider harsh, like digital clipping, is cool. I have heard a some modern stuff that is obviously purposefully distorted. A group called Sleigh Bells does this a lot. I have also hear roots rock type outfits doing the same type of thing. To me if the arrangement seems ok, I figure it was recorded that way on purpose.
One of my faves and one of 1967's defining mellotron songs. I dig every part of that song but the way the vocalist sings the third "aahh I loooovvve yooouu" always cracks me up. Even when I'm listening to it as I swim, I'll be spluttering because I'm laughing away. The other swimmers probably think I'm off my head and doing water therapy !"Nights in White Satin"
We were so cool back then!!!
Why strive for quality in recording to then mess it up - but I might well be too old.
When I was examining - students got marks for avoiding noise and distortion, then would process their masterpiece for the current low fi sound, and throw away their grades, because the examiners couldn't;t tell what was intentional distortion, or accidental distortion, or worse, a terrible candidate Aho justified their rotten project by claiming it was meany to be lo-fi. Madness. Why strive for quality in recording to then mess it up - but I might well be too old.