Phil Spektor

[SouthSIDE Glen]

*places fingers on temples*

I foresee a new era ushering in a wave of dynamic range, ending the RMS war. But be careful what you wish for... this new era will severely limit the frequencies used - and soon you will find music that boasts the use of a mroe and more diminished frequency range throughout an entire piece...

SSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Don't give anybody any ideas!



G.

 

[cusebassman]

As ridiculous as that sounds, at this stage of the game, I can't imagine what might become the next trend in recording. Let's start hearing theories, people - Phil Spector is the past, what is the future???

 

[zoiks]

As was breifly mentioned, "maybe jazz" was an exception. It was indeed. Engineers were making faily wide fidelity (comparatively speaking) pressings for the general public that included very nice bass reproduction and nice crisp drums as early as the late '50s. It wasn't that the technology wasn't there to give good bass and drum in the 60s, it was an idiotic marketing decision much like today's RMS wars: they purposely made stuff to sound best on the mono AM radios of the time.

In addition to this, it's my understanding that a trade-off was made on vinyl when it came to bass.

To get a good bass sound, you need to cut the groove deeper, which consequently meant that it took up more space. The more bass you added, the shorter your album had to be.

So for record companies to tick all the boxes when selling pop music and give the consumer as many songs as possible, it meant that engineers had to ease off on bass.

 

[Ironklad Audio]

But when he was on target, man, it was straight through the heart.

...or the mouth...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

In addition to this, it's my understanding that a trade-off was made on vinyl when it came to bass.

To get a good bass sound, you need to cut the groove deeper, which consequently meant that it took up more space. The more bass you added, the shorter your album had to be.

So for record companies to tick all the boxes when selling pop music and give the consumer as many songs as possible, it meant that engineers had to ease off on bass.

What you describe is true enough in theory (we just got through talking about this in a "mastering for 7 inch" thread over in the M&M forum), but I think that was only a minor factor in what is being discueed here. The amount of bass chopped off by your average AM radio was much greater than the constraints of vinyl. Your average early-mid 60s Spector production sounded thin even on vinyl, assuming you had a playback system where you could tell a difference.

But when you are producing a song so that when you play it through a 60s transistor radio or through the shitbox dashboard speaker of an average automobile AM radio of the time without the listener missing out on anything important to the mix, you wind up with something that is even narrower than what vinyl is capable of.

The thing about vinyl is not that it cannot reproduce low frequencies, but that there is not the room to reproduce low frequencies with a high crest factor over the rest of the program.

G.

 

[CoolCat]

the future is upon us...

Fruity Loops. I heard my first radio-airplay FRUITY LOOPS song the other day.

It was vocals over an entire FRUITY LOOP back ground music. The chords were obviously the old 50's C-Am-F-G... it shocked me as my son and his friends are all into that type music.

they do the band thing too, drums, bass, electrics, keys.....but often they are creating Loops and enjoy the hell out of it.

Like video games, I just don't see the enjoyment in it.... to each their own.

 

[jmorris]

You're not missing anything. Or we're both missing something. He created this "wall of sound" thing that always sounds like shit to me. I can't listen to most of "Let it Be" because of him.

Rami, as much as I love your stuff you do and The Beatles, the problem with Let It Be was the Beatles themselves. Spector did do some very cool stuff in his career but its like listening to Hendricks today( at least for me) he was great for his time but today 100 kids can play like him. Spector created his "wall of sound" by layering over all sorts of parts, doubling drums, that was never done before, and bass. Many vocals parts and add lush verbs, it was his sound. Today with so much music under the bridge its hard to younger people to determine what is new and where did it come from. Like my daughter come to me with this song she like, a kind of reggae song by a kid named something King. Its a complete rip off of " Stand by Me", I mean the whoe thing, bass line ,sandpaper scratch, strings! But its all new to her.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Today with so much music under the bridge its hard to younger people to determine what is new and where did it come from.

Yep, and that's a big part of the story with Spector. His claim to fame is understood from the perspective of historical context, not from the perspective of audiophilia. Folks like the OP or your daughter for whom the early 60s are nothing but ancient history may find it more difficult to understand just how radical the wall of sound was at the time. Not only in sound, but in concept and technique. The most radical icon in pop music at the time was Elvis, who at the time wasn't really doing much different production-wise than Bing Crosby and the Kingston Trio were. Sure there were technical differences in the mix layout between them, but nothing that really wrote any radically new textbooks.

When the wall came along, it turned standard documentarian technique on it's ear. And it happened at the start of one of the most turbulent social decades of the century, where anti-establishmentarinism and an anything goes attitude really took root. By the late sixties when "Let It Be" came along, Spector was already somewhat of a one trick pony, and others (like Martin and Wilson and others) had already taken the radical seeds he planted several years earlier and developed them even further, somewhat obsoleting Spector in real time.

But, the seeds were still Spector's, and that's why he has the place in history that he does.

What I will give young people like your daughter and the OP much credit for, though, is the fact that they are even interested in music that happened a quarter century before they were even born. That's like folks my age being into Ellington, Basie, etc. Now, I happen to be way into that stuff myself, but the number of people my age who are as educated on V-discs as the 20-somethings of today are on the music of the 60s is relatively puny in comparison.

G.

 

[TexRoadkill]

The invention comment was somewhat of a joke but technology pushes the sound. The Hi-Fi revolution of the 70's helped fuel better recording techniques and more low end in mixes.

I'm betting we'll see a return to fidelity and dynamic range as portable drives get bigger. We're probably at that point right now. Manufacturers will need to come up with a reason for consumers to buy next generation Ipods and what better reason then higher quality recordings in a larger file format.