Production Quality, What's The Big Deal?

[GoldFalcon]

I am not an audiophile. I could care less if the music eminates from a cd, an eight track, vinyl, or a vanilla ice cream cone. I have been playing live shows and recording (for myself, not for release) for about twenty years. I once had a TASCAM four track that I disliked intensely and preferred the sound I got by sitting in my living room strumming into a cassette deck.

Today I record my stuff by jacking my Peavey mic into my Audigy 2 Platinum and letting it rip, hiss and all, chunky, muddy sound and all. to me the lyrics and the melody are the most important things, i.e. quality songwriting. Some of my favorite albums have little to zero production/post production: Lori Mckenna's "Kitchen Tapes", Robert Johnson's "Complete Recordings", Gillian Welch's "Time(The Revalator)", Cobain's home recording from "With the Lights Out". All freaking great, some of the best music ever made, if you ask me.

I have recently started gigging again, and many requests have been made to release a cd based on songs on my website. Users love the songs, hate the production values. I just don't get it. What's the big deal about how polished a song sounds? It doesn't add or subtract from the intrensic value of the song, and is no more important than the packaging (except in extreme cases where it becomes painful to listen to).

So realizing there must be a large concentration of audiophiles here who place a premium on production quality, I thought I'd come to the source. Why is production quality so important to you?

 

[bennychico11]

i smell the start of a BIG discussion

the reason you try for the best sonic quality you can get, is because you're trying to replicate the sound as if the band was right in front of you playing. why ruin a great performance with a shitty recording??

it's like asking the great musicians of our time why they play on crappy guitars? why not just go to Walmart and buy one for 50 bucks? Who cares about how it sounds...it still plays, right?

Why do people put so much effort into creating a huge Turkey dinner on Thanksgiving?? McDonalds will give you food for cheaper and less of a hassle....but it doesn't taste as good does it?

Now why make a crappy recording if you don't have to?

If you are truely serious about your music and the sounds you create you don't want to half ass anything in the recording process. The sonic quality of your recordings DO add or subtract from the overal song value. Music is aural. Your ears are tuned to love certain sonic qualities of sound and hate others. Ever heard distortion or feedback? Not pleasing is it? Ever heard a band recorded with one of those small tape recorders bought from radio shack that are actually meant for speech recordings?? You HAVE to have noticed that the band sounds like crap through one of those things. Everthing just sounds muddled. Why ruin your sound with a crappy recording?!!! It just doesn't make any sense! Lyrics and melodies are NOT the most important things. In fact, you don't even have lyrics and melodies without chords, rhythm and a bass. If it was all about lyrics and melodies then every song would just be acappella. No need for any other instrument.

I think you need to do a listening test of some sort. And the easiest way to do this is make a bunch of MP3s. Find a professional CD of some sort that was recorded in a studio. Now rip it onto your computer into MP3s at varying bit rates. Start at 128kbps and go all the way down to 16kbps (even 8kbps if you can). This can be done using ITunes if you need to. Might take a little while though.
Now sit and just play them back to back in decending order. The original CD first, the 128kbps next, 112kbps next, 96kbps after that. I'm certain you will definitely hear the quality diminishing greatly with each version. Then when you're done, ask yourself if you really wouldn't mind having your music recorded to an MP3 at 16kbps.

If you STILL can't hear any difference than you probably need to get your ears checked. Because you also probably won't be able to hear how your intonation of your instrument sounds or how your tuning sounds.

As much as music is an art...audio is a science. So therefore, it can be said that music is also a science and audio is an art...since they are really one in the same.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

I am not an audiophile.

You have definately came to the wrong forum, dude....

Today I record my stuff by jacking my Peavey mic into my Audigy 2 Platinum and letting it rip, hiss and all, chunky, muddy sound and all. to me the lyrics and the melody are the most important things, i.e. quality songwriting.

You need to hire a PRODUCER to worry about those things for you.

I have recently started gigging again, and many requests have been made to release a cd based on songs on my website. Users love the songs, hate the production values. I just don't get it. What's the big deal about how polished a song sounds?

Didn't you just answer your own question?

It doesn't add or subtract from the intrensic value of the song.

Yes it does. See your own quote "Users love the songs, hate the production values".

I thought I'd come to the source. Why is production quality so important to you?

First off, there is no such thing as one way to produce things. The production has to match the music. Also, as a songwriter--shouldn't YOU want the production to be at least as great as the song?

You are going to just have to accept the fact that people are as sensitive to SOUND and PRODUCTION as they are to PERFORMANCE and SONGWRITING.

You *cannot* have a great song without all of the above being as great and appropriate...

The faster you learn to live with this the better, because it seems obvious the way you were doing things in the past isn't working out. You don't need more of the same, you need a new way.

Find someone to handle your production and focus on what you enjoy most--performing and songwriting.

 

[GoldFalcon]

I disagree, music is about emotion, not science. David Rawlings plays a very cheap guitar, he just happens to play it very well. I understand your point, but I am not talking about production quality on an abominable scale (though I truly enjoy the version of "All Apologies" on "With The Lights Out" that was recorded on Memorex tape and a boom box). I enjoy hearing Lori McKenna dig around in her candy dish, I like hearing a fret buzz or two, or the occasional crack in the voice. I like hearing Ryan Adams argue with David Rawlings about Morrisey as the album opener on "Heartbreaker".

I am talking about stripped down recording devoid of everything that isn't at a live show of mine. My live shows consist of me and an acoustic guitar. Endlessly tracking more and more nuanced and effects laden guitar tracks is simply setting a standard that one will never hear at a live show of mine. I'll never have drums or a bass player, or a wall of Marshall amps cranking out my Les Paul and bottleneck slide.

Adding those things to my recordings is simply bowing to the market, because booking managers and record buying customers (not live music audiences) have come to expect certain things from recorded music that are not even possible with live music, especially live acoustic music. The best produced song in the world is still crap if it has a forgettable melody and inane lyrics (see almost the entire pop/rap/R&B music catalog for the last 10 years). Poor production doesn't detract from great songwriting: Lori Mckenna's album recorded at her kitchen table on a minidisc recorder and cheap mic is hugely popular with many people, including Faith Hill and Zach Braff.

Not plugging myself but here is an example of what I consider acceptable recording quality for me, while 99% (if not 100%) of this board would find it at best sub-par:

Again I'm not trying to stir anything up, I am truly mystified by the emphasis and premium placed on polish and production. I am resigned to the fact that I have to do it to sell myself but that doesn't make me like it or understand it.

 

[bennychico11]

there is a big difference between you liking the compositions on those albums and liking the production value of them. those amazing songs and lyrics and melodies could just as easily be captured at home with a mini disk recorder as in a studio with great sounding gear and great engineers. but there is a point where you will reach in your career in saying "my songs are great...my playing is great...now how can i make it even better??" Well, put away the minidisk and go for a better sound sonically.

secondly, it sounds like you've really limited your music listening to a couple genres of music. how many classical orchestras have you heard??...how about a classical orchestra in a gymnasium? Would you rather hear them living in a concert hall that has been professionally tuned so that anywhere you sit it sounds perfect...or in a gym with hard concrete, parallel walls that makes everything sound muddled?

The best produced song in the world is still crap if it has a forgettable melody and inane lyrics

that's absolute crap. maybe your opinion....but crap in my opinion. Personally i hate singers. There are maybe 3 in the world that I like. And as far as lyricists go...maybe only 2 that i like. I prefer to hear the songs themselves as a whole. And being a big jazz fan, you get used to hearing the melody for 30 seconds and then enjoy the REAL important part of the song...the solos. C Jam Blues is a great example of that. Probably THE most boring melody compositionally. But have you ever heard 15 minutes of great solos around those changes??

There is A LOT that goes into making music. Lyrics and melody are only 15% of it. Maybe you as a musician only use an acoustic guitar and your voice...but there is a lot more music out there than just you. Poor production DOES detract from great song writing. Many many people come to this forum because they need advice on capturing their sound better. They love their compositions and their music, but feel it's lacking something that a PC microphone and Windows Sound Recorder just can't give them. All those artists you've listed also have albums out where they went into a professional studio to get it produced.

I listened to your sample and it sounds good (repetitive for my tastes....but compositionally it sounds okay). That being said it could benefit so much more from a better quality recording.

I guess tell me, how can a better recording possibly ruin the song?? If you play it perfect in your house, live in a concert....why can't you play it perfect infront of great mics, preamps, etc.? Does a great recording make it sound worse? Please show me one recording where the sonic quality absolutely ruined the lyrics and melody.

 

[Farview]

You are right, music is about emotion. Recording music is about capturing the song and comunicating it to someone else.

I would submit that the sound quality doesn't affect your feelings about the song because you know everything that is going on in it. But if you have a muddy, unclear sounding recording of the song, you might not be able to communicate that feeling to someone else. Someone that is just listening and doesn't know what all is there.

Production is a tool, just like chord progression, melody and rhythm.

 

[Cyrokk]

While a song doesn't have to have the highest sound quality possible, it does have to have a minimum of decency. If a non-audiophile listener says to himself "wow, I love this song, except...", and that "except" is related to the quality of sound, then you have a) failed the song for depriving it a setting of minimum decency, and b) cheated the listener from the fullest enjoyment of your song.

If your concern is that you can't pull off all the recorded parts in a live setting, then simply strip the song's parts down in the recording, but still keep it listenable. Afterall, from what I've gathered from your posts, all you'd need would be a couple of mikes for recording acoustic guitar in stereo, a mike for your vocals and a half-decent reverb unit. That's not much to ask to please your listeners is it?

 

[treymonfauntre]

there are tons of records out there that are just a guy and an acoustic guitar. no other instruments. recording something "professionally" doesn't mean you have to multitrack everything and make it sound slick and full of effects. it just means its going to sound like you are right there in the room playing in front of whoever is litening.

 

[DonGraham]

I disagree, music is about emotion, not science.

As an Electrical Engineer as well as a musician/audio engineer, I must disagree......If music were not about science there would be NO recordings at all....Yeah don't think that it didn't take physics and E.E, to create a record, a microphone, an electric guitar!!!!! Everyone of the artists that you mentioned benifited from the advancement of electronics...........You can listen to robert johnson's recording from the 30's 80 years later......that is SCIENCE.......On the artistic side....I have no desire to listen to music that I can't hear the details in.......If somebody is a great musician do you not think that every nuance of their playing should be captured????

So if you are going to release music to the public you better get used to the fact that people want to hear the details in your music.....not just a noisy hiss with an out of tune guitar, one mic.....but a "GREAT SONG" that sound like Sh!t...

 

[bennychico11]

You are right, music is about emotion. Recording music is about capturing the song and comunicating it to someone else.

sorry, forgot to comment on that part too...about the whole music is not a science. It is a science though. Otherwise we wouldn't have music theory, we wouldn't have chords or rhythms. A440 wouldn't exist if it wasn't based on science and the nature of sound. If music wasn't related to science your guitar strings wouldn't vibrate to create sounds. And your putting the fingers on the frets wouldn't create nodes in the string changing the pitch of that string....and your acoustic guitar wouldn't be hollow to allow for the sound to resonate and become amplified naturally. Music and science are related hand in hand...whether you realize it or not. Music as an art IS about the emotional aspect of it. But a lot of us audio engineers see our work as being an art in just the same way. Knowing how to tweak your music to amplify your emotions so that the listener knows exactly what you were trying to say. If you don't believe me, go sit in on a mixing engineer's session.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

GoldFalcon,

If you have to ask, you'll never understand the answer.

I will be the first to agree with you and defend you to the death on the idea that I like to refer to as, "It's the content, stupid!." It's all about the music and the performance of it. I will also extend that to say that the muisc is far more important than the recording because the music can exist without the recording but the recording cannot exist without the music.

But if you can't intuitively understand that a high-quality recording/production is both emotionally and intellectually more attractive than a low-quality one, and that the difference is akin to difference between a high-quality performer and performance and a low-quality one, then that is something you'll never be able to wrap your head around, and you should just accept that as one of your mysteries of life and move on.

G.

 

[GoldFalcon]

secondly, it sounds like you've really limited your music listening to a couple genres of music. how many classical orchestras have you heard??...how about a classical orchestra in a gymnasium? Would you rather hear them living in a concert hall that has been professionally tuned so that anywhere you sit it sounds perfect...or in a gym with hard concrete, parallel walls that makes everything sound muddled?

Actually I listen to a wide range of music, though I'll admit that the one that I most enjoy is Americana/neo-folk/modern bluegrass. The one I enjoy least is improvisational jazz. Difference in tastes (are you a math person by any chance?) and what we look for out of music. To me intelligent or thought provoking lyrics are the skeleton of any song because I want a song to touch my emotions and intellect and words are what do that for me. Those words can be "Today Was A Good Day" by Ice Cube, "Elenor Rigby" by the Beatles, "New Favorite" by Allison Kraus and Union Station, or "My Hero" by the Foo Fighters. As Jazz is largely lyric-less it doesn't touch me at all, while its highly lyrical black sheep cousin (acoustic Delta blues) is a favorite genre of mine.

I guess tell me, how can a better recording possibly ruin the song?? If you play it perfect in your house, live in a concert....why can't you play it perfect infront of great mics, preamps, etc.? Does a great recording make it sound worse? Please show me one recording where the sonic quality absolutely ruined the lyrics and melody.

Well a better recording can't, but that really isn't what I mean by "production quality". Live audiences have never said to me "you could really use a bass player" or "that song would sound great if you had a band". People listenign to my songs on my site regularly ask when I am going to get a band together and go into the studio, or when I am gonna "fix" my songs.

Sorry, they're not broken.

If you mean by "better recording" heading to a professional studio and laying down two maybe three tracks (rythym, vocal and lead) and letting a producer mix it down then that is great. If you mean by "better recording" all of the pollish and post produced flair (that's what I am complaining about: that need to produce "perfect" sounding recordings that have been pitch shifted and overdubbed, and mixed to death) then I would say that most songs are hurt by it and not helped.

That's why "unplugged" sets are so popular and why many people upon hearing a band live for the first time, are so shocked by how awful they sound. You can't recreate on the stage what is expected on CD's. People will book me if they see me live, but if I send them recordings that more accurately reflect a "live" sound then they won't book me because the CD isn't pollished enough. If I send them a CD chock full of stuff that I can't pull off live but sounds like it ought to be on the radio I'm a shoo in.

Oh, and that isn't my composition it's a cover of Ryan Adams' "Damn, Sam (I Love A Woman That Rains)" I didn't put mine up because I'm not trying to plug my music, just discussing a pet peeve of mine.

I would submit that the sound quality doesn't affect your feelings about the song because you know everything that is going on in it.

On my songs yes, I know what is going to happen. I'm talking about other "poorly" produced albums. It doesn't affect my enjoyment at all that I can hear dogs barking, harmonica's knocking against mic, and Dylan spitting into the mic (siblance) and other such "mistakes" all over "Bob Dylan Live 1964 The Bootleg Series Vol:6". Similarly the sparse production on the "Unearthed" box set is a huge plus, and adds to my enjoyment, just as it does in all the cases that I named above.

This really isn't a pointless excercise on my part, I am genuinely curious as to who places production value on the same level as song content and why. It may well be that it is just a matter of personal preference that is unfathomable (like my rock solid belief that if it doesn't have pickles, lettuce, onions, and mustard and nothing else then it isn't a cheesburger, but merely meat on a bun)

*Edit* Thanks for all of the replies, and calm down there Don, I'm talking about music, not your mamma.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

As Jazz is largely lyric-less it doesn't touch me at all, while its highly lyrical black sheep cousin (acoustic Delta blues) is a favorite genre of mine.
...
This really isn't a pointless excercise on my part, I am genuinely curious as to who places production value on the same level as song content and why.

Those to whom the instrumentation - i.e. the music - is just as important as the lyrics place higher values on the quality of the recording and production.

Your lack of emotional or physiological response to instrumntal music is telling, I believe. I'm not saying that it's wrong, or that there's anything wrong with that response, trust me. that's fine. But I do believe that exposes what is at the heart of your own inability to understand why others place so much more importance on it than you do.

You are a poet to happens to have selected music as your medium. From such a perspective, the old maxim that "it's the message and not the medium" by definition states that for an artist of your inherent tastes its the lyrics and the performance of them that's important and that the quality of the music itself is of only secondary import on even it's best day. You said it all in the very first sentence of your opening post. You are not an audiophile.

Can you accept that there are very many people on this planet whose brains are wired a bit differently than yours (not better, not worse, just different) to whom the timbre, the formants, the harmonic resonances, etc. of the sound of the music moves them physiologically and emotionally as much if not more than the lyrics move you?

To take it to an extreme, you have people who actually perceive sound as color. Give them an old Son House recording and no matter how soulful he cries out his lyrics and no matter how much emotional dynamics he puts into his dobro playing, the sound itself going to be distracting or offensive to such people. They're not wrong or right any more than you are, that's just how their mind and body reacts to the sound. We actually have an autistic person who contributes very thoughtfully and intelligently to this forum on occasion who could probably speak to this first-person far better than I could.

I am a huge fan of Son House and Bob Dylan and love much American Roots music (I listen to The Whip's Internet broadcasts as often as my schedule allows ). But I also adore classic jazz instrumentals from the likes of Duke Ellington and Oscar Peterson. With some exceptions, most of the recordings by those folks are of less-than-audiophile quality, many of them by a long shot. HOWEVER, there's not a single one of them that I personally wouldn't believe would benefit and emote even greater if produced by the best of today's recording technology and engineers. That's just the way my brain is wired and that's how my body would react.

One of my favorite examples is (of all things) the soundtrack to the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Yo Yo Ma's instrumental performance on the cello literally moves me every time I hear it. Would it have the same effect if I recorded and mastered it instead of The Big Boys? No way; not for me. Sure the music itself is still beautiful and his performance is wonderful (just like the old blues and jazz stuff off of 78s that I like), but any filtering of that cello sound by a lesser-equipped engineering team would for me only take away from the emotion, and certainly would not add to it.

That's how I'm wired. I'm also wired not to care too much for death metal or classic country music. Others are wired to prefer Gregorian Chants or a-capella operettas. Some are wired to prefer midrange, others to prefer sub-bass. Some are wired to prefer lyrical ballads, others prefer showcase instrumentals. Some find some sounds or words pleasing, others don't.

And, my Golden friend, some are wired to prefer lyrics while others are wired to prefer sounds. And - though this might be not pleasing for you to hear - most of those who listen to music as more than the passing background of their lives prefer to hear a high-quality (re)production of their favorite music than an average- or low-quality one.

Thats the way the world spins.

G.

 

[bigwillz24]

These posts are too damned long....

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

These posts are too damned long....

Hey, Willz, they don't take anywhere NEAR the bandwidth of big huge bumper stickers plastered all over one's signature

G.

 

[Farview]

I almost never listen to lyrics. The only time I did was when I had to learn a song to sing it. I've known a lot of singers and I know I'm not interested in what they are thinking about. I always looked at the vocalist as the melody instrument and the words were there just to give the melody percussion. The actual ramblings of a pot smoking screwball were always beside the point.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

I disagree, music is about emotion, not science.

If your mind is so made up why the f@ck did you ask the question?

I'm out, this is a waste of time.

 

[mshilarious]

I have an inspired old recording of Beethoven's Fifth, one of the first digital remasters of well-known analog recordings. During the climax of the slow movement, the recording clips twice. I know what it's supposed to sound like, and it bugs the hell out of me every time I hear it.

You say the recording quality doesn't matter, so why does the recording matter? Just read the sheet music. Beethoven couldn't hear the performance of his Ninth, but he knew exactly how it sounded.

PS Those Son House recordings are awesome, earth-shattering, life-changing sounds. If you aren't that good, I suggest going for better sound quality

 

[fraserhutch]

Those to whom the instrumentation - i.e. the music - is just as important as the lyrics place higher values on the quality of the recording and production.

Wow.

Nice job Glen.

You know, you're one of those on this board who I would seriously love to have a discussion with sometime.....

 

[fraserhutch]

If you mean by "better recording" heading to a professional studio and laying down two maybe three tracks (rythym, vocal and lead) and letting a producer mix it down then that is great. If you mean by "better recording" all of the pollish and post produced flair (that's what I am complaining about: that need to produce "perfect" sounding recordings that have been pitch shifted and overdubbed, and mixed to death) then I would say that most songs are hurt by it and not helped.

I think your disconnect is happening here. No one is arguking for "ver-produced". An albun can be well recorded from a single player playing a guitar and singling, as long as it is recorded with decent equipment that aloow the performance to come through.

I have wonderful recodings of sonatas. I would hardly call them over-produced But they are well-recorded.

Where violinists who spend 10's of thousands of dollars on their instruments, the sound shines through.

I can hear all the nuances and subtlies of my favorite tumpet players.

I can hear the fingering on the guitar's fretboard. I can hear the hall and how the perofmance interacts with it.

I am not distraced by poor sound, scratches, hisses, etfc.
In none of these cases is there production by your standards. But they are all well recorded.

The production you refer to is a question of taste. From lo-fi to grunge, punk, rock, through the highlyr-produced pop in the 80's, it's all a question of taste.

The constant is the recording quality, which stands apart, imho.