This true about the 60s sounds?

[Masterofnone]

After reading this thread I've began to question what my dad has always told me about 60s recordings, but I think it holds true after all...makes sense at least.

He's played guitar since probably 1966, been an electronics/TV tech since 1965 was involved with studio-quality tape recorders/machines in the early 70s. He even assembled tape machines for a while, and had to do noise and wow/flutter checks on them, and you wouldn't believe some of the things they did at the factory (like using the competition's motors).

Anyway, rambling aside, he's always said that the bass-less, mid-high focused sound was a result of the music being optimized for the poor home stereos and AM radio of the day...true? A good example I can think of would probably be The Beatles' She Loves Me

OTOH, if you listen to some retro stuff like JET or some remastered Who, it cranks up very well, and the bass line and drum lines thump and the guitar's low-end (if there is any) comes through well, creating a much more...um, shall we say, developed sound that exhibits something from every instrument, because it's optomized for FM radio and modern stereos, both of which transmit mids and lows much better.
Am I insane?
Thanks
--kyle
PS: Dear gawd..it finally let me post. Wonder if I can seach now as well?

 

[chessrock]

Am I insane?

Yes. But your post is fairly accurate, for the most part.

.

 

[RAMI]

The Beatles had a tune called "She Loves Me"?

(Just nit-picking)

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

While you can't lay a blanket statement that holds true to all "60s music" any more than you can peg both Death Cab for Cutie and Carrie Underwood in one stroke with "2005 music", yes it is very true that often music was engineered for sounding best on AM radio.

There were also later stereo mixes for FM radio that actually slid the balance slightly to the right channel on the theory that most listening was done in cars with the driver on the left side; so they boosted the sound in the right - farther away - speaker to make it sound more balanced to the driver.

This kind of stuff goes on to this day. The majority of your Top40 bilge today is engineered with FM radio (and now sometimes even MP3) play in mind. This is one of the root factors that originally started the RMS wars in music production.

G.

 

[notCardio]

But don't forget

that there were often times differently mastered versions specifically for radio airplay, meaning there was a production run just of the ones that went to djs, and even then sometimes different versions for AM and FM. I think it also depends a lot on what period of time exactly you're referring to. The early 70's was really nothing like the early 60's in terms of audio.

 

[Delta_Slider]

he's always said that the bass-less, mid-high focused sound was a result of the music being optimized for the poor home stereos and AM radio of the day...

I've heard this too, in particular about Jimi Hendrix, that he wanted his music mixed to sound good on those little hand held transistor radios that people had back then. I had one, and talk about crappy sound! So it may be true that it is important to mix with the final listening device in mind.


I have to say that I really enjoy that sound. I think there were a lot of different things going on then but all sound good and feel like 'that sound' when listening to it today.