Dylan: modern recordings are atrocious

need to understand that when they say this kind of thing, they sound like their grandparents did.

yeah, it all got rubbish when musicians started embracing technology, eh Bob. Especially when respected folk-musicians started playing electric guitars and embracing rock n roll, well then the wheels came off the whole thing, didn't they Bob... Bob?

although Dylan's great crime against music came when he legitimised the annoying nasal whine...

"You listen to these modern records, theyre atrocious, they have sound all over them"

As opposed to the records he used to buy which had no sound on them?

God i wish i had lived in the era of silent records! ha ha

heh...'indie fans laugh at correct person'...

I've never been much of a Dylan fan, but he's spot on. Its so rare to hear a record made in the last thirty years that has any kind of texture or depth, unless the producers have gone out of their way to use old gear and or techniques...part of that's down to the flattening out of dynamics, but a lot of it is down to the 'digital sound' and also the laziness allowed by digital techniques

Of course this debate becomes pointless when referenced to more modern electronic sounding records, but in terms of 'songs' and their recording, its a valid point. I was in the studio a few years ago with a couple of 'music business producer/engineer types' and they wanted to pretty much punch in every note of my bass part, and string it together in protools. Result? A technically perfect, bland, recording that may as well have been played by a robot.

People on here are always going on about how they preferred the band demo of a song to the produced version- and that's pretty much cos in 90% of cases, the produced version is a load of notes strung together on a computer, and the demo is the sound of a band playing togehter in a room, give or take a few overdubs.

but I recently recorded an album's worth of material some of which (for economy reasons) involved pro-tools and so forth.

I'm pretty happy with it but last week I recorded an album's worth of demos in a rehearsal studio with a band (which was indeed just the band playing together in the room) and it's got so much more life to it.

But this doesn't change the fact that Dylan's statement makes him sound like an "it were all fields round here when I were young" type.

Computers aren't the problem. I think you're right and the main problem is a desire to correct every mistake which can take the humanity out of the music.

Demos sound so much better than the actual albums.

Get your tracks on Reel to Reel as it’s easy to fall foul of computer wizardry, tricks, short cuts blah blah blah
If it sounds shit when it’s all done and you timing n stuff is all over the place then your band is probably rubbish.

everyone should record like The Bronx, and Bob isn't a miserable old git, he's a tecchy spod...

along with mainstream and chart. this was including yer arctic monkeys and franz etc ETC ETC. not sure why you're including the white stripes.

I don't see if it matters whether or not recordings can be re-created live.

When I go and see a band I don't always want to hear exactly what's on the album and I think the two are different mediums.

For example Franz Ferdinand and also Suede's "Coming Up" the artifice actually works well and creates good pop music.

we wouldn't love him if he was anything else.

and given the 4-CD format, it's a) obviously going to have greater extremes of sound, and b) a bit of a curveball to throw into a discussion of mastering on mainstream single albums.

I think he's right about At War With The Mystics. "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" was on XFM loads when the single was fout, and every time I heard the crescendo-that-wasn't-really-a-crescendo before the last chorus, there was something really disappointing about it.

He'd said "at worst it creates a recording which can't be re-created live - White Stripes, Artic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand - all have completely artificial sounding recordings".

I think I've agreed with all you've said so far Grockle.

I included White Stripes as an example of a band who achieve artificial levels of textural thickness in their recordings via the over-application of compression. As a result, live, it's all the more disappointing to discover that a beat up guitar put through an old amp and a drummer who can't really drum sounds as tinny and weak as you might expect.

I think the article mentioned the Stripes as well... I only skimmed, mind.

obviously there are going to be exceptions- that doesn't make what Dylan said, or the Article in stylus 'balls'

but it was easier to type

he's the guy who sold his last album exclusively through starbucks, isn't he?

YES

WANKER WANKER WANKER

someone should tell him ceedees go the *other* way up!!!

wasn't there a hideous amount of beatles-esque recording techniques and instruments used on that record? it was 1992, so pre-protools...

i agree with you though, that record is rather good.

Obviously the prick is going to say theres been no good albums recently. He wants to make his album seam as if its gonna be the best thing we have ever heard since then. Stop playing the media and start writing decent songs again you dick.