Hi all! Correct me if I'm wrong, but as of March 2024 we have pretty much all the tools we need to make a 100% digital record sound exactly like records from the 60s or 70s. And by that I mean algorithmic emulations of analog compressors, machine-learning virtual saturators, faithful physical modeling of old synthesizers, sample-based libraries of electric pianos, mixing desks impulse responses and other kinds of recreations.

If that is the case, why is it that new records sound NOTHING like this, for example? Is it lack of interest for the style? Is it lost technique? Or are there records like this being released that I'm not aware of? I'm interested in your insights!

 

Anyone can make music now. That's why.

 

Composition and interpretation.
Proof:

The only difference to old recordings is the extended frequency range and overall better recording equipment.

Barely anyone uses this kind of instrumentation in combination with those kind of effects in your presented video anymore. And if so, you'll probably not going to hear it because it will not be really popular.

 

Last edited: Mar 18, 2024

Lesser reason, it's a matter of taste, main reason, this assumption

is simply not correct.
Simple example, to reproduce a human bass player, you'd need hundreds and thousands of samples for velocity layers and round robins and an absolut imperfect micro timing.
When it comes to emulations, Fabien Shivre once said along the lines 'you can code a plugin so that it sounds exactly like the hardware. Sadly, no computer is able to calculate this in realtime'.

 

There's a lot of people doing analogue. In my country, a studio that operates without any kind of computer, just with studers and analog mixer, is shining like never before, but the problem is the "plataform".

Streaming services, in my humble opinion, requires a normalization/loudness/LUFs that makes every master sound like... digital

maybe you cant see many artists like the link you posted because they are on vinyl

If I mix and master my music like I truly wish, I would never been on streaming plataforms

Sorry about my english, I wish people correct me if I am wrong.

cheers

 

I agree, I think many virtual instruments are still very limited. The thing is that I haven't heard any live bands of today sounding like this either. Months ago I saw some guy on YouTube trying to make 60s-style surf music and sounding really close... but he was using old physical gear.

 

Sometimes I try to sound "old", retro, in some recordings, totally in the box (except for my guitar, but the fx were all in the box). Don't know if I really managed, but I tried:

What do you think?

PS: to answer your question, I think retro sounding today is niche, while modern sounding is generally the mainstream trend and most will follow (think about 60's, 70's bands/artists in the 80's - they all tried to sound as "modern" as it could get for the time).

 

Last edited: Mar 18, 2024

When you say "digital" in that context I take it you actually mean "sounds like shit". It's not the digital that sounds bad, it's the way it's used. The idiots who think an entire mastered track of audio sounds great compressed to leave less than .25db of dynamic range. THAT is the problem. The purely digital side has enough tools and capability now especially when its used to capture analog source material to sound every bit as good as a completely analog signal chain. As long as digital is in capable hands it can sound great. Which is why I say fuck the norm and do not subscribe to the loudness war bullshit...

AS far as digital (sampled) instruments goes those still have a ways to go yet before they can even come close to the real. There are a scant few who can approximate the real but almost none who can imitate it.

 

Last edited: Mar 18, 2024

Most people have no intention of making their sound very close to analog. In modern music, it is considered outdated and uninteresting, and especially limiting. Also, people who use DAWs have too many tempting tools with which they can emphasize their taste (or even eccentricity) or creativity in production, to leave a personal signature, as if they were painters, with an author's stamp. On the other hand, digital emulations are only approximate and cannot remove the basic problem, which is sound granulation (due to quantization) and other digital artifacts.

 

Live you'd need old gear for everything, instruments, mics, console, mixing technique and PA to reproduce this exactly. Even a modern PA would sound audibly different.

 

Ooh that's nice.

I'm partial to a bit of triphop myself:

 

It's a nice try, but it's got a clarity, lightness, openess that is very rarely found in records from the mentioned era. This could belong to the early 90s and on, though!

 

I really think it is totally achievable in the box, but as others pointed out:
1) it is not the target for most;
2) what we have in the box is not limiting enough to come out retro without an effort (in terms of frequency spectrum, for example. But it can be achieved if that is really the intent - instead of making a compromise as I admit I usually end up doing lol).

 

Last edited: Mar 18, 2024

Massive Attack vibes! I like it!!

 

Digital? Analog?? Doesn't really matter to me as long as it sounds good.

 

yes, you are right, I mean sounds like shit.

Almost all the people that I know listen to music through their speaker phones or headphones like beats, etc...

Maybe here, people has studio monitors and/or high quality headphones, including open backs, that regular people does not even know that exists. So we can hear that digital shit and call that shit

 

1 nobody/nothing can "sound like" something from a different music era, not only for technological reasons. If you bring good musicians in the same studio like in the 60s, record and mix with the same gear you wont get the same piece of art

2 digital tools are not meant to substitute hardware tools, you will never get the tape sound on hard disk

3 it's unuseful to be will for music that sounds always the same. Best musicians always want/wanted to experiment with new tools/instruments/technologies: Mozart, Beethoven, Miles Davis and Aphex Twin


add on:
4 it's obviously unuseful to enjoy the sound of a record from the 60s from youtube, you need vinyl or tape, and modern music doesnt reach the people using those formats.

 

Yes, I had already heard this: well, just because you can do something doesn't mean you're forced to do it. In this song Gaga's attitude is simply boring/unimpressive and an old school mixing or a photoshop filter for the cover aren't of much help. Her playground is pop, better forget jazz: it's not her genre

 

Yes, one can say that the musicians aren't that ambitious anymore. But this basically means the contrary of what the people say. Which is that we need more music, or that we need more money. I'd say that we need less music from not so ambitious people, which are ironically those who care the most for making money from this activity.

However this song was only mentioned to illustrate my statement anyways.

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2024