There´s nothing wrong distorting vocals, but when it is used everywhere, everytime, you know that it is only to mask crappy performance or mixing

 

only one thing worse than overly saturated distorted vocals... autotuned vocals. (i'd much prefer natural out of tune vocals to that any day) that said, it does seem to being used less and less thank god..

 

Back in my day musicians knew how to play their instruments, I tell ya.

Nowadays the "youth" with their pants down their ankles just press on a button and the computer makes everything!

I'd rather listen to the raw emotion of Clapton or Gilmour than the sweep picking of Malmsteen or Satriani.

 

GET OFF MY LAWN, DAMMIT

 

every 4th of July I put on Soundgarden's song named the same. It fits perfectly for me that day. That never went away, even when dubstep was really big and that genre annoyed me.

you guys talk about beethoven- a lot of the most famous dudes from them were trained from childhood and had patreons. the guys in the taverns played what got them gigs. the band referenced is small but also has juno awards it looks like, been around for hella long- sucks to be them. try a new technique after 15 years someone makes a post about how vocal mixing is ruined from now on lol.

but mostly- today you'll find more TRUE art than ever before, true outsider stuff. guess what though, it's outside of the stuff youre looking at. how often are you diving through soundcloud and YouTube looking for weird stuff? it's like going on Netflix, seeing what they advertised then complaining "new movies all suck." did Spotify notify you of the bands new album with shitty vocal mixing?

8 billion people. cheaper access then ever to DAWs and studio gear. sites like the sister site and YouTube for tutorials. this isn't the future of vocal mixing anymore than Mercedes putting their top speed behind a paywall is the future of cars. I get why articles use the hyperbole, for clicks and engagement to sell to advertisers- but not here? music is centuries old spanning the globe, one narrow trend means very little- especially if you just ignore it by listening to the vast vast vast quantity of good music available in this golden era. I can go from Beethoven to Burial to Beck, it's like why look for something to complain about?

 

Very well thought out and articulately presented sir! Everything in your answer is proving to be the case!

 

Okay, so it's like this me fellow Canuck.
You go to McDonalds and expect to see changes on the menu now and then - the McRib, the McNewt or whatever --- but you know that it's meat-protein and not TOFU (or that's what you've come to believe) right? Change is as good as a rest, they say, but when you come to McDonalds and the meat is now TOFU or a substitute meat (nutmeal? cauliflower?) you go, "Hold on! That's not meat in any of the new OR old meal deals!" You call out the rip off for what it is.

That's what Sarah Blackwood has done to W.O.T.E. You check in (albeit not paying money, just visiting the Y.T. channel) expecting the same clean, normal vocal style of the band as it was but now it has ultimately replaced the lead singer with a doppelganger of herself, sonically speaking. If it were a 'one song shtick', fine (like John Lennon on I Am The Walrus) but what she's done is alter the lead vocalist of the band as if it's a new robotic generation of her former self. Not cool. Of COURSE I don't have to listen and won't, but I have the wherewithal to express a kind of sadness you might experience when, after years of say a vocalist not doing anything, you hear his/her voice and due to health problems, it's a mere shadow of what it was. At least in that case, it's forgivable, as it's something that can't be helped. THIS? This movement is a bastardization of one's talents. So take off eh?

 

Pop is a very unforgiving genre because it is always on the lookout for the next 'best' thing generating more profit. If tomorrow marketing research shows that singing like a pigeon will bring in more money, future pop will all feature singing like a pigeon. But I understand your frustration, if you - as an individual - like something, it is hard to see it go to waste.

I saw Beethoven being mentioned. Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt made it his life's mission to perform Beethoven with the original instruments from that time, resulting in some of the most clean, transparent and authentic performances ever made. You know, if you want a change of scenery for a bit

 

Brother, I'm totally fine with you venting because your favourite band is not playing with the rules that you set yourself in anymore.

All I'm saying is not to get stocked on that part of your life and move on. Not because you look nuts and old fashioned but because you are painting yourself in a corner and won't be able to move out from there until you make peace with the present.

I wont overplay it but I do look like an has-been when I have some conversation with some recent artist after our session whenever I go out with them when we're done but If I have to choose between my old bitter self and that new open minded numbnuts version of myself, I know who I prefer to be and why.

In the end, you are the one living with yourself but this idea of ''bastardization'' of vocals because they over-do the Neve grit trick is not like you going at mcdonalds and expecting real meat and receiving Tofu but more like you going to mcdonalds and expecting a gastronomic experience and whining because they serve it in a corny recipient.

I can understand your idea that a band should strive to accomplish something impressive musically but we are not all searching for an Olympic medallist when listening to music. In that aspect, I personally seriously find it extremely unpleasant to listen to Dream Theater or Liquid Tension when I'm having a diner with my in laws or when playing music top down on a trip in the country side. It's like if they had small dicks and tried to prove how special kids they are. I personally don't care how impressive they are, I want enjoyment and the only thing I hear from them is a bunch of 4 years old kids that loved to make noise on frying pans and grew up to know how to play on a click track with different patterns.

That idea is just as oversimplifying as yours but equally valid.

So if we come back to a more coherent and rational POV, we can agree that both judgment of those different type of music is a complete exaggeration and we are only fooling ourselves as I'm 100% sure that some people find a lot of enjoyment in listening to Dream Theater and that it is a lot more complicated to make some vocals sound modern then what us , old farts, like to describe it.

Come on men, you owe yourself to some better standards of living.

Sorry to be harsh but that's what it is.

It really sound like a parody to an extent. Like that joke we like to say to kids that goes like : ''when I was a kid, we didnt' have cellphones, we use to make smoke signals, and we didn't have our parents bring us at school, we use to crawl in a quarter inch frozen rocks all the way to school and cured our bleeding knees with salt.''

Or even better, that never ending conversation with a conservatory classical violist that says that all music that is not classical music is not music and it's fake and oversimplified and it all comes from classical music therefor it's worthless...... and then to reply if he composed the music he interpret as a daily routine, if he built his own violin, if he grew the tree he use to make the violin, if he own the land where that tree grew up on, so therefor he is fake because he is not the original..... and so on and so forth. It's like, Okay mr virtuous, let's play on your favourite battle ground and see where it leads you....

Do you understand what I mean?

Let them kids be kids. Let the new be new. Don't be that old smelly guy from the barn down the road screaming at a fence.

Not for me,.... for you !!

 

Last edited: Aug 1, 2023

That mic sounds amazing. Looks like a Neumann M49.

 

Thread about music is not a thread without mentioning of the honorable Johann Nikolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt.

 

I couldn't see Lou using autotune even if it was available!

 

Last edited: Aug 1, 2023

Thanks for that Portal cover song, I love it!