Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - i miss records: why they were better than cds

roachboy · 08-10-2007, 08:35 AM

ws: so you were/are (?) a musician--but the post above reads like you imagine yourself the only musician on tfp.
that'd be wrong, sir.
just saying.

but it seems that the musician background works to enable you to imagine that what you think about vinyl vs. digital playback (and digital vs analog recording technologies) must therefore be true--not only that, but "objectively" true.

it makes little sense to project for yourself what "most people" key on when they listen to recorded music or even to sound in general. you dont know what "most people" do.

there are self-evidently differences between analog and digital recorded materials in themselves that go beyond the question of the technologies used to make the recordings. but let's keep your terms as you set them up. listen to any of rudy van gelder's engineering jobs for blue note, particularly those he did in the early 1960s. these are beautiful, precise, clean and lovely recordings that demonstrate something of what analog recording technologies, good acoustics and precise mic placement can do. the vinyl versions of these recordings are beautiful things---in the dimension and clarity of the sound image, the range of nuance captured off the instruments, the almost alarming presence of the sound in the space of playback. the digital versions of these bluenote recordings are obviously subject to engineering choices made in the remastering process---and there is considerable loss in the translation.

now you would probably argue that these are analog recordings being transferred to digital so the point is not fair: BUT THIS IS AMONG THE TYPES OF MUSIC THAT I LISTEN TO and given that the thread was about vinyl vs. digital preferences in general, it was and remains not a problem to state my preference.

if you are going to make claims concerning "objectivity" then it pays to actually learn the dataset you are talking about. in the case of this thread, you do not really know what kinds of recorded material folk consume, so your claims are kinda random.

you and sion seem to think that there is some criterion of purity of reproduction that stands like an a priori over how Everyone evaluates recorded objects. to my mind, that assumption speaks to limitations in your understanding of the conceptual possibilities that one can bring to bear on the manipulation and appropriation of sound. you do not have anything remotely approach a lock on these games.

for example: as vinyl objects, records are subject to deterioration--surface noise, damage, etc.: now you seem committed to a fairly old-school aesthetic in terms of recording as reproduction--i am not: i see recordings as separate from what is recorded, versions of a performance that differ in fundamental ways, objects in themselves that can and to my mind should be marked as a function of their autonomous histories as objects. surface noise then is a marker of that history, of the separate trajectory of that particular recording and also are a way through which particular audio environments can emerge from within a general one. so i see surface noise as compositional elements, part of the soundscape, part of the sound image--and the deterioration of a recording as a kind of organic compositional process. like any such process, not every outcome is equally pleasing or interesting, but often they are. so i fundamentally disagree with what appears to be a structuring assumption behind your aesthetic. i find something kinda creepy about a recording that is exactly the same every time you play it. and while i listen to alot of digital recordings these days, i still find something creepy in the dead silences between pitches--i prefer the grime of the passage of time.

listening is a variegated game and there is no single set of rules that shape it.
because there is no single set of rules, it follows that there is only a very limited value in claims to "objectivity"--unless you prefer to flatten listening into some automatic response in order to subject it to measurement--but why would you want to bother with that? the idea that you can do it simply indicates that you havent thought about listening as a mode of attention or even about hearing as a mode of perception. from your posts, it seems that you think about frequency ranges and physical response limits. so you will find you positions to be "supported by objective data" and i will find those positions to be interesting in some ways and not in others--such information speaks to the physical response level of perception, which is important but which is certainly NOT determinate of the peception itself (e.g. think abotu that famous story re. audiences at the premieres of some of schoenberg's work--apparently they could not hear any structure at all in his work simply because 1. 12-tone rows violate the conventions of phrasing that are typical of european music so 2. the ability to recognize structure is a social-historical variable---the trick is that were you to measure the frequency ranges and so forth for these pieces, you;d have to conclude that these audiences were "objectively wrong"--a claim that i would regard as objectively stupid, were you or anyoneelse to make it. the point is that hearing/listening are not a simple as your approach to them would lead you to think.)

i dont think recordings are accurate--they are the products of genre rules and technical conceits shaped by them. these genre rules determine the nature and character of accuracy. most old-school recording aesthetics prefer to mic instruments so that the illusion is given that they are not being recorded in any particular space--presumably in order to enable the acoustic parameters of the playback space to be the only relevant ones. ambient micing seems to me far more accurate than this old-school close micing. sounds unfold within particular spaces. the space of recording is relevant. the acoustics of that space often generate sounds that from a viewpoint like yours "do not exist" but from my viewpoint these are often among the most fascinating of sounds in a recording---its like the atmosphere begins to sound itself. so the criterion for accuracy has to do with reproducing the sound as it unfolds within the space of recording and not with the sound only as it unfolds for a consumer. so there is not even any agreement as to what counts as interesting in the evaluation of recording as a process. no agreement as to microphone scheme--and this is important because the recording technology itself is only part of the recording process---microphone quality an placement is self-evidently a factor as well--and each microphone scheme presupposes an aesthetic--and there is no agreement about whether that aesthetic is binding outside of the framework of a prticular genre of music.

if you are a bluegrass player, you'd be committed to one approach to micing and to recordings by extension--if you do experimental music, you do not have to accept anything at all about the bluegrass approach.

its like that.

08-10-2007, 08:35 AM	#49 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ws: so you were/are (?) a musician--but the post above reads like you imagine yourself the only musician on tfp. that'd be wrong, sir. just saying. but it seems that the musician background works to enable you to imagine that what you think about vinyl vs. digital playback (and digital vs analog recording technologies) must therefore be true--not only that, but "objectively" true. it makes little sense to project for yourself what "most people" key on when they listen to recorded music or even to sound in general. you dont know what "most people" do. there are self-evidently differences between analog and digital recorded materials in themselves that go beyond the question of the technologies used to make the recordings. but let's keep your terms as you set them up. listen to any of rudy van gelder's engineering jobs for blue note, particularly those he did in the early 1960s. these are beautiful, precise, clean and lovely recordings that demonstrate something of what analog recording technologies, good acoustics and precise mic placement can do. the vinyl versions of these recordings are beautiful things---in the dimension and clarity of the sound image, the range of nuance captured off the instruments, the almost alarming presence of the sound in the space of playback. the digital versions of these bluenote recordings are obviously subject to engineering choices made in the remastering process---and there is considerable loss in the translation. now you would probably argue that these are analog recordings being transferred to digital so the point is not fair: BUT THIS IS AMONG THE TYPES OF MUSIC THAT I LISTEN TO and given that the thread was about vinyl vs. digital preferences in general, it was and remains not a problem to state my preference. if you are going to make claims concerning "objectivity" then it pays to actually learn the dataset you are talking about. in the case of this thread, you do not really know what kinds of recorded material folk consume, so your claims are kinda random. you and sion seem to think that there is some criterion of purity of reproduction that stands like an a priori over how Everyone evaluates recorded objects. to my mind, that assumption speaks to limitations in your understanding of the conceptual possibilities that one can bring to bear on the manipulation and appropriation of sound. you do not have anything remotely approach a lock on these games. for example: as vinyl objects, records are subject to deterioration--surface noise, damage, etc.: now you seem committed to a fairly old-school aesthetic in terms of recording as reproduction--i am not: i see recordings as separate from what is recorded, versions of a performance that differ in fundamental ways, objects in themselves that can and to my mind should be marked as a function of their autonomous histories as objects. surface noise then is a marker of that history, of the separate trajectory of that particular recording and also are a way through which particular audio environments can emerge from within a general one. so i see surface noise as compositional elements, part of the soundscape, part of the sound image--and the deterioration of a recording as a kind of organic compositional process. like any such process, not every outcome is equally pleasing or interesting, but often they are. so i fundamentally disagree with what appears to be a structuring assumption behind your aesthetic. i find something kinda creepy about a recording that is exactly the same every time you play it. and while i listen to alot of digital recordings these days, i still find something creepy in the dead silences between pitches--i prefer the grime of the passage of time. listening is a variegated game and there is no single set of rules that shape it. because there is no single set of rules, it follows that there is only a very limited value in claims to "objectivity"--unless you prefer to flatten listening into some automatic response in order to subject it to measurement--but why would you want to bother with that? the idea that you can do it simply indicates that you havent thought about listening as a mode of attention or even about hearing as a mode of perception. from your posts, it seems that you think about frequency ranges and physical response limits. so you will find you positions to be "supported by objective data" and i will find those positions to be interesting in some ways and not in others--such information speaks to the physical response level of perception, which is important but which is certainly NOT determinate of the peception itself (e.g. think abotu that famous story re. audiences at the premieres of some of schoenberg's work--apparently they could not hear any structure at all in his work simply because 1. 12-tone rows violate the conventions of phrasing that are typical of european music so 2. the ability to recognize structure is a social-historical variable---the trick is that were you to measure the frequency ranges and so forth for these pieces, you;d have to conclude that these audiences were "objectively wrong"--a claim that i would regard as objectively stupid, were you or anyoneelse to make it. the point is that hearing/listening are not a simple as your approach to them would lead you to think.) i dont think recordings are accurate--they are the products of genre rules and technical conceits shaped by them. these genre rules determine the nature and character of accuracy. most old-school recording aesthetics prefer to mic instruments so that the illusion is given that they are not being recorded in any particular space--presumably in order to enable the acoustic parameters of the playback space to be the only relevant ones. ambient micing seems to me far more accurate than this old-school close micing. sounds unfold within particular spaces. the space of recording is relevant. the acoustics of that space often generate sounds that from a viewpoint like yours "do not exist" but from my viewpoint these are often among the most fascinating of sounds in a recording---its like the atmosphere begins to sound itself. so the criterion for accuracy has to do with reproducing the sound as it unfolds within the space of recording and not with the sound only as it unfolds for a consumer. so there is not even any agreement as to what counts as interesting in the evaluation of recording as a process. no agreement as to microphone scheme--and this is important because the recording technology itself is only part of the recording process---microphone quality an placement is self-evidently a factor as well--and each microphone scheme presupposes an aesthetic--and there is no agreement about whether that aesthetic is binding outside of the framework of a prticular genre of music. if you are a bluegrass player, you'd be committed to one approach to micing and to recordings by extension--if you do experimental music, you do not have to accept anything at all about the bluegrass approach. its like that. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 08-10-2007 at 08:41 AM..