No comment on if there’s something in all the recent audiophile discussions on here but I feel that:
Much of the best music was recorded on terrible equipment, or cutting-edge equipment that would now be regarded as terrible.
“Bad” sound is not worse sound than any other. Instead of talking about sound quality we should maybe talk about sound clarity.
Most importantly, you can have the best production in the world but if your compositions are crap it doesn’t really matter at all. When they came out, one of my favourite bands, Times New Viking were famous for having a low-fi “no-fi” sound. I still listen to them a lot. The low-fi is a part of the charm, sure, but no one would care if not for the actual songs and performances.
As stuff like this is a nice break from the clarity, anyone else got any favourite things with over (under?) the top low-fi production? Either intentional or budget / circumstance related. Electronic music like this intrigues me especially as it’s built to be clean so please share if you know any.
I have more and more trouble to listen to punk music, but still do once in a while.
I believe in a large part of electronic music, timbres and rhythm matter as much if not more than notes, lyrics and stage performance. Which would explain why the focus on production is higher.
sound can be bad in many ways, this is not necessarily related to recording/equipment quality.
for instance, wall of oversaturated nonsense i can hear here and there in «analog modular techno jams» DOES sound bad – but quite a few people think it’s just more analog and more modular than a random DAW
Hardly any bass content left in there, harsh and scratchy as hell, utterly incomprehensible vocals as is usual with this genre, but has such great energy and vibe. Absolutely love it.
So utterly smashed into a brickwall that it feels like it’s gone through some kind of event horizon, to the point that there ceases to be recognisable structure boundaries in the sound and it becomes like a pure stream of sonic texture and energy that wraps around you. The very definition of “oversaturated nonsense” and while I don’t listen to a lot of material that’s this intense in that way, I would absolutely put this forward as evidence for point 2. This sounds exactly the way it should.
This is a fantastic series of live soundsystem recordings, incredibly lo-fi in sound quality but when the bass kicks in you can feel the overwhelming power of it in the relative mixing and how it resonates in the room.
I love lofi sound.
Old Wu-Tang stuff sounded very rough and dirty for example. And some of the tracks sounded quite bad in the club compared to other beats. But still they had that energy and the samples gave it a special atmosphere.
And today RZA is considered one of the most innovating producers in hip hop.
It’s definitely more about feeling than sound quality.
But of course with club music like techno etc. sound quality plays a bigger role. Sometimes a track has almost no special content (just a kickdrum and some percussion sounds) but it really bangs on the sound system and therefore “works” in the club.
It’s an interesting topic, as i constantly struggle with my music when i produce dance music. I don’t like that higly polished and compressed sound nowadays but still my “lofi” mixes should somehow work on the dancefloor.
But then i listen to some 90’s techno or 80’s punk and i stop to think about sound quality and concentrate on energy and feeling.
Golden age of all this stuff was from like 99 to 2010ish, labels like Tigerbeat6, Cock Rock Disco, Wrong Music and V/Vm Test records putting out all sorts of crazy lo-fi shit. It was a great time, mostly because technology was good enough that you could do this shit in your bedroom, but not so good that it wasn’t obvious you’d done this shit in your bedroom.
Shitmat
DJ scotch Egg
V/Vm
Numbers
Kevin Blechdom
Captain Ahab
Then of course there’s DJ SCUD
I could also go into the wonderful world of horrible lo-fi noise and power electronics, but that’s probably for another kind of thread.
I love lo-fi stuff in general as well. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio where Times New Viking is from and saw them play dozens of times. They were one of the bands that inspired me and made me believe I could actually do this music thing. Their shows were LOUD and fun as hell. I have fond, fond memories of seeing them at a basement venue near my college campus that is since shut down. You could say my ears are still ringing…TNV are all super nice folks as well. They were super encouraging of me and a lot of people in the scene back then.
Also a huge fan of Tigerbeat6; my album Contoured Euphoria was the last full length they released before they went on indefinite hiatus. Not that lo-fi but made in that same spirit.
To me, it’s just as hard to get lo-fi stuff sounding right as it is hi-fi stuff. Those who nail it usually have years and years of experience working on their skills and I often laugh at how people just shrug stuff off because it sounds “shitty”. Just as hard to make those things sound good, IMO.
saw times new viking a few times. they sounded just like their records live, ha! i’ve always thought crude room recordings capture something closer to the actual sound you hear when you are jamming in a room with a band.
