Re playback systems

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 9:51 am

Apples and oranges. Led Zeppelin was popular, but weren't "pop music", except in a literal interpretation of the term. KC and the Sunshine band were around at the same time... does anyone still listen to them? They were huge. Good music got to a wider audience then than it does now, and music is splintered into a lot more subgenres than before. Classic Alt. rock? Where does that come in? The kids I've known, as a teacher, who were most deeply into music have been metalheads, for the most part. Radio is pretty much irrelevant to those kids. They discover music on youtube, for the most part, and word of mouth. I find a lot of the stuff they like to be cheesy or otherwise unappealing, but older folks didn't think much of the Zeppelin you or I were listening to. We might think we know better than these kids, and maybe there's some truth to that, or maybe it's just arrogance.

chris harris · Post by **chris harris** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 12:32 pm

LOLZ.

Teacher's Pet · Post by **Teacher's Pet** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 1:19 pm

Jim Williams wrote:Vintage Hi Fi will be the very next rage.

There's a sort of all-purpose-music-tech-computer place near me in Brooklyn that has started offering re-furbed '70s solid state receivers to the earbud generation.

They have to point out that you can indeed plug your iPod/Pad/computer into these devices.

It's not for $$$$ vacuum tube audiophile maniacs, it's affordable, good-sounding audio gear from the heyday you guys are referring to.

I, for one, welcome this development.

Mikey's Hook-Up >>>> link

accordion squeezist · Post by **accordion squeezist** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 2:12 pm

Jim, you've stirred a pleasant memory. My experience of "fresh" Dark Side of the Moon was exactly like yours, except Quad electrostatic loudspeakers instead of headphones. Life used to be normal.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 2:28 pm

accordion squeezist wrote: Life used to be normal.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 2:46 pm

Jim Williams wrote:Music isn't as important as it used to be. People have moved on to other diversions.

Music is now used mostly as background fill while engaged in other activities.

Try and sit an 18 year old down to listen to a complete song, won't happen. They will get antsy and reach for their Government approved personal tracking device (the smart phone) by the second chorus (if there even is a chorus).

Nonsense.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 5:56 pm

chris harris wrote:LOLZ.

I'm starting to think you and Jeff "$30" Robinson are the same guy.

chris harris · Post by **chris harris** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 10:10 pm

ubertar wrote:
chris harris wrote:LOLZ.
I'm starting to think you and Jeff "$30" Robinson are the same guy.

I'm not even LOLing about your post. I'm LOLing that this whole "everything was better before, nothing is good now" thing still comes up. I agree with everything you posted.

If Jeff Robinson and I were the same guy, it would be the most fucked up David Lynch via M. Night Shyamalan cinematic adventure any of us ever unknowingly participated in.
And, Jeff was $35, dude. Show the guy some respect!

chris harris · Post by **chris harris** » Mon Sep 30, 2013 10:13 pm

I didn't even see your second post, at the top of this page. FWIW I agree with that one, too.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:20 am

Ah, ok. It's pretty hard to interpret a "LOLS" at the end of a long string of posts. I assumed it was directed at the post directly above it.

I knew $30 didn't seem right... it's been a while.

Studiodawg · Post by **Studiodawg** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:07 am

I have noticed that the smaller the playback system, the more compression I use when listening/mixing at low volume. I have noticed that the larger the playback system, the more headroom I like to keep intact when mixing. I just mixed/"mastered" some tunes on my MacBook Pro at the lowest volume settings I could stand and found some great buss compression. Youngsters seem to listen on dinky stuff these days so I figured I'd mixdown pretending the music was for them...no watts/all the sound...wow.

Jim Williams · Post by **Jim Williams** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:18 am

$30, $35, what's the difference, about as much as an apple and an orange?

Serious music listeners have declined over the past 20 odd years, hence the demise of stereo selections in the big box stores and the demise of record stores in general. CD sales? Look it up.

Once, in America, every middle aged, middle class guy had a decent stereo system, some were quite good. Power was also important. Not so with ear buds. I can't imagine any ear bud that can sound as good as a great speaker playback system.

Listening to music in America has now become a private experience.

All that stereo stuff has been replaced by the bud and the TV/DVD playback rigs with "center speakers" and the like.

It's sort of funny going to a party these days. What used to be a kick-ass stereo system pounding away, I now see tiny little stereos cranked up to clipping with zero bass response. How much fun is that?

Music? I don't know, but parties used to be more fun with a big sound system. Back in LA we judged how good a party was by whether the police pork choppers came out or not.

Yes, music is less important and less influential that it used to be. Once, furry haired musicians actually changed a lot of social behavior. Even LBJ grew long hair. (that's Lynden Bains Johnson, former President for the millenials).

60's music was tied to a social revolution, it was all one and the same. Look what happened when they tried to re-create Woodstock. It was a violent event without social meaning.

Now it's "what outfit is Lady Gaga going to wear", not "have you heard the new Pink Floyd album? Musicianship has slipped lately.

Forty years ago I had crappy recording gear and amazing musicians to record.

Now I have amazing recording gear and crappy musicians to record.

Bro Shark · Post by **Bro Shark** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:18 am

Maybe you're not going to the right parties.

Maybe you're recording crappy musicians.

etc. etc.

Music will never lose importance. It's in our DNA. People cling to music like a life preserver. It is absolutely essential to the human experience. Listening trends, style trends, habits, and technology will change over time. There will be advances and setbacks. That's unavoidable. Your idea that people are "doing it wrong" nowadays only makes you look out of touch because there's so much more going on. You're focusing on the negative.

I still see packs of teenagers in cars blasting their favorite tunes, singing along. It's the air they breathe, just like it was when I was their age. I see 10 year old kids discovering Hendrix and Neil Young. All that shit is timeless. People will never outgrow those discoveries. The difference is now kids have the entire history of recorded music at their fingertips. Incredible.

I go to a show and the sound systems are fantastic. Put a competent live mix engineer in front of a thousands of watts of properly crossed over subs and mains and it can be a religious experience. Ask the 70,000 who packed Wembley for Foo Fighters. Ask the 500 who cram themselves into a sweaty, dirty club and lose their minds to Napalm Death. Ask the 100,000+ who saved for months to attend an Iron Maiden concert in Sao Paulo. They are crying tears of joy. Do I need to go on?

People are absolutely bat shit crazy for music. This will never change. Music has never been so widely appreciated and loved as it is now. Music is everywhere, and more and more people are making it. Kids learn how to play an instrument at five years old now. Go look at youtube videos of "rock school" bands if you think only guys in their 60s know how to play anymore. Check out these prodigy five and six year olds absolutely destroying a drum set. It's fucking amazing. Music is advancing at light speed. Future generations is in for a real treat.

ubertar · Post by **ubertar** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:31 am

Comparing Lady Gaga to Pink Floyd as representative of the music of their time is ridiculous. You could compare LG to Cher. I don't know who you could compare PF to... there are great musicians out there, but music genres and their audiences are much more splintered now. To find the good stuff, you have to do some digging. It's not going to be on the radar of old folks who still use radio as their main method to find new music (though there are some good college radio stations out there still). Also, you have to face the possibility that some of the people with the best "chops" are making music that's just not your taste. If you want a band that sounds just like Pink Floyd, you'll probably find a whole slew of them... some might even be better musicians than those guys, at least technically. But they're not very creative if they're just copping a style from the past. Creative musicians are doing new and innovative things, and most or all of it probably doesn't appeal to you, so you don't notice it. A lot of creative energy has moved from rock to hiphop... it's not my taste, and I've tried finding something to like out of it, listening to recommendations from friends, but I just don't relate to it. But there's no question that there's a lot of creativity going into that field, and clearly some people are much better at it than others, in both concept and execution. Classic rock has come and gone. You may as well lament the lack of great original swing bands these days.

However, this guy in Australia is doing stuff in that classic vein, and I think he's awesome (and maybe you will too):
http://claudehay.com.au/

dfuruta · Post by **dfuruta** » Tue Oct 01, 2013 10:47 am

Just because taste has shifted away from dad rock doesn't mean that America's youth no longer appreciate music (or that the appreciation is somehow less sincere).

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