Loveless is quiet...and loud

[trash180]

People in the Strange Studio techniques post were refering to how quiet Loveless is compared with other cd's.
Is it that they saved all the transients? It does sound great turned up...but you kinda gotta turn it up. Same with Black Sabbath. At first I thought this might be a flaw, but I can't really fault the sound.

Does anyone know what happened during Mastering? Are we essentially hearing an "unmastered" mix on the record?

Maybe I'll load it into the computer tonight and see what it looks like.

Jason

[MoreSpaceEcho]

jason,

hey, you're talkin about me!

i'd be interested to see how it looks on the computer. i betcha it's only peaking at like -3...-4 or so. if you have time to check it out that'd be cool. i don't know anything about the mastering, although it's always seemed to me like it was a pretty quickie mastering job...a lot of the transitions between songs seem like they could be smoother IMO....but i'll still take that over a "modern" mastering job, where it'd get crushed, all the crazy midrange would get sucked out, and lots of unpleasant high end would get added. yuck.

one thing about mastering "back then" as opposed to now was that even if stuff was really compressed it wasn't crushed by the limiter, so things (drums) had a lot more impact. if you look at "smells like teen spirit" for example, it's mighty compressed, it doesn't really get any louder when the chorus kicks in, but the average rms is still down around -15...so the crummy sounding kick and snare samples still have some life to them

cheers,
-scott

ps. if i'm wrong about there being triggered kick and snare samples on nevermind someone please correct me! it sure sounds like it to me. but i have a rather consistent track record of being totally wrong

[soundguy]

you are hearing a very mastered product, that record has such continuity between songs its disgusting. Mastering does not just mean "make it loud" it means take all the mixes and make a record.

As far as savig transients, that record is compressed as hell. There is compression everywhere, on everything.

It just didnt get all sucked up into a limiter when it was mastered.

dave

[jimbo]

ps. if i'm wrong about there being triggered kick and snare samples on nevermind someone please correct me! it sure sounds like it to me. but i have a rather consistent track record of being totally wrong

no, yr completely right. butch vig recorded that album, and he's famous for doing stuff like that. i know i liked it when i was a kid, but now that i listen more intensely, it kinda bothers me. i think what it is is that the trigger sound is noticible enough whereas i'd prefer it back a little bit, and it doesn't sound like the trigger has any velocity change to it - just a constant hammer. it's up to the real snare and kik to provide the dynamics of the drums (i dunno if he went so far as to add triggered cymbals - doesn't sound like it). he did this on sonic youth's DIRTY album too. i like it alot on that album, cuz steve shelley's drumming is VERY dynamic - all over the place - and the triggers sound very complimentary to the actual drums and help it squeeze thru all the 8,000 guitar traxx on that album.

in comparison, i think the drum sound on in utero is way better than the nevermind sound - specifically for the sound of that band (nirvana), that's what works best for them in my opinion. but the trigger thing is a neat trick - but just like any effect, it's got it's time and place, and usually subtlety is the key. i once heard a wise man say (on effects): set it to where you think it sounds perfect, then turn it down a hair.

i'm rambling.
-jimbo

ps - beleive it or not, i just got into loveless about 3 months ago. i know that's a shame, but hearing it for the first time just tore me apart - absolutely incredible.reminds me of a band i used to listen to called medicine - same kinda sound, less interesting tho, but cool.

[jimbo]

y'know, i'm listening to loveless right now and thinking (kinda related to my last post):
do you think the fact that the drums are not live (all drum machine) made it easier to get the mix so hot and dynamic. no bleed on the drum mics, no weird overtones to deal with, no sloppy drumming or over-drumming ( a trend i notice alot in shitty music) - it makes alot of room for the other crazy stuff going on. i remember reading in the tape op interview that the drummer broke his arm or something so they recorded with a drum machine... i know for me, the main work with mixing is getting the kit to sound great as a kit, then sound great with everything else.

so maybe soundguy, loveless' #1 fan, can shed some light on this? or anyone.....

just thinking outloud
-jimbo

[soundguy]

If I remember right, I think the dude actually played kit on two or three songs. Beyond that, I also think that they sampled and sequenced his kit, it wasnt an out of the box drum machine. Details on that recording are so sketchy, who the hell knows. I dont really think you need a sampler to get a drum sound like that, just a good gate and a good compressor.

dave

[markpar]

Based on all the discussion about MBV, I went out and bought Loveless this weekend and I'm listening to it right now. I can't believe I've never heard of these guys before (other than the TapeOp article). This is some good stuff!!!

-mark

[Bear's Gone Fission]

One of the mastering guys in the magazine mentioned there was a period when everyone was mixing to DAT but easing back a lot to avoid the possibility of overs causing distortion. Before Finalizers came into vogue and than the Waves limiter, people weren't pushing that hard to get within that dB or two of zero, so there was some headroom left. I think Buddy Miller's interviews had similar comments about getting better results out of PT with a lighter approach.

Bear

[brakeshop]

From what I've read about Loveless is that Colm O'Coisig got sick during the recording, and they sampled other stuff he did and just fit it into songs. I always thought that seemed kind of funny since they took a while to record it so he must have been sick for a while! Ole Kevin also says that the vocals are recorded at the same decibel level as all the other stuff, which doesn't quite sound right either. Although I might just be used to pop vocals front and center.

[tommy]

the most interesting thing about loveless to me is the bending up of chords on the whammy bar against the backwards reverb settings. I remember friends of mine thinking there copy was warped and wanting to return it for another copy. Also the sound of 2 or 3 totally different chords overdubbed on top of each other during the progression to create that ambiguous model thing that they did so well. Does anybody have the ep of soon? (i think it was that one) there is a track on that one that has a crazy sounding instrumental that is basically a bunch of feedback and god knows what else backwards forwards sideways. If you do have it and have any dogs, play it while the dog's around and watch him or her go nuts.

[soundguy]

the singles they did for creation are out of control. The A sides of You Make Me Realize and Feed Me With Your Kiss are just nuts. Slow and I Believe have gnarly gnarly bass sounds. There was a time when hip radio station were playing this stuff next to soundgarden and monster magnet. I cant figure out if I just got 10 years older or if the music scene in this country has actually changed this much. Damn.

dave

[inverseroom]

I'm another dipshit who knew about My Bloody Valentine for a dozen years but only bought Loveless last month. God, what an idiot. It is an amazing record of course and doesn't sound at all dated. It is simply the product of a perfect extended moment--seems like everything he did, it worked, even when it didn't. Thank goodness for recorded music.

--John.

[Rick Hunter]

Oh man Loveless is such an awsome record. I heard it when I was in 8th grade and I hated it. When I was in high school I heard it again and thought it was alright but I still didn't understand, I bought it a few years ago cause it was used and thought I should give it a try again and after that I was hooked. There is something to be said for records that grow on you. I think I always end up liking them more. I have no idea about how it was mastered and I dont think I want to.



Justin

[soundispatch]

well,

i have listened to this album repeatedly after the (recurring) praise it receives on this board, and have yet to see what is so incredibly earth-shattering about the quality of the recording. music (songwriting) considerations aside, almost every track sounds like it was recorded on a very cheap digital recorder with nasty over-compression to boot. it seems sacreligious here to say this, but i think kevin shields (and the other folks involved--- i think there are many) did a very poor job of mixing this album. does everybody love the pumping of the drums like that?

saying this though, the very last track on the album ('soon'?) sounds much different, almost like john leckie came in for a track and left. the track sounds similar to some of the stuff he did with the stone roses, and the guitars haven't been totally eq'd to death.

don't get me wrong, i do like the music, but i feel like i'm listening to AM radio here. the mids are so harsh and the over-compression is a cool effect for one song maybe, but for almost the entirety of the album?

the copy i have is a japanese release put out by creation records in '96 --- are we listening to the same thing? it certainly doesn't sound like it. set me straight, someone....

-cal

[MisterMark]

it seems for several years, people paying close attention to loveless record have always wondered how they were able to create such a sound. we all have heard the '....yeah, they layered their many guitars with a heavy dose of the whammy bar'. and i always heard about kevin shields recording the guitar with two amps faced inward and somehow using aluminium foil. also, i think all the longtime fans of my bloody valentine had been holding their breath to finally hear about some real production stories from the horses mouth.

unfortunately, after reading the tapeop article on them, i must admit that i was disappointed. the article seemed so ambigious. i felt like plenty of words were written, but most of the interview seemed sort of like a 'smoke and mirrors' kind of thing. sure, there were some interesting things to note (drummers broken arm, the many hours in various studios spent crafting the recording and aplication of varispeed techniques). but a lot of what was said was just a rehash of the same stuff from earlier in the interview. maybe mr. sheilds didn't really want to reveal the nuts and bolts of his studio secerets (and could anyone really blame him?). maybe the cumulitave effect of the production is just as mysterious and elusive as the sound of the record itself. none the less, i think it is a brilliant piece of recorded musical history and i absolutely love it.

so can anyone shed more light on the role of the aluminium foil and the 'two amps faced inward'? (i can't believe nothing was mentioned in the article about this) could it just be an urban legened of the production world?

still scratching my head, even though my heart has always been fulfilled by the lovely, 'loveless'.

any comments or opinions welcomed,

mark