Paul Simon - Diamonds on the... Music Analysis

Discussion in 'Music and Recordings' started by purr1n, Mar 3, 2017.

  1. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    The production style is completely in line with soukous music from the period.
     
  2. MRC01

    MRC01 New

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    How would I know? It's a fair question. I have listened to Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform live in a small venue, good front seating. I also have their Liph' Iquiniso album; its tonality and voicing is more natural than the Graceland recording. It sounds like they're right there in front of you performing their wonderful music, as opposed to Graceland which sounds like, "this studio engineer's caricature of what hi-fi sound should be: detailed and dynamic but unnatural". As an amateur musician with others in my family too I also hear the real thing every day and attend live acoustic music events. I know what natural voices & instruments sound like in the real world.

    I realize some audiophiles don't get out and listen to real music often, but I'm not one of them.

    I agree with your point about live solo violin. There's an absolute reference for what that should sound like, though even that sounds different depending on the room it's in and how far away you are. The violin sounds completely different sitting next to the player in rehearsal, than it does in the 1st row of seats, versus the 8th row back. This absolute reference for natural acoustic music, however varied it is, doesn't exist for rock, pop or electronic.

    I try not to be too picky. If a classical music recording resembles any variant of those different natural sounds, I'm happy, forget about the audio and enjoy the music. But if it sounds like none of these, that artificiality gets in the way of enjoyment.

    Now that particular track on the Graceland album has some a capella, and the other track "Homeless" is pure a capella and has the same artificial voicing, so it seems fair to apply this reference to them, if not to other tracks on that album. Given that the tracks were recorded in different places, you could say kudos to the engineers for making it sound consistent and detailed, if unnatural. I was really just wondering if there's a standard audio term for that sound. It's not veiled, it's not compressed to death (at least my original master isn't), it's some kind of tonality or voicing issue, but an FFT doesn't show any glaring frequency suck-out. I've spent paragraphs describing it but there's probably a single term for it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
  3. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Actually, only yesterday, I was having a "how can violins sound so different in the hands of different players" conversation! :D
    So have I. They were wonderful! :) Gosh, that was a long time ago.

    Ultimately, whilst there are probably certain things like compression removing dynamics, which we might, as music lovers, call objectively technically undesirable, I guess it is hard to draw the line between that and artistic intention that we, personally do not like. And we are entitled not to like it.

    It's been a while since I listened to that album with decent hearing. I remember it as being fairly sharp and bright... but I am not arguing with your perception, doubtless with better present-day hearing, and I am not arguing with your artistic interpretation, to which you are absolutely entitled.

    In the most general terms, though, I belong to that school that says that High Fidelity means fidelity to the media being played, because that is all we have got. We depend on the chain that led to that media to determine whether or not it is true to the performance.

    The state of my ears has taken away quite a lot (but not by any means all) of my pleasure in recorded music. I do, however, attend many concerts. My chosen genre of music is actually acoustic, but still, it is usually amplified, and even there, I do experience technicians getting in the way of the sound, occasionally even to the point where I can't even stay and listen! :(

    Yes, a lot of audiophiles should "get out more!" But hey, each to their own :)
     
  4. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    I don’t really hear the negative aspects being spoken of but there’s no telling what went on in recording because Simon’s recording engineer, Roy Halee, is a major experimenter and sound tinkerer.
     
  5. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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    There's an episode of the BBC series "Classic Albums" about "Graceland", in which Paul Simon talks about some of the sound tricks they used. Here's just a short excerpt on YouTube, there's probably the whole episode out there somewhere, but I couldn't find it.

     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    You are so full of shit here. Knowing how "natural voices and & instrument sound like in the real world" is not your exclusive domain. Every other person and their grandma is an opera singer or uses Stradivari instruments.

    My composer uncle writes modern music and heads up an orchestra, I've met famous violinists, I've met famous pop stars, in a prior life, I was a roadie setting up gear, doing microphone checks, and sitting behind the console fighting with the guitarists by turning them down. I used to play piano and bass, and now I play beats on a makeshift box. I attended the brown bag lunch concerts and every other free concert when I was at Davis. None of this means anything. My kids, who have limited concert experience, know natural voices and instruments sound like.

    Banned for six months.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2018
  7. Josh83

    Josh83 Friend

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    Everyone is allowed to prefer one style of production to others, but this comment’s premise seems to be that the only goal of audio production is to recreate the live experience and sound. Needless to say, audio production has moved beyond that, since at least Les Paul.

    That doesn’t mean you can’t use the album as a demo yardstick. You just need to know what that album is supposed to sound like. It’ll still deviate from that ideal on bad equipment.

    That said, I agree that lots of ‘80s albums have an ‘80s sheen to them that was considered popular at the time. With Graceland, I just view it as part of the album. It’s of its time, just as the murk places the first Velvet Undergound album in a specific time and place sonically. Roll with it and enjoy the music.
     
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Different production styles and trends with pop music. They did funky stuff in the studio. The intent wasn't to recreate a real concert. The intent was to interpret a performance.
     
  9. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    <Memory cell goes ping!>

    Whoa! Any chance this guy is posting from Italy? From underneath his grand piano, maybe?
     
  10. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Thanks, very interesting. I'd like to see the whole program.
     
  11. james444

    james444 Mad IEM modding wizard level 99

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    YGPM

    One of the most interesting and educational episodes is the one about Steely Dan's "Aja" album:
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2018
  12. Josh83

    Josh83 Friend

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    Totally agree @james444. The Aja Classic Albums episode is one of the best.
     
  13. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    The Aja episode is so good. When they reveal all the different guitar parts they recorded for “Peg” and didn’t use, I was rolling.
     
  14. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The bandwidth is pretty good with Aja, a record I must have listened to many many times since I was a teen - yet upon a recent listen, I now realize that the reverb is quite unrealistic with a resultant tonality and timbre nothing at all like the super exclusive live chamber music events (atonal modern music of course) that I used to attend (as a VIP) in Palo Alto when I lived up the Bay Area. I realize that many of you don't have such luxuries, to be able to fully understand and appreciate live music performed by the world's highest caliber musicians in the most intimate of settings, but not I. Surely not I.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2018
  15. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    *spits out coffee*
     
  16. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Yep. It must be tough for those poor, deprived folk! Can't imagine it.

    Although my highest-calibre musicians are in a rather tiny subset of world's music genres. Still, it was great to be having lunch with one the other day. And seeing another sing this evening.

    :sail:
     
  17. westermac

    westermac Friend

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    Wish I had come across this before I picked up a re-pressing...

    The only version I had listened to previously was the remaster (not sure which), so I didn't notice anything was amiss until I picked up the 1986 CD. The remaster seems pretty ham-fisted and bombastic now in comparison. The extra compression is fine for the poppier drum and bass passages, but the flattening is noticeable in more nuanced sections (especially those featuring LBM) and takes away some magic.
     
  18. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    This is one depressing thread. If I had realized all my old records from the 70s and CDs from the 80s had more dynamic range than the later remasters, I never would have chucked them. Thank FSM I at least ripped them onto my ‘puter at 16/44. I guess I better get serious about figuring out how to cast them from my desktop to my listening station.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2020
  19. dirt

    dirt New

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    I buy quite a bit of music, both cds and vinyl. There are lots of female vocals that are clipped. I think the musician is simply overloading the mike circuit. It is an nasty distortion, that I can't stand. I have returned a few cds as defective. Tried contacting Big Big Train over one of their releases, which was pushed too much on a few tracks. Of course, I got "blown off". A new release on cd or vinyl isn't cheap. The engineering and mastering ought to be done right, at least. And let's not get into cds that are off center...:confused:
     
  20. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    It's a shame what's happened with remastered pop music recordings. On a more positive note, remastered classical music is often an improvement over previous LP and CD releases. For example, the recent CD box sets from Sony Classical of remastered recordings by Leonard Bernstein, George Szell, and Bruno Walter.
     

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