[atlantaprog] different standards

Isn't it all (Rush's Vaport Trails, etc.) subject to the listener's
discretion? Why should Vapor Trails "suck" or be "unlistenable" when it's
the exact opposite for many if not all the people who bought it and liked
it?  We've been discussing how different eras of recording used different
equipment and all have different standards of what is "commercially"
acceptable.  Talking about level peaks, it's interesting that listening
fatigue happens differently for different people.  Males hear low end much
more efficiently than females, while females hear high end much more
efficiently.  This is a biological factoid I've read at least a couple of
times.  High frequencies will hurt my ears way before they hurt Daniel's,
and he hears cars with subwoofers way over in the next neighborhood while I
hear nothing.  Take those variables, and then add in the natural variables
between different people's physical ears/brains, and you have standards for
sound that is highly subjective to individual interpretation.  The 80s era
Rush albums were mostly way too shrill for me to enjoy for long, especially
through headphones.  Plus, the song ideas were not near as good, I thought.
 The warmer recordings I like much, much better, which is why I prefer
Vapor Trails over Hold Your Fire or some such.  Plus the songs are superior
too. I can listen to something, for a while, that doesn't "sound good" to
me if the songs ideas are strong, but I will get fatigued by it.  I can
listen to something that isn't "written well" for a while if it sounds
good, because I just like to hear certain sounds, but I'll get fatigued by
that too.  So, IMHO, there are very few "perfect" recordings. :-)

At 02:16 PM 08/17/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Jeff Blanks" <jblanks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Brian King pointed out:
>>
>>
>>http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E
>005D
>> >AF1C
>>
>> I've seen it, thanks, and really, I know what he's talking about.  But I
>> can't help but think this is another instance of confusing technical flaws
>> with esthetics.  Maybe some people just don't like the production--I don't
>> know.
>
>Perhaps.  It would only be an esthetic decision if the band and/or engineers
>_intended_ to squash the dynamics down to almost nothing and introduce >100
>sheared-off transients into the mix, but maybe they did.  It was only a few
>decades ago that distorted guitar was considered desirable, after all.  When
>we were having our cd mastered the engineer (Jay Frigoletto, ex-Atlantan now
>in LA, who I'd HIGHLY recommend to anyone) made different versions for us to
>consider, one through old analog equipment (Tektronics, Drawmer, Urei, etc),
>and a couple of Sonic Solutions versions with different degrees of peak
>limiting.  The more extreme one was very fatiguing-- louder but with less
>punch-- and even it was nowhere close to what they did with Vapor Trails.
>
>Brian
>
>
>

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