[atlantaprog] Re: different standards

OK, so you thought that 80's Rush albums such as 'Hold
Your Fire' had crappy production....fair enough.

I think that the "acid test" here is this:  how do the
songs from that era sound LIVE and In Person?  Let us
use songs from 'Hold Your Fire' for specific
reference...how do tunes like "Time Stand Still" and
"Mission" sound live and in the flesh?

My guess would be that they sound(ed) AWESOME...and to
me, no Rush album comes close to Rush LIVE...!

So, screw production!   At least live you can track
down and beat the crap out of the sound guy if the
sound is bad...I doubt you could do that now to Peter
Collins, etc.   ;-)


Regards,

Bill


--- Veronica Hughes <upkat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 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
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 


=====
William C. Kargel

wkargel@xxxxxxxxx

Visit my homepage at http://www.geocities.com/wkargel

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