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Great Song / Terrible Recording


Jeff Matthews

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Just my $0.02:  it appears that the subject will tacitly be restricted to one genre (rock) and one time period (60s-70s).  However if for a moment you entertain a bit more inclusive answer than just picking out YouTube videos at random, then the subject gets more interesting.  For instance, those awful recordings were usually made because awful equipment and studio/venues were the norm.  This is also stratified by genre, generally excluding classical, jazz and pop genres before about 1970 at which point the introduction of good quality recorders became feasible for even the smallest low-budget studios. The music was racially aligned and appealed mostly to teenagers, which was generally considered lower quality or "throwaway" music genres:

Music genre digraph.png

So basically any recording from the 1960s and before that's not or jazz, pop or classical genres (and even some of those genres were well-represented by bad recordings) was originally recorded on pretty lousy equipment.  Basically anything before 1959 will have severe sound quality issues relative to that which is easily produced today. 

 

If the music happened to be more enduring than the other 99% that was produce then, it's now considered to be classic.  Pretty much anything by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Cream, CCW, Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Allman Bros, etc.  of this time period is really rough in terms of as-produced technical quality. 

 

What I've found however is that most of these recordings were made even worse via mastering: heavy creative EQ applied to the recordings to boost mid-high frequencies and severely attenuate lows still exists to this day (EQ that was made even worse on later reissue CDs--a medium which can be abused even more than phonograph records). Once you undo the bad EQ on the recordings, I think that even the most die-hard "period scholars" will be (reluctantly) amazed how improved they sound.  YMMV.

 

Chris

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Virtually any "Greatest Hits of the 60's 70's 80s" compilation on CD type of thing. 

 

They typically have good songs but just terrible production.  They are heavily compressed, no highs, no lows, narrow mid range, very thin sounding.  Unlistenable IMO.

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Sounds great when blasting in your car through an a.m. radio... and you have the windows down...

 

Or... like lying in my bunk at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, listening to WLS while tripping... 🤒

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Can you think of some great tunes with notoriously awful studio recordings.  Here's one to start:
 
 

Great recording made by Cream and Tommy Dowd. They showed up at the studio with their concert gear. Tommy was a studio wizard having been a nuclear physicist who worked on The Manhattan Project.He also invented the gain slider for mixing desks. Tales ... is Summer In The City by The Loving Spoonful slowed down.


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...then the discussion on the track "Heather" by Billy Cobham is apropos: the paragraph with the hyperlink.

 

 

I recommend the CD highlyMichael and Randy Brecker on sax and trumpet, George Duke on keyboards, and John Abercrombie on guitar.  After demastering, this is by far my favorite Cobham album.  He's the best drummer that I've heard...and this album will show you why.

 

Chris

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22 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

I didn't mean "terrible" as in "not as good as today."  I mean uniquely terrible.  Listen to other songs on the Cream album.  For whatever reason, Tales of Brave Ulysses is peculiarly terrible.

I don't know why but there's something about that album. I consider it "good quality" to my ears for some reason., even that song. I know what you're saying though

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On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 8:55 AM, Chris A said:

...then the discussion on the track "Heather" by Billy Cobham is apropos: the paragraph with the hyperlink.

 

 

I recommend the CD highlyMichael and Randy Brecker on sax and trumpet, George Duke on keyboards, and John Abercrombie on guitar.  After demastering, this is by far my favorite Cobham album.  He's the best drummer that I've heard...and this album will show you why.

 

Chris

It's one of the first lp's I ever owned, and very influential for me.

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On the Cream song the drums were recorded in mono and panned hard right.[emoji107]
 
This album was recorded in the mid to late 60s, probably on a 4 channel recorder.  Actually sounds better than many other albums from that era. 

8 track. Tom Dowd was one of the few to have 8 track technology.


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