To start this off - I'd like to tell you this will be a rant.
I'm willing to receive any form of disapproval, though I doubt I'd find much.
As a composer and audio engineer, I feel quite insulted by most modern music records.
It's not the simplicity, the lack of polyphony, or the lack of interesting harmony progressions, though those really do annoy me too.
What annoys me the most are the vocals, or rather - the backing vocals.
Listen to an old Beatles song (or whatever) where a few people sing at once. You can hear them all perfectly, but NO! What I call the "new-age" audio engineer proceeds to cut frequencies out of the backing vocalist's melody. That achieves ducking the backvocalist behind the main melody. Although this is what a backing vocal means, it is really annoying to be treated like a baby, that couldn't recognize a melody from its harmonious support. It's like saying "DON'T LISTEN TO THE OTHER VOICES! THEY ARE NOT IMPORTANT. DO YOU HEAR THIS ONE? THE ONLY ONE A HUMAN EAR CAN RECOGNIZE WITHOUT TOO MUCH EFFORT!? Good, focus on that. We don't want you to, you know, get confused".
This tends to ruin the supporting effect and the power of a chorus and it also leads to what I call the "compressor" effect, since the chorus and the verse become equally... Well - bland.
Also, you must have heard how "clean" every piece in the twenty-first century sounds.
Thanks, Autotune! Now we don't have even the slightest buzz in notes, so our ears could get just a little excitement. Honestly, it's like making a wasteland in fallout out of bathroom tiles and designing it oval, so it has no edges, because everything has to be TIDY.
I realize this forum may not be the best place for a musician's rant, but fuck it, you people seem nice.
I'm willing to receive any form of disapproval, though I doubt I'd find much.
As a composer and audio engineer, I feel quite insulted by most modern music records.
It's not the simplicity, the lack of polyphony, or the lack of interesting harmony progressions, though those really do annoy me too.
What annoys me the most are the vocals, or rather - the backing vocals.
Listen to an old Beatles song (or whatever) where a few people sing at once. You can hear them all perfectly, but NO! What I call the "new-age" audio engineer proceeds to cut frequencies out of the backing vocalist's melody. That achieves ducking the backvocalist behind the main melody. Although this is what a backing vocal means, it is really annoying to be treated like a baby, that couldn't recognize a melody from its harmonious support. It's like saying "DON'T LISTEN TO THE OTHER VOICES! THEY ARE NOT IMPORTANT. DO YOU HEAR THIS ONE? THE ONLY ONE A HUMAN EAR CAN RECOGNIZE WITHOUT TOO MUCH EFFORT!? Good, focus on that. We don't want you to, you know, get confused".
This tends to ruin the supporting effect and the power of a chorus and it also leads to what I call the "compressor" effect, since the chorus and the verse become equally... Well - bland.
Also, you must have heard how "clean" every piece in the twenty-first century sounds.
Thanks, Autotune! Now we don't have even the slightest buzz in notes, so our ears could get just a little excitement. Honestly, it's like making a wasteland in fallout out of bathroom tiles and designing it oval, so it has no edges, because everything has to be TIDY.
I realize this forum may not be the best place for a musician's rant, but fuck it, you people seem nice.
