where has the quailty gone?

... just spent the last 20 minutes searching records.. 8 out 10 records sound like utter crap. and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality. a perfect examples is the new arkus p on highball or the mark williams on ignoma or the klotzberg on collapse... jesus some of these are trainwrecks.

the new toneman althought not my style is a great contrast with the sounds really tight... adam jay's new default (also not really my bag) was also very well engineered. but i'm saying.. seems to me all the labels or artists aren't putting the effort into there cuts as possible.. maybe i'm dense but i think it's missing.

this is definitely where i agree with death on a stick from the wittekind post(concerning his/their music).. the quality has washed away.

especially in hard techno.. the quality ante needs to be raised.

here here...

But I would add that the more we produce/ dj the more demanding we get as well mate..
I have always had probs buying records... so this isn't a new prob. 4 me... not that the quality isn't up 2 this or that but because not many r really up my alley!!

Z

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Originally Posted by Adverse

... just spent the last 20 minutes searching records.. 8 out 10 records sound like utter crap. and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality. a perfect examples is the new arkus p on highball or the mark williams on ignoma or the klotzberg on collapse... jesus some of these are trainwrecks.

the new toneman althought not my style is a great contrast with the sounds really tight... adam jay's new default (also not really my bag) was also very well engineered. but i'm saying.. seems to me all the labels or artists aren't putting the effort into there cuts as possible.. maybe i'm dense but i think it's missing.

this is definitely where i agree with death on a stick from the wittekind post(concerning his/their music).. the quality has washed away.

especially in hard techno.. the quality ante needs to be raised.

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Ingoma etc. I agree, a waste of time. Don't have any Wittekind material yet, Amok though is ****in' rocking, end of story, no need to get "Oh its generic" about it, it's not pretending to be anything only hard as ****, I love the Amok EP on Kne'deep, it's quality hard techno

did i say anything about being generic or even the content of said songs? no. read the bloody thread next time... if buttman is gets on your nerves, you sure get on mine.

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Originally Posted by Adverse

... just spent the last 20 minutes searching records.. 8 out 10 records sound like utter crap. and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality. a perfect examples is the new arkus p on highball or the mark williams on ignoma or the klotzberg on collapse... jesus some of these are trainwrecks.

the new toneman althought not my style is a great contrast with the sounds really tight... adam jay's new default (also not really my bag) was also very well engineered. but i'm saying.. seems to me all the labels or artists aren't putting the effort into there cuts as possible.. maybe i'm dense but i think it's missing.

this is definitely where i agree with death on a stick from the wittekind post(concerning his/their music).. the quality has washed away.

especially in hard techno.. the quality ante needs to be raised.

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2nd track on the a side of Ingoma 13 is superb... don't know if you checked it but have a listen.

?????? mark

what the ????

don't understand why you wrote what you wrote.

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Originally Posted by Adverse

did i say anything about being generic or even the content of said songs? no. read the bloody thread next time... if buttman is gets on your nerves, you sure get on mine.

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Well you did refer to the Wittekind thread, and I gave my opinion in reference to that, never actually said that you said it was generic, just giving my tuppence on the thread *you* ressurrected, you can switch out of defensive mode now Adverse.

Personally I think your initial post could have been better written. Although I think I know what you are saying you aren't making it very clear.

i have to agree - far too many records sound piss poor, but this is not a problem with the cut - its bad mixes in the first place.

I know a couple of people whos mixes are below average and they are constantly blaming the sound of thier records on thier mastering engineer.. wrong!

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Originally Posted by Sam_Horam

2nd track on the a side of Ingoma 13 is superb... don't know if you checked it but have a listen.

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Actually someone said that to me alright about there being a really good one on it, which kind of surprised me! I just think Ingoma have gone into overkill with the tribal loop, by releasing far too much of the same thing, they've had a new 12" nearly every month I'd say, and the music's become too predictable. I will check this new one though..

when i go out to get some new records, i´ll for example listen to 50 records, and i will only like about five to ten....
so it´s quite normal for me...but i don´t think there´s a lack of quality, i just think I got a weird taste :lol:

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Originally Posted by Sunil

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam_Horam

2nd track on the a side of Ingoma 13 is superb... don't know if you checked it but have a listen.

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Actually someone said that to me alright about there being a really good one on it, which kind of surprised me! I just think Ingoma have gone into overkill with the tribal loop, by releasing far too much of the same thing, they've had a new 12" nearly every month I'd say, and the music's become too predictable. I will check this new one though..

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I also thought that the a side of no. 12 by our very own Mr. Mac was brilliant. One of my favourite tracks this year.

I agree that some of them haven't been too strong but the last two (12 + 13) and the next one are all good.

2 people have actually replied in regard to what i was actually writing about. this is silly. quailty of sound! not content!

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Originally Posted by Sunil

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam_Horam

2nd track on the a side of Ingoma 13 is superb... don't know if you checked it but have a listen.

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Actually someone said that to me alright about there being a really good one on it, which kind of surprised me! I just think Ingoma have gone into overkill with the tribal loop, by releasing far too much of the same thing, they've had a new 12" nearly every month I'd say, and the music's become too predictable. I will check this new one though..

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Don't bother mate, same old stuff.
I think the bongo phase has had it's day.
People are actually making a bit more effort instead of sampling
a dodgy drum loop and releasing it about 10 times :wink:
Have a look on the dark experimental forum for something a bit more interesting.

hey adverse
chill out a bit mate. people are just giving their opinions.
it was a little unclear what you were driving at in your original argument.
i think the overall quality sonically and conceptually is getting lower in techno all the time but it's a sign of the times you just don't make no money at it unless you just do it all the time and constantly release stuff.
sometimes things will get a little samey but it's a new record for the dj's to play and even if it's only a little different to the last one it's better than nothing.
but essentially i have to agree then the sound quality in general has been a little poor of late.

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Originally Posted by Adverse

2 people have actually replied in regard to what i was actually writing about. this is silly. quailty of sound! not content!

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I agree in the quality of sound part lacking in some records, but hell the quality of records in general has come on an awful lot to say, 10 years ago. Maybe an average hard techno track doesn't sound as polished as something on Kanzleramt , but it's not that big a deal is it? If it's a good tune, it's a good tune. An amazing record should rise above whatever reservations we may have about the sound quality.

It's all subjective anyway, I think the quality on many Theo Parrish house records are awful, really faint levels and kickdrum which sounds too loud...yet a fan of his would really dig it for the fact that it sounds rough and ready, the same applies to many techno records too. I'd say 8 out of 10 of techno releases that I hear are fine in the sound quality department, not vica versa.

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Originally Posted by davethedrummer

hey adverse
chill out a bit mate. people are just giving their opinions.
it was a little unclear what you were driving at in your original argument.
i think the overall quality sonically and conceptually is getting lower in techno all the time but it's a sign of the times you just don't make no money at it unless you just do it all the time and constantly release stuff.
sometimes things will get a little samey but it's a new record for the dj's to play and even if it's only a little different to the last one it's better than nothing.
but essentially i have to agree then the sound quality in general has been a little poor of late.

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'8 out 10 records sound like utter crap. and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality.'

i don't know how i could have been clearer henry.

A lot of the stuff from Germany has lower quality, cuz we can´t afford vinyl mastering. Hardtechno is not a biog market, and when you´re selling around 1000 copies, 300 Euro for Vinyl mastering is very expensive.

Arkus P. and Wittekind have very good sound quality on mp3 but the stuff gets pressed as is from wav to Vinyl. :cry:

Adverse, I feel your pain....When I started playing records way back in the 80's you expected that the "audio quality" may suffer from record to record. And it did.(cheap ananlog gear vs. expensive analog gear)
Nowadays with all the digital equipment, where audio will never see an analog audio cable you would expect that "audio quality" would be better. And in whole I believe that most records do sound a lot better.

But yes it does break my nut when you play a record with a high recording standard. Then you try to mix it with something that sounded like it came from my ass. (you haven' seen my ass. It's not pretty)

But such is life, my sad ass and all.

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Originally Posted by technosnob

Adverse, I feel your pain

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Yes indeed! Life is tough :)

I now understand what you mean Adverse but you weren't very clear mate...

Anyway when you said you were scanning records were you listening to the vinyl thru a decent system or what???

That's the only way to judge how it sounds....

Some tracks sound ok thru headphones/in a shop but are absolute beasts on a decent system.

Anyways...

The quality is always varying...depends on so much stuff...I don't think you can say there is a definite trend towards bad sounding stuff...

Give us some specific examples....

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Originally Posted by Sam_Horam

Anyways...

The quality is always varying...depends on so much stuff...I don't think you can say there is a definite trend towards bad sounding stuff...

Give us some specific examples....

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i mean it's not like i didn't in the first post or anything.

I understood you the first time, Adverse. :)

I agree totally. Its because a lot of these older producers are too lazy to do any research on producing better masters of their music. These new producers coming up don't know a damn thing about music at all most of the time, therefore they can't master to save their soul. Its amazing how the sound quality has come on some records, but at the same time theres a lot of shit.

it's a shame too cause I'm sure we've all got records with really great tracks but they're mastered so piss-poor it ruins a lot of the fun. I think it also crosses with that one post someone stated about draining the life out of samples by over-EQing them to get away with using the sample.

No matter what the reason is...it's great that people can produce tracks easily now, but they need to work on their mastering.

I'm just starting to produce tracks and as you well know there's alot to take in. You can't just get it perfect straight away. If you could that would be great :D. But you don't, you make some mistakes along the way and learn from them! :wink:

Some of us are still learnin'!!

Mastering is one thing but really its all in the MIX tho.

i agree with clarkus we have to get or tracks out there learn from our mistakes and progres from that after all we can,t be perfect from day one so just get your shit out there and lets make techno biger and better

Curvepusher = Quality

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Originally Posted by Jimfish

Mastering is one thing but really its all in the MIX tho.

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mhmmm it is.

you know this

I agree on both points . The first point which Adverse made about the SOUND of the records. Some of them really are bad and like someone else posted you don't really notice until you are trying to mix it with a well produced crisp record , you've sometimes got no ****ing chance of making the mix decent without redlining or whatever ( and that just adds to the shite sound , more distorrtion etc etc).

The quality of actual tunes is a lot worse than even two years ago. Ingoma is a very very good example of this , I bought a couple at the start and thought "these are nice background building beats in here, I could use this....nice". But if you check all the releases there are very few differences regardless of who produced the track (Mark Williams , Ben Sims,Vincent Davis, Jorge (Paul Mac) Zammecona) , which to me shows that it's a case of loop sharing amongst mates, four different people should never come up with the same sound unless they are USING the same sounds, it's a ****ing impossibility.

Like, I think Dave said , it's due to having to make money to keep the labels going that people release so many , but I personally get very suspicious of labels that have releases out all the time , it's not possible to maintain quality with that sort of output. Examples : Drumcode (rubbish now , simple as that , how many Henrik B 76 beyer remixes can we have that sound exactly the same), Primate ( too much nonsense vocally shit on them now).

This won't change until there is a new wave of ideas that grab peoples imaginiation , that have enough good points to make the tunes really good but not too much so that you get bored with the concept straightaway. Viscious circle really!!

I'll be more than happy to offer my mastering services to anyone that asks...

I've had many compliments from lawrie (according to chris lib) and many other pressing plants in the uk and germany about my abilities.

-Patrick DSP
icq: 68377933

There you go then lads, someone that can master and blow his own trumpet too !!!! ( only kidding)

it's a talent.

:P

I doubt the material on big club labels has a positive correlation with the sound. You may not be a big Adam Beyer or Henrik B fan, but their sound quality isn't exactly terrible.

i agree 100%

these guys have their shit down to a t.

My shit is 'well produced' out of my arse,
does that make it good?

I can't understand how people interchange and confuse musickal inspiration & quality with production quality.

????

nobody is confusing anything..

this thread is about PRODUCTION QUALITY! and that alone

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Originally Posted by Jimfish

nobody is confusing anything..

this thread is about PRODUCTION QUALITY! and that alone

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My point exactly, you are confused. Check the first post of this thread-

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Originally Posted by Adverse

... just spent the last 20 minutes searching records.. 8 out 10 records sound like utter crap. and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality.

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Originally Posted by Angrymann

I agree on both points . The first point which Adverse made about the SOUND of the records. Some of them really are bad and like someone else posted you don't really notice until you are trying to mix it with a well produced crisp record , you've sometimes got no **** chance of making the mix decent without redlining or whatever ( and that just adds to the shite sound , more distorrtion etc etc).

The quality of actual tunes is a lot worse than even two years ago. Ingoma is a very very good example of this , I bought a couple at the start and thought "these are nice background building beats in here, I could use this....nice". But if you check all the releases there are very few differences regardless of who produced the track (Mark Williams , Ben Sims,Vincent Davis, Jorge (Paul Mac) Zammecona) , which to me shows that it's a case of loop sharing amongst mates, four different people should never come up with the same sound unless they are USING the same sounds, it's a **** impossibility.

Like, I think Dave said , it's due to having to make money to keep the labels going that people release so many , but I personally get very suspicious of labels that have releases out all the time , it's not possible to maintain quality with that sort of output. Examples : Drumcode (rubbish now , simple as that , how many Henrik B 76 beyer remixes can we have that sound exactly the same), Primate ( too much nonsense vocally shit on them now).

This won't change until there is a new wave of ideas that grab peoples imaginiation , that have enough good points to make the tunes really good but not too much so that you get bored with the concept straightaway. Viscious circle really!!

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not really into directly answering post's about my own stuff everyone is entitled to there opinion and all that but to suggest that some of us swap drum or any other kind of sound to make tracks for the same label truly is laughable if there are similarity's in the tracks it's probably more to do with the fact it's a tribal label than anything else.

herman!

i want to hear your opinion on the topic! do you have one? RE: quality..

and mark's too?... he left some weird comment when i started the thread that i didn't really understand.

I'm out the loop here...herman=who? on ingoma...

I think I can see where all the confusion has arisen......

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Originally Posted by Adverse

and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality.

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What do you mean by the "Quality", this could mean any number of things, if it's not the productions, then its either the sequences, Drum Programming, sounds, effects, or ideas in general
So how come everyone is going on about the mastering? I have a DJ rush record on Highball and the mastering is fine, I very much doubt they get any other releases they put out cut elsewhere.. BTW ALL trax are mastered when the Laquer is cut, you don't have to get it done yourself before you send your trax to the label

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adverse

a perfect examples is the new arkus p on highball or the mark williams on ignoma or the klotzberg on collapse... jesus some of these are trainwrecks.

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By this it seems like you are implying that the idea are at fault (Forgive me if i'm wrong).. would you call something that was mastered badly a "Trainwreck".. I thought the term was more aptly used in reference to bad DJ mixes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Adverse

this is definitely where i agree with death on a stick from the wittekind post(concerning his/their music).. the quality has washed away...

especially in hard techno.. the quality ante needs to be raised.

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The reference to the above thread is a dead giveaway, Adverse I think you posted this and got scared at everyone's reaction and got a bit confused... I personally think fair play to anyone who wants to voice their opinion, just people are always gonna like what they're gonna like.. Personally, I'm not interested in this swedish sound, or the hard techno thing, not to say I don't like hard stuff, I just like stuff that's got some changing elements, and I can completely get with what you and angryman are trying to say, I've heard a lot of records that sound very simelar, and I mean to the point before where some friends picked up some records (No names mentioned) and it actually sounded like 5 copies of the exact same record, just with different labels on, which can't be healthy for the scene.... having said that, if you're really into that kind of thing, no disrespect, I just can't get with what I'm not into.... [/quote]

i mean the track sounds like arse meaning that the samples that are used are not well produced or "sampled" or even clean maybe over distorted, mixing is ****ed or not eq'd right they just trash through the mix like train. have you ever tried to mix a track with all it force in the high freqs. good god.

the reason i used that other thread as reference is cause that where my train of thought started.. some tracks really show that some guys who are getting released just don't care or bother to learn proper mixing. this topic has nothing to do with sound or style. strictly studio business.

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Originally Posted by crime

I think I can see where all the confusion has arisen......

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Originally Posted by Adverse

and i don't mean the production, i mean the quality.

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What do you mean by the "Quality", this could mean any number of things, if it's not the productions, then its either the sequences, Drum Programming, sounds, effects, or ideas in general
So how come everyone is going on about the mastering?

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I totally agree with you Mr Crime, that's what my-

"My shit is 'well produced' out of my arse,
does that make it good?"

post was getting at.

Whoever says you don't need to mastering tracks before you send them out because they are mastered later is full of shit. In some cases, The Exchange or whoever will make them sound thick on vinyl, but if your track sounds like ass before they master it, 99% of the time its still going to sound like ass after they master it for the vinyl.

I don't think you understand what mastering plants such as The Exchange or Curvepusher really do.

yeah for me it's very important that you do drastic mastering changes from your end and then let ppl such as curvepusher add that final sheen ontop. at the end on the day, you don't pay the cutting place to drastically change your sound into something it wasn't meant to be!!!

it may be of interest but once i sent a blackout release to a specialist mastering place first before the cut. when i phoned up lawrie he said it was awful. he really had to work to get it right. apparently most mastering places don't understand the difference between cutting to vinyl and cutting to cd. the stupid ass had widened the whole stereo field.

doh!
i am confused

shit in
shit out
that's the old saying
and very true it is to.
there are many things that contribute to a "good" sounding record.
fristly you have to look at it from the dj's point of view:
it needs to be:

loud / bright / punchy / warm bass / clear tops / easy to mix (sonically)/ good definition.

from the producers point of view it needs to be:
tight (very inportant as you can't mix a sloppy track) punchy / well balanced / interesting (sonically and in the arrangement) / groundbreaking ???!!!!???

basically , look at these things .
it's really difficult writing music,. o.k. you don't have to be a genius to use a computer but you still have to have the ideas to make the track and then you have to mix the thing. a lot of us are amateurs (really) and we learnt what we know by trial and error. sometimes things sound great other times they don't. it's just the way it goes when you are a composer/dj/engineer.

my point is
nirvana didn't mix "smells like teen spirit" did they ? the beatles didn"t mix "all you need is love" ?
they were mixed by other guys who specialised in just mixing and engineering tracks ,and here we are thinking that because it's all computer based that we can do it all.
well sorry but it just don't work like that.
and that's the fun of it. some guy making some track in his basement going straight from his mind to yours
o.k. the quality may not be michael jackson but it's directly from him to you and that's what techno is about ( for me)
if you ask me i would say it's the advent of fully computerised studios and a non understanding of analogue mixing that's contributed to dodgy sounding records.

i really hope you get my meaning in this post

fully computerised studio??

i think a combination of hardware and software creates the best quality tracks. and the hardware polishes it off!

erm
wenna did you really lock this post?
anyway what i meant by
fully computerised studios
was guys who maybe haven't had the experience of using analogue equiptment and just do everything on computers /ie : acid ; logic : cubase etc.........
and would maybe benefit from getting to grips with real compressors and f.x. and a real mixer.

anyway i don't get the locked post joke, sorry mate.