Music that sounds better in lo-fi

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

Something I noticed recently: all my old jungle records sound awful played back on my hi-fi system with all the bells and whistles etc. When I play it on a ropey old Technics amp with a pair of speakers all boomy in the lower mids and with the top end rolled off however, they sounds fantastic. Hardly a surprise really. Such music wasn't intended to be heard in high fidelity. As with certain old films and high def televisions, playback through such technologies only seems to expose the inherent flaws in the source material.

I was wondering if anyone had noticed something similar with other genres of musics or particular bands. When does 'shit kit' really come into its own?

[alan nagsworth]

I can't listen to noughties bassline or grime on anything but a Nokia 6300 speaker, personally. Call me old fashioned but that's just how I was raised.

[chveik]

trve black metal

[Sebastian Cobb]

All the wall of sound/ 60's girl group/garage bands all sound great through shit transistor radios.

[Funcrusher]

Trojan style reggae sounds a bit odd on lux reissues through fancy hi-fi gear.

[jobotic]

Rock n Roll innit?

Imagine a remastered Link Wray.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Fats Domino.

Loads of music isn't generally produced to sound good on high end equipment. It's why since the late 90's every rock cd was compressed and clipped to fuck on cd. Or in the 70's/80's American rock was produced to sound good on medium wave. Lots of grime producers had portable tellys in their studios because they knew their audience would encounter them on Channel U.

Vinyl required even more careful mastering for shit equipment; if you added too much bass crap decks would skip.

[Glebe]

[tag]Ooh baby I feel like music sounds better in lo-fi.[/tag]

[Sebastian Cobb]

the music sounds better in loo

[chveik]

mississippi country blues

[MattD]

Folk music? Springsteen's Nebraska comes to mind and it's haunting quality makes me wish herecorded his other folk albums in lo-fi.

[hummingofevil]

The Beatles' Paperback writer in mono. its fucking awesome but disappeared from online.

[Brundle-Fly]

Techno compilations on cassette bought from Camden Market in 1991.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

All the wall of sound/ 60's girl group/garage bands all sound great through shit transistor radios.

That's a good point. I also seem to recall Quincy Jones's remastering MJ's stuff (possibly Thriller) purely because it sounded shit when played back through a transistor radio.

I reckon a lot of the 60s stuff like Cream/Hendrix/Bob Dylan etc would likely sound optimal played on vinyl through a tube amplifier. If I had the money, I think I'd have an old school rig solely for that purpose.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'd love a buzby take on Springsteen's Nebraska. I think I know most of the details but I'm not going to attempt it when buzzers is around.

[Better Midlands]

Techno compilations on cassette bought from Camden Market in 1991.

My mate used to sell techno/ hardcore tapes out of a suitcase on the Camden High Street bridge 91/92 - DJ Junk

[buzby]

That's a good point. I also seem to recall Quincy Jones's remastering MJ's stuff (possibly Thriller) purely because it sounded shit when played back through a transistor radio.

I reckon a lot of the 60s stuff like Cream/Hendrix/Bob Dylan etc would likely sound optimal played on vinyl through a tube amplifier. If I had the money, I think I'd have an old school rig solely for that purpose.

By the Cream era (mid-60s-onwards) transistor-based amps like the Quad 303 had taken over for audiophile use and had made large inroads into the domestic market (they were easiert o make and more reliable than tubes), so using a tube amp wouldn't get you what they were hearing back then.

In the heyday of vinyl, it wasn't unusual to have every format mastered differently - you would have the 7" promo mastered to sound good on AM radio (and later on FM) by cutting the low and high ends and boosting the mids slighty to match the equalisation curve of a broadcast processor (and avoid too much compression, which is used quite a lot on FM processors). The 7" single would be mastered to sound good on a mono Dansette. Later on a 12" single promo would be mastered to sound good in clubs, with boosted low end and cut treble, and if it was a decent mastering engineer the groove spacing would be increased to allow more bass to be reproduced without printing through to adjacent grooves. That's also partially why single sided 12" promos became popular, as it allowed the grooves to be cut deeper without having to make the disc thicker, which meant you could put higher bass levels into the grooves before the stylus would skip.

The album might have 2 different master tapes, one for vinyl with a frequency curve to be compatible with RIAA equalisation, and one for cassette which would be more like an FM radio equalisation curve (as cassette recording uses a compressor/limiter similar to an FM processor to optimise the recording to the reduced bandwidth of the cassette). When mixing versions of songs for single releases, a lot of producers used to dub the mix onto a cassette to listen on a car stereo as the cassette equalisation gave a decent approximation of how it would sound through an FM radio.

A lot of the final equalisation for a master would be done by the cutting/mastering engineer, which is why the skills of people like George 'Porky' Peckham were much sought after. It's also why overseas releases can sound very different, as copies of the stereo master tapes would be sent overseas and local mastering engineers would be employed to do the final equalisation and cut, usually without the approval of the original producer or band.

When CDs came along, it caused a bit of confusion as a lot of producers and mastering engineers just thought you could use the vinyl or cassette master for a CD. however, the increased bandwidth (compared to cassettes t least) and the relatively flat frequency response meant that it would sound a bit shit (a lot of early CDs sounded very tinny, especially if the vinyl master was used). some artists, like ABBA, for instance, realised very early that CDs required their own master - their final album The Visitors was recorded on an early 3M digital multitrack, and the stereo master for the CD release was also recorded digitally. That original 1982 CD release  is still regarded as superior to the attempts at remastering it since.

These days most radio mastering seems to consist of 'brickwall it to fuck' to try and get the loudest output through the psychoacoustic model used by the  lossy compression codecs when played back on a portable media player.

[buzby]

I'd love a buzby take on Springsteen's Nebraska. I think I know most of the details but I'm not going to attempt it when buzzers is around.

I'm not particularly a Bruce fan, but from what I understand of the recording process there were three layers of cassette and 1/4" tape generation loss (it was recorded on a Tascam 4-track cassette portastudio with no real monitoring of the signal  levels,  through an old Gibson Echoplex tape echo and the stereo mixdown recorded onto Bruce's old ghetto blaster that had fallen into the river and never been cleaned). The tape speed/pitch knob on the portastudio was also set too fast when the tracks were recorded but then turned back to zero when they did the stereo mixdown.. The mix cassette was then carried around and repeatedly played back in the studio for months while they tried to re-record 'prper' versions fo the tracks.

When their efforts to re-record the tracks didn't work, they dubbed the stereo mix cassette onto a 1/4" stereo master tape and then went round a number of mastering engineers (including Bob Ludwig) trying to to get the vinyl master cut from it, but the levels were unsurprisingly all over the place and the sudden peaks would cause skips when the lacquers were played back. Eventually they got to Dennis King at Atlantic's New York mastering facility, whose first attempt also failed but he then reduced the recording levels and applied an EQ curve that managed to produce a successful cut. They then took King's settings back to Bob Ludwig, who used them to make the master lacquer cut.

[Sony Walkman Prophecies]

By the Cream era (mid-60s-onwards) transistor-based amps like the Quad 303 had taken over for audiophile use and had made large inroads into the domestic market (they were easiert o make and more reliable than tubes), so using a tube amp wouldn't get you what they were hearing back then.

In the heyday of vinyl, it wasn't unusual to have every format mastered differently - you would have the 7" promo mastered to sound good on AM radio (and later on FM) by cutting the low and high ends and boosting the mids slighty to match the equalisation curve of a broadcast processor (and avoid too much compression, which is used quite a lot on FM processors). The 7" single would be mastered to sound good on a mono Dansette. Later on a 12" single promo would be mastered to sound good in clubs, with boosted low end and cut treble, and if it was a decent mastering engineer the groove spacing would be increased to allow more bass to be reproduced without printing through to adjacent grooves. That's also partially why single sided 12" promos became popular, as it allowed the grooves to be cut deeper without having to make the disc thicker, which meant you could put higher bass levels into the grooves before the stylus would skip.

The album might have 2 different master tapes, one for vinyl with a frequency curve to be compatible with RIAA equalisation, and one for cassette which would be more like an FM radio equalisation curve (as cassette recording uses a compressor/limiter similar to an FM processor to optimise the recording to the reduced bandwidth of the cassette). When mixing versions of songs for single releases, a lot of producers used to dub the mix onto a cassette to listen on a car stereo as the cassette equalisation gave a decent approximation of how it would sound through an FM radio.

A lot of the final equalisation for a master would be done by the cutting/mastering engineer, which is why the skills of people like George 'Porky' Peckham were much sought after. It's also why overseas releases can sound very different, as copies of the stereo master tapes would be sent overseas and local mastering engineers would be employed to do the final equalisation and cut, usually without the approval of the original producer or band.

When CDs came along, it caused a bit of confusion as a lot of producers and mastering engineers just thought you could use the vinyl or cassette master for a CD. however, the increased bandwidth (compared to cassettes t least) and the relatively flat frequency response meant that it would sound a bit shit (a lot of early CDs sounded very tinny, especially if the vinyl master was used). some artists, like ABBA, for instance, realised very early that CDs required their own master - their final album The Visitors was recorded on an early 3M digital multitrack, and the stereo master for the CD release was also recorded digitally. That original 1982 CD release  is still regarded as superior to the attempts at remastering it since.

These days most radio mastering seems to consist of 'brickwall it to fuck' to try and get the loudest output through the psychoacoustic model used by the  lossy compression codecs when played back on a portable media player.

Interesting stuff.

Yes you're right about transistor-based hi-fi already being available back then. So the albums produced in that period, as you suggest, wouldn't have necessarily been optimised for playback via tube technology. Then again, I'd reckon most of the guitar amps back then would still have been tube based, therefore playback through a tube amplifier might be more complimentary. I can't say for sure though as I've never tried it. Perhaps it would sound worse.

[buzby]

Interesting stuff.

Yes you're right about transistor-based hi-fi already being available back then. So the albums produced in that period, as you suggest, wouldn't have necessarily been optimised for playback via tube technology. Then again, I'd reckon most of the guitar amps back then would still have been tube based, therefore playback through a tube amplifier might be more complimentary. I can't say for sure though as I've never tried it. Perhaps it would sound worse.

By the late 60s most of the cutting-edge recording gear like mixing desks and preamps were changing over to transistors too (can you imagine the size, heat and power used by a 16 or 32 track desk with valve preamp circuits on each channel?). EMI designed and built their first solid state desk for Abbey Road in December 1968, and it was used for The Beatles' Abbey Road album in 1969.

A lot of guitar amps would have still been valve-based back then, but by the time it had been mic'd up, recorded through a solid state desk and onto a solid state-based tape machine it probably wouldn't make much difference (valve amps are preferred by guitarists doe to how they can be made to controllably distort and feed back in a more pleasing and 'musical' way than a  transistor amp). Valve-based hifi amps came back into popularity partly in reaction to CDs, as valve amps tend to make everything sound 'warmer' as opposed to the clinical, dry nature of a CD played back through an ultra-quent, ultra flat high-end solid state amp. Play a CD back through a valve amp and it makes it sound more 'analogue', I guess is the thinking.

It's basically the total opposite of what audio electronics engineers had been working towards since the change over to transistors in the 60s (remove any sonic influence from the amplifier on sound of the source) , but you can't measure the 'feel' or how someone perceives sounds with an oscilloscope or spectrum analyser.

[Satchmo Distel]

"What Goes On" by Velvet Underground.

[Head Gardener]

[Brundle-Fly]

My mate used to sell techno/ hardcore tapes out of a suitcase on the Camden High Street bridge 91/92 - DJ Junk

ha ha! I remember.

[Brundle-Fly]

That face in the top left corner reminds me of someone who's been in the news a lot these past few years.

[the]

My mate used to sell techno/ hardcore tapes out of a suitcase on the Camden High Street bridge 91/92 - DJ Junk

This guy? I've got some of his Breaker Breaks volumes

[QDRPHNC]

Old blues and folk coming out of my piece-of-shit Crosley sound great.

[Sebastian Cobb]

When CDs came along, it caused a bit of confusion as a lot of producers and mastering engineers just thought you could use the vinyl or cassette master for a CD. however, the increased bandwidth (compared to cassettes t least) and the relatively flat frequency response meant that it would sound a bit shit (a lot of early CDs sounded very tinny, especially if the vinyl master was used). some artists, like ABBA, for instance, realised very early that CDs required their own master - their final album The Visitors was recorded on an early 3M digital multitrack, and the stereo master for the CD release was also recorded digitally. That original 1982 CD release  is still regarded as superior to the attempts at remastering it since.

These days most radio mastering seems to consist of 'brickwall it to fuck' to try and get the loudest output through the psychoacoustic model used by the  lossy compression codecs when played back on a portable media player.

I think cd players are designed to be able to take care of that if you set the pre-emphasis flags correctly and the player itself actually honours the red book standards. My old man had an early Philips CD-104 where you could see the reed relays that would send the analog out through a filter to compensate but I've never knowingly found a disc to try them. My NAD mentions it in the service manual, but again I've not tried it.

I'm also led to believe that brickwalling might slowly be becoming a thing of the past as listening moves to Spotify and Youtube as they both employ some clever dr compensation that should mean you're just sacrificing your peaks without gaining perceived loudness.

[buzby]

I think cd players are designed to be able to take care of that if you set the pre-emphasis flags correctly and the player itself actually honours the red book standards. My old man had an early Philips CD-104 where you could see the reed relays that would send the analog out through a filter to compensate but I've never knowingly found a disc to try them. My NAD mentions it in the service manual, but again I've not tried it.

Pre-emphasis on CDs is quite rare, and was only really a thing in the very early days before 16-bit DAC chips became commonly available. Early CD players used 14-bit DACs and a 22khz low-pass filter to cut off the resulting conversion noise at higher frequencies. To compensate for that filter, some CDs were mastered at a lower volume level so they could have the mid-to-high frequencies boosted and had the pre-emphasis flag set on each track that would tell the player to switch in de-emphasis on playback (which in some cases like your dad's Philips involved switching in an analogue filter section to the output).

It was very similar to the basic noise reduction schemes used on cassettes, and from the mid to late-80s onwards it was really only found on some small label classical releases, as by then 16-bit DACs capable of oversampling were in commodity production.  Most decent CD players these days employ a digital de-emphasis filter if they encounter one of these discs (even Window Media Player does)

Some CDs sound like they have pre-emphasis but haven't got the flags set, mostly because they had been mastered from the vinyl or cassette master. For instance, some of Factory's early CDs sound quite tinny despite not having the flag set, as they were mastered from the existing master tapes because they couldn't afford to make CD-specific ones (I think Substance was the first New Order album to get a specific CD/DAT master).

I'm also led to believe that brickwalling might slowly be becoming a thing of the past as listening moves to Spotify and Youtube as they both employ some clever dr compensation that should mean you're just sacrificing your peaks without gaining perceived loudness.

The worst thing is how some genres (such as Guetta/Skrillex etc chart friendly dance music, and some rap subgenres)  use it on purpose as part of the accepted 'style'. There's nothing worse than a massively boosted kick completely swamping any other frequencies behind it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

^ I know a couple of lads that produced in the mid 2000's that called Eric Prydz' - Call on Me 'the sidechain tune'.

I nicked that Philips deck off him for a while, and also stole his CD-I (only the machine the 3DO could've been!!) for a while (actually it was the other way round, the cdi struggled to play some discs from the 2000's with data tracks) and can't say I noticed any difference with the 104 having a 14 bit dac; both of them sounded better than some other cheap equipment I've had and neither quite as good as my NAD, which I think is more 'warmth'/preference rather than accuracy.

[the]

^ I know a couple of lads that produced in the mid 2000's that called Eric Prydz' - Call on Me 'the sidechain tune'

I don't care
I don't care
I don't care if he comes round here
I've got my bass in the sidechain here
let plugins sort it out if it thumps too near