[Closed] How was music that was recorded 40 odd years ago sound so good ?

No real secret, unless the physics of sound have changed...

A quality analogue recording will hold all the same data as a quality digital recording, the main problem with analogue is copying it. Assuming the studio / record company has a copy of the original master discs to start with, there's no reason the sound would be any worse.

Valves

Because it was generally recorded on really high quality analogue equipment with care taken at the recording stage as they couldn't digitally remove / correct errors later.

Digital != good sound quality necessarily and quite often these days albums are remastered to 'sound good' on poor quality playback devices, compress nicely to mp3 files etc and not remastered to 'sound good' on good quality hi fi.

Get yourself some well pressed records and a half decent turntable and be surprised for how good music can sound...

No compression? Have you been listening to vinyl? Most modern CDs seem to be too loud to me (grumble, grumble, youth of today etc etc), with no emphasis on quality as such

the sound quality is rubbish on some old recordings.

But your brain fills in the 'gaps' - so more of your brain is involved in listening to the music. Your brain likes doing this.

maybe: noises like fret buzz, the singer breathing, and pedal knocks, are audible, which makes is sound more 'real'.

Done properly first time around, the current files will be recorded from good masters which shouldn't have degraded. Also most people over estimate being able to tell the difference between quality 🙂
Also your probably listening to it on the same technology that you listen to other music on (digital file of analogue recording?)

But your brain fills in the 'gaps' - so more of your brain is involved in listening to the music. Your brain likes doing this

Utter tosh.

dannybgoode has it; quality recordings are quality recordings no matter what the medium - and music can be mastered in a way to sound good on a car stereo but crap on decent hifi (which is sadly so very common now) or it can be mastered to sound great on decent hifi and poor on a crappy car stereo.

As an aside, valve distortion common in '50s-'70s recordings is easy to replicate these days, and is quite often done so.

good points cheers

old cyrus one amp and equally as old technics turntable with my old heybrook floorstanders

album doors the soft parade

I played a friend a solo piano piece - his first time listening to music through my CD-based hifi. He expressed astonishment that it sounded like the pianist was in the room. It was "Round Midnight" by Thelonius Monk.

He was even more astonished when I told him it was recorded in 1957... 😀

It's your old ears, they can't tell the difference between good and bad these days. 😆

If you examine my post, you'll see that the ears in question did not belong to me. Thanks for your insight, however - despite the bizarre claim to know what my ears can, or can't, hear....

I've just got a 192kHz/24bit FLAC copy of Hotel California from teh original analogue masters through my Naim gear. The sound is frankly astonishing when you listen to it compared to a modern CD I have of teh same

It was something in the air. Man.

Because modern music is absolutely shite. 😉

Edit. Mistaken identity.

Samuir has it

Because you want it to sound better.

In my opinion they master the final recording a lot louder these days, so it sounds great on an ipod etc. but its really tiring on your ears after a while. They also compress everything a lot more which means some of the dynamics is lost, there is just a lot less of the quiet bits that you find on older recordings, everything is just an evenly loud volume throughout the recording.

Apologies to Milkie. I just realised that you were responding to the OP, not having a dig at me.

😳

mrmonkfinger - Member

Utter tosh.

[url= http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091125134655.htm ]utter tosh? - or just a bit of a 'reach' in an attempt to promote an interesting conversation?[/url]

One thing about remastered-to-digital from analogue though, even if it is a decent job - tape hiss...

Can't the tape hiss be electronically cancelled?

Lack of dynamic range in modern recordings explains a lot.

I like that you can hear the bass drum pedal squeaking on Led Zeppelin's 'Since I've been loving you'.

They just don't make 'em like they used to...

[img] [/img]

I like that you can hear the bass drum pedal squeaking on Led Zeppelin's 'Since I've been loving you'.

YES! 😆

Because recordings were made using top quality studios and equipment bands were in the studio for a long time. Above all the engineers were really.... err .......sound
Despite all that I think sound quality isn't a major factor in making a good album.

@ awhiles

Utter tosh in relation to the OP talking about quality recordings, yes.

I suppose the real reason is that the equipment to record high quality sound has been around for a long time, we've [as mentioned] mostly moved away from it as a concern though.

Big fat fast tapes, valves, quality vinyl - they all sound very very good. There was also a huge amount of engineering effort going into the equipment, The UK, the US, Japan and Germany all made some amazing gear then. Now many pop musicians are more concerned with the number of samples and effects they want, and there's a lot of pressure on sound and mix engineers to think primarily of things other than the reproduction of the sound as it is first made/played.

Hell, you can go back more than 40 years. Some early mono LPs sound lovely.

In my opinion they master the final recording a lot louder these days,

Yup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

I would love to join in - but having been informed I need hearing aids, I guess my days of Hi-Fi are behind me, so I can only talk in the past.

Thse days, i can't hear air leaking out of an inner tube!

TBH, music recordings many years ago - some were good, some were bad. If you listen to The Doors stuff, the recording is pretty shoddy, as was Lou Reed's Transformer. The Sex Pistols and Stranglers stuff also seems to have been recorded low fi.
Some stuff is really good ( when I could hear it :() but there is a modern trend to record everything "loud", (in a very spinal tap way, at 11) as in expand the mid range, so that relatively the high highs and low lows end up are less definable.

Also , stuff is being recorded to sound good on the media it is played through - generally iPods.
Several years ago, when I was spending in hi-fi, I linked up my ipod to a musical fidelity amp/ B&W speakers. Comapared to the recording on a CD, the iPod was rubbish in reproducing a good playback. even on Loseless, it wasn't great. Via airplay etc they now sound better (or I can't hear the difference). However , in a plane at 30k meters, who cares.

But vinyl or CD. Sorry purists and luddites - CD every time.

The loudness war has been going on longer than you think

Rock n roll 45s / motown records etc were mastered as "hot" as possible so they would "pop" compared to other records when played on a duke box

when played on a duke box

Obviously, the ears were not royal [i]enough[/i].

No compression? Have you been listening to vinyl? Most modern CDs seem to be too loud to me (grumble, grumble, youth of today etc etc), with no emphasis on quality as such

grievoustim - Member
The loudness war has been going on longer than you think

Rock n roll 45s / motown records etc were mastered as "hot" as possible so they would "pop" compared to other records when played on a duke box

However they had to live within the limitations of the Delivery medium. Vinyl can only take so much before it's unplayable. Digital sadly does not have this limit, it can however only take so much before it's un-listenable. The powers that be are pushing mastering engineers to hard clip and compress to the point that modern media has no dynamic range. The Recordings do have the Dynamic range it's the final product that is failing us here!

For the digital is better argument. It has it's benefits and they are many, however the recording industry as a whole is full of software trying to emulate vintage mixing desks, EQ's, Compressors, Tape machines. Some of it very good and some not. So there is something to be said for the mojo of the less than perfect Analogue world.

To say that old recordings were executed with more care or skill than modern ones is just wrong. A skilled engineer is a skilled engineer no matter what the era or genre they work in.

Californication might be the one - I hardly listen to it for that reason, which is a shame because I like it a lot.

Californication on CD is gash

Californication mastered for LP 8)

hmmm... How does it sound if you copy it to a PC at 24bit? It would seem fair to me that as I have bought the CD I should be able to have a good copy....

[img] [/img]

Californication [s]on CD[/s] is gash

FTFY, etc.

How does it sound if you copy it to a PC at 24bit?

1 Seeing as a CD is 16 bit, using 24 bit is pointless.
2 It will sound exactly the same.

Unfortunately, you can't "fix" the dynamic range problems of a recording by playing it back on a different medium - you need to go back into the studio with all the separate parts and make a new master...

IMO modern productions, generally;

if its mainstream getting played to radio 1 listeners, its being aimed at car stereos, and is mastered hot with very little dynamics; if its yoof music, its aimed at ipods with turd quality dr dre brand headphones, and is mastered hot with very little dynamics

find music outside those markets, and you stick a fair chance of finding decent recordings that have a good range

Are you expecting George Martin or [url= http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/beatles-engineer-geoff-emerick-on-abbey-road-219542 ]Geoff Emerick[/url] to be a STW forum users? Suggest you start with there books for starters, good read.

I don't think equippment was better quality in the old days. But hi-fi was the thing to aim for back then, whereas now it's popular ipod listening.

A quality analogue recording will hold all the same data as a quality digital recording

I bet it won't, not these days. I bet the frequency range of modern equippment is greater than 60s or 70s stuff.

No mrmonkfinger, I don't want him to copy a CD to the PC, good grief.

I was asking if he could run me a copy, at 24/96 of the Vinyl if I send a memory stick.

C'mon 🙄 vs 😆

I bet it won't, not these days. I bet the frequency range of modern equippment is greater than 60s or 70s stuff.

is that extra data needed? questionable, I'd say.

@gofasterstripes, sorry, I was having a bit of a special moment there!