Aural Artistry

Arts & Entertainment
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I’ve been thinking about starting this thread for a few days, and am wanting to gauge interest in it. In the non-pol hot takes thread an interesting discussion got underway related to Nirvana that a few people might have liked to build on in another place.

If that’s the case, maybe something can be started here. This is a place where it would be potentially fun to discuss the nuts and bolts of music production or any other kind of production (movies/TV/whatever) that goes into building what the experience of a song or anything else is for the audience.

Most people in the world have no clue what sound people do, and it is by far the most subjective of the arts. If you put the same song in front 10 different people, you’ll get 10 radically different mixes, and that’s the beauty of sound.

If there is interest in this topic, I’m willing to do one thing, but I have to do it cautiously and anonymously. I’ll be posting things to listen to, but I won’t be identifying it, and will appreciate no one trying to identify the material. I do not have permission to do this (probably could get it but don’t feel like reaching out about it), and that’s why it needs to stay essentially ‘secret’ (no names posted on songs on YouTube or who the artist is etc. and I might even make the videos unlisted).

For the first thing I’m willing to do if there is interest, I’ll remix a song I worked on that was never released in the form I created. It’s from several years ago, and was released in a different form as a single for an album that was never released. Some of the things we talked about in the other thread were things like intent, tone, feel, etc. I described the keys to what I consider to be a successfully produced song from demo to final record (capturing the essence of the band, the essence of the song, and bringing the song up to its full potential as recorded or via producing).

If I post this song, it will be a work in progress of trying to do all of those things. I will only be mixing the instrumental version of the song, and will be posting it in pieces so you can get an idea of my work progression/style. I’ll be willing to answer any questions about process, and will be open to criticism on the work as well. The song is an excellent example of something where my vision absolutely did not match the artist’s vision, and I’m quite confident the artist was wrong about which way was better (the label agreed with me, without ever hearing my version, based on the record never being released). I think it’s quite possibly the best song the artist ever wrote, but the artist was never willing to let the song live as what the artist produced in the recording. It’s that allergy to success I mentioned in the other thread, and if I eventually post what was released, what I mean will be really clear.

Enough about me and what I’m planning for this thread. If any of you want to have any in depth discussions about any of this kind of stuff, or want to use it as an avenue to post your own work for analysis, I’m all for that, and can also contribute honest feedback if desired. Be ready for harsh criticism if you dare, but I would only present it in a way that helps you and is not meant to tear you down.

For me, this thread is never going to be about the actual songwriting quality or whether I like any songs, and is always intended to be about production (if you ever want to do this for a living, you have to give your best effort for stuff you hate on continuous repeat, so it’s best to learn that now).

We’re in a time in the industry (post/music) where knowledge isn’t being passed down via traditional avenues and everyone’s doing whatever they want with no guidance. It leads to a lot of crappy work. I’m no great music mixer as far as I know, but I’m competent, and probably a bit above average especially for the genres I’ve worked in. I certainly am good enough to help solve problems, and on anything other than music I’m on a much higher level than that.

Is this of interest? If so, start posting, and we’ll get going.

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So you’re telling me all of these knobs actually do something?

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Would NeverMind have been better if it had been produced by Jimmy Miller? Glyn Johns?

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I don’t follow who most producers are so you’re going to have to link to work you want me to compare if you’re not joking.

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Best-era Stones and Who producers, respectively.

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Sometimes when I would show people rooms at places I’d work, they’d be like ‘wow, you know how to use all of that? It looks like a rocket ship.’ I’d tell them that you just have to know how to use two sections, the middle part and one ‘row’ (plus the patch bay in the old days). I love breaking down the mystery, when most audio people like to continue to present it all as black magic.

In my current set up I use exactly one fader, and it’s pretty much all I need, though I would like to one day get the Pro Tools Dock as it was something I asked Avid to make years ago…lol.

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It’s hard to say what they’d do with something like that. Did they work in the 80s or 90s on anything? That would give you a better idea of where their personal sound progression went. A lot of people’s sounds ‘age up’ when they get older. Keeping that sound or sound vision you had when you were young is difficult for a lot of people. I think I still have it, but I could be wrong.

It’s very hard to know what a 60s producer would do with 80s or 90s technology. A lot of those old school producers liked to go with what they knew, which meant they antiquated their sound a lot. I don’t listen to any Rolling Stones or The Who songs and say ‘wow, that holds up really well today’ (I’d be happy to listen to some examples where you think they do). You can tell by the recording techniques where their limitations were, and it was almost never going to be from microphones, it was always going to be tape and record player capabilities.

Still, link a couple of songs that would give me an impression of their best work, and I’ll tell you whether I think their style could move forward into that era. Also, link me to anything they might have done that you think is good from the 80s or 90s if they were still working then. I do think choosing those bands as comparisons are good because they’re 3 piece bands like Nirvana (Jagger only sang on early Stones right?).

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The Who were always 4 piece, the Stones went from 5 to 4 in the late 60s and have stayed as a 4 piece since (though added regular players in recording sessions).

Two with very different production values - the first with a classic 70s rock sound, the second with more of a live bar sound from the later producer of Screamadelica.

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Here’s an official stereo version of 5:15, as the version you posted is mono:

I’m not commenting on the songs at all, as that’s obviously not what this is about. I know the early 70s was a transitional period in music recording/mixing techniques (recording probably was similar, but mixing had more latitude), but this sounded very much like it was still done in the 60s. I don’t really understand a lot of the choices made in that song. Stuff is just all over the place in it, half of it seemingly random (you obviously can’t tell this in the mono version you linked to, so it’s possible the mono version is the correct version to listen to, I don’t know anymore).

Rip This Joint also seems like it was mixed in the 60s, with a 1972 date.

I did some research into each’s discography and to your question at hand, I think if you held a gun to Cobain’s head and said choose one, he’d probably say ‘pull the trigger’ (too soon?). I think if he had to choose he would probably choose Jimmy Miller, because of the grunginess of his sound. What I noticed going through his discography is that he really didn’t change how he did things, the technology just got ‘better’ which I think uncovered a lot of his flaws (this is referencing Motorhead and The Plasmatics). The Primal Scream stuff has tons of issues, and I almost feel like his ears were completely burnt by that time. While writing this I did just find something that said he did some tracks for a band called The Wedding Present shortly before he died. If these are his, I think they are actually pretty modern sounding for that era and don’t seem to show any rust of note like the Primal Scream record did. As an FYI, Boing! was totally redone to sound like a noise band, so his sound apparently didn’t appeal to them.

Boing! (7" single not great vinyl recording but enough to tell you what he did):

Flying Saucer:

Theme from Shaft:

The problem is that he tilts a bit toward cheese here, but not terribly so for this era. The production seems good overall. These are guesses knowing he did three songs for them, and that the rest of what they did in the single bombing Hit Parade 2 sounded a lot different. I think he did the first single, and then the Boing! single and its accompanying b-side.

I think the Midnight Oil album is about as close in genre as you can get to Nirvana in his discography. I read in his discography that he had a proprietary drum technique he liked to use. Back in the 60s that would have been a fine technique, but it really hurts the songs the further along the era gets as drum sounds get more and more immediate.

I think his discography shows that he can work in a wide range of styles successfully without any real personal style imprint other than those dam drums. I listened to every era through Band of Horses. I think the Band of Horses album is the closest thing you will hear to what he might have done with something like Nirvana, but it still has that distant room drum sound, especially for the snare. If he were producing, I think he might have tilted toward what you hear in Band of Horses. If he were just mixing, he might have done something appealing with Nevermind. It’s hard to say. I think that Band of Horses style might have somewhat appealed to Cobain, but I think he would have had to dial the style in it back by half to get away with it with Cobain and the record label.

Short answer to your question is that I think Johns would probably do the best work with Nirvana, but I don’t think he’s right for Nirvana (his stamps on drums are easily as noticeable as Albini’s). I think Jimmy Miller is more right for Nirvana, but his quality in that era wasn’t where it needed to be for that record to have been successful and/or it would have come across as slightly cheesy.

I think Miller might have relegated them to obscurity with his grunge sound or made them a very poppy group depending on what style he used (going off The Wedding Present record), and I think Cobain might have thought Johns was too poppy to even get hired. I would probably say that if Johns mixed Vig’s producing (like Andy Wallace) there might have been very interesting results.

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Interesting.Glyn Johns worked with mainly non pop bands:

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I just realized that I left out a key piece of info here. The Midnight Oil paragraph and the one following was about Johns, and not Miller and that’s where a lot of info about him from my perspective lives. You might have gotten that, but I just wanted to clarify that now.

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Is Masego faking it?

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lol, need a lot more detail.

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What exactly are you wondering if he’s faking?

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Just a question. Have you heard of BT (Brian Transeau)?

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Yes, familiar with some of his older stuff (2000 era).

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when i think of mixing boards like giant ones and major production values with bigshot music producers, i only think of

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have you ever been in a recording studio setting up and suddenly the biggest A-list hollywood celebrity in the world walks in cool as hell and within one minute starts belting out possibly the greatest song of all time? such a transcendently amazing piece of aural artistry that a 30-year music legend is jumping up and down in the booth and FREAKING OUT at how perfectly everything is falling together on this track? probably not. i imagine it’s really rare, so i’m glad they filmed it

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That video manages to make the recording seem super low budget and super high budget at the same time. They never show shots long enough, but it looks like the console is some sort of Neve. Almost every piece of gear you see in that video is now available as a computer plug-in, including the tape machine emulation.

He’s singing on a Sennheiser 421, which is a very odd choice of microphone for a singer. It can be done, but it’s not what’s typically used and I doubt he used that in the actual recording. They also would never be in the studio that way on a synth record…lol.

I liked Rick James randomly grabbing a knob and barely adjusting it. I almost thought he went to the volume knob and turned it off and had to double check. I hear this song gets a really bad rap, but the production sounds tight on my laptop, something you pretty much always expect from Rick James.