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AUDIO FORUMS >> Music >> I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
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Message started by Dana on 03/18/19 at 18:49:00

Title: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Dana on 03/18/19 at 18:49:00

I’m experiencing an Aha Moment that I’ve been searching for new music all wrong.
First recordings are not just lies but damn lies (statistically speaking). My favorite albums really only exist as recordings and never could be reproduced as live performances. That “sound” I’m looking for with depth, dynamics and realism are actually just snippets stitched together by a master craftsman. Imaging is an illusion convincing but the not actually based on the position of the artist when the recording was made.

When did this aha moment occur you ask…? I’m constantly looking for that musical experience. You know the one where the all the components come together and you’re transported into another state of existence. On one of the many audio forums I read they asked what songs do you play to show off your stereo components? As a stereo salesman in a life long ago this posting intrigued me and since I’m always looking for more music that helps me justify my stereo habit I clicked the link. One of the repeated suggestions was a selection on the Shelby Lynn album Just a little Lovin’. Thanks to technology I was able to listen to album and they are correct it sounded great but why that one? With a little research I found out it was engineered by Al Schmitt. I also learned that every year the Grammys have a category for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical (thanks Wikipedia). Since 1962 Al Schmitt has had 29 submissions including some of my out of body experiences Steely Dan Aja and FM (No Static at All). Also Al Schmitt has engineered the albums of Natalie Cole, Diana Krall, Toto, Dr. John, Melody Gardot and Ray Charles which were all nominated for best engineered albums.

Another example is Danny Kopelson who wasn’t nominated but was the engineer for Casandra Wilson, The Be Good Tanyas , Holly Cole, Liz Wright, Bill Evans and Art Pepper.

So now I’m using the Discogs search function and selecting technical contributions. Going to Discogs and searching for Al Schmitt there are 702 technical entries. So what I’ve discovered is that there are hidden gems of information that could help point me to toward the next great find. With so much great music available finding next “it album” could be as simple as looking who engineered the special album you hold so dear and finding out what else they created.

For me my first example was the Natalie Cole Stardust album. Wow

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Lon on 03/18/19 at 19:22:19

That's interesting Dana. I have a very different sort of music I'm enjoying I guess, and music made in a different way.

In my youth albums like Aja and other studio produced rock albums enthralled me but I rarely listen to anything like that these days. I did a little bit of recording myself and have an idea of the skill and equipment needed to make those kind of recordings.

Honestly though I think I prefer recordings made BEFORE the 'Seventies and that sort of big studio engineering, and I am drawn to recordings that are much more simply engineered. For example live recordings done with just one to half a dozen microphones. Even one microphone stereo or mono recordings done live or "live in the studio."

To me some of the greatest recordings were made in label studios in the 'Fifties such as the Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington et al recordings for Columbia. These recordings played back on the original vinyl are amazing! As are for example many of the "RCA Living Stereo" recordings, "Mercury Living Presence," MGM and Clef and Verve label recordings, etc. And when I do look for recordings by engineer it's recordings by someone like Rudy Van Gelder. Van Gelder began recording in the mid-fifties by building his own equipment and recording in his parent's living room while working as an optometrist. Some of the very best recordings he made were made there for labels such as Prestige, New Jazz, Blue Note and Savoy. At the close of that decade he had a studio built to his specifications in a stand-alone building in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, and he recorded there until a few years ago. Although he was pretty secretive about his methods he basically recorded live with all players in one space, no to very little editing or over-dubbing, mixing live as the recording progressed. This type of recording gives an immediate and realistic sound that I look for and crave.

I listen more for the honesty of the recording and the performance than "spectacular sound" I guess. . . though I consider an honest and direct recorded product played back actually as "spectacular sound."

What is so cool about Decware equipment is it brings us closer to the recorded event and whatever type of recording we love we can really enjoy it.

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Dana on 03/18/19 at 20:48:48

Yeah, not a lot of new Miles Davis albums coming out but you should try

Fred Plaut https://www.discogs.com/artist/384857-Fred-Plaut?filter_anv=0&subtype=Technical&type=Credits

268 technical entries. I suspect you own most of them but they're new to me and it helps build my a playlist.

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Lon on 03/18/19 at 21:34:11

I'm very familiar with Fred Plaut! That's what I was talking about, the 30th Street Columbia Studio recordings, Plaut was one of the engineers there in the late period and later for many many recordings in subsequent studios. And also was a location engineer for live recordings. I'm glad you are checking recordings he worked on out.

I just looked and Rudy Van Gelder has over 28,000 entries! A long career, and on his own terms for the most part.

I'm not looking for "new music" the way you are. I don't make playlists, don't have anything to play a list on. I have a narrower focus as singer-songwriters and rock and pop of the 'eighties on just don't excite me. I still find new music while discussing music on music boards and just looking at players and composers etc. I already know, building on foundations I have. And I have a troublingly big library of my own to browse. We're on different paths, and I think we like different music. And that's great! To each their own, one of the wonderful things in life is finding your own and owning it.

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by mark58 on 03/18/19 at 22:12:25

Hey Dana, I hadn't heard of Fred Plaut but am familiar with his work apparently. I have pretty much every Jazz Recording he was involved with...Mingus, Ellington, Monk, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, JJ Johnson...they are all good if you haven't heard them yet. Lon and I are into the 50's and 60's Jazz pretty heavy. I'm sure I have a lot of the Classical albums too but haven't listened to them in years.

I seem to be narrowing my listening to Musicians known to me and haven't been doing much buying lately. I do buy any One Oclock or Two o'clock lab band CDs or LPs that come up on ebay at reasonable prices...love their Big Band offerings.

I do try to add new...or should I say new to me artists in my Spotify library so when I'm streaming with the computer, I can explore. I haven't done this in a while though. I have been adding some of your posted artists and of course some of Lon's too. If you are able to stream the Blue Note Jazz from the 50's and 60's, that'd be a great adventure. Those albums were usually directly recorded to two tracks...very simple...most by Rudy Van Gelder. I could spend the rest of my life just listening to those.

Anyway, search and listen any way that floats your boat. I've spent countless hours just wandering from track to track on youtube...I call them my Musical Adventures. I never know where they'll take me. Mark

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Dana on 03/19/19 at 03:29:51

I'm more team Joni Mitchell than team Miles Davis so it makes sense that this method of discovery might not appeal to everyone.

Interesting fact. (to me anyway)
Henry Lewy who engineered the Joni Mitchel albums also engineered
Joe Cocker
Crazy Horse
Charles Lloyd
Flying Burrito Brothers
The Ventures
& The Monkeys

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Geno on 03/19/19 at 12:29:26

Guys, Are you familiar with the recordings that sound engineer Roy Dunann made with Contemporary Records? He came to Contemporary from Capitol and made some of the best sounding recordings ever. Only a short period from the late 50’s to the early 60’s. He recorded the likes of Shelly Manne, Art Pepper, etc. The best and most natural recording I’ve ever heard was his recording of Sonny Rollins - Way Out West. When I first put this record on, I was gobsmacked!

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by mark58 on 03/19/19 at 13:27:12

Dana, I'm a huge fan of Joni Mitchell, that may be an understatement. I have all the Asylum albums...probably most of the others. I have the Neil Young albums Lewy did and some Joe Cocker too. I hate to admit it but I have those early Monkees albums from when I was 8 or 9yo...

Geno, Art Pepper is one of my top 5 favorites and I have multiples of those Contemporary albums as well as those of other artists...good stuff...

PS...I looked at what I listened to yesterday and two of the few were engineered/produced by the above discussed Engineers.

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Lon on 03/19/19 at 13:56:58

Geno wrote on 03/19/19 at 12:29:26:

I'm familiar with Contemporary and have most of the label. I'm not quite as enamored of all of Dunann's work as others seem to be but it's solid.

For me it's more about music than engineering . . . I'll listen to crappy recordings to hear excellent music.

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Geno on 03/19/19 at 17:56:57

Mark,

Joni is one of my favorites too. A talent like hers only comes around every 1000 years or so ;)

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Lon on 03/19/19 at 18:53:57

I like Joni a lot. I don't find myself listening to her that much these days. Listened to her a lot when I was a young lonely man.

Now playing
"Helen Sings, Teddy Swings" Helen Merrill with Teddy Wilson, Coalition LP

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Dana on 03/20/19 at 18:32:15

Update to the new searching technique. I listen to a lot of streaming and the credits aren't always readily apparent beyond the performing musicians but https://www.allmusic.com/ has a credits tab that so far has provided the information I need to provide the search criteria. What I've noticed though, is that Disccogs provides more results than the allmusic site.

Happy Hunting

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by mark58 on 03/20/19 at 19:06:36

I use both those sites. I'm listening to spotify and youtube today listening to new things. I finally got around to listening to Jose James...this one now. Really like his voice but some tracks on other albums where he goes a bit hip hop or rap...aren't my cup o tea :)

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Lon on 03/20/19 at 19:53:20

I like all of them to be honest. . . he's got a great spin on all the genres, rarely is a fellow so good at spanning them!

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Dana on 03/22/19 at 20:14:16

https://www.stereophile.com/content/clowns-left-me-jokers-right

Recent article Stereophile magazine

"Unless you're sitting in, say, one of the first five rows at a classical concert, there's no such thing as 'soundstaging.' At concerts, regardless of the hall or numbers of musicians playing,

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Edsonic on 12/05/19 at 08:01:37

"Imaging is an illusion convincing but the not actually based on the position of the artist when the recording was made."

Of course it is. What does it matter? No different than changing two or three seats over to left or right, or two rows back, at a classical music concert, or changing ten rows different beyond the first fifteen at a loud pop/rock/R&B music concert. In the latter instance, sheer SPL completely obliterates any sense of 'imaging' or 'stage depth' to begin with.

If it's a good recording, I can easily imagine myself (with eyes closed) as being at a somewhat different sitting in the audience than the recording microphones, and I'm fine with that, since the result I'm hearing relates so closely to personal real life experience in any case.

Hail, hail! human psycho-acoustics! If Decware or Omega speakers or Zu or Caintuck or others want to 'manipulate' us by such devious means, all I can say is "More power to them!"

Please understand, I am not meaning to carp. I'm just responding to a very good point you brought up. I know that others use the 'replication of where the microphones were' as a gold standard, but from my experience that is just not realistic, even from the best recordings played back through the best gear. All we can do is to get close or closer to the experience of being there, and that's where the 'playback gear' comes in (on our part), which is why so many of us interested in "replication by means of sonic /aural implication of the original experience" have found our way to the Decware site in the first place.

"& The Monkeys"

Oh, you've done it now!

Gonna Buy Me a Dog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY1QLITgJ_A

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Geno on 02/29/20 at 16:52:52

Looking back over this thread, listening to a great recording on a good open baffle set up, I think, places you as close as possible to that perfect listener position. After all, it is not just what’s coming out of your speakers. It is just as much how the room reacts to that sound. An open baffle setup reacts with a room much less than a ‘box’ type speaker. This morning I’ve listened to a few of the classical ‘Mercury Living Presence’ recordings on vinyl (mentioned above by Lon). Very impressive. Hard for me to imagine that it could sound much better. This out of Randy’s original Betsy’s (Alnico) with two 12” driver bass baffles.

Title: Re: I’ve been searching for new music all wrong
Post by Syd on 02/29/20 at 19:55:43