What's the difference between the old prog sound and new prog sound

[Scott Bails]

I can't deny that I like a Retro Prog sound on occasion (if it's done well) but I sometimes wish a lot of these artists would shun the Mellotron sounds no matter how much I might like them. Mellotrons were the samplers of the era and were used because that's the best they had. Those sounds are no longer the best we have but I wonder if that might be the problem. If I can play sampled strings that sound exactly like a string section then what is it I'm producing. Big Band? Third Stream?

I disagree, as a Mellotron never really sounded like strings, or whatever. To me, it always had its own sound, like a digital piano. So, it's like its own instrument.

And I'm not tired of it at all.

I love how Ryo Okumoto uses it in Spock's Beard, for example.

[Splicer]

I disagree, as a Mellotron never really sounded like strings, or whatever. To me, it always had its own sound, like a digital piano. So, it's like its own instrument.

I think the fetishization of the Mellotron is an exercise in nostalgia. I don't know what the classic prog people who used the Mellotron would have done if it was easier to transport and use but I do know from history that as soon as they could drop it, Banks and Wakeman did so.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I think the fetishization of the Mellotron is an exercise in nostalgia.

This instrument was applied by a relatively small percentage of acts playing overall "progressive rock". The question, I suppose, as with all "stereotyped" agrements of sound, like the Hammond organ or the Gibson SG or whatever - is whether some used it more creatively than others.

[progeezer]

You know that's not true Steve. I think that many bands have great compositional skills, and I don't have to spell them out. The problem is that, for the most part, they have all been done before, especially the instrumental parts.

Dave Sr.

A wise man once said, "If you are skilled in yanking people's chains, do not be surprised if, at times, people yank back".

[firth5th]

I disagree, as a Mellotron never really sounded like strings, or whatever. To me, it always had its own sound, like a digital piano.

Or as Geoff Downes put it, it sounds like a bacon slicer.

[Digital_Man]

I enjoy the sound of the mellotron. However, these days there are synth sounds that sound a lot like the mellotron so it probably makes more sense for a band to take advantage of the patches that sound like a tron on a synth rather than use an actual mellotron. I think maybe some bands just want to say they used a real mellotron so it becomes like bragging rights or something for them.

[Progbear]

I never even cared about the Mellotron until around 1993 or so, when I started interfacing with other prog fans and learned how fetishized the instrument was.

I also think it’s disingenuous how people use fake (sampled) Mellotron and credit it as the real thing. Especially when they’re really low-quality samples like those on the E-Mu Classic Keys. Of course, they did that in the 70s too, crediting string synths as Mellotron. Oh yeah, that Elka Rhapsody really sounds like a Mellotron.

-------------
MIKE (a.k.a. "Progbear")

"Siento que debemos saber para el sueño de quién brillará esta luz
o consagrar una propia estrella" --Alberto Felici

N.P.:nothing

[LEG-art]

Obviously technology.

compositional skills...

But compositional, there are very few bands that can compose songs like classic Genesis, Yes, etc. Genesis told stories! They took us to different worlds of wonder, sadness and beauty. Besides the compositional hooks, they also didn't forget melodic riffs, besides their classical inspirations, and fondness of the unique. All of this meshed into something memorable, A lot of new prog bands just care about technique, and for some bands that's great...

[Plasmatopia]

I think the fetishization of the Mellotron is an exercise in nostalgia. I don't know what the classic prog people who used the Mellotron would have done if it was easier to transport and use but I do know from history that as soon as they could drop it, Banks and Wakeman did so.

Exactly. Just like acoustic drums are no longer being used now that electronic kits are available, lol...

[Progmatic]

There's no single "prog sound" - and there never was.

…agreed yet based on my experience I would take it one step further...the prog definition has been evolving, particularly over the past couple of decades...consequently "prog" has been encompassing some other fringe genres that initially were on their own or belonged elsewhere (including more complex classic rock acts, some hard rock music, shades of psychedelic music, independent experimental acts, post rock, punk hybrids, avant-garde, some experimental jazz, even some contemporary "classical" music and so on)...what we call prog by now is a rather complex tree of subgenres very different from what it was in prog hey-days or even in 80s....

[moecurlythanu]

^ That's just revisionist error, not an evolving definition. If you told fans of the genres Prog fans poached those artists from, that said bands are now to be considered as "Prog," they would laugh at you. As well they should.

[Progmatic]

As well they should.

Why?

[Scrotum Scissor]

Why?

Because some people still don't get that Third Ear Band, 10CC, Niemen, Talk Talk, Cabezas de Cera and Orthrelm are all as much and/or little "prog" as that eternal "big six"-wannabe complementary definition which roams about nonsensical assumptions that somehow everything cooked down to a "template" or "sound" - this is the revisionism at play.

And that's why threads on Phil Collins' underpants still draw more partcipants than anything concerning actually creative, current rock-based music.

[TheH]

Because some people still don't get that Third Ear Band, 10CC, Niemen, Talk Talk, Cabezas de Cera and Orthrelm are all as much and/or little "prog" as that eternal "big six"-wannabe complementary definition which roams about nonsensical assumptions that somehow everything cooked down to a "template" or "sound" - this is the revisionism at play.

And that's why threads on Phil Collins' underpants still draw more partcipants than anything concerning actually creative, current rock-based music.

I have to confess that I find listening to Orthrelm more painfull than listening to a dentist drill, but otherwise I would totally agree with you.

[Days Between Stations]

That's great Dave... help me out a bit more.. how is it compostitionally different?

[Days Between Stations]

yes, I agree.... also sounds seemed very processed

[moecurlythanu]

Why?

I can give you a detailed answer, as well as reply to Richard. However, the management of this establishment has in the past exhibited a strong distaste for in-depth discussions about genre designation. So unless one of the Seans indicate that they are OK with it, I'm just going to drop it.

[Days Between Stations]

Thanks for all the amazing answers to my post, I was at a loss....when we got reviewed and interviewed, they said we had a 70's sound on this album, I had no idea what they meant by it. A

s far as the comment about equipment, it’s very true. There is this romantic thing to physically dial in sounds and mic amps, and finding the right guitar. When I worked with members of YES on this record, they seem to just download sounds on-line and then input them through Line 6 and then record. No micing or any of that time consuming elements.
Another element is the recording equipment itself. Protools, or what have you doesn’t have the depth that tape had, which naturally just barely compresses sound. Give it that warmth. Also with Protools you can align off queue parts together, cut and paste and loop. Even change out of tune notes. The older generation did not have this comfort... things were done through meticulous practice and maybe some tape splicing.

Lyrically we still talk about the same topics no?

I guess I’m still at a loss… what is a 70’s prog sound? Rick Wakeman, Peter banks were on our album, but I don’t think it sounds 70’s at all. I mean I can tell the difference between Led Zeppelin, vs. Muse…. But I don’t get how it pertains to Prog. Prog has so many elements that I think make it timeless, so it’s hard for me to pinpoint what they mean.
PS long live the Mellotron

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post

Because some people still don't get that Third Ear Band, 10CC, Niemen, Talk Talk, Cabezas de Cera and Orthrelm are all as much and/or little "prog" as that eternal "big six"-wannabe complementary definition which roams about nonsensical assumptions that somehow everything cooked down to a "template" or "sound" - this is the revisionism at play.

And that's why threads on Phil Collins' underpants still draw more partcipants than anything concerning actually creative, current rock-based music.

I have to confess that I find listening to Orthrelm more painfull than listening to a dentist drill, but otherwise I would totally agree with you.

I'm not familiar with Orthrelm, but as a guy who was into Prog back in the 70s (and also having been in a big city, not rural or suburbia) it was always a much bigger world of musicians doing fun, experimental, capital P Progressive things with Rock. It was never the tiny little pidgeonholed "big 5' or whatever. It was a HUGE movement of musicians of all races and musical backgrounds doing different things with Rock beats. But hey... that was just my experience... and the hundreds of other Prog fans of the mid 70s in NYC.

[Digital_Man]

Yet still nobody addressed the issue I raised about when the old prog became new. For example I don't think you can consider Anglagard's first two albums new anymore and the same thing goes for the first few albums by Dream Theater, Spock's Beard, TFK, Echolyn, etc. I think there's a whole middle period that you can't really ignore. I think as time goes on we can no longer think of anything from the nineties, let alone the eighties as new or modern prog. I mention that because it seems to me that only 70's prog is referred to as old when in fact that is technically no longer the case.

Since we are talking about sound what I said still applies. The synth sounds from the early nineties are certainly not new.

[notallwhowander]

I think the OP may be better off asking bands who managed a real "retro" sound how they managed it. To use my current obsession as an example: the latest Wolf People album, Fain, has a bit of that old-school vibe. What they mention is that they didn't have a lot of effects. From a gear and production point of view, it is a pretty stripped-down album. So using just a little bit of gear is part of capturing that old school thing.

Also, going back to Kim Olesen's inspirational inbreeding, bands like King Crimson and Yes didn't have King Crimson and Yes to reference. They weren't trying to sound prog, they were trying to be progressive. Their is no way to turn back that clock, but you should know if you are trying to bring something from the past forward into the present, or if your are trying say something you've never heard before. Both can be done with integrity, imo.

[DGuitarist]

But compositional, there are very few bands that can compose songs like classic Genesis, Yes, etc. Genesis told stories! They took us to different worlds of wonder, sadness and beauty. Besides the compositional hooks, they also didn't forget melodic riffs, besides their classical inspirations, and fondness of the unique. All of this meshed into something memorable, A lot of new prog bands just care about technique, and for some bands that's great...

I play a lot of old prog in our tribute band. And playing it is an incredibly different way of thinking, and composing music. Someone on another music forum was raving about DT's "Octavarium," and how it was as good as "Close To The Edge," "Supper's Ready," "Tarkus," or other prog epics.

Then I heard it. From what I heard, it was all about technique.
Whereas Yes, and Genesis created multiple parts that built a song, DT seems to create multiple complex parts that still need a song.

It's not really PROG.
It's SHROG. Shred-prog.

And somewhere along the line, shredding on a guitar became prog.
The only guitarist who was really near that level back then was Holdsworth, and he still made it interesting, musically.

Very weird how it all became virtuosoland.
I just enjoyed the songs that many could actually play - but few could actually write.
I do like some of Steven Wilson's material. Never really got into Neal Morse, or the "virtuoso because of god" thang.

Bill

[Plasmatopia]

Very weird how it all became virtuosoland.

What is "it" in this sentence? Prog-rock or Dream Theater? I could agree about DT, not about prog in general.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I can give you a detailed answer

But so could three dozen others here. And it not only depends on definition - but on the power thereof, meaning that unless you possess an overall wealth of knowledge - as in historically scrutinizing such - your answer is determined to fall on dead ground as for your own position, whilst that if you possess that wealth, the message is still unlikely to reach anyone but the ones who possess almost as much.

Progressive rock nowadays? Spare me those pedestrian suspects and give me something like Thinking Plague - indebted to Genesis/Yes on some level most definitely, but moving proportionally way beyond that through first-hand influences from contemporary classical music.

During the 70s they established record labels for "progressive rock", right? And would you believe that they actually released Status Quo's Piledriver on one of them? So let's not kid ourselves about "sound" or those "big eight/nine".

The specific style of Yes, ELP et al. was referred to as "techno-flash" in Melody Maker and Sounds (no pun) mag. That doesn't mean they were any less "progressive", anymore than the Byrds ceased being a rock band when doing Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I have to confess that I find listening to Orthrelm more painfull than listening to a dentist drill

Yes, I agree - although I actually quite like them . But they are the most extreme thing imaginable out there. The point, however, was that their eventual 1972 equivalent would inevitably had its main appeal among the culture of "progressive rock" fans.