Why do albums recored in the seventies sound better?

[Rarebird]

Isn't that the one where the operators can generate other waveforms besides just sine waves? I was always curious about that one.

Yes, that's the one.

[BravadoNJ]

in the 70's, many artists focused more on the recording side of music. it was the decade that spawned attention to producers and engineers.

[rcarlberg]

One reason drums may have sounded "better" in the seventies, I will speculate, is distortion. Analog tape distorts with a unique waveshape which is immediately audible if you know to look for it. Digital overdrive, and analog/digital underdrive where the signal ISN'T driven into distortion, sound completely different.

Incidentally -- related but not directly applicable -- if you look at the waveforms on those early Delos CDs that say "Warning: Extremely High Sound Levels" (like their recording of the 1812 Overture (with cannons) or Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite (with thunder), those waveforms are totally distorted at their peak. That's why they sound incredibly powerful even at low volumes: because the distortion is "built-in."

It was the same with a lot of 1970s drums.

[StevegSr]

Zeppelin 4 doesnt sound good.
Unless you have a pressing/mix/mastering I have never heard, I would say its the worst sounding of all their albums.
IMO II and Houses of the Holy are the best sounding. Zeppelin 4 was recorded in the same studio as Aqualung, which also sounds pretty bad.

I dont think albums of the seventies sounds better. Some does, some dont.

I missed this one. (So much to do, so little time.)



Not quite the same studios. Zep 4 was recorded in the basement of the newly opened Island studios, which was a reconverted old church and had decent acoustics. Aqualung, well most of it, was recorded in the old church proper, which was the ground floor and had terrible acoustics that took a few years to sort out. Zep 4 sounds good and Page knew had to record drums from doing session work with Donovan producer Micky Most. (Just listen to the drums in Hurdy Gurdy Man and a familiar sound will soon be apparent.)

The Aqualung title track, by contrast, was cold and distant sounding. But I feel that it helps to convey the bleak image of the Aqualung character and his plight. Warmer sounding songs like Wondering Aloud were recorded in the basement when Zep were busy elsewhere.

[JJ88]

It's the high level of artifice on certain 80s records which I can't stomach- that huge reverb, the instruments jumping out of the mix etc.- and I find some of those keyboard/drum sounds to be aural abominations. Sad to say a lot of older rock stars really went for it, as if to make themselves seem more 'trendy'.

[Sputnik]

One reason drums may have sounded "better" in the seventies, I will speculate, is distortion. Analog tape distorts with a unique waveshape which is immediately audible if you know to look for it. Digital overdrive, and analog/digital underdrive where the signal ISN'T driven into distortion, sound completely different...

Maybe. But a lot of 80s stuff was recorded to tape. Tape was still prevalent in the early 1990s for pro recordings, so I don't think it's simply a question of "digital versus analog."

More important to the drum sound I think was the playing style/approach and the effects that were used, like reverb (including gated reverb) and compression. Both effects existed in the 70s, but were used very differently in the 80s. A good example of this is Kenso's Sparta album, where they were able to "back out" a lot of the gated, heavy reverb of the original release to get a more natural sound on the re-release, Sparta Naked. If you have the original multi-tracks, you could probably do an 80s mix of any of your 70s faves; utterly ruining them in the process.

But the point is that I don't think it's so much the source recording as the after production that mostly defines the "80s sound."

Bill

[Fracktured]

I think the digital age also changed the approach that producers had towards the sound of the finished product.

[StevegSr]

I thought Led Zep 4 was recorded at Headley Grange, a big old house that Zep (and a few other bands, I think) used as a studio on various occasions. I always had the understanding, for instance, that big drum sound at the beginning of When The Levee Breaks was recorded in the main hallway of the house, with the mics hanging from a balcony overlooking the front door of the house. Or something like that.

Half and half, my friend. Half of the initial recording for Zep 4 was done at Island studios and the second half were done with a mobile unit at Headley Grange. And I have it on good authority that a few rhythm tracks were done on both the east and west coast of the US while Zep was touring as it was a common occurrence for them along with every other sixties mega band.

[StevegSr]

Maybe. But a lot of 80s stuff was recorded to tape..

But the point is that I don't think it's so much the source recording as the after production that mostly defines the "80s sound."

Bill

You're on the right track. A lot of the seventies sound had to do with the actual album EQing and mastering prior to pressing. This was once an individual art of the mastering engineer or "lacquer cutters" as they were called. In the eighties, EQing and mastering became a one size fits all and it's stayed that way ever since.

[Facelift]

I'm too biased to answer this question, but I'm cheeky enough to ask it. Why do all of the great albums from the seventies such as Zeppelin 4, And Then Their Were Three from Genesis and TAAB by Tull, as examples, sound so much better than many albums recorded in the eighties?

ATTWT is poorly engineered and doesn't sound very good at all. I don't know why you made that as an example.

The recordings made today have the ability to sound much better than the recordings of the '70s. However, due to factors such as budgetary constraints and compression/loudness, they often do not.

The '70s sweet spot was more like 1973-1976 anyway; not the whole decade, IMO.

[StevegSr]

I'd like to know how a great sounding recording from the 70's gets transferred onto CD and sounds like shit.

Poor "remastering", the lack of decent first or second generation source tapes, or "masters" if you like, and the total lack of adequate digital sound restoration, which costs a lot of money for the CD company but is essential for modern sound reproduction.

[Jerjo]

There were some decent recordings in the 80s but man, there was a lot of suck. As others have noted, a lot of it had to do with the drums and keys. If you cut your teeth in the age of album rock, those gated drums and tinny synths sound pretty hollow. Bass wasn't much better in that decade either (get any Rush fan started on Ged's bass tones in the 80s). Then you had atrocities like Metallica's ..AJFA, their greatest performance reduced to a shrill, dry, tinny recording. In fact, a lot of hard rock/metal from that era sounds processed.

Someone blamed Billy Squier and that was where a lot of hair metal took it cue. "The Big Beat" and "The Stroke" pretty much were the template for Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and the rest of that ilk. Just try to listen to one of those big Def Leppard albums now and that sound is so processed, so drained of anything organic and it was insanely popular. It took the grunge and indie bands of the early 90s to wrestle the sound back to something a little more natural sounding. First time I heard Soundgarden I thought, "wow, someone is actually taking production cues from Sabbath again".

[StevegSr]

ATTWT is poorly engineered and doesn't sound very good at all.

LOL

Sorry. I was thinking of Eddie Offord trying to pull off the opposing vari speeds of Deep In the Motherlode and it's impossible.

[The Dark Elf]

I missed this one. (So much to do, so little time.)



Not quite the same studios. Zep 4 was recorded in the basement of the newly opened Island studios, which was a reconverted old church and had decent acoustics. Aqualung, well most of it, was recorded in the old church proper, which was the ground floor and had terrible acoustics that took a few years to sort out. Zep 4 sounds good and Page knew had to record drums from doing session work with Donovan producer Micky Most. (Just listen to the drums in Hurdy Gurdy Man and a familiar sound will soon be apparent.)

The Aqualung title track, by contrast, was cold and distant sounding. But I feel that it helps to convey the bleak image of the Aqualung character and his plight. Warmer sounding songs like Wondering Aloud were recorded in the basement when Zep were busy elsewhere.

What's really remarkable, and as far as I'm concerned more important than the actual recording process, is that two landmark albums, Zep 4 and Aqualung, were laid down concurrently in the same studio on the same days. That amazing albums like these could come out in parallel is what makes the 70s far and away better than the 80s. You could of used tin cans and strings instead of microphones and the albums would still be better than most of the dreck released in the 80s.

[TheLoony]

Same thing with synths. Oh you want that synth sound Eddie Van Halen used in Jump? It just so happens he admitted in Guitar Player he "didn't have time to look for sounds" so he just used one of the stock patches on the Oberheim OB-Xa.

Had to stop reading there.

You can hear the exact same piece on Van Halen's 1984(the song, the intro to Jump) and on Rainbow's Bent Out Of Shape -Fire Dance, IIRC, is the tune. So very obvious to anyone who heard both. But both bands were kind of phoning it in at that time so that's not really surprising. Even my stupid ass, with almost no knowledge of how records were made, knew it was some pre programmed thing.

[GuitarGeek]

Half and half, my friend. Half of the initial recording for Zep 4 was done at Island studios and the second half were done with a mobile unit at Headley Grange. And I have it on good authority that a few rhythm tracks were done on both the east and west coast of the US while Zep was touring as it was a common occurrence for them along with every other sixties mega band.

Yeah, I recall reading that Led Zeppelin II was recorded in several different studios, while the band was touring behind the first album.

[Trane]

Someone blamed Billy Squier and that was where a lot of hair metal took it cue. "The Big Beat" and "The Stroke" pretty much were the template for Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and the rest of that ilk. Just try to listen to one of those big Def Leppard albums now and that sound is so processed, so drained of anything organic and it was insanely popular. It took the grunge and indie bands of the early 90s to wrestle the sound back to something a little more natural sounding. First time I heard Soundgarden I thought, "wow, someone is actually taking production cues from Sabbath again".

I was the one pointing to Squier, but if it was obvious Leppard and Anchiovi, I don't notice it nearly as much for Metallica (though I've never heard a full album.

I'd say that a good part of NWOBHMB did escape this "80's trend" at first (Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, Motorhead), but most US metal bands (including the Hair Metal bands) fell deeply into it... But they came to prominence from 85 onwards.

Poor "remastering", the lack of decent first or second generation source tapes, or "masters" if you like, and the total lack of adequate digital sound restoration, which costs a lot of money for the CD company but is essential for modern sound reproduction.

But that's what we were saying: if you take a "fairly" clean but used vinyl and use no effect or no-noise and burn a CD-r , you get a superior result... So I suspect the insdustry was doing something more than I did... OK, I did my CDr compilations some 15 years after the industry released their first geberation reissues, so technology had improved (though loudness wars were raging by then)

[GuitarGeek]

. If you have the original multi-tracks, you could probably do an 80s mix of any of your 70s faves; utterly ruining them in the process.

Queen pretty much did that on the CD's that Hollywood Records put out in the 90's. The bonus tracks were mostly remixes of the singles off the given album, and the majority of them, are just things where they dumped a bunch of 80's style reverb on the drums and guitars. The songs sound almost exactly the same, but they sound they were recorded in 1987 instead of 1977.

[GuitarGeek]

Just try to listen to one of those big Def Leppard albums now and that sound is so processed, so drained of anything organic and it was insanely popular. .

Certainly on Pyromania and Hysteria, I would agree with you, vis-a-vis the "drained" and "processed" sound. Even on Pyromania the drums are largely being done using the Fairlight and drum machines, and that was before Rick Allen lost his arm in an accident.

I think the other thing about those two records is, they had this...I don't want to call him an idiot because he's obviously very successful so he must be doing something right, but Mutt Lange "instincts" as a producer I think run contrary to what's needed for rock music. All the guys in the band always talk about how Lange make them do stuff again and again and again, even if the take was perfect, he'd want another take.

And the thing is, a lot of those songs are actually really really good. It's too bad they couldn't have done songs like Stagefright, Photograph or Gods Of War with a decidedly more organic approach to production.

I remember about 12 years ago, when Doyle Bramhall II released his Welcome album, he announced in the liner notes that he hadn't used Pro-Tools at all while recording it. And it's a good organic sounding record. They did the basic tracks with the entire band int he studio together, with him doing the lead vocals live too. I think he said there was a certain amount of overdubbing, but there were no click tracks or any of the kind of computerized futzing around that sucks the life out of so many records these days.

Another comment I remember Steve Lukather making some years back, when he was asked about what he thought of the state of rock music. Commenting on the quantized/autotuned aspect of recording, he said "NOBODY plays that perfectly in time, and NOBODY sings that perfectly in tune".

Or as Frank Marino once said (and as I used to quote in one of my old signatures), "Rock n roll is the art of imperfection".

[grego]

There could be a number of reasons you like the sound of 70s recordings over 80s recordings. Probably the number one reason for me is the drums, both in terms of recording and production techniques (the big gated snare, the canon-like toms, etc.) and the actual performances. Drumming got very streamlined in the 80s, particularly among the big name proggy bands, focused much more on keeping the beat than ebbing and flowing in a dynamic way with the more dynamic music. As a result, I think the music became more sterile sounding, less "warm."

I was listening to Time's Up by Living Colour the other day, an album I like very much, but man those drums just sound awful to me. The snare is totally overpowering. Compare that to Bonham's snare which sits beautifully in the mix and where you can actually hear the subtlety of his playing.

Drumming wasn't the only factor, but I think it was a big factor, and was one of the biggest sonic changes from the 70s to the 80s.

Bill

I absolutely agree with your point, Bill. It was non acceptable, to hear the drum beat recorded louder than anything. But that earmarked drum sound was derived to rock from disco, I believe. Since late 70s producers tried to cook up a fresher, new sound. This evolved to a trend of loud drums. I remember, in the early 80s big drums was a standard feature.

[No Pride]

Don't forget the Rockman that damn near every guitarist used in the mid 80's.

Myself included. I never used it live, but I've recorded with it. I was never crazy about the distortion sound, but I've yet to hear a compressor pedal that sounds better than one of those two "clean" settings on the Rockman.

[GuitarGeek]

I absolutely agree with your point, Bill. It was non acceptable, to hear the drum beat recorded louder than anything. But that earmarked drum sound was derived to rock from disco, I believe. Since late 70s producers tried to cook up a fresher, new sound. This evolved to a trend of loud drums. I remember, in the early 80s big drums was a standard feature.

"Big drums"? You mean like In The Air Tonight?

So it's true. Phil Collins really did ruin all of popular music, huh?

[nosebone]

The 80s were the early digital age.

Early digital sounds bad, and there are 1000s of records to prove it.

I had a Yamaha rev 7 and a Yamaha spx90 in my guitar rack along with a lot of other digital crap.

But everyone was using this gear, thinking it sounded great.

Who knew?

[Trane]

"Big drums"? You mean like In The Air Tonight?

So it's true. Phil Collins really did ruin all of popular music, huh?

it's been about 20 years since I heard this track (or at least listened/paid attention to it), but I'm not sure it (track) has that gated drum flaw as it dates from 80/81... Though most likely its success certainly helped the 80's drum dominance to come

[Rick Robson]

Isn't it that Phil Collins was from the 70's drummers school?
I mean, as far as I remember he at least didn't allow the drumming sound like those Ktel disco beat sounded.