something strange I've noticed with most music

Originally posted by ancientfuturist
The OP has a very good point. It's designed to be readily remembered, a stake within your memory as permanent as possible.

Mental triggers... the industry relies upon exploitation of the inner workings of the human mind.

Predominance of rhythm in music follows the decline of society as a whole.

Give me Mozart.

Unfortunately the OP is confusing music with programming. And Mozart isn't without a conspiracy or two either..

www.redicecreations.com...

Originally posted by LucidDreamer85
I'm sorry....Death metal is awful.

Can't they sing instead of yell?

is that any worse than auto-tune ?

ALWAYS playing loud..= no variety = less replay value......at least in my opinion.

That is the most absurd thing I've ever heard.

The vocal chords are just like any other instrument and the death growl is used in accordance to the style there's not a thing wrong with it. If you can't see the "variety" in the Death metal genre that's your own fault for holding such a narrow opinion that all they do is "play loud".


and for whomever said they can't tell what they're singing; some of us understand it just fine. It's just a different style, no worse, no better; simply different.

reply to post by Signals


ROFL ROFL ROFL thanks for giving me a great laugh.

It's wrong to reclassify any style of music based on your personal opinion of it. It's all art, and it all has merit. Popular music, love it or hate it, is called 'popular' because it is aimed at the masses (I won't get into that side of things...).

The production/mastering of any recording may be influenced by market trends rather than the artistic intent of the artist. If you listen to anything from the eighties on the CBS label, you will hear very squashed compression - where even the dynamics are compressed into a homogenized sound. Good for radio, and the market at the time. If you listen to modern rock, the trend is for the compression to deliver very loud recordings. Modern R&B/Pop, auto-tune...
As noted above, this also keeps studio time down and can hide the mistakes that are made by some vocalists. It's all just what the market demands.
Motown? Reverb....
Compare the bass on, say, a Tool album against a Beatles recording. Very, very different. But how would the market have reacted to that aggressive, dynamic bass sound in 1965?

It's all art. How would David Hockney or Lichtenstein have been judged in 17th century Spain?

reply to post by ancientfuturist


It's funny I totally agree, i actually made a rhyme about that:

What does it take to make lyrics
In today's world of no merits
When rappers spit and its clearly
It matters sh* what they message be
They cannot speak about better things
Then a disease that has enter-ed
In all these lyrics venereally
And I am pointing out merely
That what we holding so dearly
To our heart's being smeared sh* on
When retards sing for our attention
Destroying art with intention
Before I start I should mention
That rap is not about fashion
It's for relaying a message
Of what you saying expression
Since when is rap about flashin cars
Cash, bitches and caviar
A mix of lust and aggression in total
Since when does rap has a model?
Sh*, where do i get a template?
"oh, here you go, here's a pamplet"
For what? For wiping my ass with?
Do you know what the word rhyme means?
You think im gonna be fine with
You rhyming **** with ****?
It's da same word, you go figure
It is? Oh lord, how you figure
Well I configure da figure
By mashing buttons w/ vigor
Typing these words on my keyboard
And da word "word" being keyword
It makes you sound like a retard guys
when you make up words to fill in rhymes
When you are rhyming the same word twice
Your weak-a lyrics will not suffice
For any merits not standarized
Are you surprised
your lyrics arent individualized?

more hip hop here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Being a musician, artist and owning my own studio I feel I can give my worthy 2 cents.

Reverb is just the sound of a room or environment after its effected by the source (ie: Vocals, in this case). Music is supposed to bring you somewhere so atmosphere is really important. Reverb is just an ingredient in a mix to help bring out that atmosphere. Hell sometimes it just sounds good so it's thrown on! And whats wrong with that?

I think the bigger issue (though not a conspiracy) is over processing and fake, as in auto tune. Over processing is done in many ways. Some engineers record like 30 or more takes and literally cut out and splice together the best sounding syllables for a take, and than they duplicate the take and throw it to the left and right of the main vocal centered, slightly change the pitch on the duplicates, slightly change its place in the time line for a chorus effect, and then they jam more compressors and limiters, reverbs, distortion, eq filters and other effects on it than you can shake a stick at.

Then theirs auto tune...there's no word to describe how much I detest it. If you can't hit the notes you shouldn't be singing it! But then, their are 2 sides to it. As a musician I hate that performances can be and ARE faked, and that the puppets get the credit and money for a performance they never did. As a consumer, who cares whats done as long as it sounds better?

Now on to the conspiracy side. It's not a conspiracy to get a song stuck in your head. It really helps when your on the radio that the people listening to your song, like and REMEMBER your song so they might buy it, so that you as an artist, in your career can make money so that you can live.

And now I want to address another audio "conspiracy" that keeps popping up to do with frequencies. I know it wasn't brought up in "this" thread, but now I'm started and while in rome, I'd like to get it off my chest. I've seen quite a few times, people suggesting that certain frequencies were being used in music or otherwise being broadcast on the radio to control, influence, any kind of conspiracy related thing to a person. But here's the thing:

A human with perfect ears in general can hear freq's between 20 Hz and 20 Khz (or 20, 000 Hz). Most people fall somewhere close to and inside those ranges with great hearing. Those crappy consumer speakers most people have at home don't come close to those ranges! Hell even most car speakers are garbage! I believe you need like a 12 inch woofer to get down to 20Hz! How many people have a 12 inch woofer on their TV speakers? Computer Speakers? Car Speakers? Surround sound? Boom box? Then again, it wouldn't matter cause theirs nothing hypnotic about the freqs in those ranges, that's the ranges we hear EVERY day with our ears! So MOST people don't even have speakers that can reproduce our regular hearing range, Anything OUTSIDE those ranges ( That can only be felt, and probably CAN effect us mentally) cannot be played back on our consumer speakers, I can't even think of any studio monitors off the top of my head that can reproduce anything beyond 20hz -20Khz, so what good would it do to have those frequencies in a recording anyway? Who are they going to hypnotize?

My last gripe is The "louder" concept. It's not JUST over compression, because their would be lot's of ugly artifact's. No, they cut a lot of the bass frequencies as they take up the most room in a mix, some rolling off as high up as 80hz. Go take a song from before they started the loudness wars (maybe from the 70's-90's) and turn the volume up to match a current recording. You might be astounded to find the older songs sound quality MUCH higher than the current song! Then theirs the fidelity loss with mp3...So, crappy speakers, mp3, over compression, fake performances, 3:30 minute song limitations for radio, cookie cutter melodies and lyrics...Music really has taken a big step back instead of forwards...

End of rant

Sound shaping can elevate or delevate the original sound that a an artist or artists produce.
Martin Hannet who produced Joy Divisions masterpieces "Closer" and "Unknown Pleasures" plus the underated and ignored "movement" by New Order was a spiritual record producer, in as far as he elevated the output to another dimension i that resided inside his creative soul.
The original output from the band members was powerful compelling and dark,uplifting,etheral, evil,heavenly, but he placed a sound brush over their recorded output in th estudio that was his vision.
He manipulated the listener, but that is what all record producers do.
Sadly as the above excellent informative post stated, those nuances are now being negated, and amplified at the same time , they are being commercialised.
I say this for what its worth everyone buy a $1000 dollar music workstation hook it up to your computer create songs, you create.

Originally posted by MasterToker42088
It reminds me of Symphony of Science.
Same effect ?

www.youtube.com...

I prefer the original A Glorious Dawn piece from A Symphony of Science, the one that became a real web sensation, but that one is good too.

As for Autotune, I wouldn't mind it so much if it was just another effect used on the occasional song. It's not even close to the first such use of voice effects to alter voices for popular music.

Back in the 1920's and 1930's people would sing through little megaphones to create a very tinny effect with their voice. In its own time it was all the rage very similar to what auto-tune is like, now. Mr. Show spoofed this with their Monsters of Megaphone skit.

My personal favorite, though are the voice effects used by John Lennon and George Martin in my favorite song ever, The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows. I especially the second verse where they ran Lennon's voice through the Leslie speaker cabinet to create the effect. Lennon had told Martin he wanted his voice to sound like he was singing from a mountain top. They played around with a lot of stuff, but in the end they liked this sound the best. Kind of different than the original intent, but a great sound.

As for Lady Gaga and Beyonce, they don't actually need Autotune, both are very talented singers when they don't use it, but it's part of the popular style now, so they going along with the trend. (Spears...not so talented.)

[edit on 4/22/2010 by LifeInDeath]

Originally posted by areyosicker
It is just the Autotune all these artists use to make up for their lack of talent

That's what I'm thinking as well.

Some time ago on a show here in the UK called, "The Gadget Show", one of the challenges presented to the presenters was to record their own single. One person could use any number of home software while the other had full access to a studio and all that came with it.

Suzy Perry, the one using the studio, was recorded singing her song. When played back, it was truly awful - out of tune, bad pitch, etc. Then the studio recording engineers played it through some spiffy software and presto - her singing was many orders of magnitude better. It was in tune, good pitch, etc.

And that's what I suspect the vast majority of these god awful "music" artists of late do: use clever software to mask their otherwise wee-poor singing talents.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by noonebutme]

reply to post by door_to_anima


Excellent rant. I have been experimenting with my volume leveling software to make CD mixes and instead of compressing and boosting the older songs I'm leaning towards taking down the volume of the newer songs. I'm not sure if it's the way to go. Any thoughts on it?

Autotune or reverb? (not sure how they get confused to be honest).

Look up how to mix a song and you will understand why we use reverb.

reply to post by MasterToker42088

Bruce Dickinson, one of the greatest Metal singers of all time and definitely needs no "Auto-Tune

Gotta agree with that!

Originally posted by felonius
reply to post by fnord

 

Voice modulation.

This crap gets on my nerves. My opinion is that it is more to cover up the inability to carry a tune more than hypnosis.

Now even those without talent can become multi-millionaires!

As a composer who is lucky enough to own a home recording studio I would like to add something here other than the obvious software frequency quantising (auto tune) features used.

When mixing a song, the perfect mix is often where no single element is 100% visible above the rest.

This is to create the compositions form in its totality as opposed to just a collection of sounds playing together.

The use of effects helps go a long long way to achieving this. The most common form of effect is reverb and delay.

For vocals it is often very difficult to make the vocal blend with the music unless there is some form of reverb.

The way you mix effects is by using what’s called a side chain. This is where the source audio is routed through the effect (reverb) then back again onto a new channel. This gives the ability to have two channels - one raw audio and two only effect.

With this kind of setting, it's easy to do some really cool ear candy and make a track sound great.

My biggest beef with the industry currently is that the popular music of today is all about EAR Candy and less about composition.

The best tracks are those that are able to marry good composition with earcandy effects.

If anyone needs any advice on recording music or composition you are more than welcome to u2u me.

All the best,

Korg.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by Korg Trinity]

I thought I would weigh in on this as well. No, I don't see any conspiracy here, just a money-making scheme aimed at the increased urbanization of today's suburban youth. I, like a few others on this thread, am a musician (jazz and session guitar and singer) and I also run a pretty decent little recording setup. The reverb, as you have heard, is only put in for ambience and to be a little more forgiving than mixed down dry vocals. As far as this new autotune phenomenon that seems to be the norm in most pop music nowadays, I guess it has its place. I think where most people get confused is in the difference between "pitch correction" (which I think is an invaluable asset to any studio singer) and "pitch quantization" (the robotic sounding vocal tracks that are so en vogue right now). Pitch correction is simply what it sounds like. If I'm a few cents flat on an A (440Hz), then the software will allow me to stretch the note up to the desired pitch. Where I feel it gets silly, is when you get into the quantification range (i.e. T-Pain, Kesha, insert pop star du jour here). That occurs when the effect pretty much limits each individual note to an exact pitch, removing any and all variation, instead of letting in all of the tiny changes in pitch and the gradual fluctuation between notes that are a normal part of singing. As far as I'm concerned, hey, they're getting paid (not much, more than likely) and if they feel that they can sacrifice their "artistic integrity (hahaha)" for a few extra bucks, let them. I won't buy their records or attend their shows.

2 other things while I have my soapbox:

1. Just because someone doesn't like death metal does not mean that they are stupid or lame. It is such a niche genre that I think people (namely white teenage and early 20's males) believe it makes them unique to listen to some spare band on Metal Blade records named after a demon or disease or piece of Norse Mythology. I really like heavy metal, it's tribal and empowering and great to work out to, but people who are solely metal heads are some of the biggest music snobs out there.

2. It really grinds my gears that rock music in general has been completely disregarded. Granted, there aren't many powerful bands out there and reocrd companies know that they can put out 5 pop or rap acts (and make cash on them) for less than the price 1 rock band. I know because I have done so much freaking session work for those clowns. It pays and I will gladly record a few I-IV-V songs for a paycheck...I guess that puts my "artistic integrity" into question as well haha.

Edited to add this...It's a metal version of a song by the auto-tune princess Kesha...I think it's absolutely insane.

Awesome Metal Version of Tik Tok

[edit on 4/22/10 by SeditiousDissent]

[edit on 4/22/10 by SeditiousDissent]

Originally posted by Korg Trinity

The way you mix effects is by using what’s called a side chain. This is where the source audio is routed through the effect (reverb) then back again onto a new channel. This gives the ability to have two channels - one raw audio and two only effect.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by Korg Trinity]

Korg, I think you are mistaken, sidechaining is when you have the effect on the source channel and have another channel triggering the effect, such as a kick drum ducking a bassline with a compressor on the bass channel as an insert effect.

What you are talking about is send and return or auxiliary channels.

This is a little video I did in regards hypnotic notes.

I don't know if the effect plays so much into things but we are for sure fed the same thing over and over again.



Peace

Originally posted by Frakkerface

Originally posted by Korg Trinity

The way you mix effects is by using what’s called a side chain. This is where the source audio is routed through the effect (reverb) then back again onto a new channel. This gives the ability to have two channels - one raw audio and two only effect.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by Korg Trinity]

Korg, I think you are mistaken, sidechaining is when you have the effect on the source channel and have another channel triggering the effect, such as a kick drum ducking a bassline with a compressor on the bass channel as an insert effect.

What you are talking about is send and return or auxiliary channels.

Actually you are right, my mistake in terminology. In correct terms the side chain for effects are more often than not used for compression, though to be fair I tend to master each track as I record it so normally don't need to worry about clipping.

What I was trying to describe is where the the aux return is patched to a different channel strip on the mixer, so you get a clean channel and a channel with the effect return.

Doing this as opposed to setting the amount of effect (wetness) on the same channel by the return pot, gives you far greater options, such as panning / EQ / soloing etc...

I'm sure you must of heard tracks where the clean sound drops out to a phaser / flange type sound for moment before the clean channels are unmuted.

Actual I have used this technique quite a few times using a reverse reverb on a snare then recording the effect just prior to the actual hit.... Gives a really awesome snare sound.

If you want to hear some of my music you can here.... you need to click on the music, then click the cd cover, then hit play.

The Blue Funk Chronicles

all the best,

Korg.

I wasn't going to reply until I saw Bruce Dickenson mentioned....
(see my avatar) He is my favorite vocalist in the Heavy Metal genre.

Anyway....


I was a bar circuit musician back in the 80's (hard rock/metal/punk of course).

I dont really see this as a conspiracy, just...

Many of the bands I new or played with used this to cover up mediocre vocals. It just seemed to smooth things out and cover up lost keys to some degree.

It also gave a fuller sound when volume (as in space) was absent. Also useful with instruments.

I am a big fan of metal, but also classical. Both have something in common. They produce mood, melody and have a full sound. The music, even without vocals can tell a story and produce emotion. The musical arrangements are not one steady beat looped.

(before you even get to the studio)Metal adds volume through tuning, pedals, volume(loudness), deep bass with parallel treble along with "minor" arrangement, much like classical. The music can be quite complex.

Now on the other hand, "pop" music, benefits from a repetitive beat. You dont have to think, throw in a catchy chorus and some eye candy along with lyrics about boy get girl, boy lose girl, boy get girl back and you'll have every teenage girl humming along to it.

Originally posted by MandBB
Cher started that whole trend with "Live after Love" (i believe thats the title.. where it is almost a robotic sound. Lots of artists jumped on the bandwagon.. And yes it does help conceal the fact the artist has no chops.

Actually i believe it was Herbie Hancock who started it way back in the 70's with his pesky vocoder...

But he was AWSOME



WOW what a song!!!