Emilien03
HELLO

WHAT DO YOU PREFER?:

A) THAT VINTAGE/BULB (DISTOR AT MOMENTS) SOUND KINDA BELAIRS OR PHANTOM SURFERS.

B) PROFESIONAL RECORDINGS AND CLEAR SOUND.

Both A and B!!!

Tim O
oestmann guitar

tunes

clips

Kawentzmann
My ideal is when you have the best of both worlds. All the great artifacts of old recordings - to me they are part of the magic and create potentially wilder sounding recordings. But when they are mixed and produced to be able to compete with modern recordings all the better.

Well said KK.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

This post has been removed by the author.

Last edited: Sep 23, 2009 18:59:34

I prefer "bad"/vintage recording.
Ever heard "Get ready" by the ready men?

I just like it when you hear the room where it was recorded and there is some hum and some frequencies cut out. the whole band should records it in one take.
Little mistakes are also quite cool.

"Modern" recording is just too clean. it's like an other genre, as original surf is vintage recording.

For me, Daikaiju is not 100% a surf band also because of their recording technique; though I like their style and music.

Just my 2cents.

b

To me the crustier the better, some of my favorite albums are pretty low budget, All of the early 80s punk just has that raw sound, just listen to the Germs, I dont think you could make a recording as bad as they did if you tried, but it just sounds right for some reason.

dooley
The older recordings were sped up on the first cuts to stay under 2 minutes...AM radio...poor production...# keys, uneven/fast tempos..hard to tune to the radio.
Today it's digital.
You can adjust the music to the way it can be played...and it should be the way it was laid down.
So, You maybe might get to copy the album/45, but style up and give it back........all

I think that you make a very good point. While the sound of some of the old recordings is without a doubt priceless some of the production values were shameful, such as speeding up tracks for airplay.

The concept of a song being 3 minutes long was dictated by the capacity of 78s and later on 45s. Station formats changed somewhat to accomodate LPs at least in the late '60 and onward but by then the radio business had learned to live by the the decree of 3 minutes as a proper length for a song. Unfortunately this decree dominated music production for decades and is even felt today. I don't have sat-radio, at least yet, but I can only imagine that this could have a very positive effect.

To return to the core topic however, I think I'll weigh in with Kawentzmann when he said: "My ideal is when you have the best of both worlds. All the great artifacts of old recordings - to me they are part of the magic and create potentially wilder sounding recordings. But when they are mixed and produced to be able to compete with modern recordings all the better."

It's pretty hard to improve upon the spontaneity of old recordings and the artifacts and glitches add to the charm. If you can start with that and improve the overall sound quality I see it as a winning combination.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

JakeDobner
Sure it may be cool to listen to an album that has artifacts and such, but for any band making a new album, do you really want your album to sound like that? I just can't imagine trying to make something that didn't sound as good as possible. Of course we did record into digital, but that is only because of time contraints. And recording to tape is great, but we recorded into a really great board and at 192khz.

As good as possible, sure.

The Exotic Guitar of Kahuna Kawentzmann

You can get the boy out of the Keynes era, but you can’t get the Keynes era out of the boy.

I think we all agree that a tube amp will produce superior sound to solid state. Because we like what it does to the signal being put into it. But it's not only guitar amps that do nice little things. And digital indirectly brought a lot of these things back, because it became too obvious that a textbook sound-recording doesn’t sound very exciting.

The Exotic Guitar of Kahuna Kawentzmann

You can get the boy out of the Keynes era, but you can’t get the Keynes era out of the boy.

One thing I must add to this topic, I do like that underproduced crusty sound, on old recordings, because that is just the way it was, or alll the artists could afford, and it just works. But I hate when this sound is acquired purposely, on new recordings. So I guess what Im saying is that a good quality recording is great with new music. Although, there is a ton of new music out therer that is so overproduced, this sound is absolutely unattainable in a live setting. I dont know how many times I have heard a CD, and then saw the band, and said to myself "these guys really sound like shit live" Does anyone here agree?

Kawentzmann
I think we all agree that a tube amp will produce superior sound to solid state. Because we like what it does to the signal being put into it. But it's not only guitar amps that do nice little things. And digital indirectly brought a lot of these things back, because it became too obvious that a textbook sound-recording doesn’t sound very exciting.

All of this brings to mind the fine line between creating a sound and simply amplifying a sound. We all expect some coloration of tone from our guitar amps, even super clean amps have an effect on tone. OTOH, we don't want a PA to color the sound much at all. Usually we setup the PA to be as transparent as possible.

Recording sort of combines the two. Good recording gear is usually very transparent but the sound is usually manipulated somewhere along the line to get the mix that is going to sound right. In the days of tube recording consoles the coloration was inevitable but with digital recording it is possible to make a recording that is very accurate in its reproduction of the source. Fortunately (or not, depending on your opinion) the same digital magic also can be used to create effects including emulations of some of the effects inherent in analog recording. Still, it's hard to imagine an effect that can duplicate good tape being pushed a bit.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.