Why is so much new music recorded so so badly?

[Justin1996]

People need money, while don't have the mood the earn it good. They wanna make something fast. But there do exist high quality albums, for example, Adele's

 

[GO-NAD!]

People need money, while don't have the mood the earn it good. They wanna make something fast. But there do exist high quality albums, for example, Adele's

Actually, "21" and "25" CD's are both quite compressed in their dynamic range.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/84804
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/98958

She may sing beautifully, but her CD's suffer the same problem as other current pop artists.

 

[Alex2507]

but her CD's suffer the same problem as other current pop artists.

I don't Belieb it.

 

[Locoweed]

Quality started disappearing many years ago. True talent has been replaced by how the performers look, act, how close to naked they get or if they have a good light show etc.

 

[Stanton]

Part of the problem is (as has been pointed out) it's easy to create "home grown" recordings with the technology available (ProTools, etc.), but that doesn't mean the folks doing it have years of experience or even do it out of more than a necessity for getting their music out there. Many of you know I write CD/music reviews for Audioholics, and back in the day, most recordings/recording engineers did what they did for a living: 8 hours (or more) a day, 5 days (or more) a week. For example, while Steely Dan/Donald Fagen used to be the shining example of recording quality, Donald Fagen's last CD was downright terrible (quality-wise, not music-wise). Having said that, there are good examples of "home grown" recording efforts/studios that are excellent. For example, most Jeff Lorber CDs fall under this category (and there have been more since that review).

I find it interesting that even as we see a decline in the quality of (2 channel) audio/music source material, we are seeing an increase in the quality of (multi-channel) movie source material. For example, the latest Dolby Atmos demo will really knock your socks off, and that didn't even contain any clips from Gravity!

 

[sterling shoote]

What you hear on FM Radio from any tuner in or out of home is not going to sound like the CD of same tune in home or out of home. This is because almost unimaginable processing of the CD takes place at the broadcasting station. On the other hand radio commercials are produced to maximize the broadcast station processing to get attention and have content easily grasped.

 

[ski2xblack]

How to make a (hopefully silk) purse out of a sow's ear...

There's no upside to it. You can always take good recordings and make them bad...it's going the other way that doesn't work.

I realize this is a response to an old post, but I wanted to address this particular point. If there is enough left to work with, then it is sometimes possible to restore some semblance of listenability to the poorly produced recordings. All is not lost.

For those who aren't opposed to a little home remastering, have a look at this website. I would encourage folks to give this approach a try.

 

[skizzerflake]

How to make a (hopefully silk) purse out of a sow's ear...



I realize this is a response to an old post, but I wanted to address this particular point. If there is enough left to work with, then it is sometimes possible to restore some semblance of listenability to the poorly produced recordings. All is not lost.

For those who aren't opposed to a little home remastering, have a look at this website. I would encourage folks to give this approach a try.

I'm willing to bet that, if you could go back to the original multi-tracked recordings as they are in the software, with all of their tracks intact separate, sans Autotune, mixing and dynamic compression, you could probably make them sound great. The awfulness of many contemporary recording is self-imposed, probably intended for lossy mp3/earbud listening by people who are used to that sort of sound. Even a off-the-shlelf Mac laptop with a copy of Apple's studio software has capability that would have made the engineers that recorded music decades ago drool in envy.