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catfood03 
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 24 2009
Status: Offline
Points: 785
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 Posted: December 30 2011 at 17:00 |
 BaldFriede wrote:
What's more: I hate the way albums are being produced these days; they all sound extremely sterile. Each instrument clearly separated from the other. Some audio freaks may rejoice about that, but that is not what music sounds like when it is being played live. The instruments all mingle then; there are multiple reverberations and fractions of sound, and this is what makes music sound "alive"; so much nicer for my ears.
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"Sterile" is how I would describe some of the technology used in prog albums from the 1980's (drum machines, synths, fake horns, etc.) My complaint about what I'm hearing in most modern music (prog or otherwise) is more compression these days, less dynamics. I blame this on the burgeoning MP3 format over the past few years. I guess why be expansive with music if the majority of your audience is going to listen to it on "earbuds" on a crowded street anyway? I yearn to hear something lush and "overproduced" again! 
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UMUR
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Joined: October 19 2007
Location: Denmark
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 17:27 |
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It´s a bit up and down for me. I have periods where I absolutely love prog and listen to vast amounts of albums and then there are periods where I´m preoccupied with my other big passion: Metal. Those periods usually last a couple of years. Right now I´m in a metal phase and have been for a couple of years.
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el böthy
Prog Reviewer
Joined: April 27 2005
Location: Argentina
Status: Offline
Points: 6336
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 17:49 |
Well, Neo prog is obviously the sh*ttiest music in the whole genre.
When it comes to production, I agree a lot of stuff is a bit overproduced. But that´s not the case with absolutly everything.
I think the main issue here is that, if you want good new music, you don´t have to look in the same genre from the ´70. Personally I think the best new stuff is the one that has little to do with the older stuff.
The problem doesn´t seem to be that you are tired of prog, but that you can´t get into new music
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"You want me to play what, Robert?"
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TODDLER
Forum Senior Member
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Joined: August 28 2009
Location: Vineland, N.J.
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Points: 3126
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 18:16 |
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Some neo-prog bands I heard in the past were okay. Halloween from the 90's was a decent band. I hated the direction King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, and Jethro Tull took in the 80's. I enjoyed the underground prog bands of the 80's. I hated the idea of hanging around a prog a-hole who would laugh at people like Laura Nyro because she wrote a hit like "Eli's Coming". These were the sort of degenerates that would listen to Todd Rundgren's music not realizing that his chord structures were influenced directly from Laura Nyro. It's not prog music that turns me off as much as the people I have met in the past who listen to it like a religion and find mainstream artists from the 60's to be laughable. They are making fun of musicians who influenced the ones they are into...and I find that to be a backwards way of thinking. A concept of thinking which degenerates took upon themselves to invent ...but is dishonest. Sorry but it's the people I hate and not so much the music.
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Snow Dog
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Joined: March 23 2005
Location: Caerdydd
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Points: 32995
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 18:59 |
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I have no problem with anything
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Catcher10
Forum Senior Member
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Joined: December 23 2009
Location: Emerald City
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Points: 17846
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 19:10 |
What is "prog" anyways? .......Don't answer that!!! 
I can see your points, but I generally don't get tired or bored of a genre, more so an artist or group of artists. So I then just move on to something different.
I can't get into classical music to the point where I feel I need to spend the next 5yrs trying to understand it...call me lame I guess, but I don't care for it that much.
Jazz is different, always has been for me, it will always be a work in progress, positive progress for sure. As far as music production and it sounding sterile...welcome to the age of digital files and the dreaded CD! I do expect in the next 5 yrs the CD will get better and so will digital music.
Since I am a vinyl aficionado, I don't suffer from your hearing dilema......and jazz should only be listened to on a turntable. It should be a crime to listen to A Love Supreme on a CD......
I would not take your issue as a bad thing, at least you are still exploring new music, the problem will be if you get tired of music in general!
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BaldFriede
Prog Reviewer
Joined: June 02 2005
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 10261
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 19:22 |
Catcher10 wrote:
What is "prog" anyways? .......Don't answer that!!!
I can see your points, but I generally don't get tired or bored of a genre, more so an artist or group of artists. So I then just move on to something different.
I can't get into classical music to the point where I feel I need to spend the next 5yrs trying to understand it...call me lame I guess, but I don't care for it that much.
Jazz is different, always has been for me, it will always be a work in progress, positive progress for sure. As far as music production and it sounding sterile...welcome to the age of digital files and the dreaded CD! I do expect in the next 5 yrs the CD will get better and so will digital music.
Since I am a vinyl aficionado, I don't suffer from your hearing dilema......and jazz should only be listened to on a turntable. It should be a crime to listen to A Love Supreme on a CD......
I would not take your issue as a bad thing, at least you are still exploring new music, the problem will be if you get tired of music in general! |
I actually think the sound difference between turntable records and CDs, apart from some unwanted wild noise which you get on turntable records after some time, is in the mind only.
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 BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.
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Catcher10
Forum Senior Member
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Joined: December 23 2009
Location: Emerald City
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Points: 17846
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 19:32 |
BaldFriede wrote:
Catcher10 wrote:
What is "prog" anyways? .......Don't answer that!!!
I can see your points, but I generally don't get tired or bored of a genre, more so an artist or group of artists. So I then just move on to something different.
I can't get into classical music to the point where I feel I need to spend the next 5yrs trying to understand it...call me lame I guess, but I don't care for it that much.
Jazz is different, always has been for me, it will always be a work in progress, positive progress for sure. As far as music production and it sounding sterile...welcome to the age of digital files and the dreaded CD! I do expect in the next 5 yrs the CD will get better and so will digital music.
Since I am a vinyl aficionado, I don't suffer from your hearing dilema......and jazz should only be listened to on a turntable. It should be a crime to listen to A Love Supreme on a CD......
I would not take your issue as a bad thing, at least you are still exploring new music, the problem will be if you get tired of music in general! |
I actually think the sound difference between turntable records and CDs, apart from some unwanted wild noise which you get on turntable records after some time, is in the mind only.
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Well that is very true......my ears are connected to my head where my mind lives and it tells me its awesome!!
So you are complaining of some "wild noise" but yet you prefer live music (which we all do), and have no problem with people screaming or talking during a live show?.......or say at a classical concert recital hearing someone coughing the whole time? That to me is "wild noises".........
Anyhow........Happy New Year!
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 20:37 |
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I think this is old news. Heavy compression, limited dynamic range and sterile production is so last decade (or even so last century) - modern producers and sound engineers (of Prog Rock at least) are listening to what the buying public are saying and have more or less dropped the bad habits that the digital studio would allow them to fall into. As with any emergent technology the temptation was to use all that the toys would provide, to place each instrument with precision, to tweek individual notes and to carefully manage the sound stage, and perhaps more importantly to show the studio owners that their investment was being used to its fullest. That was a necessary learning experience and now we are in a time of producers using these tools with more consideration - toning-back the excesses and creating a more organic feel to the production. Certainly over the past 3 or 4 years (digital studio) production has improved considerably.
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What?
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam
Joined: April 29 2006
Location: Atlantais
Status: Offline
Points: 29630
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 20:41 |
Catcher10 wrote:
So you are complaining of some "wild noise" |
The needle is scraping away at the vinyl every time you listen to it even if you are perfectly careful and have a supreme turntable and needle.
Also you should know that when you are walking you are falling at the same time...
Edited by Slartibartfast - December 30 2011 at 20:42
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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silverpot
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Joined: March 19 2008
Location: Sweden
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Points: 841
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 20:41 |
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The label isn't important to me as long as I appreciate the music.
I'm lurking around here to get some new, to me, artists to listen to, and so far, I'm not disappointed.
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Mellotron Storm
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 27 2006
Location: The Beach
Status: Offline
Points: 13489
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 21:24 |
UMUR wrote:
It´s a bit up and down for me. I have periods where I absolutely love prog and listen to vast amounts of albums and then there are periods where I´m preoccupied with my other big passion: Metal. Those periods usually last a couple of years. Right now I´m in a metal phase and have been for a couple of years. |
Metal is my other passion as well Jonas and i'm about due for a few months of head banging.
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"The wind is slowly tearing her apart"
"Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN
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Mellotron Storm
Prog Reviewer
Joined: August 27 2006
Location: The Beach
Status: Offline
Points: 13489
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 21:26 |
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It's been a while Karl but i've got five reviews lined up then i'll take another break.I can't keep up with you young guys anymore.  |
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"The wind is slowly tearing her apart"
"Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN
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TODDLER
Forum Senior Member
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Joined: August 28 2009
Location: Vineland, N.J.
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 21:30 |
BaldFriede wrote:
I must say I lose interest in prog. It just does not interest me anymore what new albums come out, with the odd exception. Jazz and classical music are much more interesting, in my opinion.. There is so much music to discover which expands my mind more than prog; why, completely exploring the works of Johann Sebastian Bach lone seems to be a task that would take a lifetime but would be much more fulfilling than wasting my time with so-called "new" prog albums which are more or less just an endless repetition of what has already been said.
What's more: I hate the way albums are being produced these days; they all sound extremely sterile. Each instrument clearly separated from the other. Some audio freaks may rejoice about that, but that is not what music sounds like when it is being played live. The instruments all mingle then; there are multiple reverberations and fractions of sound, and this is what makes music sound "alive"; so much nicer for my ears.
I know many of you will disagree and come up with examples of what I absolutely "have" to hear. And I know equally well that I will listen to it, shrug and say "so what?"
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As I have often stated in the past....this endless repetition you speak of technically has to do with musicians choosing what they feel is the right path for practice and not having a mind of their own to know that it is the wrong one. As part of practices most professional musicians develop someone else's vocabulary to add to their own. John Coltrane would be a good example. The main course of Coltrane's vocabulary is in his improvisation. This is okay within itself if you're Jeff Berlin and you transcribe a Coltrane solo for bass....but it is not very okay in the case of Jon Clark sounding too much like Alan Holdsworth. In Prog the course is taken to imitate formulas, time signatures, and vocals from the past. I find that ridiculous because many of these musicians could find their own voice in prog if they simply focused on different methods of writing.
With bands like the NICE and others from the early prog days....the idea was to experiment with rock music by combining elements from Jazz and Classical music. It was a way to progress with a new sound and style....but years later (even in the 70's) , some bands took the easy way out. There was too much emulation of what others had done and they stood on the shoulders of these people who first created the ideas like copy cats. They didn't need to! Obviously they were schooled musicians who were diverse. Sometimes it was un-intentional.....for example...hearing the style of ELP for a whole of 2 minutes on Curved Air's "Piece of Mind". I could say the same for Classical composers who emulated Johann Sebastian Bach....(and there are many of them)....and you can also sum my little issue up by stating that everything in music has been tried or written before and that it is only a natural and common occurance for one writer to emulate another blah, blah.....but then what happened to prog? Why did that aspect seem more extreme in prog than other serious styles of music? Is it because guitarists like Bob Fripp and Steve Howe laid a foundation and everyone else got lazy and copied it? Back in the 70's Rare Bird's "As Your Mind Flies By" sounded way too much like Emerson. Beggar's Opera and Trace were too much like Emerson. Graham Field was just as outstanding on keyboards as Francis Monkman and so why did Monkman choose to not sound exactly like Emerson? For me that is a mystery. Was it ABC DUNHILL records or Warner Brothers asking Greenslade and Field to attempt the ELP sound or did they simply feel more comfortable emulating him instead of trying something new. Fripp tried something new with LIZARD and obviously others like Pulsar, Harmonium, and Ange had originality with their ideas. So somewhere along the line players in prog decided to emulate more and neglect original creativity.
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Chris S
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Joined: June 09 2004
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Points: 7028
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 21:30 |
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Prog eras by association :-) I choose the early years but i dare say some will say the new is good too
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<font color=Brown>Music - The Sound Librarian
...As I venture through the slipstream, between the viaducts in your dreams...[/COLOR]
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Catcher10
Forum Senior Member
VIP Member
Joined: December 23 2009
Location: Emerald City
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 21:40 |
Slartibartfast wrote:
Catcher10 wrote:
So you are complaining of some "wild noise" |
The needle is scraping away at the vinyl every time you listen to it even if you are perfectly careful and have a supreme turntable and needle.
Also you should know that when you are walking you are falling at the same time...
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Its not an issue....u know that. If your a normal vinyl collector of our age you should have about 300-500 albums, I doubt you play all those albums so much that you actually "wear" them down. I have a friend that has 1500 albums......There are albums he has not played in 2-3 yrs. I have about 400 albums and certainly many I have not played in several years. Even my most played I will spin them 4-5x per month, and I have zero problem in buying a replacement album every 6-7 yrs.
I just listened to Grace For Drowning on vinyl, my friend got it for Christmas, bloody AMAZING!!! Its no secret that SW is doing an amazing job with his vinyl releases with PT and his work with other artists.
I for one am 100% sold.......but I know that digital will soon become much better than it is now, it needs to, as Dean states, we the consumer are demanding it......and it is a main reason why so many music lovers are going back to vinyl or discovering it again.
I am glad I enjoy it......music is suppse to be fun and vinyl is just that.
Happy New Year!
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rogerthat
Prog Reviewer
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
Status: Offline
Points: 9869
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 22:01 |
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I don't really follow genres as such and prog is only a part of what I listen to. But I loved Mastodon, Wilson and Unexpect's releases for the year. As for production, it's not only about recording styles but also the equipment and tones used. Wilson tried to bring a 70s like alive feeling to his new album but it still feels very contemporary because there are contemporary sounds being used, contemporary influences. Rock music has as such got more and more 'urbane', 'clinical' and 'cold' over the years. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing and is an apt reflection of changes in lifestyle. But if that turns you off, you won't find much to like in rock based music as such, let alone prog.
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JJLehto
Prog Reviewer
Joined: April 05 2006
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Status: Offline
Points: 34550
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 22:03 |
It does happen ya know, growing out of something (either for a time or forever). Long stretches I have just not been able to listen to certain bands or even styles. Aint that big a deal. Also most (almost all) current music either sucks or is unoriginal so if you're looking for that there's nothing to even recommend 
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BaldFriede
Prog Reviewer
Joined: June 02 2005
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 10261
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 23:01 |
Catcher10 wrote:
BaldFriede wrote:
Catcher10 wrote:
What is "prog" anyways? .......Don't answer that!!!
I can see your points, but I generally don't get tired or bored of a genre, more so an artist or group of artists. So I then just move on to something different.
I can't get into classical music to the point where I feel I need to spend the next 5yrs trying to understand it...call me lame I guess, but I don't care for it that much.
Jazz is different, always has been for me, it will always be a work in progress, positive progress for sure. As far as music production and it sounding sterile...welcome to the age of digital files and the dreaded CD! I do expect in the next 5 yrs the CD will get better and so will digital music.
Since I am a vinyl aficionado, I don't suffer from your hearing dilema......and jazz should only be listened to on a turntable. It should be a crime to listen to A Love Supreme on a CD......
I would not take your issue as a bad thing, at least you are still exploring new music, the problem will be if you get tired of music in general! |
I actually think the sound difference between turntable records and CDs, apart from some unwanted wild noise which you get on turntable records after some time, is in the mind only.
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Well that is very true......my ears are connected to my head where my mind lives and it tells me its awesome!!
So you are complaining of some "wild noise" but yet you prefer live music (which we all do), and have no problem with people screaming or talking during a live show?.......or say at a classical concert recital hearing someone coughing the whole time? That to me is "wild noises".........
Anyhow........Happy New Year! |
That is part of the atmosphere. People are not wild noise, they make music alive. I much prefer live concerts and live albums to studio albums. And especially when a band does not stick to the studio version. Actually that was how classical concerts used to be too, by the way (and luckily there is a tendency of them becoming that way again). In a piano concert or a violin concert (or any concert foro a soloist and orchestra) the artist used to improvise a lot. The Romantic era with its genius-cult changed all that; suddenly only the written notes counted. Actually compositions with "basso continuo" were very much like jazz compositions - the soloist or soloists improvised, and the rhythm section improvised too (along a given harmonic scheme). Bacg, Beethoven, Mozart, Händel and many other composers were masters of improvisation; Bach could even improvise a fugue on any given theme; most composers consider composing a fugue a very difficult task already. John Cage, by the way, pointed out that in live concerts there is no "wild noise" when he wrote his famous composition 4'33.
Edited by BaldFriede - December 30 2011 at 23:09
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BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue.
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Atavachron
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Joined: September 30 2006
Location: Pearland
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Points: 65253
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Posted: December 30 2011 at 23:27 |
BaldFriede wrote:
What's more: I hate the way albums are being produced these days; they all sound extremely sterile. Each instrument clearly separated from the other. Some audio freaks may rejoice about that, but that is not what music sounds like when it is being played live. The instruments all mingle then; there are multiple reverberations and fractions of sound, and this is what makes music sound "alive"; so much nicer for my ears |
I tend to agree, it almost seems compulsive to record this way and I find I dislike the material on those albums more often. It's not just new music either, e.g. the Diary of a Madman re-recording is an appalling rewrite of history, and has driven the original into 'obscurity'.
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Losing interest in prog
