Best sound quality of a 70s prog album?

how about rush farewell to kings?

PINK FLOYD - "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON"

Fr3dMc wrote: how about rush farewell to kings?

hey now were talking! Thats some pretty amazing tracking going on there. I remeber being 15 and listening to the reverb on the left hand side of the vocal for "closer to the heart". I wondered two things:
1) why does the reverb sound so different than anything I have ever heard before? and
2) how do they get the reverb only on the left hand side???? well 3 years later I now finally foiund the answers!

Jethro Fish wrote: PINK FLOYD - "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON"

apparently all the drum tracks were bounced, now thats utter talent.

Fr3dMc wrote: bounced?

well, I dunno I could be wrong, but I know for sure they were bounced down/reduced. They probably had a 2 inch 16 track machine, and used 14 or 15 of those tracks for drums and the other two for metronome or bass guitar maybe. The rest of the band is playing with the drummer (mason) via bus routing systems, so nick can hear everyone but hes the only one being focused on as far as recording is concerned. Then they take those drum tracks, mix the living sh*t out of them and then master them or "bounce'" them down to two tracks (stereo), and return the stereo mix of the drums somewhere in the middle of the 16 track tape (tracks 10 and 11 possibly, 10 panned hard left and 11 panned right). Then they have 14 tracks left to work with, with 15 tracks of drums crammed onto two tracks or one stereo track. i really hope that wasnt confusing

Jethro Fish wrote: PINK FLOYD - "DARK SIDE OF THE MOON"

Watch the documentary "Classic Albums: The Making of the Dark Side of the Moon" to see what Alan Parsons and the boys did production wise to this seminal prog work. My special favourite is the tape looping around a metal pole, in order to produce the cash register sounds in the wanted 7/8 time.

Cluster One

Watch the documentary "Classic Albums: The Making of the Dark Side of the Moon" to see what Alan Parsons and the boys did production wise to this seminal prog work. My special favourite is the tape looping around a metal pole, in order to produce the cash register sounds in the wanted 7/8 time.

The great thing about early recording is what the boys used as effects,like what you mentioned Cluster with the cash till effect...All this type of stuff that Floyd were masters at by the way,put no signature on the sound quality at all.Later productions were dosed with effects units & being multi tracked to death,resulting in a very norrow sound stage compared to early recordings..Who gives a stuff about crystal clear CD type sound production...We want natural full width analogue sound as it was intended in those days & sound far superior to me

 

You listern carefully to say ELP's first album on vinyl..you'll notice more space around instruments,drums are more forward,you can heare every nuance in Gregs voice,it's a big sound...Compare this to 'Brain salad surgery' the recording is no where near as good vastly compressed beyond belief...That advancement in recording & multi tracking for you..

Not!

& that was only '73...after all it was a very advanced album for the time.

Edited by Karnevil9

Ambrosia - Somewhere I've Never Travelled and Kansas - Leftoverture where revelations to me when they were first released.

Karnevil9 wrote: The great thing about early recording is what the boys used as effects,like what you mentioned Cluster with the cash till effect...All this type of stuff that Floyd were masters at by the way,put no signature on the sound quality at all.Later productions were dosed with effects units & being multi tracked to death,resulting in a very norrow sound stage compared to early recordings..Who gives a stuff about crystal clear CD type sound production...We want natural full width analogue sound as it was intended in those days & sound far superior to me   You listern carefully to say ELP's first album on vinyl..you'll notice more space around instruments,drums are more forward,you can heare every nuance in Gregs voice,it's a big sound...Compare this to 'Brain salad surgery' the recording is no where near as good vastly compressed beyond belief...That advancement in recording & multi tracking for you.. Not! & that was only '73...after all it was a very advanced album for the time.

I hate to start flame wars, so dont take this offensively but I sort of disagree with what you say. You are absolutely correct, the less width per track results in less space per track and more noise floor per track. On the other hand, plus 4db is +4, aint no way around it. Sure brain salad surgery might sound thinner for the individual tracks, but that's the price you pay for having so many overdubs. I'll take the overdubs because, its still +four and each instrument still has its own space compared to what they are doing now. I usually prefer late 70's efforts, because the snare usually sounds a lot weirder, and the bass tones by the late 70's seemed almost "modern" due to natural technical progression, but still very primitive sounding , so that I like.

Relayer is the same exact way.My mother bought me the re-released one, that has an original 1974 studio run through. You will instantly notice that the drums are louder, and the bass is clearer and guitar is easier to hear compared to the actual mastered version. My mom said the same thing, that she preferred the "run through" version because things sound more "full and garage-like" in her own words, and true it does, but there are less instruments in the mix. The stereo buss wouldn't allow Yes to keep that same volume on drums with all those reverb sends and synth overdubs, along with mellotrons/orchestrons and all sorts of other crazy stuff going on. So when you hear the mastered version, the drums are lower and so is the bass, but this is how it has to be. Its absolutely worth it.

these days they are cutting CD's so much louder than vinyl, so much more that the lathe probably wouldnt even cut the record/vinyl and if it did, the record would probably start to catch fire or melt because 0 db fullscale is just absolutely silly. With these new advantages you'd think that things would sound better, but they don't. Its all about the tubes man.

EVERYTHING was build better in the 60s and 70s. They couldnt help it. It doesnt matter how sophisticated your medium is, running your bass directly into a console is going to yield marginal results. These days, for some reason, even if people do use 1176 tube compressors and all those exotic pre- amps, it still comes across as "bland" sounding. Not everything in the signal chain is 70s these days, which is a BIG problem for me. Unfortunately, I never got to see the 70s (and I really do mean that crying face)

If you buy a fener jazz bass from 1975, it will sound better than a fender jazz bass from 2005. There is a very real reason why, and it has to do with the wood being of higher quality, and that was before all the good 1000+ year old trees were taken (ever notice that maple on those 70s basses is much more yellow than now??). Everything was just flat out higher in quality, and people wanted to move on for whatever silly ass reason. Digital is STILL an immature technology in my eyes, and just recently learning about the only Tape manufacturer Quantegy being shut down made me want to kill someone. Im not a violent person, but I will smash a computer loaded with "PRO" tools if I have to. Recordings these days just flat out suck, and its so sad to know that new yes albums sound worse than OLD yes albums. Whats going on here folks? nobody cares anymore.

KC: lark's tongue