Know what I miss?

That 80's production sound where everything was BIG! For an example, listen to Panama.

Everything then was mostly recorded using analog tape and was mixed and mastered to sound best through a car stereo.  Big.  Loud, but not too loud.  Clarity was more important than volume.

Modern music, on the other hand, is mixed and mastered for headphones--namely earbuds--as that is how most fans experience music these days.  They maximize the bass with a ton of compression.  In your earbuds, it will sound great.  But, through a car stereo, the music will sound muddy at regular volumes and distort out quicker because of the wall of sound.  Everything is done digitally which does lack some warmth that recording to tape gave you.

Recording techniques have changed, too.  Used to, a great producer might spend hours, days, and in some extreme cases, weeks trying to find the best mic placement for a guitar amp or drum kit.  You had some real personality as each individual set up sounded unique.  Now, everyone uses the latest and greatest virtual amp modeler and they all sound the same.  Many records have electronic kits used on them and then they assign the drum sounds via MIDI.  The human factor is slowly melting away.

Sad isn't it?

Yep it is sad and I wonder how today's youth with retain hearing as they get older. 

I guess that's one reason I enjoy the new Styx release. Recorded in all analog and sounds great in the truck.

A lot of today's stuff is too compressed and the volume ear blistering even at a mid-level volume. 

In comparison, Rush Moving Pictures... I have the original CD and to get a good volume on it in my truck I turn it up to around 28 and it sounds good. I have the digital remaster of it as well and I can barely play it at 20 because it's too loud and compressed. While the older is "quieter" it sounds much better. 

I know a lot of people seek out original versions of stuff instead of the remasters. I used to always pick up remasters. Some a great others are terrible. The only ones I get now are ones I missed the first time around (Last Train for example).

Good example on that Styx album which is a very good album in it's own right.

Good discussion.  I've noticed most drums sound very samey in metal - there used to be so much variety.  Go listen to White Lion - Pride or  ZZ Top - Eliminator.  They both sound amazing and totally different.

I find the sound of most new music is very samey.

Superjuice wrote:Good discussion.  I've noticed most drums sound very samey in metal - there used to be so much variety.  Go listen to White Lion - Pride or  ZZ Top - Eliminator.  They both sound amazing and totally different.

Guitar tones were so much different, too.  You could tell your favorite rock band with just a couple of notes on the guitar.  It was amazing.

Good point. No mistaking the tone of VH for ZZ Top.

Black Rider wrote:Good point. No mistaking the tone of VH for ZZ Top.

Or Bon Jovi or Ratt or Judas Priest or KISS or Black Sabbath or Aerosmith or Night Ranger.....

I could go on and on.  They all had a very distinct sound.  All of them!

I liked the stuff on Frontiers Records at first and don't get me wrong they have some good releases (the last Trixter release was really good) but they seem to be more focused on forming super groups that put out stuff that all sounds the same.

Totally agreed. ^

MikeInFla wrote:I liked the stuff on Frontiers Records at first and don't get me wrong they have some good releases (the last Trixter release was really good) but they seem to be more focused on forming super groups that put out stuff that all sounds the same.

Yep, agreed.

To be honest, a production sound must be really off for me to be bothered by it. My main focus in listening music has been power metal for almost ten years now, and I'm aware of the fact that production isn't really great in that subgenre; I'm already happy when I can hear the bass guitar.

But production is not that important; I can mention a few albums that have a really bad production, but nonetheless are absolutely phenomenal. If the music's good enough, I don't care about production.