Sounds, effects, instruments that sound great for a bit but then sound passé very qui
- Thread starter bun-u
- Start date
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I keep trying to convince people that M1 pianos and chipmunk vocals would be a good addition to darkstep D&B, but noone believes me.
Cavernous reverb on slow bits by folk singers and fiddlers is one that seems like a good idea for about fifteen seconds, but then leaves you wishing you could just listen to the tune for what it is rather than being constantly reminded of how ancient and haunting and deep it is by the fact that it sounds like it was recorded in a fucking cave.
Cavernous reverb on slow bits by folk singers and fiddlers is one that seems like a good idea for about fifteen seconds, but then leaves you wishing you could just listen to the tune for what it is rather than being constantly reminded of how ancient and haunting and deep it is by the fact that it sounds like it was recorded in a fucking cave.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Particularly those "serious" hoarse whisper ones that everyone seems to be using at the moment.
swears
preppy-kei
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
Ultracompressed, autotuned, glassy RnB vocals will sound really dated in 10 years time I reckon - not just the glissando-splitting autotune effect of 2000-era garage, which thankfully seems to have fallen from favour, but just the whole hypereal RnB approach to vocals.
Up-to-the-minute vocal treatments often date really badly - 80s pop like Janet Jackson, that used the 1st generation of digital FX, the vocals on a lot of that stuff sounds really thin and unpleasant now. The vocals on a lot of mid 90s jazz jungle and sophiticate house sound a bit thin and 'sheen-y' now too.
Other vocal treatments that have become cliches
1/ 50's slapack echo
2/ multitracked close harmony stuff like the byrds, from when folk-trained singers encountered multitrack studios (and acid) for the first time
3/ over the top delay on the vocal in disco, including the first real use of tempo-synced delay made possible by fine-tuneable digital delays becoming available in the 70s - used in disco to lock the vocal into the rhythmic undercarriage of the tune, and thus a vital component of its sex-automaton slave-to-the-rhythm effect.
And a non-vocal cliche - melodicas on dub records.
Up-to-the-minute vocal treatments often date really badly - 80s pop like Janet Jackson, that used the 1st generation of digital FX, the vocals on a lot of that stuff sounds really thin and unpleasant now. The vocals on a lot of mid 90s jazz jungle and sophiticate house sound a bit thin and 'sheen-y' now too.
Other vocal treatments that have become cliches
1/ 50's slapack echo
2/ multitracked close harmony stuff like the byrds, from when folk-trained singers encountered multitrack studios (and acid) for the first time
3/ over the top delay on the vocal in disco, including the first real use of tempo-synced delay made possible by fine-tuneable digital delays becoming available in the 70s - used in disco to lock the vocal into the rhythmic undercarriage of the tune, and thus a vital component of its sex-automaton slave-to-the-rhythm effect.
And a non-vocal cliche - melodicas on dub records.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Steve Albini's production from the 90s. Sounds so drab, flat, and midrangey now. or maybe it's just me...
bruno
est malade
i agree, very well put.
Not to nitpick, but every record has reverb on it. It's a matter of employing reverb that sounds "natural" or not, be it actual reverb of a space or artificial reverb. My question before was about what constitutes "natural" reverb.
N
nomadologist
Guest
doesn't "natural reverb" mean the kind that you get from your voice, instruments, and amps, as played utilizing the natural characteristics built into them mechanically but without using effects pedals or before you run it/them through a mic or line-in to a console (where most "unnatural" reverb is automated) or before any editing on software
As vache stated, natural reverb refers to the reverb that results from the size, shape, and materiality of the room in which the instrument is recorded. Hence the terrific care taken by producers when choosing and placing mics etc etc, and the attention paid to the construction and design of space for certain modern concert halls, e.g., Boulez's performance hall at Centre Pompidou/IRCAM, which has movable shells and panels in order to allow for the manipulation of sonic properties.
N
nomadologist
Guest
right right. forgot that part, where you place your instruments really helps catch natural reverb, and you want to be using a condenser mic where necessary (with the right instruments, etc.) that kind of thing or you won't catch it properly. i remember using these weird room dividers before to damped some sound and i guess absorb some reverb in a studio. anyone know exactly why these are used? some of them have the weird fiberglass-looking type of padding over them...
N
nomadologist
Guest
i read back to some of vache's initial questions, including "why does no one mind that reverb is ubiquitous now" (paraphrased) and i remember that part of why we'd automate/add reverb was to make stuff sound a little realer, to recreate the space in a recording so it sounded more natural in that respect. i remember having to use slightly unnatural-sounding amounts of reverb on drums once because they sounded sort of far away and not as full as other instruments. so even if isolated the track we had the drums sounded very "produced", it was necessary to do that so the total effect was more natural sounding, if that makes sense...
Agreed!
Ben Daglish, Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard, David Whittaker, Jeroen Tel and Chris Hülsbeck were consumate composing masters.
LOADS of C64 tunes
SID plug-in for Winamp
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