ITT: Release_Me talks about the vocals on Lightning Bolt

[delanoche]

This is the most interesting PJ/Music-related stuff I've read in a while. Thanks for sharing.

[stip]

We will eventually expect a song by song breakdown, Release_me

[Revelator]

This is the most interesting PJ/Music-related stuff I've read in a while. Thanks for sharing.

Agreed , thank you Release_Me!

Also Stip, meant to say in the other thread, your review was fucking spot on, great work man. I pretty much share the same sentiments but still soaking it all in. I think I'll appreciate it even more when I have a real copy in my hands and not this bullshit itunes stream.

[spike]

does future days feature the first instance of stone backing vocals used on an album?

[Heathen]

Would it really matter if you could tell it's not real?

Yes. You can probably get a gibbon to fart into a microphone and autotune it to sound like the right note.

And that would make you like it less? I guess I don't care if what I hear is made by autotuned gibbons or robots or humans, if it sounds good it sounds good.

It's really important to me that a bunch of musicians I grew up to love and respect are actually playing their instruments for reals. That includes vocals. Otherwise you could argue that miming is totally awesome as long as it sounds good.

The amount of skills and musicianship of the people/gibbons behind the music matters less (as in, doesn't matter at all) than what comes out of the speaker and into my ears. But miming doesn't sound anything.

[stip]

Would it really matter if you could tell it's not real?

Yes. You can probably get a gibbon to fart into a microphone and autotune it to sound like the right note.

And that would make you like it less? I guess I don't care if what I hear is made by autotuned gibbons or robots or humans, if it sounds good it sounds good.

It's really important to me that a bunch of musicians I grew up to love and respect are actually playing their instruments for reals. That includes vocals. Otherwise you could argue that miming is totally awesome as long as it sounds good.

The amount of skills and musicianship of the people/gibbons behind the music matters less (as in, doesn't matter at all) than what comes out of the speaker and into my ears. But miming doesn't sound anything.

In the Carrie brown stein interview they talked about how people expect authenticity in musicians, who are revealing part of themselves in their music, as opposed to actors, who hide it. That seems pretty spot on. I would have cared about authentic authenticity once, regarding performance. Now I just want what sounds best, but something that sounds natural (even if it isn't) would still be preferred

[Heathen]

Would it really matter if you could tell it's not real?

Yes. You can probably get a gibbon to fart into a microphone and autotune it to sound like the right note.

And that would make you like it less? I guess I don't care if what I hear is made by autotuned gibbons or robots or humans, if it sounds good it sounds good.

It's really important to me that a bunch of musicians I grew up to love and respect are actually playing their instruments for reals. That includes vocals. Otherwise you could argue that miming is totally awesome as long as it sounds good.

The amount of skills and musicianship of the people/gibbons behind the music matters less (as in, doesn't matter at all) than what comes out of the speaker and into my ears. But miming doesn't sound anything.

In the Carrie brown stein interview they talked about how people expect authenticity in musicians, who are revealing part of themselves in their music, as opposed to actors, who hide it. That seems pretty spot on. I would have cared about authentic authenticity once, regarding performance. Now I just want what sounds best, but something that sounds natural (even if it isn't) would still be preferred

Natural is a vague notion. If we're going with a strict definition, there isn't much 'natural' in electric guitars, effects etc. If they came up with something that sounded very unnatural on purpose and the result is something that moves you you probably wouldn't mind. I think authenticity (or perceived authenticity) in the expression is more important than authenticity in the process (which for a lot of people is just a way to say that electronic music or rap are inferior forms of music because they're not playing real instruments).

[Heathen]

Agreed with Heathen generally in regards to the wonkiness of the idea of "naturalness" as it pertains to electrically-powered rock music but I think there's definitely value in the humanity of real performance with all its inconsistencies and flaws.

Oh, there is, undoubtedly. I feel like when discussing this topic the unnaturalness/production tricks thing is seen as just a way to make music more polished, delete natural human imperfections etc. and obviously that is used a lot and most of the time it ends up making things sterile, but there's much more than that and it can be a very efficient creation tool that will allow you to make your art more... more whatever you want it to be. You can make it even uglier, more flawed, crazier, darker, more ecstatic, anything. It doesn't matter to me if you wouldn't be able to sing like that in real life or play that fast or create that sound with "real" instruments.

[Heathen]

WHY DID YOU DELETE THAT POST, SPENNO?

[Birds in Hell]

WHY DID YOU DELETE THAT POST, SPENNO?

Oh, I don't know.

You caught the good bit, anyway.

[harmless]

Would it really matter if you could tell it's not real?

Yes. You can probably get a gibbon to fart into a microphone and autotune it to sound like the right note.

And that would make you like it less? I guess I don't care if what I hear is made by autotuned gibbons or robots or humans, if it sounds good it sounds good.

It's really important to me that a bunch of musicians I grew up to love and respect are actually playing their instruments for reals. That includes vocals. Otherwise you could argue that miming is totally awesome as long as it sounds good.

The amount of skills and musicianship of the people/gibbons behind the music matters less (as in, doesn't matter at all) than what comes out of the speaker and into my ears. But miming doesn't sound anything.

But one is a direct consequence of the other, my friend, especially when you haven't got a synthesised robot voice coming into your ears but a real musician's efforts. I'm not sure you really believe what you're arguing here but that's OK, it's been fun.

[Heathen]

Would it really matter if you could tell it's not real?

Yes. You can probably get a gibbon to fart into a microphone and autotune it to sound like the right note.

And that would make you like it less? I guess I don't care if what I hear is made by autotuned gibbons or robots or humans, if it sounds good it sounds good.

It's really important to me that a bunch of musicians I grew up to love and respect are actually playing their instruments for reals. That includes vocals. Otherwise you could argue that miming is totally awesome as long as it sounds good.

The amount of skills and musicianship of the people/gibbons behind the music matters less (as in, doesn't matter at all) than what comes out of the speaker and into my ears. But miming doesn't sound anything.

But one is a direct consequence of the other, my friend, especially when you haven't got a synthesised robot voice coming into your ears but a real musician's efforts. I'm not sure you really believe what you're arguing here but that's OK, it's been fun.

I'm not really arguing anything, just saying how it's like for me and I'm not trying to convince anyone to think the same. And yes, I do believe in what I'm saying. I don't care about musicians, I don't care about how good they are at moving their fingers on a piece of wood or at expelling air out of their lungs, I care about art, artistic expression, and what feelings it can induce in me.

[harmless]

Would it really matter if you could tell it's not real?

Yes. You can probably get a gibbon to fart into a microphone and autotune it to sound like the right note.

And that would make you like it less? I guess I don't care if what I hear is made by autotuned gibbons or robots or humans, if it sounds good it sounds good.

It's really important to me that a bunch of musicians I grew up to love and respect are actually playing their instruments for reals. That includes vocals. Otherwise you could argue that miming is totally awesome as long as it sounds good.

The amount of skills and musicianship of the people/gibbons behind the music matters less (as in, doesn't matter at all) than what comes out of the speaker and into my ears. But miming doesn't sound anything.

But one is a direct consequence of the other, my friend, especially when you haven't got a synthesised robot voice coming into your ears but a real musician's efforts. I'm not sure you really believe what you're arguing here but that's OK, it's been fun.

I'm not really arguing anything, just saying how it's like for me and I'm not trying to convince anyone to think the same. And yes, I do believe in what I'm saying. I don't care about musicians, I don't care about how good they are at moving their fingers on a piece of wood or at expelling air out of their lungs, I care about art, artistic expression, and what feelings it can induce in me.

OK, fair enough. I'm just saying that I care about musicianship because it evokes and creates those illusions of feeling.

[McParadigm]

People who express concern about the growing use of autotune to perfect performances aren't typically complaining that the result isn't aurally plausible or essentially human. It's more that it's part of an increasingly prevalent industry philosophy that everything in a recording should be controlled for perfection, and the less time spent making a record the better.

I mentioned in another thread that, while yield has plenty of overdubs, each individual instrument is extremely unmanipulated. Guitars, bass, drums, vocals… They all vary slightly throughout each performance, and even individual snare hits are inconsistent in their pitch and volume. This is not unique by any means to Pearl Jam records, even if we narrow the focus to just their peers. It's an extension of the base purpose of recording, from day one: to capture, in a shareable way, the sound of musicians performing a piece.

The last two albums have almost unquestionably featured some amount of autotuning, but as I said before that in and of itself is a minor point. The larger issue, of which autotune is a part, is that the entire performances have been controlled and processed into clinical and sterile precision. There's an underlying message, or assumption, that exactness equals quality, and it steals a human warmth that used to exist in the band's music.

That's not to say that it's consistent throughout this record. Sirens and Infallible, for example, are heavily processed (or, as the band would say, Pro Tooled)…Sleeping by Myself is significantly less so. Ed's vocals and the rhythm section of Let the Records Play are all fairly sterilized…Stone's guitar a little less so and Mike's guitar barely at all. In fact, Mike's solos on that song are one of the few true examples of living, breathing recording. Where a huge amount of this album was close mic'd, direct plugged, or only had the bare minimum of room sound included so that Brendan could manipulate to his heart's content after-the-fact, the soloing guitar on that track is barely even compressed and utilizes a very well-placed room microphone...which is why it might sound a little more Riot Act / Yield / Vs to the ears than any of the other parts in the track.

[harmless]

The snare hits! Yes. I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing. There's a drum machine-quality to MYM that I don't think should be there at all. I don't mind it on Meshuggah, but that's because that music kicks ass, and perfection and precision is what they're all about.

[Evolution6579]

The snare hits! Yes. I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing. There's a drum machine-quality to MYM that I don't think should be there at all.

That's because Matt has finally pulled back the curtain and revealed himself as a robot.

[malice]

the entire performances have been controlled and processed into clinical and sterile precision.

pretty much

[Mine]

People who express concern about the growing use of autotune to perfect performances aren't typically complaining that the result isn't aurally plausible or essentially human. It's more that it's part of an increasingly prevalent industry philosophy that everything in a recording should be controlled for perfection, and the less time spent making a record the better.

I mentioned in another thread that, while yield has plenty of overdubs, each individual instrument is extremely unmanipulated. Guitars, bass, drums, vocals… They all vary slightly throughout each performance, and even individual snare hits are inconsistent in their pitch and volume. This is not unique by any means to Pearl Jam records, even if we narrow the focus to just their peers. It's an extension of the base purpose of recording, from day one: to capture, in a shareable way, the sound of musicians performing a piece.

The last two albums have almost unquestionably featured some amount of autotuning, but as I said before that in and of itself is a minor point. The larger issue, of which autotune is a part, is that the entire performances have been controlled and processed into clinical and sterile precision. There's an underlying message, or assumption, that exactness equals quality, and it steals a human warmth that used to exist in the band's music.

That's not to say that it's consistent throughout this record. Sirens and Infallible, for example, are heavily processed (or, as the band would say, Pro Tooled)…Sleeping by Myself is significantly less so. Ed's vocals and the rhythm section of Let the Records Play are all fairly sterilized…Stone's guitar a little less so and Mike's guitar barely at all. In fact, Mike's solos on that song are one of the few true examples of living, breathing recording. Where a huge amount of this album was close mic'd, direct plugged, or only had the bare minimum of room sound included so that Brendan could manipulate to his heart's content after-the-fact, the soloing guitar on that track is barely even compressed and utilizes a very well-placed room microphone...which is why it might sound a little more Riot Act / Yield / Vs to the ears than any of the other parts in the track.

Doesn't the loudness war logic contribute to sterilisation or better said the perceived sterilisation of music? The 1st thing that i perceive as lost due to excessive dynamic compression is the perception of space. I mean has that started to influence the way something is recorded? When comparing a decent master to a modern remaster my 1st impression is that the original recording was squeezed in a small metallic room and it just comes of as less natural.
I would have to double check it but towards the end of Sirens the vocals sound really processed not so much as far as pitch is concerned and interestingly enough the video version is noticeably different there so i wonder if the arrangement changed after the vocals were recorded and BOB modified the vocals accordingly.

[harmless]

The snare hits! Yes. I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing. There's a drum machine-quality to MYM that I don't think should be there at all.

That's because Matt has finally pulled back the curtain and revealed himself as a robot.

"The transformation of (drummer) Matt Cameron's limbs from skin, tissue and bone into adamantium, wires and metal has been slow and gradual (beginning, in this reviewer's opinion, at 2006's self-titled record). But Lightning Bolt is definitive proof that the evolution is finally complete. He is Robot."

[McParadigm]

The snare hits! Yes. I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing. There's a drum machine-quality to MYM that I don't think should be there at all.

That's because Matt has finally pulled back the curtain and revealed himself as a robot.

Matt is definitely a more technically exact drummer than Jack was, but Binaural and Riot Act certainly showcased that light processing could reveal a very organic feel and light imperfection to his playing. The last few albums, that's been revoked in favor of robotic control.

Doesn't the loudness war logic contribute to sterilisation or better said the perceived sterilisation of music? The 1st thing that i perceive as lost due to excessive dynamic compression is the perception of space.

The loudness war is like autotune...it's one aspect of that push for mechanical exactness and sterility. But I'd say the decreasing interest in room sound and "space" on recordings has less to do with peak volume and more to do with the types of sounds we're becoming used to hearing in new recordings. We're getting more and more used to hearing that calculated, processed, clinical sound...so slowly, over time, the trend has been away from room sound and expansive tone, and towards punchy unitoned presence. It's all over this record.