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Wondering if there are any methods of dealing with very low quality audio. Great example is Cragga and the way he handle Postman.



As of now i try to smooth things out with a little reverb and slight parallel compression but it still seems some of these older songs are too raw.

Low quality? Try youtube ripping them

You mean that the original tunes are of a low production standard?

Well, ok some fifties stuff can sound a little rough but into the sixties and seventies there are a lot of amazingly produced pieces of music. I'm not sure what your problem is aside from that maybe you're either trying to sample something that won't work in the context of what you're doing, you have no idea how to handle a sample when mixing a tune, or you're using shitty quality mp3s

EQ can do no bad

laying out the fact that pretty much anything produced by Phil Spector, gun-toting loony that he is, in the middle of the century trumps 98.76 of ye olde dubstep:

How about buying the 12"/7" and sampling from that instead of some shitty mp3?

Also, use multiband compression as a sidechain to take out the backround etc behind the vocals.

People spend their entire lives trying to recreate that classic Motown sound. They used specific mics, amps, and legendary rooms that people would kill for these days. Why would you want to overprocess/change it??

Sharmaji wrote:laying out the fact that pretty much anything produced by Phil Spector, gun-toting loony that he is, in the middle of the century trumps 98.76 of ye olde dubstep:

Thanks for ruining my day.

wormcode wrote:People spend their entire lives trying to recreate that classic Motown sound. They used specific mics, amps, and legendary rooms that people would kill for these days. Why would you want to overprocess/change it??

even i would love to know how thats done, i love the way the strings usually sound on a lot of 70s motown tracks

frankiegrimes wrote:How about buying the 12"/7" and sampling from that instead of some shitty mp3?

Also, use multiband compression as a sidechain to take out the backround etc behind the vocals.

i think you mean gate

wormcode wrote:People spend their entire lives trying to recreate that classic Motown sound. They used specific mics, amps, and legendary rooms that people would kill for these days. Why would you want to overprocess/change it??

Because he doesn't want the Motown sound.

Genevieve wrote:

wormcode wrote:People spend their entire lives trying to recreate that classic Motown sound. They used specific mics, amps, and legendary rooms that people would kill for these days. Why would you want to overprocess/change it??

Because he doesn't want the Motown sound.

Clearly he does, or he wouldn't attempt to sample it.

But I see now the problem seems to be he is most likely using compressed/downloaded files and not a good sample source.

I don't get this.. why would a 'motown sound' be sought after? Surely the technology used to record this old music was inferior to the stuff available today? They used it because they had no option, yet people today want to go back to a low fi era? Baffles me.

VirtualMark wrote:I don't get this.. why would a 'motown sound' be sought after? Surely the technology used to record this old music was inferior to the stuff available today? They used it because they had no option, yet people today want to go back to a low fi era? Baffles me.

Not inferior, just different. Current pop music sounds 'bad' to a lot of people including myself. It's missing a lot of those imperfections that add a special something. It's much like the debate of analogue/digital vinyl/MP3 I suppose.
But look at current software companies, most of them are trying to emulate classic gear used in the 60s Motown era.

Nomad Factory even have a Motown bundle that emulates some classic stuff, it's quite nice actually http://www.nomadfactory.com/products/

VirtualMark wrote:I don't get this.. why would a 'motown sound' be sought after? Surely the technology used to record this old music was inferior to the stuff available today? They used it because they had no option, yet people today want to go back to a low fi era? Baffles me.

hahahahahahhah

have you never listened to anything by dj shadow or rjd2 and liked it?

for shit sake I remember reading about how mr spector recorded led zeppelin in a glass atrium/greenhouse to get the crazy reverb. Try replicating that with a VST

wormcode wrote:Not inferior, just different. Current pop music sounds 'bad' to a lot of people including myself. It's missing a lot of those imperfections that add a special something. It's much like the debate of analogue/digital vinyl/MP3 I suppose.
But look at current software companies, most of them are trying to emulate classic gear used in the 60s Motown era.

Nomad Factory even have a Motown bundle that emulates some classic stuff, it's quite nice actually http://www.nomadfactory.com/products/

It all seems gimmicky to me, i don't think any of this stuff is going to help us make better music. From vintage compressors to tape saturation plugins, the market seems to be saturated with emulations of 'golden' equipment from some magical era. Yet the people using this stuff in the 70's were probably thinking 'jeez, i wish i could get this mix a bit clearer'.

You say about current pop music - we're in an age where we can create any sound we can think of, if you want a loud clear mix then you can get it. If you don't there are numerous ways to dirty the sound. Anyhow, the creative decisions of current pop producers aren't really relevant here. The point is that technology advances, gets better not worse. Having a 70's microphone isn't going to make anyones music production improve.

Yes the analog vs digital debate is similar. It makes me laugh, people fill a room with records, i have a tiny usb stick that would fit all of that room's music in it. Guess which side i'm on?

drake89 wrote:for shit sake I remember reading about how mr spector recorded led zeppelin in a glass atrium/greenhouse to get the crazy reverb. Try replicating that with a VST

its called an impulse response

It's funny you should say all that.. because I feel like music has gotten shittier (with some exceptions ofc) than the past. You always here people referring back to those 'classic' records/bands/sounds, not referring to anything current. Does that have to do with what equipment was being used? Indirectly yea I think so.