Great Recordings, Sonically Speaking - and Why.
I like the "natural" sound of Taj Mahal's "Giant Step" double LP, but have never heard it on CD. I have some CD's that get high marks for recording quality, but I do not care for the music. Some by Chesky Records, a few by Ry Cooder (Bop being one) and something by Mapleshade that I received as a gift. DeKay |
@shooter41, "Several mentions of Dire Straits but solo Mark Knopfler is a better bet for recording quality. "Sailing To Philadelphia", "Shangri-La", and "Get Lucky" are all really good." For sure. Mark Knopfler is a great musician who consistently puts priority on sound quality. He certainly seems to have taken no chances, or spared any expense when he put together his own recording studios in Chiswick, West London. Folks like Mark Knopfler and Barry Diament seem happy to go that extra mile when it comes to preserving the highest possible studio sound quality. https://www.soundonsound.com/music-business/british-grove-studios-london http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/ |
@bdp24: "Yes @thecarpathian, and correctly so. It is also often mis-pronounced tim-ber by the musically uneducated (no offense intended) . Timber! is what you yell when a tree has been felled. ;-)" So, when the tree surgeon you've hired misjudges his chain-saw angle and ends up sending a tree crashing through your picture window down onto your audio system, which do you yell, then: "timber" or "timbre". . . ? @chilli42: "I have tick skin so if I get beat up for stating the obvious I can handle it" Yeah-- especially once all those ticks are filled to the brim with blood, I imagine it's like being sheathed in a carpet of miniature balloons-- no wonder the punches just glance off ! |
Just re-read the OP and realized he’s asking for lesser-known stuff. I’ve got a sleeper for sure. Ben Rogers "Wildfire" album is one of those recordings that make you wonder, "man, how much great music is out there that almost no one will ever know about?" Very well recorded, too. Going to the other extreme, pretty much everyone’s familiar with Darius Rucker, but have you heard his only album in the R&B genre? "back to then" from ’02 is fantastic and the recording quality is excellent. George Michael almost always delivered on quality, as well. If you’re only aware of his radio hits I would encourage you to dig deeper. Gregory Porter is a wonderfully pure vocalist that is always presented well. Josh Groban is much more well-known but also consistently delivers quality. Here’s one that was a bit of a shocker for me. Rascal Flatts. Not my usual cup of tea at all but my wife has one of their cds titled "Rewind" and I popped it in one day. I was very impressed with what I heard. Again, not so much the content (though I’ll admit a lot of it is pretty "catchy") as much as the presentation. I ripped it onto my music server in AIFF and listened to it with my dedicated headphone rig and it still stood up. Goes to show how we’ve got to keep our minds open... Once again swinging the pendulum to the complete other extreme is Rage Against The Machine’s debut self-titled album. The music itself may or may not be up your alley (and it’s very NSFW) but the quality is unassailable. I have it in hi-res now but even the cd is really good. Sade "gets it" when it comes to quality. And if you ever want to test your low-end with something that’s still very musical "Slave Song" from the album "Lovers Rock" will undoubtedly do the trick. Weezer can be a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to recording quality, but their latest "Van Weezer" is pretty fantastic. Really fun album, too. |
Several mentions of Dire Straits but solo Mark Knopfler is a better bet for recording quality. "Sailing To Philadelphia", "Shangri-La", and "Get Lucky" are all really good. I'm sure others are as well but those are the ones I'm most familiar with. To me, Mark is like further distilled Dire Straits. His voice is just one of the best ever with amazing presence and gravitas. He's a pretty decent guitar picker, too. (That's a joke, he's incredible) |
The Eagles Unplugged 1994 (The Second Night) Vol 1 is an excellent recording (vinyl)., I prefer this to Hell Freezes Over as it has the Don Henley singing Heart of the Matter which the vinyl/cd version doesn't have (video has it) as well as an awesome opening version of Peaceful Easy Feeling (God Bless Glen Frey). |
I do like Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac "Rumours", Donald Fagan. I feel these are very well produced and good sounding, however, they can sound a little too "dead"; not enough hall ambience. The first Dire Straits album is well done, i.e Six Blade Knife. Now that is dynamic rock and roll. Brothers in Arms sounds a little bright to me. Best song is "Ride Across the River" sonically Pink Floyd is very well done. I like Buddy Miller, Ronda Vincent recordings a lot. Lately, early Joni Mitchell seems very intimate sounding. Peter Gabriel "So" is quite good. If you like electronic music Kraftwerk 3D Catalogue is exceptional.
would say that the best recording I have is Dallas Wind Symphony "Trittico" The tympanies will test your system. I also like several of the RCA Living Stereo recordings. I like Stokowski Rhapsodies a lot. Also Fritz Reiner and Chicago Symphony are hard to beat. I have other music that is well recorded but I have to like the music to recommend. And one has to listen to music because you like it vs good recordings, or there wouldn't be much to listen to. |
I agree most of Joe Jackson's live stuff is very well recorded. If you are a vinylphile, Rickie Lee Jones' first five albums are wonderfully recorded. On CD, Flim and the BB's were all live direct to disc (in the studio) and have fabulous dynamics. The Eagles Live Hell Freezes Over is exceptionally well recorded. |
OP! Interesting question. DF’s Kamikiriad is a masterpiece for recording reproduction ... along with Brother’s In Arms, let’s see ...The Wall, perhaps another. Some groups change through the years: Rush had a couple albums, Moving Pictures (probably the pinnacle of its recordings), Signals is commendable. Then its recordings went into an era that lack lower-end presence, ala Presto, Power Windows, Roll The Bones ... fortunately the live recordings of same work atoned for previous sins! Have appreciated Miles Davis’ work ... some live! Good stuff!! Perhaps the flip-side of your question might prove an interesting query |
Almost anything recorded by Rudy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Van_Gelder When I weeded the 4,000 LP’s I inherited, often faced with 20 of the same primary artist, wanting to keep perhaps only 3, I flipped em over, checked who else was playing, where, when, and the engineers involved. I kept all that Rudy was involved with without hesitation. Some feel differently, what I know is: I discovered him when I looked sideways at my friends and said "whoever recorded this knew what they were doing", grabbed the sleeve to find the answer, which was often Rudy. |
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I have tick skin so if I get beat up for stating the obvious I can handle it. It does not matter how much I spend on a piece of new gear or a tweak, the single biggest contribution to my listening pleasure is the quality of the recording. Why were so many poor quality LP’s and CD’s produced? Maybe it was the low opinion record companies had for their customers … I don’t know. I have heard a couple of the new PS Audio Octave records releases and have to say they are really well done. Pity they don’t release on Vinyl as well. |
John Mayer, the later the better. Even his first album was pretty good considering his circumstances, but his latest "The Search For Everything" is a fantastic recording of some pretty fine music (imo). He's got a new one coming out in a few days and I'll be shocked if it's not very good as well. Also, Fourplay's "Best of" album is an excellent recording, especially now that it's available in hi-res. I know Steely Dan's been mentioned but Donald Fagen's solo stuff is also pretty great. |
Funny. I just gave up looking for a truly great LP! I have a copy, but apparently it’s rare. 1958. RCA Living Stereo, one of RCA’s first batch of brand new stereo recordings, released in March 1958. The first stereo LP was released by Audio Fidelity in November of 1957. Not even YouTube has a video of it. The New Glenn Miller Orchestra. “Something Old, New, Borrowed and Blue” Its a tremendously well recorded LP despite its being made at the very dawn of stereo records. |
If it’s a great sounding recording you want, just about any direct-to-disc LP absolutely slaughters any and all recordings ever made with a tape recorder. They possess an immediacy and visceral transient "snap" not heard in recordings made by any and all other means, sounding MUCH more like live music. If you can get your hands on a good reel-to-reel tape recorder and a pair of condenser mics, you can make recordings of live music that will surprise you with their sonic superiority to most your LP’s and CD’s. |
Why is timbre pronounced tamber?The fact that timbre comes from French influences its pronunciation: it is often pronounced \TAM-ber\ and, with a more French-influenced second syllable, \TAM-bruh\. ... In French, timbre became used for bells that were shaped like drums and usually were fixed and struck with a hammer, like the bells of a carillon. |
Another "CD"... Joe Jackson live in NY (going by memory on this one as to the correct title). As far as incredible/exceptional recordings go I only have them on vinyl, though I doubt that many here would be interested in listening to tribal/cerimonial music recorded live via battery powered Nagra tape decks. DeKay |
Tamber is a girl’s name. I found a baby name website claims it means music pitch. Whatever. The word you were probably looking for is timbre. Pronouced timber, timbre is the word for the particular harmonic overtone structure of different instruments. Since timbre is a structure made up of different frequencies, the relative volume between which is the pattern, then it should be clear that dynamic compression does indeed affect timbre. If you compress the loud bits relative to the soft bits, that is exactly what harmonic structure is, and so this too is ruined by compression. |
Two things for me: - can hear the tamber of the instruments - can hear the room or hall in the recording. So you get the ambience of where it was played. There are scratchy and imperfect recordings that I turn to time and time again bc they have those two qualities. Many audiophile recordings are technically better but bring no joy. |
Couple of "live-well recorded" folky CD’s... "Follow That Road: Highlights of the Second Annual Martha’s Vineyard Singer / Songwriter’ Retreat Held at the Wintertide Coffeehouse" "Christine Lavin Presents: Big Times in a Small Town" I’ll probably play one of them today before I move on to Al Green and Marvin Gaye. Edit: Why? Because they sound like you are there sitting in the audience/coffee shop. DeKay |
