If someone tried to re-create Loveless with today's technology using only electronic equipment, would it be as good?

Err - I made this myself when I copied it to my hard drive. Yeah, I listen to it more than original. I'm not being facetious here - I have no idea what you're talking about. Well, I kind of did till you specified that it was an exact copy. Is this a conceptual art question?

"Nimbus Coleman "Who Is The Governess?" - I'm not certain if I've ever heard a record quite like Nimbus Coleman's. In terms of structure, it recalls Guided By Voices' Alien Lanes - many short songs which mostly sound incomplete on their own, but flow together cohesively as an album. That's where the GBV similarities end, though. Coleman favors very crisp production and clean sounds, and much of the album has a lazy, easy going island sound tweaked by strange song structures and unexpected stylistic tangents. Imagine the world's strangest island cruise bossanova band, and you're halfway there.

"Who Is The Governess?" opens the album with an opening twenty seconds which comes as close to sounding like Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine as anything I've ever heard, but then settles into a soothing bass-and-bongos groove with pleasantly oooooh-ing vocals.

Nimbus Coleman - Who Is The Governess.mp3

*shakes head softly* I still don't see the particular fascination or uniqueness of this album. Of all the various laptop/IDM/MBV hybrids of last year, this was just one of them.

inverted nick reads my mind SHOCKA!

I didn't know there were that many IDM-MBV hybrids (I don't really spend time looking for 'em). care to list a few more?

M83 M83 M83 M83!!!

(I should repeat that I did love Loveless for a time so maybe I'm just sour now but that's how I feel at the moment.)

Julio: Have you heard Twine's s/t? Don't be put off by the horrendous cover art.

Now I love M83, and "Run Into Flowers" is overwhelmingly great, but that greatness doesn't carry through on the whole record. I figured out the other night that oddly it's the drums - and especially the cymbals - on that track which are the most Loveless-esque.

Only the Avalanches album has had the same delirious effect on me, but it's a different kind of record altogether and can only be compared directly with "Touched". Anyone who understands my comparison might want to check out New Buffalo - 'About Last Night' EP.

Also, I have to disagree with Johnny about the potential for electronics and samplers to equal 'Loveless'. That album was largely sequenced! Also there are indeed ways to do amazing tremelo style pitch bends (see the New Buffalo record for that too), and to have equally compelling 'attacks' and tones. In fact, I would say that the main thing the guitar has going for it at this point is that it forces the musician to focus, as opposed to being presented with the virtually limitless sonic pallette that technology affords.

It's only a matter of time before someone makes a record that 'Loveless' lovers will accept as greater, but it has indeed been such a long time!

Now, where's that Cubase manual....

"Spencer. The man is suave."

Anyone who understands my comparison might want to check out New Buffalo - 'About Last Night' EP.

Tim Finney himself suggested I get that when I visited Melbourne. And I'm glad he did.

MBV did the waves of sound thing but it wasn't the whole album, there are some lovely keyboard riffs on the penultimate track, the little percussion part at the beginning to soon, and that same track has all those perfectly audible notes, which are arranged in a way that sounds like its coming out from 3-4 guitars playing at the same time. and what about the accoustic guitar on track '8'.

But even then their waves of sound aren't very abrasive at all, they feel very soft, and no one has quite got that effect (that I've heard anyway). Which is I guess the reason why many people like it (not factoring the tunes here).

x-posts

My username is not ironic.

am I angry?

"If someone tried to re-create The Man * Machine with today's technology using today's electronic equipment, would it be as good?"

But to flip it back...

The very asking of this question points out the paradox. The scenario is asking to "recreate" something but assuming the original had never existed.

So, my answer to the question would be.. yes, it WOULD be as good. The only difference would be that, today, the turnaround in influences upon other groups would be quicker, because more people have more access to new music today, thanks to the net mostly, and are more willing to subsume themselves in what they're into, and have the technology to turn that around quickly via some tracks in their home studio -- as opposed to needing to bankroll studio time.

And another reason for the "it would be as good" argument is that the basic fact remains: SOME ALBUM HAS GONE SOMEWHERE NO ONE ELSE HAS GONE... and usually those records, no matter what time, decade, etc. get remembered, drooled over, etc.

The way a record is made has never been a factor in how "good" or "remembered" or not it is. What matters, usually, is whether it made the largest amount of people go "Wo!" at the time.

Now, if the question assumes that the original Loveless still exists, and can someone make a Loveless copy and be still as good, haha, well I can point you out a website to a record label/clan of groups that have tried really hard, surely, and I'll leave it at that.

i mena - they have all the production values etc but stunted with chrnically unmelodic guitars with chorus effect...

(forgive me for not naming names - i don't wanna bum out those concerned)

do ya's know what i mean?

-- Hari Ashurst (lindseyloha...), December 24th, 2004.

nobody glinched at the backwards-synced and guitar-masked recital of the 'wassup?!' advert, hidden in the molass of 'only shallow's trailing haze

It's not about recreating Loveless without a whammy bar but, as someone suggested, stacking up the takes in pro tools.

The question, as I see it, is "would Loveless sound as good if we knew it was really easy to make?" - bringing it all back to well-known "what's more real - real or fake?" ILM territories.

S.

What's "good"?

Also, I don't think the actual recording time and overdubs for Loveless cost nearly as much as Shields' perfectionism and hence multiple takes for the album tracks (aside from "To Here Knows When" and "Soon" which were already finished a year or two earlier, respectively) -- the vast majority of which, I'm guessing, were superfluous.

I mean, someone could try and very well succeed in re-creating Loveless with late 80s technology without needing any electronic equipment.

Not to discredit Loveless, which is a genius record. But it's been touted as unreproduceable genius to degrees more ridiculous than the original Smile sessions, as this point.

I think the key things that make Loveless, and particularly Kevin Shields, so remarkable are the following:

- the Yamaha SPX-90 reverse reverb effect (used on To Here Knows When and Blown A Wish)
- volume (guitars recorded through Marshall JCM-800s at very high volume, providing lots of sustain)
- mic-ing and mixing (multiple mics, some run out of phase, on the amp set-up. Tracks are then mixed to take accentuate the tonal qualities imparted by certain mics.)

And contrary to popular opinion, Shields rarely used more than three guitar tracks on a given track. The combination of the above production techniques, combined with the "glide guitar" sound (lightly bending tremelo arm on Jaguar or Jazzmaster) and alternate tunings, creates the auditory effect of multiple guitar tracks. There are quite a few keyboard parts on Loveless which are mistaken for guitar parts, as well.

So, in theory, someone could replicate a great deal of Loveless on their DAW. Why do so many of these electronic/IDM attempts to emulate Loveless fail? I would say for the most part, they lack the crucial volume/sustain ingredient. And VST plug-ins with reverse reverb capabilities, like Waves Rverb, don't have the same qualities as the SPX-90.

So I've been spending a lot of time trying to emulate Loveless guitar tones using the instrument in on a good quality mic pre-amp and a slew of VSTs. But you just can't beat having a Jazzmaster running through a Marshall/Vox AC-30 at stentorian volumes.

Great thread!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iYH8QZ1mGg