shoddy quality control

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Although aware I will be vilified for endorsing ILMs arch-nemeses, it struck me there is a hideously glaring bum note in U2's Discoteque in the twatty ethereal guitar at about 4:00 which is then repeated as it comes round again. Is it possible they spent £80 squillion only to have their producer overlook their incompetance, OR did they pay said money to make it sound rough and -dare i say it- gritty.

The only other really bad mistake in a record I can think of that totally kills the flow is in the version of Got your money where the kick doesn't come in after a pause ('you know my name now gimme my money'- great delivery, but the neptunes are caught napping).

Other crap bits of records that should have been rectified by a jobbing remixer and are so obvious a goose could have pro-tooled it out, please?

― Barnaby, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick Drake messes up one note about halfway through "Things Behind the Sun." A friend of mine was so bummed about this that she actually fixed it with Protools.

― Douglas, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

blimey if i knew how to use protools and was let loose on nick drake the mayhem wd never end

― mark s, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

All the singing on the chorus of "The Whole World" by Outkast sounds waaaay flat. It seems too out to be a mistake, and I've gotten used to it... but.... why??

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't flawless, absolutely mistake-free, tweaked-to-death in post- production kind of antithetical to rock and roll? I mean, I don't expect glaring errors to be mistakenly left in, but little mistakes are what make you realize the sounds you're hearing were made by living, breathing human beings. Some kinds of music lend themselves to this approach more than others of course.

― Sean, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mason Cooley: "Mistakes are the only universal form of originality."

Lewis Thomas, The Medusa & The Snail: "Mistakes are at the very base of human thought … feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done."

― Jack Cole, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It used to bug my dorky bass player friend (aren't they all) that in the video for Smashing Pumpkin's "Disarm," they show D'arcy playing bass before the bass actually comes in the song.

― Nick A., Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

another nick drake for you:

cale screws up the piano part royally in either 'one of these things first' or 'northern sky'. in fact his whole part sounds totally improvised so it's not surprising.

― fields of salmon, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

when i was a kid i had a cassette of 'more specials' . it wasnt a dodgy pirate or anything. halfway through 'stereotype - part 1' the tune just stops. theres 10 seconds of silence, and then the intro starts up again. used to give me a bizarre sense of deja-vu. did anyone else have this experience?

― dbini, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sean and jack i entirely agree, but what i noticed about my two examples was the totally negative effect that the mistakes had as oppose to endearing or inventive mistakes (i didn't want to talk about those, as i could name reams of examples).

"flawless, absolutely mistake-free, tweaked-to-death in post- production" is pretty much how i'd describe U2, so was this strange dischord a lazy attempt to appear careless in a self- conscious rock 'n' roll style?

the ODB record is obviously intended for the dancefloor, but when a crucial climactic beginning-of-bar bass drum is missed off; surely just carelessness.

― Barnaby, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"One of These Things First" is clam stew -- everybody but the drummer screws up -- but it's not John Cale on that one, I think.

― Colin Meeder, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if only nick drake had protools instead of prescription medications.

playing with passion, warts and all, trumps technique without soul every day of the week.

Protools is like a gun -- in the wrong hands, people always get hurt.

― Jack Cole, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

For almost a second I was going to download that U2 track to find out what you're talking about...hahahahahahs

― Keiko, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Another thing I used to wonder about...Brian Wilson and James Brown are/were two famous anal-retentive/control freak musicians. So how come you can clearly hear the kick drum pedal squeaking in several songs by both? Was this not something that bothered people at the time? I am not a drummer or especially anal-retentive but it's very clear to my ears.

― Nick A., Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gimme Shelter - as the drums kick in after the gtr into, it's always felt like there's a glitch, or some bad tape editing. The time is off just slightly; it pulls a bit. Just kills me, but I get over it pretty quickly.

― Rufus King, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

So how come you can clearly hear the kick drum pedal squeaking in several songs by both? Was this not something that bothered people at the time? I am not a drummer or especially anal-retentive but it's very clear to my ears.

Probably didn't notice it until it was too late - and you can't replace the drums, at least not usually. Another thing that used to bug me about bass drum pedals was a kind of 'bounceback' where you get a quieter, out-of-time 'ghost' of a bd in between the main thumps. I had trouble with it myself when I was playing and you sometimes hear it on Disco records where they either haven't bothered or weren't able to gate it out. 'I Specialise In Love' by Sharon Brown is a good example.

― David, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Janet Jackson - "Free Xone" has a noticeable momentary speed glitch in part of its Pleasure - "Joyous" sample

― Paul, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Another Ms Jackson one, think it's Runaway, where towards the end she hits a bruiser of a bum note and acknowledges it. Obviously left in for it's cutesy value, kinda works I guess but a tad contrived nonetheless.

― Rhiannon, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lou Reed's line "neatly pump air" sounds like it was spliced into "Lady Godiva's Operation" at twice the volume it should have been.

― nickn, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh, come on now! "Lady Godiva's Operation" is PERFECT.

― Keiko, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"lady godiva's operation" probably isn't a good example because it sounds as it was intended -- that doesn't mean one shouldn't question the choices made, but it isn't a mistake in the sense of missing a chord, etc.

― jack cole, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Badly Drawn Boy has some serious trouble hitting the notes on the original "Pissin' in the wind". It's painful.

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 13 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nine months pass...

Casting *RESURRECT THREAD*

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

"All the singing on the chorus of "The Whole World" by Outkast sounds waaaay flat."

Oh, and I was always so proud of how I could hit every note in the chorus spot-on. I am a questionable singer.

― Fivvy (Fivvy), Tuesday, 18 March 2003 20:21 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.