"Is it meant to be like that?"

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When does the sound turn to noise for you? ie a signal the user doesn't want to transmit. For example, the whole of Loveless - "is it meant to be like that, or is it my tape?" Basically the question is: at which points in records, if listening on tape, would you require to verify the sound's truth via CD?

― david h (david h), Monday, 9 September 2002 18:12 (twenty-three years ago)

IE, what records, songs, whatevers, and when?

― david h (david h), Monday, 9 September 2002 18:13 (twenty-three years ago)

After all the glitch crap I've listened to, I always assume that any noise is part of the recording, even when my equipment really is messed up.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 9 September 2002 18:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Some peripheral noises on rock CDs give me the distinct sensation an outside voice is calling me, and until I learn to anticipate that particular point in the songs, it always makes me pull off my headphones only to realize my brain was playing tricks on me. Must be some high-frequency thing in the mix.

― gazuga, Monday, 9 September 2002 18:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I still really really really don't get people who think something is going wrong with their copies of Loveless. I mean, everything is perfectly stable on it apart from the guitars, and the guitars announce from the very first note that yes, their pitches are going to be bent. I mean, what possible end-point malfunction would make the tracks sound "like that" and yet leave this perfectly steady rhythm section underneath, especially given the triggered drums? (Haha okay, if it were Colm's natural drum sound -- wherein staying in time is secondary to packing as many snare hits as possible into every fill -- then I would be leaping to the stereo to figure out what was going wrong.)

Sorry for not answering the actual question. I suppose all I need is either (a) recognizable rhythm or (b) recognizable melodic work in something, one or the other. In case (a) I could listen to white noise, if it were chopped up into a repeating pattern; in (b) I could listen to tones from a scale in random order and for random durations. Everything works on melody and rhythm, two dimensions presenting themselves simultaneously: as long as one of them contains a little bit of "signal" everything is fine.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 9 September 2002 18:54 (twenty-three years ago)

this question is confusing, but the first time I heard "Golden Ball" by stereolab, I was listening to the record LOUDLY in my seaside apartment sitting on the couch reading and when that little glitch part occurs and the vocals surrender to distorted compression and that whole lurching rhythm guitar track goes fuzzy... I was midly freaked out at either the defect of the LP or the state of performance of my record player.

― gygax!, Monday, 9 September 2002 19:09 (twenty-three years ago)

my copy of 1999 ive had since i was small ALWAYS had a white noise sound bustin 8th notes of side A. it sounds really cool.

― chaki (chaki), Monday, 9 September 2002 19:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Inspired by listening to The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death for the first time on SECOND-HAND tape, no less, no rhythm section, no drumming, no nowt but Fahey himself, and chewy playing of sinewed guitar, all askew to the world. And, the question still begs - is it meant to be like that?

Btw, nabitsuh, my Loveless example was meant to be the generalised cliche answer.

Note: that's JBR's comment on WireVsElastica.

― david h (david h), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Track 10 off the Polyphonic Spree's album convinced my parents it was fucking up the CD player in the car.

"Are you sure it's not broken William? It's been going on for a qutie a while..."
"No, it just lasts 36 minutes, is all."

I never thought my dad could make his eyes go like Alvin Hall. But I was wrong. Took it out anyway, cos it was naff.

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:04 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a bit of crackling distortion in the very beginning of "Distant Early Warning" by Rush (cue massive groans by the ILM faithful) on the GRACE UNDER PRESSURE album that seemed wildly out of character for a band of meticulous audiophile prog-metal eggheads.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:06 (twenty-three years ago)

The badly distorted gutair on Daisy Chainsaw's Love Your Money, I'm still not sure about it even though the vocal sounds fine. I don't get olde world indie.

― Graham (graham), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:09 (twenty-three years ago)

the very beginning of "Addicted to Bass" sounds like an overripe mp3

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Is "Sharp Darts" (The Streets) meant to sound like the scuzzy beedance of wasps? IE like you have dead bad speakers and you are playing it too loud?

― david h (david h), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Note: that's JBR's comment on WireVsElastica.

JBR and David H: Writing the generalized cliche answers so you don't have to.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Monday, 9 September 2002 20:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Does anyone else's copy of Fuck It have the first disc sounding like its been mastered way too trebly and distorted? I think it sorts itself out after about 3-4 tracks though.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 9 September 2002 22:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Hey anyone noticed that Scratchy sound - it sounds like distortion in the recording signal to me - in The Clash / The Guns of Brixton?
its like on some of the tamborine / shuffle sounds in the first two or three bars.

I always thought it was on my tape but EVERY recording i've heard has it too. - I think its even there on "Dub be Good to me".
dsico

― dsico (dsico), Monday, 9 September 2002 23:34 (twenty-three years ago)

perhaps not quite on topic,but i cannot listen to angel by massive attack without thinking the phone is ringing...

― robin (robin), Wednesday, 11 September 2002 00:20 (twenty-three years ago)

i think guitar wolf blew my speakers.

― brian badword (badwords), Wednesday, 11 September 2002 06:40 (twenty-three years ago)

The start of one of the tracks on Heartbreaker where the tapes been started too early and the little pop and sizzle of the acoustic fluctuates like a melting tape reel, and the fugue-haze of What The Devil Wanted which returned many a CD copy of Whiskeytown's "Pneumonia".

― david h (david h), Sunday, 15 September 2002 09:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Right now I have no idea what song it is (in fact I'd be hard pressed to positively ID any track of theirs by name, and I own all their albums) but there is a Stereolab song that on lp really sounds like my turntable is f*cking up. Like a really erratic speed/pitch problem. It bugs me so much that I think I usually end up lifting the tonearm. On a related note (not really), how the hell did they do that glitter vinyl thing? Like how do the little bits of glitter not poke through and intrude into the grooves?

― Sean (Sean), Sunday, 15 September 2002 15:18 (twenty-three years ago)

The whole of The RISE and SPRAWL of HORRIBLE NOISE!

― David H(owie), Sunday, 15 September 2002 19:38 (twenty-three years ago)

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