Pink Floyd Engineer Alan Parsons Rips Audiophiles, YouTube and Jonas Brothers 468
First time accepted submitter CIStud writes "Famed 'Dark Side of the Moon' engineer Alan Parsons, who also worked on the Beatles 'Abbey Road,' says audiophiles spend too much money on equipment and ignore room acoustics. He also is surprised the music industry has not addressed the artists' rights violations taking place on YouTube, wonders why surround-sound mixes for albums never took off, and calls the Jonas Brothers 'garbage' all in one interview."
Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:5, Insightful)
Pink Floyd Engineer Alan Parsons Rips Audiophiles, YouTube and Jonas Brothers
Oooh, now this should be good. Let's see what we got here.
Everybody strives to get perfect sound and we work hard to get the best sound we can. A certain artist or song or style of music will sound a certain way. It would be ridiculous for me to make a Jonas Brothers record using the techniques and procedures I normally use. The techniques used to make many modern pop records involve a lot of compression and that's what those consumers want, according to the labels. A lot of the processing that audiophiles criticize is a style thing and part of the music itself.
Oh, my god, the Jonas Brothers are so burned! He did not just say that they are trying to get their sound to be a certain way that their audience prefers. Oh no he did not! I can't believe it, I haven't seen a meltdown like this since Christian Bale flipped out on a stage hand. Somebody, call Disney and have them put the Jonas boys on suicide watch tonight in their cells -- not even paper underwear, they know how to hang themselves with that. When they hear this news they'll probably never perform again.
I think what perhaps critics don’t appreciate is that there is a lot of luck in getting a good sound. It's not all about the equipment, spectral response and compressing. It's all about the quality of the musicianship, the songwriting and the sound reaching the microphone ... that's crucial. It's often been said, "garbage in means garbage out," so if that's the case you won’t get a good sound.
Wow, I am so glad I'm not an audiophile right now. I would be fuming! Never have I heard such a direct and searing attack on audiophiles. The era of hipster sound snobs may be over as we know it.
There's another damaging situation: You can complain about iTunes and subscription sites being damaging to copyright owners and having inferior audio quality, but one of the worst culprits is YouTube. You can look for any record ever made and it's on YouTube for free - usually with crappy audio - and let's not even mention the video content that's out there to go with it. I sense there will be a huge copyright court case over the content on YouTube someday.
Oh, now he's stepping on a big dog's toes. You cannot print that, that is slander and that is libel. YouTube promises to provide only the highest quality sound and video ... Certainly Google's legions of lawyers will see Alan Parsons in court.
Seriously? That's considered "ripping"? Everything I read was fact and on top of that, he's still predicating his sentences with "I think."
"Well gee golly, Fred Rodgers, how will we put up with all these harsh words flying out of Alan Parson's mouth?" I think you need to take a trip to the Abuse Department to hear some real
Those audiotechies killed dynamic range (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Pink Floyd engineer"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Although I was a fan of Alan Parsons Project albums, I think the vast majority of music listeners would say "Alan Parsons?", with the logical response being "He engineered Dark Side Of The Moon".
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the new "Internet News" media standard. Story titles will flat out lie if they have to get you to click that link. It's all about driving traffic. "A rips B" is a classic New Media headline. BTW, the HuffingtonPost is the worst at this. I used to read it regularly when it was a political site and before it turned into a tabloid Kardashian watch rag.
Audiophiles don't listen to music. (Score:5, Insightful)
All true, Mr. Parsons, and entirely beside the point. Music lovers care about the music, but they're listening to you because you're exceptionally talented. They love your music so much they're even willing listen to put up with crappy 128kbps encodes on YouTube.
But we're not talking about music lovers here, we're talking about audiophiles.
Audiophiles don't use their equipment to listen to your music. Audiophiles use your music to listen to their equipment.
Re:Those audiotechies killed dynamic range (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not the techies who did it, its the marketing departments. Any audio engineer who refuses to over-compress is just going to get replaced by someone else who will.
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:5, Insightful)
We've now reached the point where even the people writing the article summary don't RTFA.
Damn it! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Audiophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably trolling, but what the heck....
There are certainly are noticeable differences in the sound produced by different speakers, different amplifiers, etc. However, if the source material is compressed and equalized so there is minimal dynamic range then the differences in sound from one setup to another will be less noticeable.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Audiophiles (Score:3, Insightful)
Audiophiles are pretty much the dumbest group of people ever. No, you can't hear a difference between this $5000 speaker and this $150 speaker.
Um, you're dead wrong about that one.
Yeah, you're obviously using the wrong cable. If you had something like this [bestbuy.com] maybe you would have a different opinion.
For the record, anyone that pays $1100 for an HDMI cable should be mauled by angry weasels.
Re:"Pink Floyd engineer"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to bet you're overstating "vast majority". By a lot.
Find 100 people, ask them if they've heard Dark Side of the Moon. Of the ones that say yes, ask how many know who the sound engineer was. I bet you'll find it quite small.
I've got pretty much everything published by Pink Floyd up until about '95 or so ... and I know Alan Parsons from his band. I was actually going "really?" when I read the summary.
Then again, I'm neither a musician, nor someone who knows the endless trivia about who was sitting where during the recording and if he was wearing pants or not. That is the "vast majority" of music listeners. The behind-the-scenes talent remains anonymous to most of us.
That's not to say there aren't loads of people out there who do know these things; but I seriously doubt it's even close to a majority, let a lone a vast majority. It's really only the hard-core music geeks who keep track of such things.
Re:I want the editor's tracks. (Score:4, Insightful)
How about a couple sub channels of editing instructions like how much compression and post processing cues.
That way you could adjust them on you new MP5 player?
So the player processor would take all the channels and combine them in realtime to play them and you could have a nice friendly knob to dial up or down compression as they play back.
Re:Audiophiles don't listen to music. (Score:5, Insightful)
Having good equipment set up well in a good room isn't silly, but paying thousands of dollars for a speaker cable [pearcable.com] and a few hundred more for a CD/DVD demagnetizer [gcaudio.com]) is.
There are two definitions for audiophile. You seem to be using the "someone who loves good audio" definition. The person you're replying to is using the "someone who spends ridiculous amounts of money on things that claim to work in ways that would break the laws of physics" definition.
Re:Audiophiles (Score:5, Insightful)
Audiophiles are pretty much the dumbest group of people ever.
No, you can't hear a difference between this $5000 speaker and this $150 speaker.
No, these cables don't sound "warm".
There is a very significant difference between a $150 speaker and even a $500-$1,000 speaker. Not even approaching audiophile territory here, any random person you pick off the street who isn't deaf is going to be able to tell the difference. Stupid audiophile territory starts a little higher; once you get to around $5,000 plus or minus a couple thousand, yeah, you're into the realm of rapidly diminishing returns and you probably aren't going to hear any difference unless you really look for it.
Agree about the cables, though - that is just dumb.
All that said, I think the point Mr. Parsons was trying to make is that a lot of people will pour money into their speakers, cables, amps, turntables, etc. but totally ignore the room they are in. There's absolutely no point in my trying to put together an ultra-high-end system because I use it in a room that also has a refrigerator, often times AC or heater running, people walking around, noise coming in from the street, no attention to acoustics, etc. Basically, no matter how perfect the system is, the listening environment is sub-optimal. Unless you spend the money to install some acoustically perfect and isolated listening environment (basically, a recording studio), it makes absolutely no sense to spend tens of thousands of dollars chasing those last tenths of a percent of performance. And if you do install such a room, then I'd have to agree with one of the other commenters - at this point you are more interested in listening to your system than you are interested in listening to music.
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that was a really retarded thing for him to say. YouTube complies with the DMCA and takes down anything it gets notified about. There will not be some huge lawsuit because YouTube isn't actively policing its content, unless something like SOPA/PIPA becomes law. Besides that, he even admitted most of it is really lousy quality. So what the fuck is he worried about? If someone cares about quality, they'll go get the music from a more quality source--and perhaps pay for it! How novel!
And YouTube even provides links to purchase songs, so it's completely asinine to imply YouTube is somehow promoting infringement and thus ripping off artists. It's helping artists, so maybe he should shut the fuck up.
I'm no specialist, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I must disagree about this point:
It would be ridiculous for me to make a Jonas Brothers record using the techniques and procedures I normally use. The techniques used to make many modern pop records involve a lot of compression and that’s what those consumers want, according to the labels. A lot of the processing that audiophiles criticize is a style thing and part of the music itself.
Crushed dynamic range and signal clipping are not a "style" or "part of the music itself". They are production errors. They are defects. If done in purpose, they are a sign of defective thinking -- "it has to be as loud as the latest #1" rather than "it has to sound as good as possible".
Re:Those audiotechies killed dynamic range (Score:5, Insightful)
If audio engineers had a little bit of professional self esteem they would refuse to go along with this loudness war thing.
They care a lot more about making their next mortgage payment than some immaterial bullshit about professionalism and integrity, just like everybody else.
Re:I'm no specialist, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Crushed dynamic range and signal clipping are not a "style" or "part of the music itself". They are production errors. They are defects. If done in purpose, they are a sign of defective thinking -- "it has to be as loud as the latest #1" rather than "it has to sound as good as possible".
No, it's part of the style, just like acid-washed jeans or predistressed clothing.
Re:"Pink Floyd engineer"? (Score:3, Insightful)
I was also a big fan of Alan Parsons Project 30 years ago. Lately, I "accidentally" found a torrent of their discography, and gave it a try. It was not a good idea.
LOL, I think I'd be the same way if I took out the LP's and listened today. I did a lot of college radio, mostly on the engineering and production side, and I collected a lot of albums that had strong production values (clear recording, cool effects, etc). Alan Parsons Project albums were so well recorded and produced, but the actual music probably doesn't stand the test of time. I used to snap up anything recorded or produced by Mutt Lange and Roy Thomas Baker as well, and there are hits and misses in their musical resume as well.
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:2, Insightful)
Nonsense. If denying me the use of the music I want in the background of my YouTube masterpiece makes me scream "UNFAIR!" like a 6-year-old, then allowing my use as described must obviously be fair, by simple contradiction. Q.E.D.
I suppose this is one place where "copy culture" and media pigopoly agree: "Fair Use" has become "taking whatever I want for any reason I want without compensating anyone I don't want, as long as you can't prove I'm making money on it." Which is one reason why the pigopolists want to kill Fair Use dead.
Re:Audiophiles (Score:4, Insightful)
Then GP should have said that.
Instead he proved he was an idiot. Speakers are the most important and lowest performing part of any audio system.
You talk about parts without measurable differences.
He talks about parts with THD measured in whole % (speakers; yes I know THD isn't a great metric).
Smart audiophiles spend about 65%+ of their money on speakers, 20% on amps, 10% on room accustics, 5% on everything else. They also reject the label to avoid being confused with the 'Black Mamba' 5K$ power cord idiots.
Re:Those audiotechies killed dynamic range (Score:4, Insightful)
If you believe that, then the company you work for can get you to do ANYTHING.
Some of us aren't self deluded bitches.
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:3, Insightful)
Oddly enough, when I read the headline, I assumed "Alan Parsons Rips Jonas Brothers" meant he was using samples of them.
I even started imagining the result. Let's all sing along, now...
There are pyramids in my head
There's one underneath my bed
And my lady's getting cranky.
(I can't get your smile outta my mind.)
Every possible location
Has a simple explanation
And it isn't hanky panky.
(Modesty is just so hard to find.)
Re:Scathing, Absolutely Scathing (Score:4, Insightful)
Alan Parsons says things thousands already know. It makes news because it's Alan Parsons saying it. If I said the same thing (which I sometimes have) people do not stop what they're doing, drop their jaws and mouth "oh .. muh .. gawd".
Yes, and no. Yes, people say this all the time, and I agree, the sentiments/concepts involved are nothing special. But most people aren't accomplished sound engineers with at least one iconic album under their belt. Alan Parsons is talking about things that he is either a professional and accomplished practitioner of, or they are at least things that are tangential to his profession.
So yes, it's news because he said it, but just because thousands have said it before, doesn't mean his words aren't newsworthy or at least interest-worthy. It's entirely possible that things that thousands of people say are entirely wrong. You're never really going to be able to get to a better level of understanding unless someone who knows what they are talking about makes a pronouncement. Sure, he didn't share a secret with us, but he did provide an affirmation that lends credence to these statements.