Sonic grit

[V Knid esq]

Just been listening to the burial album and those early Aphex Twin Peel sessions and being blown away by the sounds in both of them... which led me back to thinking about something I often dwell on: what is it that makes some sounds 'hardcore' or 'gritty' or more 'real' than others?

I think the first time it was brought back to me was seeing Jeff Mills for the first time in Club UK... it was pure classic banging Mills... then at one point I stepped out of the main room, into the second one where Billy Nasty was playing progressive house. Next to the Mills it just sounded like it was made of lego or something, just plastic and artifical. Back into the Mills room and it was pure force of nature kicks made of granite.

It's not volume or speed or distortion that does it though, some sounds are just more, i dunno, THERE. Mills does it, Aphex - especially early on - does it, those Burial rimshots do it in bucketloads... the bassline in Darn Cold Way O Loving does it... but it's not just electronic music - Beefheart, Stooges, Slayer... most other guitar music sounds thin and weak next to them. So what IS that grit which makes a sound hit so hard?

[spoon]

i think it's the combination of sounds that does it rather than any one thing. like with burial his beats sound really close and in your face, but there's other elements that sound like they're coming from the back of a massive warehouse, mills does the same. clever use of space is one answer i think.

[komakid]

the bass sound on radioactive mans uranium and the guitar on big blacks kerosene do it, too.

[V Knid esq]

Yeah man Kerosene! Steve Albini is the another person I always think of in this category. Butthole Surfers too. It's heaviosity, as metallers might put it. It can even be done with an acoustic guitar - think John Lee Hooker.

[emef]

they all have amps that go up to 11... thats one louder

[komakid]

ha!

i think it has a lot do with the thing called feeling

[V Knid esq]

they all have amps that go up to 11... thats one louder



lol

you may joke but actually intention and belief in the force of what is being done probably is very important... basic martial arts principles...

[komakid]

the coolest amp i ever saw is bob westons (shellacs bass player) its just a huge box with a speaker, a volume poti and an on off knob.lol

[operator]

albini knows his stuff...
love big black...
and he's the main reason why 'in utero' pisses all of that butch vig murdered 'nevermind'...
also albini is a complete microphone geek... knows how to use space to his advantage... which a lot of the computer based music of today really misses...
Worldization is where it's at...

[V Knid esq]

Yeah I think Spoon is onto something with this space business... King Tubbys is another one who just sounds fucking hardcore even when the music is relaxed. Ditto some Dr John, and he's someone who knew how to use mics - check out 'Walk On Gilded Splinters' where he had one mic and the singers all spread around the room so the voice qualities all differ thanks to the different distances... sounds well spooky

[komakid]

we have a RCA Ribbon at our studio. one of the mics in the booklet of "live at action park". we are so cool...


... no seroiusly. this mic does it. you can place it that it watches into the studio wall, while the instrument is in the other corner, and it sounds good

[operator]

nice...
i've got an old russian one i forget the name of now that my old man stole fre the BBC in the 70's...
It's beautiful and weighs about the same as a george foreman grill with george foreman in it
Like, far out...

[komakid]

ribbon? i mean if its the ml52, then you got a hell of a mic there. but lets not get off topic...

[V Knid esq]

I reckon tape helps too. Those old Aphex tracks that he mastered to cassette have an overall toughness that maybe his later stuff lacks (but generally makes up for in sharpness)

[komakid]

oh yes. tape does a lot. and FEEELING! there is music that is completely digital and it still does it. i think using presets doesnt do much to it.... have to find your own sound, even if its just with fruity loops

[love_tempo]

There might be something to the idea that it has to do with the music having a distinct spatial character. Like the Burial LP has a very definite sense of being in a particular place. Mills records were almost the sound of bunkers and warehouses pressed on to record. Early aphex was drowned in reverb. I think reverb, whether it's artificial or real has a lot to do with it. Hiss, crackles and noise sometimes work almost like a type of reverb.

[JE:5]

Alot of the old PCP stuff was like that too, music for huge space arenas ;)

[V Knid esq]

Yeah that's true too! Belgian new beat and techno has some cracking reverb... a lot of them were into using actual caverns to record in.

[komakid]

my last drum mentor said one good thing:

"... man, you have to play with yer head, yer heart and yer balls..."

if you play with all them, the air is swinging in a different way. its true... it gets an envelope, which can be described as fat.

[love_tempo]

I think that music that sounds too clean just triggers something in your brain that lets you know it's not real. The real world is a noisy place with insects, wind, bird noise etc...

[love_tempo]

if you play with all them, the air is swinging in a different way. its true... it gets an envelope, which can be described as fat.

Definitely, and with things like The Sonics where you have musicians with balls playing loudly together in a real space with lots of spill and loads of different types of noise and interference you get a sound that nobody can emulate (yet).

[komakid]

true. but i wouldnt split the worlds between music made by humans and music made by humans and reproduced by maschines. what i was about to say, that it depends on how you work with a particular button on the maschine, how you adjust the settings on your amp, how you put the finger on the guitar string, how you hit the drum head with a stick. its about the way how you do it. it must be with head, balls and heart. then you get the particular sound that sounds different... maybe better then some stupid goa resonance bass in some progressive house tune. thats my theory. its about the soul...

[V Knid esq]

Kraftwerk are clean... lots of Vogel is clean... but they still kick. It's not all about interference...

[garew]

analogue

[love_tempo]

I'm know I'm stating the obvious but mostly people's music sounds tough because they want it to, and can. The means isn't important. Mills is a good example because he doesn't make records that sound like that anymore either because he doesn't want to, or can't, or both.

It can't be something technical linking Brahms, Wagner, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, The Sonics, Beefheart, Big Black, Slayer, Kraftwerk, Jeff Mills and Burial. It has to be a frame of mind.

[garew]

Id love to buy four or five valve amps and play all my synths through them and stick a mic in the middle of the room. I imagine the micing and recording would be the tricky part.

[operator]

he he...
I've been doing that for my masters...
8 vintage guitar amps set up in a series spaces (rooms) simultainiously.
I've been recording the results with binaural mics...
the best sound has come from a 50's-60's watkins amp...
I'm post the stuff when i'm done if anyone's interested.

[komakid]

im interested

[garew]

I would love to hear your recordings op.

[stinkfinger]

defo mate

[JonnySpeed]

butthole surfers and big black are all about analogue for me. The bass, quality lead riffs, drum patterns and mad vocals all cleanlycompressed and distorted.

Had a bit of a Mudhoneyand TAD session this afternoon. Proper Sub Pop nonsence.

[Sheridan]

So what IS that grit which makes a sound hit so hard?

there are a lot of factors but a major element is compression.
the advent has that same sort of feel. kick drums that kick you in the teeth and razor sharp hi-hats. a friend of mine emailed cisco years ago and asked him for some advice on how to make a track stand out. I quote cisco: 'compression, compression, compression'.

[spoon]

I quote cisco: 'compression, compression, compression'.

that might be useful advice for producing loud, banging loop techno, but it has nothing to do with dynamic range.

[Sheridan]

that might be useful advice for producing loud, banging loop techno, but it has nothing to do with dynamic range.

bullshit.
compressors are used all the time in all types of music.
end of.

[spoon]

bullshit.
compressors are used all the time in all types of music.
end of.

i never said they weren't. end of what?

[spoon]

was looking for this article about dynamic range from a while back, it's mostly related to pop and rock music, but i think it's relevent here....possibly: http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.htm

[amble]

adding compression can't be the trick cos a lot of these plastic sounding nu school techno is apparently totally overcompressed!

i'm thinking rather less compressing is the way to go. leave the loudmaking to folks that have both the expertise and equipment to realy make it KICK.

[Sheridan]

i never said they weren't. end of what?


to me it just sounded that you were dismissing the idea of compressors.

[Sheridan]

adding compression can't be the trick cos a lot of these plastic sounding nu school techno is apparently totally overcompressed!

i'm thinking rather less compressing is the way to go. leave the loudmaking to folks that have both the expertise and equipment to realy make it KICK.

true, a lot of stuff is over compressed. but take a dry 909 kick and then run it through a compressor with a ratio of 2:1 or 4:1 at most. have the compressor turn on at around -10db with a slow attack and a quick release and tell me which kick has more punch.

I think the key is compressing certain parts, whereas some people compress the whole thing and just squash the hell out of it.

[komakid]

t

I think the key is compressing certain parts.

yeah, that is the reason why its been invented and it should be the way to use it.

[nikrem]

it's all about that space and tension. listening to "storm" by lee INSYNC recently..analogue tapehisss and space in the groove. grimy instinctive dislocated hips, fallingdownstairs drums, loose-joints. four-way hips and elevator-shafts. un-quantised grease.

"space motherfucker" - miles davis

[garew]

Radio music is compressed entirely. Which is why its so loud. They run the whole track through a compressor. I find it hurts the sound. Takes away the depth.

[garew]

operator, what kinda amps and what mic are you using? can't wait to hear it. I think recording the amps would be tricky. That could be the spot were the grit gets lost.

[thembuzz]

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thanks! now my productions will have the BALLS they've been lacking

[thembuzz]

fucking hell, this shit is GOLD

[mdk]

3rd order harmonics

[CV]

there's a switch imaginatively called "FAT" on the Cranesong Spider that introduces analog 3rd order harmonics on the preamp channel.

Its trickier to mix a precise sound.. bass goes kind of 'plasticine' boom , sounds loose very sharp precision, but mixes get really solid. So drum buss, distorted guitar, reverbs, get really nice.

Chebysev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chebyshev_filter) distortion algorithms are very musical... Soundhack has a great one.