MONO(phonic) Memories part 2

2009-05-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

The catalyst spirit behind the driving force of those golden times, full of amazing lyrics and huge melodies, lied in the continuous attainment of a full and genuine sound. The available technology, often insufficient or so we believed at least, have sent to the Posterity the exact dimension of the phenomenon due to the professionnalism of inspired sound-engineers and producers too. The book "The Beatles Recording sessions, The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years" by Mark Lewisohn, give us some all- interesting insight about.

Since the beginning of the 90's, with a great passion for, young sound-engineers relentlessly investigate to rediscover the technical components and the secrets of those high-sounding alchemies which have supported the inborn creativity of the Absolute Myths. To find something out about, reliable tips can be obtained beside still living british super producers and sound-engineers. After the evolution and the invasion of the digital technology, innumerable technical informations and details of the analog era had been lost.

Using this foreword as a preamble, I would like to say something about my new active nearfield monitors KRK Rokit G2. An absolute regain listening pleasure! After many years with professional monitors as were the sad and dispirited Yamaha NS10, some pretty good Genelec or other less prestigious brands, I finally have rediscovered, sitting in front of that stylish 70 watts pair of monitors, all the sound qualities that had fed my childhood.
Setting up my newest home studio monitoring, I've focused my analysis on record productions of the 60's to some tracks of the best british pop 'n rock stage of nowadays, having some touch with jazz and fusion of the past 20 years.

What Hell have I heard ? ... Or should I say rediscovered ? I really had the great joy to regenerate my aural perception.
Searching for a neutral monitoring but with a great-sounding, I had these things and then some, linear but well-defined in every minor details all over the frequencies chart impeccably well-balanced between 48 Hz and 20 kHz. But it's realizing the huge and impressive abyss on the quality between tracks of the 60/70's and more recent ones, that I really enjoyed my new situation. With monitors of that kind, a medium trained ear, ruined by all mass formats of nowadays, would easily notice this condition of things.

Best records produced in the recent years, digital ambient-based, are of low quality compared to analogue records created in the Swingin London era, in the Psychedelic and Pop Rock eras.
From this point, frenzid investigations, recoveries and re-editions everywhere.

But ... outcomes aren't still here yet!

MONO(phonic) Memories part 1

2009-05-16T03:19:00.001-07:00

What does it remain of the 1-way slimline speaker and the old-fashioned 60's record-player, when the common technology in use was so limited but the charming sound so peculiar ?

What does it happen to fantastic pick-ups and splendid speakers of the 70's which design and elegance were mixed to the deep realism of the sound, which fleshy frequencies spread around our primary senses without blasting ears away by a murderous high-wattage.

What do we say about the perception of a common music-listener (who didn't know the meaning of virtual or virtuality at all, as we intend it today) ...?

How many regrets for those LP sleeves and covers, ungenerous with credits, but so pictorial and pleasant.

And what about ... the mysterious nebula surrounding all the record production smart world of those days, from simple performers to producers via great professional sound-engineers? Have we received some inheritance from them, at the beginning of the new century?

Us, young fellows and music lovers of those times, we eagerly breathed in, trying to glamourise and to sophisticate things, looking for fascinant and genuine stuff, always craved for something new and different.
This mood was always supplied by an unceasing curiosity, constantly fed by pop and rock albums since 1962 until 1976, unprecedented era in all the popular music history of the XX° century.

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MONO(phonic) Memories part 2

MONO(phonic) Memories part 1