What I'm listening to/Watching at the moment

If I’m on my own the. It’s Planet Rock or my vast collection of Classic Rock through my iphone and my Bose Revolve plus. My stereo is in storage too as I have a two year old grand daughter who visits very regularly

The Hi-Fi stand is full of her toys and books atm

This week I’ve mainly been listening to Leonard Cohen - Song’s of Love and Hate, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanangan - Ballad Of The Broken Seas and Amy Winehouse At The BBC - all recent purchases (albeit third copy of the Cohen album!), interspersed with BBC 6 Music.

I’m old fashioned, still listen almost entirely on vinyl and still buying it. I’m really interested in music and always have been, dabbled in recording and production for years, not so much now but still interested in it. Still play guitar, electric and acoustic.

The discussion on the sound of a lot of modern popular recordings is interesting - it’s not to my taste either. It’s fashion though - that sound is what is popular now. Production is constantly changing as engineers and musicians use the latest developments available to them - been that way since recording started. That Cher song Believe, was the first big song to use Auto-Tune - and use it in a way that it was not designed to be used. It was initially intended to be a subtle correction tool but she cranked it to 11 for that robot voice sound and started a fashion.

My other big gripe with modern music is that it generally lacks dynamics, what people sometimes refer to as the loudness wars. I think this is due to how people consume music now. When I was a teenager, getting your first “separates system” was a right of passage. Hi-Fi was a thing. And you listened to physical albums.

Now people listen on streaming services through cheap earbuds or tinny bluetooth speakers. Artists (and record companies) no longer make money on sales, them make them on streamed “listens” - and without an immediate punch and catchy gimmick it’s very easy for the listener to simply skip to the next song. So everything gets “louder” to attract attention.

Recording even has a new measurement to cater for this need - the LUT, which is basically a measure of loudness. You should add that to your hate list alongside overt use of Auto-Tune. I’m less upset about Melodyne though as it is generally used as a subtle production tool rather than an effect; when used well it should be transparent and can make a good recording of a great voice even better. I do enjoy the imperfections in older recordings though.

I become stuck in the same music for weeks at a time. I find Youtube really helpful at times, as it learns your taste then offers you playlists. So, I regularly hear Dream Theatre singling live versions of The spirit carries on, I walk beside you, Lines in the sand etc etc. This then usually morphs into either Dave Gilmour or Floyd. Deep Purple do a really good live track called Birds of prey. But, another trick I have is to make a playlist up in Spotify for every day of the week, then cast it through Alexa so I know it will turn off. Even better, is to use the random shuffle option then it plays the tracks obscurely meaning you do not need to change them so often!

dfk41 It’s funny, Dream Theater were one of my favourite bands in the early 2000’s but I lost interest in the band after Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence and have not listened to any other of their works since. I still consider Awake, Images And Words and Scenes From A Memory as being masterpieces of the genre and peak Dream Theater.

These days I listen to a lot of different genres but mainly black/ambient/avantgarde metal. Here is a personal favourite of mine from the 90’s:

I find myself listening to fewer albums nowadays, and more play list and individual tracks. I used to listen to albums but like video as opposed to just hearing, unless I was working. After Christmas I am going to treat myself to a half decent pair of ear buds of some sort. I use them all day long with my lap top so they never last very long.

I find myself listening to music on Youtube nowdays, hardly ever listen on vinyl, although that could change. I find myself listening to music on Youtube nowdays, hardly ever listen on vinyl, although that could change. As @dfk41 says, it learns your tastes and offers playlists, I get Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Travelling Wilburys, Floyd, Beefheart and more. I’ve spent a lot of time recently listening to the Grateful Dead, there are lots of live performance vids on Youtube and they were a great live band, once some of those tunes get in my head they stay for weeks. Spent so much time listening to them I adopted the Ice Cream Kid cartoon (symbol of their 1972 european tour) as my avatar.

I usually try and stay clear of discussing music as it tends to be a personal subject with everyone having their own tastes, for me that’s usually anything under the very large umbrella of goth. One album I’ve been listening to a lot over the last few months is by Twin Temple https://www.twintemple.com/music (warning — explicit content and self described as Satanic Doo-Wop, so ignore if that’s definitely not your thing).

Apologies if everyone already knows or have tried this but some tips to help hear dialogue on your TV

try turning on dynamic range compression in sound settings

try turning on night mode (does much the same thing as above)

if using a 5.1 or 7.1 or other x.x sound system, boost the centre channel (or even better -reduce all channels except the centre)

try lowering bass and/or raising treble.

Some of these might help or might not - sound on a lot of stuff on TV is really poor.

One of my favourite British bands below. Great dynamic range on the vinyl version of this release too.

Steven Wilson’s stereo remixes of a few Jethro Tull albums (Thick As Brick & Minstrel In The Gallery) also sound amazing on vinyl in my opinion with good dynamic range (average of 13 on my setup). Could talk for days about poor/good dynamic range in music, especially metal related music. Probably why I am still stuck in 80’s and 90’s death/black/classic metal…a large sum of albums were really well produced, with clear separation of instruments and no distortion. These days a lot of music to me sounds like a distorted mess.

What am I listening to? I’ll tell you what I’m bl***dy well listening to, it’s a Christmas mix cd made by my daughter. It’s been on repeat for the last week and there’s another three or so days to go. Some of the tracks aren’t so bad; Pogues, Slade, even John Lennon (except for the kids wailing in the background, or is it Yoko?) but others are awful, Cliff Richard, Shakin’ Stevens, Chris de Burgh. Arrrgh. There’s no respite, when we go out she puts the disc in the car cd. I’m not usually psychic but I predict that disc is going to have a bad accident sometime in the new year.

DavecUK

It’s the one about the Spaceman came travelling.

The family call me a grumpy old git, they even gave me the tee shirt once, perhaps they have a point.