Grateful Dead Music Forum

I've noticed this since about 2010 with Dead music.

There's simply too much happening near 100Hz! The result is that the music becomes very fatiguing when I'm listening to it unless I apply a fairly narrow notch filter at 100Hz. Listening to the old recordings this never happened.

Did something change in the recording techniques that has resulted in this, or are we just being presented with unedited music? I grabbed all of the GD50 tunes, and I found that I immediately had to correct all of them so that they wouldn't sound so boomy...

Could it be the Dead's new Philcentric sound? I noticed a "rumbling" ( I don't what 100 hz be ear) generated by Phil when he really gets going.

Dude, it's not you, it's everywhere. Since everyone has subs mixes seem to be built around subs. I hate it...

strumminsix wrote:Dude, it's not you, it's everywhere. Since everyone has subs mixes seem to be built around subs. I hate it...

+1 Seems like a step back to me.

That, plus for most of us the top end is gone off our hearing at this point.

The loudness wars! Ugh! the bass is now exaggerated in all music. Hip hop became so popular with younger generations, that they expect to hear a certain level of bass. It's all too much!

Most live sound is mixed this way now also. Poopy crap!

If memory serves Healy & Bear came to the conclusion that certain frequencies caused more fatigue to the ears.

A major factor is definately speaker design. Modern speakers seem designed to pump "flubby" base. Again, somewhere I read that one of the reasons for the JBL's in the WOS was the "tightness" of the bass.

My fairly modern car is so bad I have to turn the bass to -3 to listen to the Dead. Right to the point where it almost cancels Phil…which is freakin' pathetic. It could be a benefit to those who enjoy more modern music styles like Techo or Hiphop. (Hip Hop?) About as close as I ever get is the occasional bout with Galactic. But that's on my son's iPod …so not that often. Again the flubby base makes my eardrums hurt after a very short time.

Alternatively, it could be that music drifts generationally and that process is governed by evolution. This is a natural process to weed out old F&^%'s. This is how you know you've become an Old F&^k. Flubby base chases you away.

Sermon over. You may resume your regularly scheduled OCD exercises.

hippieguy1954 wrote:

strumminsix wrote:Dude, it's not you, it's everywhere. Since everyone has subs mixes seem to be built around subs. I hate it...

+1 Seems like a step back to me.

Very much agree. When I added a sub to my home stereo system 12 years ago it was amazing, low end clarity, richness, untaxed mains, clear center channel.

Now, I need to fight it, constantly tweak the system, etc. Oh, and trying to hear dialogue in movies is next to impossible. The scores and effects are twice the volume of what's spoken...

strumminsix wrote: . . .
Now, I need to fight it, constantly tweak the system, etc. Oh, and trying to hear dialogue in movies is next to impossible. The scores and effects are twice the volume of what's spoken...

Thought it was just me. I am constantly fighting with EQ settings. Arrrgh....

gr8fulbluz wrote:

strumminsix wrote: . . .
Now, I need to fight it, constantly tweak the system, etc. Oh, and trying to hear dialogue in movies is next to impossible. The scores and effects are twice the volume of what's spoken...

Thought it was just me. I am constantly fighting with EQ settings. Arrrgh....

Negative. I spend the first 15 mins of every movie adjusting EQ, subs, and center channel. Maybe I need a more modern receiver?! It's a sony 5.1 with optical in and pushes 500w so I'm quite convinced it should be good to go.

It's really bad with live acoustic music, it seems like no one knows how to make an upright bass sound good in the mix. It's all this subsonic boom that isn't natural to the instrument, no edge, no note definition. When we do acoustic gigs our bassist uses an upright bass and it's almost always problematic if we aren't doing our own sound . . . and our bassist is not one to suffer in silence

It's the same at large shows, it's too much boom, not enough clarity.

They have messed up the headphones too. My old walkman style headphones - over the head and in the ear $12 kind - finally died and had to go buy news ones. Surprise number 1 was that some of these headphones they sell cost more than my instruments. I was asking the sales guy where the $12 pairs were and he looked at me like I was a complete buffoon.

Surprise number 2 was that all of a sudden the bass is front and center in the sound through these ear buds. Not cool.

Shows in the wrong venue can be brutal.

Saw Stu & Melvin Seals in Portland, Or a couple of years ago. Small theater usually reserved for Metalheads. The sound was intolerable. My wife & I had to leave early. Stu playing through a Twin in a small-ish room, and you couldn't hear him. The rest of the sound was so blistering loud with 3 ass-loads of flubby bass.

Bad. It was just bad. Idiots at the FOH soundboard.

I agree with the TV thing. Hadn't thought of that.

Who the hell is actually enjoying this sound?

mgbills wrote:
Who the hell is actually enjoying this sound?

Dudes who loosen the screws on their license plates so you hear "bzzzzzzt bzzzzzzt bzzzzzt bzzzzzzzt" as they drive by.

tcsned wrote:

mgbills wrote:
Who the hell is actually enjoying this sound?

Dudes who loosen the screws on their license plates so you hear "bzzzzzzt bzzzzzzt bzzzzzt bzzzzzzzt" as they drive by.

I wouldn't call them dudes. More like infant like men. Or boys I suppose.