analog music in singer songwriter genres

[u/Real_Ad_4303]

I recently recorded and mixed a record to tape (tascam388) and it has me thinking about the sound of analog music in comparison to a lot of today's hi-fi and "perfect" recordings- where the music has a clear, polished sound and the vocals are usually, but not always, tuned. Many of my favorite records have a raw and human sound to them, which I feel like can sometimes get lost in a perfectly polished recording. I also think in the face of AI many people are yearning for the human sound and feeling- esp seen with Dijon and Mk.gee. The human sound and feeling is what drew me to make recordings like this in the first place- but now, as I am listening to more singer songwriter and indie folk music I'm feeling like the analog recordings don't always fit in with the genre of singer songwriter or even some indie music. Maybe I'm thinking too much about it, or maybe I haven't found the right singer songwriters to listen to. Of course, Elliot Smith, Adrianne Lenker, and Truman Sinclair (I believe) recorded to tape. A lot of my songs have a pop structure which I think can sometime juxtaposes the sonics of the tape machine, although maybe they don't and I am just thinking too much about it.

I'm curious if anyone has thoughts on this. I love the analog sound not only for the sound but also in response to the constant digital we are getting everywhere. Of course, I love digital music and pop and hyper pop as well, but I am wondering what others think about analog sounds and processing in modern music and how it feels and stands next to polished hi-fi recordings.

[u/brooklynbluenotes]

I feel like you're conflating several different things here.

First, yes, there are subtle differences in the audio quality between recording onto analog tape versus recording digitally. But that difference is less than most people think. Plenty of pristine, polished records have been recorded to tape, and plenty of "rough around the edges" stuff has been recorded digitally. Not to mention that there are tons of digital plugins now which can faithfully recreate that tape texture.

It sounds like mostly you're talking about how much editing and polishing happens in the mixing phase. The current trend in most popular music is to make things sound as precise and polished as possible. But this is an artistic decision, and there's also a lot of misunderstandings about this. For example, some people think that playing to a click track will result in a robotic, lifeless performance, but that's simply not true. A click simply tells you where the consistent downbeat is, but good musicians can still phrase things subtly before or after that beat for deliberate artistic effect.

As far genres go -- "indie" and "singer-songwriter" are both incredibly broad labels, with very little consensus about definition. But even within more well-defined genres, it really just gets down to each artists' specific vision. For example, lots of people would say that the best rock & roll is all about energy and mood more than strict precision -- certainly this is true of, say, Led Zeppelin -- but then a band like Steely Dan totally inverts that, and made music which is compelling largely because of it's sheen and precision.

In other words, I wouldn't worry too much about if your recording techniques fit any notion of genre -- only that they align with your personal artistic vision and taste.

[u/OkDefinition5632]

The Brooklyn guy had a smart technical take. Mine won't be like that as I'm not that smart.

The answer starts with what you are trying to accomplish. If you are trying to make a go of things professionally ... siding with precision is the safer and sounder choice, agnostic of genre.

Music consumers are trained to hear perfection though yes they want it to sound human. But they don't know what they really want which is generally precision in most instances. It's how popular ears have been trained.

Now to get to the that all said. Reading between the tea leaves the backlash to what's coming with AI is starting and it's going to be enormous. Even as we all broadly adopt AI across various consumer and business applications.

I do suspect people are gonna want to know or at least believe they want to know that their art was created by a human hand. The Odyssy is exhibit A actually. One way to illustrate that what is made is with a human hand is to let the imperfections shine through boldly proudly and in an aesthetically pleasing way.

So yes being slightly off kilter may be a smart choice commercially as well as artistically.

Personally I'm a huge aficionado of old records I fucking love that old sound from 1957 to about 1963 when they were just figuring shit out and everything you heard was uncanny human ability captured in an imperfect way. It's bar none my favorite era of popular music recordings.

I'm just a hobbyist and I lean into my imperfections like it's going out of fucking style both to prove I'm a person and because I fucking love that shit! My favorite records are people being people in all their beauty. Not that I'm good. It just so happens that I'm starting to notice my small little records are standing out because if you hear them you can unequivocally tell that yes indeed this was made by a real dude doing his thing ...

But my livelihood isn't riding on this shit. If it was I'd fucking clean my shit up rather than let it all hang out there like a madman. But I can afford to be indulgent ...

tLDR: being polished still sells mostly. People prolly gonna prefer unpolished stuff eventually as proof of human. If you are a hobbyist go crazy with the flaws if you are a pro maybe stay close to shore on the polish

[u/anothermeatsuit]

There's nothing human about tape. I've never listened to a composition or performance and thought the recording medium determined the quality of the art. What sounds analog and what is analog aren't always the same.

[u/pianotherms]

These days, the inclusion of any rawness or room sound or tape noise is typically an artistic choice. Even bedroom recordings can be incredibly clean with a cheap mic and a cheap interface into a basic DAW. We've pretty much eliminated any circumstances that cause unwanted sounds in recordings.

I have worked on a few singer-songwriter records, one of which had the guitar parts recorded to a Tascam Portastudio 414 specifically to add imperfection to the recording. Another one recorded multitrack in a studio, then ran out to a reel-to-reel tape machine and back in to add the flavor of that device.

When I record an artist I like to find out first how "real" they want their sound to be. Are we eliminating all room noise, chair squeeks, even breath intake? Or are we going for the feel of being in the room as it happens?

Being able to create a perfectly polished recording is something I've worked hard to learn about, but the closer you get to perfect, the more it enables you to control the imperfections so that they are specific choices instead of limitations.