Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

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tomk
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Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by tomk » Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:33 am

Question specifically about TAXI # S210128SS.

The listing states:
They’re looking for authentic recordings in All Tempos ranging from the late '50s through the early '90s...

and:
They DO NOT want material that was recently recorded and made to sound old. They can ONLY use AUTHENTIC, ORIGINAL, VINTAGE RECORDINGS...

I don't really understand why a customer might care and how they would know when the recording was made. Furthermore, how would THEIR customer know or why would they care?

p.s. this is my first post on the forums. If you have feedback on how/where I posted, please let me know that, too!

thanks!

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by AlanHall » Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:13 pm

This was discussed in a Taxi TV episode (can't point you to it, unfortunately!) where the guest (engineer? producer?) said unequivocally that he could hear the difference between a song made to sound old and one that was indeed a vintage 50s, 60s , 70s etc. song. some of the difference had to do with production values, some of it with song construction and style. I think the argument is that no matter how much someone today tried to emulate an older recording, there are 'tells' that the song is a product of recent vintage. I think someone with ears way more golden than mine would be needed to hear the difference. Me,not so much.
I have no idea why they would care. Hope this helps.

edit: I think a listing like this appeals to publishers who have the master rights to a bunch of stuff in their vault. Maybe a never-released single by the Captain and Tenille? The Everly Brothers? Some undiscovered gold nugget that will perk up the ears of the consumer as being 'strangely familiar'.

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by cosmicdolphin » Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:55 pm

tomk wrote:
Thu Jan 14, 2021 11:33 am
I don't really understand why a customer might care and how they would know when the recording was made. Furthermore, how would THEIR customer know or why would they care?
One word..Authenticity

People can usually spot vintage recordings from faux modern recordings made to sound old. Which of these 2 tracks is a genuine vintage recording and which is faked ?

https://soundcloud.com/cosmicdolphin/do ... wM4U4GCS93

https://soundcloud.com/cosmicdolphin/ha ... yERABuiUhO

Mark

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by AlanHall » Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:17 pm

At the risk of treading on our OP's thread I'll post my guesses here first.

The first song Don't Mean Nuthin' to Me sounds like an 80s revival of 50s rock (rockabilly?). Billy Joel, Stray Cats, and a host of others were doing 50s style music in that decade (80s). The second song Hallelujah sounded a lot like 90s funk a la Lenny Kravitz or Living Color, until we got to the shaky vocal refrain - which sounded a bit like Jack White. So I got confused there, as the voice seemed a bit anachronistic for the time period I was expecting.
I don't think you, Mark, are old enough to have been making professional recordings in the early 80s (or earlier), so based on that assumption I'd say that the first song, while it sounds like what I heard a lot of in the post-punk era, could not have been recorded then. caveat: my deduction is based on the unspoken premise that you did both of these recordings yourself. On the other hand, the 90s funk is punctuated by a vocal stab that I don't remember hearing until fairly recently. Of course, just because Jack White was the first singer I heard do that, doesn't mean he started it - much more likely he heard it somewhere else. Are you as confused as I am yet :?
The takeaway for me is that I don't have the aforementioned 'golden ears' to really tell them apart on first listen. If I were to say that Hallelujah is the period-correct piece, I'd have to ask myself, "what period"? 90s at the very earliest, but when does a popular style piece become 'out of time'? How many years after the style first hits the market? If the funk was recorded in the "aughts" is it out of the perceived vintage? I don't know. And even if an 80s post-punk rockabilly revival piece was recorded in the 80s, does it have the authenticity the end user desires?

So I'm guessing trick question (it's a trap!) and both the songs were recorded in the last 10-15 years. Unless I admit the slight possibility that the first song was actually recorded in the 80s, as it sounds a slight bit more realistic in terms of recording technology of that era.

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by Casey H » Tue Jan 19, 2021 6:25 am

+1 regarding the authenticity. And if I recall correctly, this publisher seeks to obtain the master rights to the recordings and their value is in them being original.

Keep in mind that the CLIENT sets the requirements, not necessarily Taxi.

8-) Casey

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by calumupton » Tue Jan 19, 2021 7:56 am

I think these recordings are likely to be used as source music (e.g. the music on the radio in a scene) rather than background music, so that makes authenticity especially important.

In terms of why the customer might care, some productions / directors value authenticity very highly - for example they'll go to huge effort to source genuine props, cars etc - and I've always assumed they're applying the same ethos to any source music.

Hopefully I'm still around when someone's asking for authentic unsigned music from the 2010s/20s...

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by cosmicdolphin » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:23 am

AlanHall wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:17 pm
So I'm guessing trick question (it's a trap!) and both the songs were recorded in the last 10-15 years. Unless I admit the slight possibility that the first song was actually recorded in the 80s, as it sounds a slight bit more realistic in terms of recording technology of that era.
Not a trick question - Halleluah is a 1996/7 band recording from back in the day ( recorded on ADAT..everything live / real ) and Don't mean nothing is a 2016 recreation of a 50's style track made in the DAW with fake drums and piano but live bass and guitar

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by AlanHall » Tue Jan 19, 2021 9:39 am

cosmicdolphin wrote:
Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:23 am
AlanHall wrote:
Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:17 pm
So I'm guessing trick question (it's a trap!) and both the songs were recorded in the last 10-15 years. Unless I admit the slight possibility that the first song was actually recorded in the 80s, as it sounds a slight bit more realistic in terms of recording technology of that era.
Not a trick question - Halleluah is a 1996/7 band recording from back in the day ( recorded on ADAT..everything live / real ) and Don't mean nothing is a 2016 recreation of a 50's style track made in the DAW with fake drums and piano but live bass and guitar
Hallelujah is a great 90s funk song! I hadn't heard that glottal stop technique (vocal 'braying') before about 5-10 years ago.

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by AsburyParkAngel » Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:09 pm

I'm just a folk-jazz acoustic guitar hacker, lol, But I work with a gifted, mult-talented engineer who owns a tudio here in Farmingdale, NJ and he is n authentic artiste. He says there's a great distinction between analog sound and digital

Analog is warmer and those old reel to reels give a vintage sound. John says the newer technology make recording sound "sterile".

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Re: Only wanted: recordings from 50s - 90s

Post by cosmicdolphin » Fri Jun 18, 2021 12:30 am

AsburyParkAngel wrote:
Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:09 pm
He says there's a great distinction between analog sound and digital

Analog is warmer and those old reel to reels give a vintage sound. John says the newer technology make recording sound "sterile".
That's a pretty sweeping statement :lol:

I think John is a little bit out of touch. It may have been true 25-30 years ago but Livin' la Vida Loca mixed by Charles Dye was the first hit song to be recorded and mixed entirely digitally in Pro Tools...that was in 1999, and it doesn't sound sound sterile.

When Daft Punk made Random Access Memories in 2013 ( the most expensively produced album of this century ) they recorded everything to both Pro Tools and Analogue tape simultaneously, and on a per track basis chose whichever sounded best for the final mix. Sometimes they chose the analogue recording, sometimes the digital recording sounded better.

We've had the tools to make digital recordings sound more analogue for a good 20 years now, so it's really down to the skill of the producer whether their tracks sound sterile or not.

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