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Recording quality by decade

As I've been listening to my records, a pattern seemed to emerge that prompted this question - did the recording technology advance significantly between the previous decades and the mid/late '70s? Most of the classic rock records I own pressed in the '60s sound like crap compared to the classic rock records recorded in the mid to late '70s.

My Cream, Doors, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix records, just to mention the biggest acts, sound awful compared to Pink Floyd, Foreigner, Supertramp, Kate Bush, Rickie Lee Jones, or Fleetwood Mac records I have that were released in the '70s (and '80s). There are arguably a few exceptions, such as good pressings of some of the Led Zeppelin records, but on average any record recorded and pressed in the '60s sounds just bad compared to most records from the '70s and '80s. All of the Cream records I have are just painful to listen to - muddled, veiled, flat, and essentially garage quality.

I understand I'm making a big generalization, but seriously, I can't think of one record from the '60s that sounds really good. This puzzles me as there is a plethora of superbly recorded jazz records from not only the '60s, but also the '50s. Has anyone else noticed this?
actusreus
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
I can't comment on the rock recordings but the jazz recording quality is special from the 1950's-60's. The majority of mine sound exceptional from various labels, Comtemporary, Prestige, Riverside, Verve, Columbia and there're certainly others.Among the various labels they have there own distinct sound but all were very good.Fortunately for jazz lovers the current recordings maintain a high level of quality, they avoid the compression nonsense with rare exception.It's as though the engineers respect the jazz music and musicians and try not to muck it up.
Regards,
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,365 posts
 
At some point in the mid to late 60s studios replaced their tube equipment (consoles, microphones and processors) with solid state designs. Some say this was a step backward in sound quality. Starting in the 70s the newer consoles had more channels for recording and mixing and were mated with 24 track tape machines, which if needed, could be sync'd for 46 track recordings/mixing. Over dubbing/double tracking became the norm and real time recordings, at least for pop music, stopped. In the late 70s affordable high quality reverb/delay processors became available from EMT and Lexicon. If the 80s had a sound, it was the sound of reverb.

The biggest change really occurred in how bands used studios. In the 60s the earliest Beatles' albums were recorded in 2 or 3 days. By the late 70s and into the 80s some bands were taking nearly a year of studio time to produce an album.

Classical and jazz recordings never fell fully into this trap. For them you always had real musicians who could play a performance straight through playing together in a room. A decent sound recording room, a few good mics, spare use of processors and just an occasional overdub generally makes for a good sounding recording.
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,250 posts
 
Onhwy61,
That makes sense to me.It would seem that keeping the recording pathway simple and straightforward and avoiding the added manipulation is preferable. I'm glad jazz didn't succumb to the over processing trend.
Regards,
mapman's avatar
mapman
23,043 posts
 
I think its fair to say that recordings over the years have tended to continuously become more heavily "processed" over time, digitally in particular. Kinda like a lot of fast food. Also like we always seem to get new taxes and laws and few older ones ever repealed. Things tend to snowball over time. Luckily, there are many with the skills needed to tame it all. That's what makes technology a benefit and not a curse!

Myself, I have really taken a liking to listening to older recordings, most anything that pre-dates the 70's and the rise of the transistor and digital to replace tubes and analog.

The recording vintage has a lot to do with whether my main system sounds like tubes/analog or transistor/SS. That's the way it should be! I can appreciate it all when its good for different reasons. Listening to old recordings can be a nice "tweak"!
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