More Tech, More Better, Right?

I was having a discussion with one of my younger senior members recently, when he asked me if I thought that the technological improvements in video games over the past thirty years had resulted in better games. I paused for a moment, and thought about it. Then I asked him if he thought that the technological improvements in music over the past five hundred years had consistently resulted in better music.

Here’s the thing, I’m not bagging on current popular music. Not completely anyway. True, there’s a lot of garbage out there, but I’m not sure if the signal to noise ratio is worse now than it was forty years ago when a few big companies had absolute control over what got played on the radio, and thus what was popular. We have a local station that plays 80s and 90s hits. On the weekends, they replay old Casey Kasem Top 40 shows. It’s a great reminder that most of the popular hits from that decade were just as disposable as most of the hits of the current decade will be.

Thanks to the rise of YouTube, Bandcamp, Twitch, and other platforms, it’s a lot easier for bands to at least find a small but devoted following. It’s still a lot of work, but this is how we’ve gotten bands/artists/performers like Halocene, First to Eleven, Lindsey Stirling, Jonathon Young, and No Resolve.

One thing does stand out though, that we’ve lost: mixing. I’m far from the first to lament what we lost in the Loudness Wars, but what doesn’t get mentioned even in that context is how album mixing seems to have become a lost art. It’s understandable to an extent. Anyone mixing a song now is likely doing so with an ear towards what will sound good on YouTube or Spotify, blaring out of a tiny cellphone speaker, or at best a small to medium size bluetooth speaker. For an example of what I mean though, take a listen to one of the songs that I consider to be extremely well mixed: AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”. (You’ll need some headphones for this).

Note how the guitar intro starts off hard-panned to the right ear. The drums and vocals “Thunder!” are center channel, metaphorically right in front of the listener. Then the second guitar line comes in and it’s hard-panned to the left ear. Then the song really gets going, with the vocals, drums, and the third guitar riffs in the center. This is consistent throughout the song. If you listen closely, you can hear that first guitar melody in your right ear the whole time, and the second one in your left ear. Oh, and that slide at the end of the second verse where the guitar pans from right to left. Some of the other instruments aren’t as hard panned to one side or the other, but are still somewhat panned in one direction.

Now compare this to probably my favorite modern cover. Absolutely no hate to Leo Moracchioli, I love what he does. But, although there is some instrument panning, it’s a lot more subtle, and the whole mix is pushed more center. Again, this plays better out of a phone or Bluetooth speaker, but I would argue, loses some of the artistry.

Now what of the original question? For that, you’ll have to come back next week.