When? That's a long clip!
P.
P.
When? That's a long clip!
P.
When? That's a long clip!
P.
BMA: You’ve played bass on some very famous records and you’ve done some string arranging. Where is that line between producing, arranging and writing? When do you become a writer on a record?
Tony Visconti: For me, there is no line. It depends who I’m working with. Someone like David Bowie, he really appreciates musicianship in other people. He lets them shine, which is one of his gifts. He’ll control it, if it’s not going in a way that he likes, but he’ll let me do a lot of crazy stuff and he likes me to bring that out in other people as a producer. Whereas some people have very, very firm guidelines. They want to sound exactly one way; you can’t deviate if there’s a sound associated with them and they want you to improve it a little bit but not change it completely. So I’ll do less interference. For instance, I worked with Morrissey, as a singer. He said, when it was time for his vocals: “All I want you to tell me is to sing louder or quieter.” “Fine, we’ll start out from that base.” That was just the vocals, he let me have my way with the band. I got the band to jump through hoops. But after he gained confidence in me, after a few days, I was able to give him a little more coaching than that. But if that’s all he wanted from me I was perfectly happy with that. I’m not going to dictate to a person who doesn’t want to be dictated to.
It came out at the height of the 'loudness wars'
But that's nothing compared to Years Of Refusal, which is completely unlistenable because of its insane loudness.
The bad sound isn't due to the producer, that's due to the awful mastering by Emily Lazar. It came out at the height of the 'loudness wars', so the mastering has compressed all the dynamics to f*** in order to make it sound as loud as possible. Only 'Dear God Please Help Me', sounds OK, as they have resisted the temptation to crank the volume into the red for that track. Eventually, this will get a remastered edition, and sound amazing - please!
The bad sound isn't due to the producer, that's due to the awful mastering by Emily Lazar. It came out at the height of the 'loudness wars', so the mastering has compressed all the dynamics to f*** in order to make it sound as loud as possible. Only 'Dear God Please Help Me', sounds OK, as they have resisted the temptation to crank the volume into the red for that track. Eventually, this will get a remastered edition, and sound amazing - please!
I like ROTT. YOR is just awful. What was he thinking?
ITT:
Old people who struggle with loud music.
Sometimes loud Morrissey is all you need.
YOR and ROTT are both great.
A lot of people dismiss these two albums because of the mixing, production, etc.
Hardly hear people talk about the actual music, lyrics, and so on.
As time passes, I've come to realize a lot of you f***s are old and haven't moved on to anything past the 80's.
Well, maybe not the 80's, but the 90's most def.
Let's not forget that during this period, Morrissey's live consideration was always 'loud, loud, loud' - so it wouldn't really surprise me if ultimately he was the one in charge of the final mix/master, and pushed the engineers to make it as 'hot' as possible.
Ultimately, Morrissey is in charge of everything. There's no way ROTT went out without him fully approving the final mix, along with the cover artwork, font, etc etc.
If he took it home, and thought it sounded muddy, I'm sure he would have done something to alter it before it came out. That's obviously the way he wanted it - though anyone with decent ears that haven't been blown to shit by touring can tell it's not a good final result.