Sonic Improvement Since 1975?

Music is a total subjective matter. You say there is no sonic improvement, maybe true, maybe not true.
We often forget there is a new generation doing completly diffrent things with a DAW....ask any sales manager..... what was the guitar yesterday is the DAW today....
I think things are always changeing, and thats good...

And if hiss is so great?
Sometimes I like it, sometimes I am happy that there is no Tape at all....

Ok...I totally disagree. The sonic improvement has been enormous in my opinion. Now - the "sound" might be a different story. But the ability to take a snapshot of reality has increased exponentially imho.

I dunno. If we're talking (classic) rock type stuff, I'm not sure how much has really changed. If we're talking guitar heavy stuff, guitarists are using the same gear and being recorded through chains that would be recognizable in the 70s. Sure, there's been a resurgence of ribbons, which Imo is a good thing. 500 series may be a change in the form of the recording chain, but we're still seeing Neve and Api and 1076s etc. It really hasn't changed all that much. I'll give you tape versus digital, but whether that's an overall positive? And with that a vast expansion in track counts. Which for the kind of stuff I like, probably isn't an improvement 98% of the time.

So, I dunno. The tools on the musician side and recording Other than going to digital are all pretty similar. Quieter in a lot of cases perhaps. What else has changed? Monitor quality maybe?

So, I dunno that the quality of the sonics captured, at least at the high end, should be as good as ever.

But, with increased track counts. And Ssl, so automation and comps on every channel. And if you got 'em, why not use them? More outboard. Editing capabilities up the wazoo. So, who needs to play a song all the way through anymore. Studios closing, less opportunity for hands on mentoring. A lot of this stuff has tended to tilt things toward performances that are more "perfect" and often sonically stunning, but musically bland.

So, I'll go with better sonics, crappier music as a gross generalization.

But, I'm a rock guy. What's the view in the classical or jazz genres where I might expect the quieter mics and pres and digital recording might be an asset and where I would expect much less use of editing etc. In other words, I would think not much has changed in recording and mixing in those genres other than recording to digital, and that might be seen as a sonic upgrade? But that's just a guess.

Cheers,
Geoff

I played guitar on a record tracked on a Quad-Eight a couple years ago. I thought it sounded amazing.

I left those sessions wanting that desk.

The concept of the color piece has morphed dramatically in the last decade too, the old tube preamps that were hard to sell to Americans in 2005 (are they too colored/dirty/etc?) not long ago are all through the roof now, with people wanting to add output attenuators so they can drive them into SQUARE WAVES at all times, to get THAT TONE (which was never used previously).

I think there's confusion here, because listening for "sonic improvement" ends up comparing other things too, especially the engineering/production. I think there have been sonic improvements, but they're not fully utilized in today's productions. Beck's Sea Change is a good example of a modern super high quality recording.

Popmann is probably right about the most egregious difference being today's mastering techniques. I pounded the shit out my tracks and can barely stand listening to them. I "mastered" and gain staged the most recent track properly, ( for once), and i love listening to it.

As for Bob's statement, the best sound I've ever heard was when I went through a Trident board to a 2" 16 track. It's s close call though, because when my old band The Demons did their album for Mercury Records, we did it in Plaza Sound, which was at the top floor of Radio it Music Hall, in a room built for Toscanini to conduct the NBC orchestra. The album we did didn't turn out anything like I wanted, but man, the sound in that room was great enough to make me smile decades later.

Gear audio quality has only been getting cheaper since the early '70s.

I think it's a case of mojo vs. clean.

Back in the day, all you had was whatever you could get.  Choices were limited by technology, selection, and then by costs. 

Nowadays, choices are almost unlimited because technology has allowed vastly expanded selection and cheaper costs.

Back then, all you had was mojo.  Tape and tubes were the staples.  People yearned for cleaner and clearer, which were expensive and harder to get.

Nowadays we have clean and clear for days, and the tape and tubes are much more expensive and hard to get.

I think it really comes down to people wanting what is harder to obtain.  The harder, the more desirable it is.