Trebley Pop Music

[Willy Nilly]

Is it me, or does a lot of pop music, the sort Heart play, have the treble turned up at the expense of bass?

A week or so ago I heard a Rihanna song back to back with something else, which escapes me, that was noticeably tinnier than the following song,which may have been Florence.

What say the panel?

[Shilvers]

It's the new thing for the yoof of today as it's played a lot on tinny mobile phone speakers, hence the emphasis on treble.

Sad times

[suthol]

Shilvers said:

It's the new thing for the yoof of today as it's played a lot on tinny mobile phone speakers, hence the emphasis on treble.

Sad times

Yep, back in the 60s & early 70s all the kids had crappy transistor radios and our stuff was mixed to sound good on them

[Willy Nilly]

Nanook said:

Willy Nilly said:

Is it me, or does a lot of pop music, the sort Heart play, have the treble turned up at the expense of bass?

A week or so ago I heard a Rihanna song back to back with something else, which escapes me, that was noticeably tinnier than the following song,which may have been Florence.

What say the panel?

If you listen to FM radio on a car stereo, it's never going to sound great.

Try listening to the same songs through a decent amp and decent set of speakers. I listen to songs on my Echo in the kitchen, then when I hear it again on my big stereo up stairs it can sound totally different.

Plenty of music sounds perfectly good on FM on a car radio, but certain types of music seems to me like it's been mixed with next to no bass and a lot of treble and stations like Heart, that i hardly ever listen to, seem to turn the treble up further.

The Rihanna song I was referring to was played through an amp and still sounded awful.

[Zad]

A lot of music these days (i.e. since the 90s) is produced with increasing amounts of compression or "loudness" on it. Totally defeating the dynamic range of CD, but I guess mp3 did that a long time ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

[anonymous-user]

Shilvers said:

It's the new thing for the yoof of today as it's played a lot on tinny mobile phone speakers, hence the emphasis on treble.

Sad times

Very true, kids of today have never experienced the thrill of trouser flapping bass from a decent pair of floorstanders, their loss.

[Konan]

Willy Nilly said:

Plenty of music sounds perfectly good on FM on a car radio, but certain types of music seems to me like it's been mixed with next to no bass and a lot of treble and stations like Heart, that i hardly ever listen to, seem to turn the treble up further.

As well as running it through a compressor leaving it with a half a dB of dynamic range.

A lot of producers/engineers (pop or otherwise) check how their mixes sound in a car. It's quite a good environment for it - there are very few parallel surfaces and a lot of materials absorbing the sound.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

I always thought George Michael's Praying For Time was a good song ruined because it's too trebly.