bob is my hero, but alas, even i must disagree with him on this one. most of the music of today is crap that is true, but remember a lot of the music from the 60s was also really crap too. i mean, we keep calling the 60s, 70s the “golden era” of music, and people get fooled into believing it was all good music, when in actual fact, just like today, there was a whole bunch of shit like there is in today’s music.

the last 20 years had some great music being released, from bands like nirvana, pearl jam, alice in chains (i am a grunge fan…), metallica, bright eyes, green day (because dookie and american idiot are both good records), and even rap like public enemy and nwa. the list of great music being realised from the last 20 years is very long and varied.

but bob dylan is still my favourite so i’ll still keep buying all your shit! (roskilde 06 with bob dylan was pretty good, he was kinda grumpy though)

a spelling error: realised is meant to be “released” hahahahahahaha

Obviously the point being made was completely missed in the previous comments left by Celia.

Man, I love Bob. His comments about today’s music are soooo true. The music today has no shelf life. With one or two exceptions, it’s crap. I ask kids in their 20’s if the stuff they listen to know they’ll be listening to when they’re in their 50’s. 98% of them said “probably not.” I am in my 50’s and so our alot of my peers and we’re still listening to the music from 40 years ago. That should tell ya something.

I just saw him Play in Frederick MD last week and it was the worst concert I have ever seen. He did not engage the audience, he spoke to us once when he said thanks at the end. He sat hunched over a keyboard and the concert turned into a complete joke. The audience could barely make out the songs he was singing at one point we all wondered if we really cared anymore.

One should note that Dylan is not referring to the content of modern records. Rather he is commenting on the sound quality of digitally compressed music. This should be obvious from the comments he made about the sound of his own record.

i agree with bob, i have never bought a cd in my 25 years of life. they are a horrible medium. i do purchase records and pay to see live music. if an album is good enough they will press it to vinyl. i don’t think i will be able to (or want to) buy the new k-fed album on vinyl but i have pre ordered modern times on vinyl. crappy music should be relegated to a crappy medium. good music and listening mediums will stand the test of time.

Man, the guy has been so brain damaged from drugs, his shows stink, he is half deaf, and his judgement it completely gone. Just because brainless teeny boppers are still boinking him doesn’t mean he has anything to say any more. Dylan has NOT been relevant for over twenty years. Let’s all move on.

Bob is and always will be the man.He’s just a tad wrong. There was at least one good album in the last 20years.”Love and Theft”

CAN I SAY POOP ??

POOP

He’s talking about sound quality folks….not song quality, just listen to DSOTM with Floyd on Vinyl and CD and you’ll figure it out…

as noted below, what i think bob means is record labels keep asking for louder and louder CDs. to get the music louder, you need to compress the living doodoo out of them during the mastering phase, which squashes out all dynamics. the result is a loud CD with no definition.

Most of you guys are just bandwaggonists! You should all read the article before agreeing to something that WAS NOT SAID!!! Sheesh! Dylan was merely commenting on the SOUND of music today. How it’s all technologized, as opposed to the 60’s or 70’s when it all sounded raw and live. He was commenting on sound, guys, NOT content! Furthermore, it really would have been very pious of Dylan if he had said that! Making good records does not put one in a position to call other people’s work crap. Some of you guys seriously need to shit out whatever it is that crawled up in your asses! Forgive me for the visual imagery, but it’s true!

How sad that misinterpreting Bob Dylan is what passes for news today.

growing up and through college he was a voice I could relate to and found encouragement in my path the years have passed and the advice is still sound……sometimes what made us great is what’s best remembered……putting down freedom of expression and all it’s high and lows takes away from whom I remember…….I wonder if his music has also changed since I haven’t herd him since my youth…..peace

He’s right. Of course, we live in an age where screeching over someone elses song (Kid Rock) and lip synching (Ashley Simpson) pass for “music”, and are stunningly successful at it.

He IS talking about sound quality KIDz…but most people are listening to their latest download through an iPod while they rollerblade through city traffic.
I remember back in the day…(actually I still do this) sitting in the “sweet-spot” while the latest masterpiece completely controlled my attention. Paying special notice of all the subtle nuance of the painstaking recording unfurling before me like a sonic FLAG.
Why the day I heard “Carry On” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young on a MobileFidelity Original Master Recording played back through a high-end system using a LINN SONDEK turntable, to this day remains a revelation. Digital Audio has a long long way to go.
You tell ‘em ZIMMY. A song so good it’s SCARY, “Simple Twist of Fate”.

Now we are talking “RECORDING” versus LIVE SOUND.
and even vintage 78’s sound awesome on the proper equipment.

dylan was it in 70-80 era
after that he died
bye bye bob
i pod music is comressed to noise
would never use it

It’s true what he says. Today’s music is too loud and compressed. In a race to be as loud as the last guy, everyone seems to have made their albums just way to loud and dynamically squashed to have any real listenability. It’s a musical tragedy. Not to mention that CD quality digital is not the greatest sound. Then the MP3 era brought that audio quality down many rungs. The tools exist to make music sound great, but the industry trends drive the sonic beauty right off the cliff. Bob’s absolutely right.

I agree 100% with Bob. I don’t know exactly where the problem is with these recordings. But there are NO dynamics to speak of.

I don’t completely blame the CD medium for this. SACD’s and DVD Audio CDs do sound better than regular CDs, but at a premium cost.

I think this is just one more example of crappy workmanship in the almighty quest for the “How Low Can You Go” mentality that we have gotten caught up in. This Ipod generation thinks their medium sounds “good enough”, so CDs sound great to them. “Better” no longer refers to Quality, now Better = cheaper and faster… That’s a real shame.

One final thought. The record companies have never really gotten it right when it comes to electronic media such as MP3, WMA etc. They shouldn’t worry about “illegal” downloads as these downloads are today’s replacement for the sad state of FM Radio. BTW, satellite Radio is Horrible for sound quality (talk about compression). Those downloads SHOULD be thought of as advertising for their overpriced, over marketed, over packaged, poorly mastered CDs.

HES TALKING ABOUT CD MASTERING NOT MUSIC

http://www.prorec.com /prorec/articles.nsf/files/8A1 33F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C

there is seemingly little continuity to todays albums. i enjoy listening to a whole album for what its worth. if i want to hear toombstone blues i can’t help but listen to all of highway 61 or at least the side that its on. dowloading a song that you like and listening to just that song denegrates the whole experience.

Bob Dylan still is one of, if not the best. Listen to his words if your player can eeek them out and you will see where our heads were “back then”. Oh yeah, he is probably 70ish but he’s still crankin it out!

Bob is spot-on regarding sound quality these days. I’ve returned to my vinyl collection and seek out new releases on vinyl. For example Lucinda Willians live CD was very thin sounding, but is amazing on LP. I’ve been to parties where people are playing their iPods through a good stereo and the loss of high and low-end sounds is grating to the ears. In our craze to try and get thousands of songs into a 2X2 inch device, we have lost attention to sound quality, which is vital to a good experience with music.

To you Bob-blasters out there (RockFan and Brian): don’t worry, boys, American Idol has a brand-new season lined up JUST FOR YOU!

i saw csny in concert last week and when i got home i was able to download a bootleg copy of the concert i saw. it is great quality and i don’t feel guilty because i already paid for the content. i feel sad for all the legitimate musicians out ther who’s music is held hostage by the whores and pimps of current music.

you’ve been put on notice govern yourselves accordingly. long live the LP

Bob is just a nattering old nabob of negativity. He is just afraid to change. iPod’s sound pretty awesome. You have to have good, high quality headphones, as well as good car speakers to play it through though. The same is true for your home system for your cd or record players: you must have quality equipment. I wonder why he doesn’t comment on cassetes? Probably can’t remember them.
The times are changing Mr. Dylan. Learn to grow.

Bob’s right. Compressed digital music is lousy. Especially MP3’s which sound like music underscored by a distant ocean of static.

Acoustic sound isn’t naturally compressed. When we listen to a CD, we are hearing music that has been “mastered” to be as loud and clear as possible, by using compression to limit the ‘loud’ and increase the volume of the ’soft.’ When we hear the same music on the radio it is compressed again, through the radio station’s on-air compression systems (used to keep listeners from thinking the station is off-the-air during the quiet parts of songs). Since most radio these days is automatically-controlled, drawing on a central computer database of compressed audio files, listeners aren’t even hearing the twice-compressed music at a CD-quality digital bitrate.

Analog media is considered superior by purists because it is a physical representation of sound. A person can drag their fingernail through the groove of a vinyl record and still hear the sound, though unamplified and unclear. When we listen to CD’s, we are not listening to music. We are listening to mathmatics being interpreted by other mathmatics.

Some of the most important frequencies in acoustics are those that we do not consciously hear, but that we feel. Extreme lows and extreme highs (harmonic resonance) are as much a part of the overall effect of music as the midrange that we instantly recognize; the human voice, the guitar, etc. Digital media does not reproduce these frequencies, but uses logarithmic mathmatics to both remove them and to compensate with gain to consciously-percieved frequencies.

Don’t get me wrong. Digital media is a welcome revolution. It has made recording, editing, mixing, and all other steps in the recording process, much faster and easier. Thus, more music is being made by more people, which can only be a good thing. The corporate side of the music industry is dying a slow death because artists can promote their own music on a vast scale, and garner more of the profit from their own work. The work produced, however, in having an entirely digital life, is not a representation of music, but of mathmatics. Alter one number in the digital code of ‘ones and zeroes’ and the music is either irrevocably altered, or it is gone. Scracth a vinyl record and you might miss a piece, but the majority of the music still plays.

As for the quality of the artististic material… the quality of the songs? I don’t know about you, but nothing surprises me anymore, and every new song is something I feel I have heard before.

it has nothing to do with how good your speakers are hunter!!! it’s the quality of the input that is not authentic. i personally use a hand crank gramaphone in my car and it works just fine. who needs digital music. not me.

A lot of 60s music might have been crap, but it sure sounded better than just about anything done to CD these days.

I agree with Bob Dylan on this. Unlike a lot of people who’ve posted here, I actually read the article and realized the context of what he said.

Look, he was talking about the actual SOUND of modern music. He wasn’t bashing the artists. I’m not one of these ninnies who will debate vinyl versus CDs vs mp3s. They each have their benefits. But if you think the sound of an mp3 approaches vinyl, you’ve obviously never heard vinyl on a good stereo. I love my iPod. It makes it convenient to take an incredible amount of music with me when I’m on the road. And in a noisy environment such as a car, sound quality isn’t a big issue. But I can’t bear to listen to the thing on my home stereo, because mp3’s can’t compare to CDs. And CDs can’t compare to vinyl.

But also in the larger sense, Dylan was talking about mastered sound. Modern music has no dynamics whatsoever. This comes from over-production, both during the recording itself, during the mastering and during the digital down-squashing of the sound to fit the lower frequency responses of mp3 (iPod, anyone?) and CDs.

Seems to me the reason everyone is misunderstanding what Dylan is saying is simply the fact that Dylan is talking shop, and what he is saying is a technical point made by a professional musician, talking about how the industry and techology is robbing music of its dynamics and soul.

I don’t really get why people who listen to iPods have to have a knee-jerk reaction when they hear anyone criticizing them. I have one. In the proper context it’s great. But in others it sucks. Same with vinyl.

the fact that you profess that you know what bob is talking about displays your ignorance.

It’s amazing how quickly the media has misunderstand what Bob is saying. He is not trashing modern music; he is talking about the modern technology in recording studios. Why else would he say his own songs sounded better in the studio than on record?

If you have ever recorded, you know the sound you create initially, is a long way off from the final product…. on cd’s and LP’s (which are closer to the truth, given an expensive turntable, cartridge and associated gear unfortunately), but what Bob is saying is true. Then you compress it down through a pinhole into low fi media, and it’s only a small sonic glimpse of what was originally intended/heard by the artist, engineer and producer. Most music downloaders today have no idea of what good sound is. That’s all he was saying. It has nothing to do with his age. It’s just the truth.

thanks people for clarifying bob’s quotes for me… (because it appears i was completely off the track with my original quotes)

Square waves are not sine waves. It is absolutely impossible to make digital sound as smooth as analog. It grates, and I find it impossible to listen to digital reproduction in any worthwhile musical setting, wherein I listen to the music undisturbed and enraptured. It buzzes and the bandwidth is narrow, the sound is plastic and cold.
Between the horrid sound of digital, and the stupid preening of videos music has been ruined as an art form. Sloppiness and incompetence are lauded as “real”, and sampling is the lamest rip-off of all time. At this point, live performance is the only good sound, and not in a bar, and not a fucking track show.

I remember when that Napster guy came up across, it was like, ‘Everybody’s gettin’ music for free.’ I was like, ‘Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothing anyway.’ the medium is the message mccluen

It ain’t just the music Bob’s talking about. Or the sound of the digi-era. Its also the recording. Phil Spector, he had 2 tracks and 50 musicians. He mixed live, straight-to-tape. You can feel the air in those rooms, in the recordings of that era.
Nobody gets that anymore and studio geeks don’t even get that they don’t get it.

It’s the iPod ear buds that are making music sound bad. Not the source.

Two points:

first: All recorded music is sampled. For a CD the sample rate is determined by how many bits fit in a second — in other words how many little reflective angles can bounce that laser in a second as the disc spins. For a record, it’s how many molecules of vinyl go by the needle in a second — and the size of the needle tip is probably the bigger limitation. For a cassette, it’s how many bits of magnetically alignable carbon can go by the head in a second. How many separate indistinguisable values are determined by the sample rate. In other words, if you could only get one “value” in a second, then you couldn’t distinguish much at all. Get LOTS of values, and you can represent a lot of sonic variation. So the fact that the music is digital or analog is not really the point. The sample rate is the thing that really determines the dynamic and tonal range that you can represent with a recording, and then next is the degree to which you can ACCURATELY obtain the original audio information and put it in some medium, to be later reinterpreted. “Analog” sources like records and whatnot get a fairly high sample rate, but are subject to a certain degree of variation and aging behaviors because of the nature of the medium.

The other point that Bob appears to make (in his classic obtuse style) is that today’s music is compressed and normalized intensely in production. This is absolutely true. The studio is really TRYING to reduce the dynamic range of the recording — so that people listening to music in “normal” environments that are somewhat noisy such as their car can hear everything. They effectively have a signal-to-noise ratio problem. In a car or in many other “normal” environments the noise level is really quite high. Low signals are lost in the noise.

This is not the best way to appreciate the true original music.
Apart from BEING THERE, the best way is to find a VERY quiet spot, get VERY high quality reproduction equipment, and sit on a VERY comfortable couch and float away! This is what “audiophiles” love to do.

But the fact is, if you look at the % of the market that fits in that category…it’s not that many. Most people are trying to listen to something on their way to pick up the kids or on their way downtown to meet their friends on the subway. Also the really good audio equipment is not accessable to the average Joe (try $20,000 for an amplifier and speaker set up). So the recordings are trying to cater to the vast majority of people listening in the most common environments. I don’t like it, but I can understand it.

What I would REALLY like, is if the industry (or the whore if you will) would put two copies of the songs on the next generation media. The unproduced version — as the artist intends, and the produced version — for when you’re in your car or whatever. I know that some of my favorite older reproductions honestly suck to listen to in the car, because I can’t hear a lot of it. But when I’m at home it’s great — much better and more rivetting to have the dynamics intact.

And yes folks, super-compressed formats such as MP3 are generally lossy. That means that if you run the math on the CD data to produce the mp3, then run the math on the mp3 to try to get back to the CD data, you can’t get 100% match. You lose information. It’s a really good mathmatical compromise, but you still lose. CD data is “lossless” meaning that it’s an accurate representation — AT THE SAMPLE RATE of the CD (44khz), it’s not encoded in any way, it’s truly just a direct map of the original wave intensity at the point in time that the sample was taken. Higher quality audio can be obtained from using more bits per sample (24 or 32 instead of 16 for example), or by increasing the sample rate. Either way you increase the bits per second that can be used to capture the original audio.

Two cents from the guy that professes to know nothing about what the hell Bob said and therefore I suppose has infinite knowledge and very little ignorance. I don’t know crap about anything. Aren’t I great? (just for you mr. mycomaster)

Dylan is Dylan, there is know one that is close, he’s one of a kind. He is right in what he is saying and has been misunderstood by many.

Wicasta makes a good point. The mastering and over-production during the recording and post production have as much or more to do with the loss of dynamics, than the transfer to digital. Sound is analog. The human ear is analog. For all of the conveniences of digital recordings, there is a trade-off. And that trade-off is dynamics. The technology of today’s digital recording equipment is not yet capable of reproducing all of the subtle nuances of analog sound. Maybe someday it will be able to, but it’s not there yet.

I think MP3 music on a portable player is great for jogging with. Remember cassette Walkman’s and Discman’s? These MP3/iPod type players are far better than what we had in the past.

But, for home audio listening, we should be offered a choice to upgrade. Vinyl sounds great, but it impossible to maintain the sound quality after the stylus has cut into the grooves a few times. Not to mention, the fact that most new recordings aren’t even offered on vinyl.

I guess we will just have to wait for the digital technology to get better, (smarter algorithms) to capture music’s dynamics better. But if the mass buying population is satisfied with digital technology as it stands, there is no incentive for the recording industry spend capital on this issue.

I “think” this is what Bob was referring to when he said today’s music is “atrocious”. It is truly difficult for a new band to come up with something that sounds original. After all, it’s practically all been done before. But it makes it even more difficult for them to have an “original” sound, when the industry mutilates whatever nuances their music may have had when they entered the recording studio. It’s like all of the artistry of the great recording engineers has been nullified by this digital era.

We used to have great sound on a far-from-perfect media (vinyl). Even those great Master recordings on analog tape degrade with time and use. Now we have less-than-perfect sound on a superior (much more durable) media (CDs). Hopefully, sometime in the near future, we can have both in one package. SACD’s were supposed to be that answer, but there is still the problem of how the music is mastered in the studio.

Who even cares what your grampa has to say about the “good old days.”

Two cents from the guy that professes to know nothing about what the hell Bob said and therefore I suppose has infinite knowledge and very little ignorance. I don’t know crap about anything. Aren’t I great? (just for you mr. mycomaster)
are you implying that you know what bob means when he speaks. myselk i’m never sure but i do see an image in MY head.

myco:

I just thought it was odd that you should say that if someone said they thought they knew what Bob said, then that meant they are ignorant. I don’t know what would fuel that kind of statement. I think people have a right to think they may have understood, and no one but Bob would know if they were right, since he said it and he would know for sure. Also, I, in my ignorance, would guess that Bob might agree that one of the beautiful aspects of art is that it is both expressive and interpretive, meaning that there are at least two different and valuable perspectives on any art form. So if they got something different out of it…well it might not be what he intended, but if it has no value then life itself has no value. Even misunderstandings can be the impetus for something more yet to come.

Ah, the old comments about us all exaggerating the ‘good old days’: they say the same about movies, about there being the same amount of shit now as there was then, only we don’t hear anything about the old shit; but, really, how true is that when the art of today goes as far as the Shawshank Redemption, and in the ‘good old days’ went as far from Citizen Kane to Vertigo to Jean-Luc Godard goddamnit! Same with music, obviously they were the good old days when the new days are crap: no exaggeration, just look at the statistics, you’ll agree. Dylan’s right, sure, but he’s not the only one who’s right; the music’s crap, the recordings are crap; vinyls sound crap too but they’re cooler: why not just play it all live! the music always has to be produced FOR the recordings, for the money, FOR the CDs – damnit just produce it for the MUSIC – how long’ll it take? fuck everything else. Dylan’s right, but so are 50 million more: start playing music into your ears instead of a microphone.

It’s worth something to ME. I grew up with Dylan, and now I am growing old with him. I have never heard a single Dylan album that did not have a moment on it or many, that moved me in some way. Even non-Dylan fans will tell you, Well, there was this ONE song he did….” Typically I fond that one to be Lay Lady Lay, but there are so many, so much he has done for music and so much joy he has given to untold millions through his work, that it is now much bigger than he is, than any one man could be. It has life, depth and breadth, I am sure beyond what he ever wanted or dreamed it would have. I am glad to have lived in his time.

Hey Wang…Gramma does..ok????

“I was listenin’ to Neil young / I gotta turn up the sound / Someone’s always yellin’ / “Turn it down”

i agree renaissance any thing anyone says is subjective. i just have a problem with headlines like “Bob Dylan says modern recordings “atrocious” . the way his words are compressed and taken out of context is similar the way songs are compressed and altered from their original form.

Look at how the media is already sensationalizing just this one part of the interview. Every few years Dylan does an interview and says something critical of today’s music. And he’s right every damn time. Years before Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears, he accused female pop singers of “whoring themselves.” It had many people scratching their heads at the time, but it’s damn prophetic now. When promoting “Chronicles 1,” he mentioned how rock music magazines are always trying to make an up-and-coming band the “saviors of Rock and Roll” when absolutely nothing new is really coming out of the woodwork. And now people are putting their hands over their mouths because Dylan explains the obvious once again. This is shit any audiophile will tell you. Vinyl rules!!

VERY interesting point. Kudos!

Dylan’s right, and he’s wrong.

What’s been said about compression is right. And there IS something to the analog-vs.-digital debate, but it’s far outweighed by the convenience factor of digital music.

Remember trying to keep LPs clean, getting the turntable isolated so records didn’t skip when you crossed the room (or danced!), keeping a stylus in good condition so it didn’t eat the records, being sure the turntable rotated at EXACTLY 33-and-a-third RPM? Remember the hassles of moving and storing all your records? As noted by another here, cassette tapes (and 8-tracks, for heaven’s sake!) weren’t a very good solution, either. And then there’s the ability we have today of making a copy for the car….

But he’s wrong if he thinks LPs delivered more accurate sound. Check the sleeves of an LP and you’ll see the disclaimer about conforming to RIAA standards. When mastering, they bumped up the high frequencies (treble) because most people’s record players needed the help in putting the sound across. And as Paul McCartney notes in many interviews, early Beatles records (and, indeed, most records) lost a lot of bass in the mastering process. (He felt the Motown records did the bass better, but that’s an arguable point.)

If you think about it, an accurate sound reproduction machine would have no volume control and no EQ controls (treble, mids, bass) at all! Once you dial the sound lower (or higher) than it sounded when recorded, you skew the EQ as well as tamper with what was actually played by the musicians.

And if the room in which you listen to music is different IN ANY WAY from the room in which the music was recorded, you’re not going to get 100% fidelity.

It’s all a matter of compromise. (I always got the impression that Dylan felt “compromise” was a dirty word, so I’m not surprised at his critique.)

Generally speaking, though, the industry is turning out better CDs than it did when they were first rushed to market. At that time, they took the source material that had been mastered for vinyl and dumped it onto a CD, with no regard for the fact that the new medium would deliver the artificially enhanced high frequuencies and the neutered low frequencies. The effect on the sound was atrocious. That’s why there’s a market today for remastered CDs and “gold edition” discs and whatever else the marketing department concocts.

Today’s engineers have had 25 years or so to better understand the digital medium and master the skills of preparing the source material for the delivery mechanism and for today’s sound systems (which are flawed, but on the average, “better” than what once sat in people’s houses).

And I imagine those who once worked with vinyl are retiring, and a new breed raised on CDs has come along, bringing with them an esthetic more in tune with the medium.

For pop music (which I assume Dylan was addressing), there’s the further consideration of who the market is, and what they expect. Candy-coated noise is the norm for younger people who have less experience listening to music and therefore are less discriminating; listen to the difference in the sounds delivered by country music recordings, jazz recording, rock recordings and pop recordings. There’s a different esthetic brought to bear in each instance. Likewise, get some recent classical CDs on a label like Telarc, and you’ll hear a much better approximation of “realism” than any pop record delivers.

Compression? Yeah, it’s overused nearly everywhere, but at this point, my guess is people would think there was something wrong without it!

The fact is, unless the music is being made in front of us, all we ever get (or got in the past) is a facsimile of the music.

As an aside, have you noticed how television commercials sometimes seem so much louder than the actual show? That’s compression at work, allowing the advertiser to ensure his message gets through LOUD and CLEAR! One of the TVs in my house has a setting that compensates for it, keeping everything at the same sound level. Know how it works? It imposes another layer of compression on everything hitting the output stage!

Isn’t it great how Dylan still has the power to get people thinking. Be it, social, political, artistic or even technical. And nobody is 100% sure of what he meant when he said the thing that got people talking. It’s a gift! That is the essence of being Dylan. Thank you Bob.

I guess what i meant is that anyone who professe’s absolute’s is ignorant to all the other possibilities. what i meant is very similar to your counter argument and thus is a fine example of my thoughts.

You’re all nuts. The problem with modern-day music reproduction is not in the fact that it’s primarily from digital versus analog formats. Play back a standard 16 bit CD on a killer stereo and it will sound INCREDIBLE. In fact, it will sound FAR better than what you could EVER get from analog gear of 20 years ago. Why? Because the best modern electronics (primarily CD transports, digital to analog converters, and especially speaker drivers) are WAY better now. You don’t need DVD-A or SACD to get greta sound. Set up a system with vaccuum tube-based CD and line-stage electronics making sure that each have massive power supplies for dynamics, and combine that with clean straight wire with gain type monoblock amplification (fire bottles or solid state) and great speakers like the Wilson Watt/Puppy, and your system will go beyond anything you can imagine as long as your room is OK. On the other hand, play that same CD on crappy electronics and crapy speakers and the sound will be WAY worse that if it were from vinyl. Why? Because vinyl is more forgiving. With an album there is never a coding/decoding from analog. It’s analog from the origin to the master, and analog from your turntable to the speaker’s drivers. All there is to screw things up along the way is the harmonic and intermodulation distortion introduced by your amplication (gain stage). Short story: with analog there are fewer opportunities to mess things up, but a plain CD can sound phenominal when done up right. Advice: get a Balanced Audio Technology (BAT) VKD5-SE CD player, a BAT VK51-SE preamp, a BAT VK600-SE 2 channel amplifier and Wlison Audio Watt/Puppy 7 speakers. Then tell me that you don’t like CD’s…

I am seriously worried for today’s youth…and hell, yesterday’s too for that matter. He did not say anything about the songs…he said a lot about the sounds. Slow down, you short attention span theatre wannabes, and read what’s written.

Ha! “Atrocious” “no vocal” “static”… Genius that he is cast in musical legend and stone, I think his own words could describe what he’s reported to have done lately on stage and recordings….There’s a video of a song from his new CD on Amazon.com… In my honest opinion, a comparison between it and his recorded classics of the past is a good argument that he needs a vocal coach to help him restore something resembling what we all heard back in the day…And that’s just me! ! Best Regards! ~JBK

Oh Fargot!!! You fargin iceholes have no fargin idea whats going on, you fargin bastages.

i think we can all aggree that the best way to hear an artist is in person. and thankfully bob has continuously offered the public oppertunities to hear him in anunadulterated format i am 25 and have seen him 3 times and these experiences were far better than listing to blond on blong on a sun afternoon while half assleep. if artists wern’t so comforted by cd revenues the might get off there asses and put in an honets days work like bob has since he started. how many shows do you think nick lachey does a year. i bet bob has done more shows in the last year than he has in his whole carreer.

maybe bob has lost his hearing.

He’s right on target, and so direct!!!!!!!!!:-)

Dylan is right, but Neil Young has been saying the same thing since cds became the primary format for music. No matter what reason you provide for it, the sound of cds is harsh, and always has been.

“There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like — static.”

Wow… so he’s saying that they are not unlike a modern day Dylan concert then.

Everything is so compressed and claustrophobic that there’s no room for the music to “breathe”. Bob’s spot on.

Just one question, how does Mr Dylan record his “music” and how is it disributed? I’d wager to bet it’s digital. NUFF SAID? BOOOYA

Listen to any Pearl Jam C.D., he is wrong when it comes to PJ…

About the only relevant comment I have seen on here is the one about the producers deliberately compressing the sound so it sounds better on cheap equipment. This started around 1970 on vinyl. Anyone remember RCA “Dynagroove”?

It sucks that I have heard OLD vinyl records, when producers went for high fidelity and the drums would take your head off if played on a $10,000 (in 1970) stereo.

Now we have all this great digital stuff with much greater resolution and 100dB+ dynamic capability and the drums sound like an AM car radio from 1970, even on a $100,000 stereo in 2006.

I’d rather see the makers of cheap equipment put the compressors in their junk rather than punishing those of us who used to be able to enjoy high fidelity music.

As for me, I got rid of my costly stereo gear. When I want to hear music, I just go out and support live local musicians. It’s more fun anyway. I even get to date one now thanks to that decision.

the people involved in this discussion are obviously different than the typical demographic that popular mudsic is marketed towards. as such the music industry should provide us the courtesy of producing music with as little loss as possible. who knows maybe the industry has been overlooking a revenue stream of people who are willing to pay a premium for a final product that is as genuine as possible. leave the digitally compressed crap to the teenie boppers and let legitimate (bob,neil, etc) musicians produce their music in a way that will be of value to their consumers. its the economy dummy

DYLAN IS GOD… ANYONE WHO ARGUES IS AN IDIOT.

The new PARIS HILTON album is better than anything DYLAN has ever done & will sell more copies than DYLAN’S latest album!

PARIS RULES!

i’d pay 100$ for Modern times if it was produced like “The records I used to listen to and still love, you can’t make a record that sounds that way,” i wonder why the archaic technology used to produce there records can’t be recreated for producing the genuine article bob speaks of.

Recently purchased a low end turntable and started picking up vinyl at thrift stores. The sound is much less fatiguing or harsh than my Marantz CD600OSE CD Player, which is supposed to be a decent player!
Had similar results when I compared Digital DMX to old analogue 70’s FM tuners. Even low end tuners from Kenwood had a much wider soundstage than the DMX. Compression is the culprit, no doubt, but the old man is right. The sound quality standard that I grew up with back in the 70s has really declined (period).

I’ve read most of the comments on this page, and realize how little most people even miss the true craft of songwriting…you know, poetry put to music, something you can hum or play around a campfire and still appreciate. The songs Dylan used to write were truly in the spirit of troubadors of old-a tradition of telling stories that reaches back to our earliest ancestors. A time when the story was king and the music was its queen.
The art of songwriting and recording has been reduced to its lowest common denominator. Nowadays, anyone with a few bucks in his pocket can create noise that passes for music as defined by the reduced aesthetic standards of the age we live in. And the sad thing is most people don’t even notice. Where are the artists who can still tell a great story and combine it with the perfect melody? They are lost in the static of a thousand other mediocre voices, who think their music is just as valid.
Well it’s not. The chaff we need to sort through in this mess of self-involved expression to get to anything meaningful makes it hardly worth the effort. Most modern music is full of trivial observations of everyday things that do nothing to uplift or improve our understanding of what it means to be better humans. The music is made by people who have done little to learn the craft of writing a great song. In fact, a lot of it isn’t even music-it’s just noise that fills the space where an original thought used to be.
If you think creating or listening to music extolling the virtues of violent or negative behavior is going to improve anything, think and then think again. It is propaganda that appeals to small minds. Help your planet and participate in actions based on the golden rule.
And as for the folks who are blaming the digital medium for the sad state of today’s music, don’t fool yourselves. The technology is much more perfect than the material we record with it. The content is the problem, not the technology. Crap in, crap out. In the majority of popular music, the thoughts are small, the music is amateurish, the originality is missing. We compensate for quality by layering on another noisy element, when we would be better off focusing on the message, rather than trying to reach digital 0dbm more often.
There is a difference between listening to a baby babble, and hearing the words of a wise man. There is also a difference between numbing your mind with noise, and giving a few minutes to an artist with a great story to tell, or a performer who has made their instrument their life. Please, let’s all try to be more discerning about where we spend our attention. Search out and support the truly talented…reject the lowest common denominator. Don’t just swallow the latest iTunes download. And don’t blame technology for the poor quality of today’s music. Look harder for entertainment that is worthy of your precious time.
Whether performed by hand or by machine, recorded analog or digital, a great song with great lyrics and music is still a great song. And babble is still babble, even though your neighbor may think it’s great.

in your view rasterops what is the purpose of having modern music industry is it can’t find good music for me to listen to. i do seek out music on my own accord and whenever i listen to underrepesented musicians i can’t help but think of all the crap that is taking their place in my auditory environment, shame on the music/radio industry for flogging us with such inane pseodo music.

dVDS ARE SUPPOSED TO HAVE MORE SPACE FOR THE MUSIC. c.d.S CUT OUT ALOT OF THE ORIGINAL SOUND.

I agree. If we don’t buy it they won’t make it. Vote with your pocketbooks. Use discernment. Turn this crazy ship around. And remind the music industry who’s really in charge.

Bob is right – I’ve been listening to Blood on the Tracks lately and even on CD, the sound is pure, no noise, vocals clear, each instrument clear. Aside from being one of the best records of all time, it’s great to HEAR it. Right on, Bob. You are still so cool.

Listen to any TOOL Cd and you’ll hear a cannon blast of drums.

HAIL SATAN,HAIL THYSELF!

Rasterops,

Get on Myspace and check out some of the bands. We have more great songwriters here in Columbus, OH than were on Tin Pan Alley in 1965.

poor, disillusioned bob. he’s just a bitter old man. RIP.

There is one other reason why makers of vinyl records started using compression around 1970, one which doesn’t apply to the CD format.

The louder you cut a vinyl record, the wider the grooves and the shorter the recording time.

When bands started laying down single songs that ran for nearly 20 minutes, the only way to cram that much material on one side of a 12″ LP was to compress it.

VIVA LA VINYL

Wow, has Bobby D been hanging out with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist??

bob reords in realtime, the whole band and vocals all at once.
Its true Bob’s live shows often leave many disappointed, but his recorded music is excellent… as it always has been.
Bob is Not God… but he is prophetic… a prophetic song and dance man!

me… I adore him and listen to very little else lately.
sometimes I feel like I “should” get more involved with other music… but why, when Bob gives me the mojo.
No matter what musical genre he is playing with it is always original, always him.

Well I aplogize to Bob that every record can’t sound like a Woody Guthrie 45, all creaky and impossible to hear on anything below 8 on the volume knob. So who do we blame? All the young kids who can make music without any training. Kinda like how 40 years ago any schmuck in Greenich Village with an acoustic guitar could make record. The times they are-a changin’.

ummmmm, what’s a cd?

I think cd’s sound great.The ones that are done right.Bob Dylan is a great songwriter,but an awful singer.He should ge grateful that the so called inferior sound of cd’s do not really bring out his crappy vocals fully.When he says there has been good music for the last 20 years,I think it would include his as well.

SACD was the solution. Too bad it was executed in a half-assed way. How does sony manage continually hose good ideas and still stay in business?

I think there has been a loss of craft over the years when it comes to recording… Jimmy Page would spend hours placing microphones around the drums, ensuring the proper EQ and ambience were applied. Modern techniques often involve placing a microphone up close to the source, and ‘ambience’ is a button you click on Pro-Tools…

Band’s understand this and apply craft to the recording process do sound better… Off the top of my head; Blind Melon’s Soup has some great ambience (recorded in a large house in New Orleans by Andy Wallace).

Now you can alter performances in the studio so easily, and it’s all dialed in through a computer… (auto-tune, drum triggers, midi, etc.)…
I think we’ve lost some of the craft, for the most part, but to write off the last 20 years of music I think is absoltuely foolish…

I have been a Dylan fan for over 30 years. Bob had already been recording for about 15 years. Anything that he wants to say is all right with me. We will never have another. There is no one that can match him and no one ever will. He has no equal or peer.
Forget what he sounds like today. There is no one in the U.S.A living or dying that has influenced popular music more than Dylan. Like one poster said the time they are a-changin We can thank Bob for that quote. What musician at 65 gets on the cover of Rolling Stone or Time or Newsweek? Always provocative and entertaining as well. Catch the film no direction home if you would like to know more about this genius.
Thanks Bob!

“What musician at 65 gets on the cover of Rolling Stone or Time or Newsweek?”

An overrated one.

Anybody who has left a comment above and feels that Bob Dylan is past his time, too old for today’s music scene or whatever the comment, you need a serious head exam. He is right… cd sound quality is not as good as vinyl or even SACD and the reason you don’t agree with him is that you just don’t know, or you just can’t hear well. As far as him being to old and past his time, if there was no Bob Dylan you wouldn’t have any of the music you listen to now. He is one of the greatest and most influential musicians of all time and if you can’t recognize that you shouldn’t be listening to music at all. I might sound biased but all you have to do is look at Rolling Stones issues of the 500 Greatest Songs and 500 Greatest Albums and I think my point will be proven.

It’s damn near impossible to “overrate” Bob Dylan’s influence on modern music. Blood on the Tracks, Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, Bringing it all Back Home, Desire, I’ve even been listening to Time Out of Mind a lot lately. The man can practically do no wrong. And anything that people think he’s wrong about now, will seem like genius in 10 years.

Read his interview book if you want some true food for thought. I can’t recommend it or him enough.

Celia is my heroine but I have to disagree. I love the music that came out on vinyl. It’s so smooth

Personally, I think the problem with the sound of Bob’s later CD’s is the final mastering, which takes place after all the studio recording is finished. 2001’s “Love and Theft” really did sound like crap. If it was produced that bad in the studio by Daniel Lanois (which seems unlikely), then a decent masterer should have fixed it. Something went wrong somewhere.

Dylan produced Love & Theft himself.

/lolgkoflopdflopfo0lxloplcfkcf vjvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvjcnggghbj gfjgjgfhgghgyjhhhhujhuuiiiuuii iiiiiiiuuuuyggvv vhvcv xds sse jhghghfyghhfgfgfgfgeucjvcc vvbgccccvvvvbvvzzvdffivmjnjiuf jifjnrfnnjfjffd

Matt – my mistake. It was the previous one – Time Out Of Mind that Lanois did (to the same result). Jack Frost is listed as producer on Theft. What is that- a Dylan pseudonym?

No wonder he didn’t use his real name as producer. He’s to blame for the sound.

Age does this to most people. Dylan just can’t come out and say “AHH, the good ol’ days”. CD quality is fine, so I disagree with him there. Music has not gotten that bad, but it has all been done before. So to find anything truly unique is impossible. And if you try and prove me wrong, YOU CAN’T. I’ve heard it all…blues, 50’s pop, 50’s rock & roll, 60’s pop, brit invasion, surf, 60’s hippie, 60’s metal to today’s metal, punk, grunge, noise, electronics, hell even NEW AGE started 35 years ago. Iggy Pop, MC5, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Green Day, Type 0, Arthur Brown….I can go on and on. Pretty son you will be able to take a song recorded decades ago and put it on the charts and no one will no the difference. Bob Dylan needs to grab and guitar and a few amateur musicians and record songs on a cassette deck with no production at all and send it to his label for release.

I forgot one thing. Bob Dylan meet Rick Rubin. If that doesn’t please you then nuttin’ will.

I have collected over 10000 7″, 10″ and 12 ” records since the 60’s. VINYL RULES!!!

But you have got to be joking when you say vinyl sounds better than CDs. If you were nuts enough to be an audiophile and pay huge bucks for a turntable and many many more BUCKS for the damned stylus. Don’t forget to clean off the record before playing it, get all that dust out of the grooves with your dischwasher brush and cleaner. Gently and tenderly hold that vinyl so no dirt and oil transfer from your fingers to the vinyl. Remove all cellophane from the jacket because it draws dust badly. Don’t lift the needle or drop it mid-track…hell don’t even try to play track 2 by itself or you may pit that damned thing.

Dear god, what fun was that? I sold my collection on ebay 5 years ago and made good money. You can have your “dynamics” I’ll take an MP3 anyday since I just want to hear the song…not have sex with it.

I am 35 and I have gone back to buying vinyl. I prefer that fuzzy sound. I will admit that some albums sound better on CD. One that comes to mind is “Electric Ladyland”. Sounds a lot better on CD. But I prefer to listen to Cream on vinyl. They sound better on vinyl. I have “OK Computer” on CD. Never heard it on vinyl and I am sure I would not like to hear it on vinyl. It really depends on the person and album itself. Some sound better on Vinyl and some on CD. Dylan is not 100% wrong when he trashes CD’s.

my cds are easier to listen to in the car.

I think Dylan did not mean that contemporary CDs sound crappy per se, but that modern recording practices render the music colorless, like white noise or, as he stated, like static. Listen to an old Dylan, or The Beatles, or The Stones, or just about any band or artist from that era on CD, and it typically sounds absolutely wonderful. Crisp, clear, with every voice, instrument, and musical phrase discernible and weaving a rich tapestry of sound. The modern sound adopted by many artists can best be described as a storm, a big, muddled sound in which I’ll be damned if I can barely isolate the sound of a single instrument. It’s the Phil Spector Syndrome, except instead of filling 4 tracks with a wall of sound it’s 32 tracks or more. There’s a saturation point beyond which sound, no matter how pleasant or beautiful, begins to make no sense to our ears and brain. That’s where we’re at, I’m afraid.

the almighty zimmy picks up new fans each and every year. 2006 will be no exception.
i don’t think he’s 100% right but he’s close. most recorded and marketed music is, to my ears, unlistenable.
and, it’s obvious that zimmy still knows how to stir things up. people are disagreeing, people are agreeing, but they’re talking about what he says. he remains the great American provacateur.
CDs have been an advantage in many ways. but the convenience of clicking through tracks on a CD or programming a CD will never come close to the anticipation and thrill we used to get when we dropped the needle on an LP and waited for the opening blast of like a rolling stone, or purple haze, or sympathy for the devil…nothing will match that.

Where the hell is ben fong-torres when you need him?
II thought I was looking at kinky for a second there.
Dylan writes good songs but he aint no musician OR a singer; and we know that…

Hey, everybody’s got an opinion about the difference between good music and “static.” But the bottom line is simply that when you compare the songs recorded and played on the radio today with the songs recorded and played on the radio 30 years ago, there is a difference. And in terms of lyrics, melody, and musical talent, the stuff on the radio today sounds more like a bunch of amplified kindergartners than any skilled or accomplished musicians. You can denigrate the musicians (or even the pople who post on this site), but that does not even BEGIN to address the issue that Dylan brought into focus so clearly. There is a huge difference between talent and, say, a volume dial that goes higher than “ten.”

Sheffield direct-to-disk vinyl records – particularly the one with Thelma Houston – the first one, if I remember correctly. No more needs to be said about the subject of quality vs quality. How I miss my Sheffield “Stop digital Madness” T-shirt. I wore it out. CD’s are cool and the iPod is awesome. Most of the (pop) music is bland so the convenience is GREAT. And they have been releasing GREAT (old) stuff like HMR and Tommy Makem and more on CD so I can listen to them at work on my computer (think about that statement if made in 1970). HAHA Life is good and Dylan can say whatever he wants – he is BOB DYLAN. (Get it? If not, go listen – a lot)

It’s because they compresses the life out of the music so they can create more perceived volume in the listener’s ear – in otherwords, a trade off of dynamic range for overall level. Especially true of rock music, where to catch your ear it has to be louder than the last song. New techniques are developed every day to squeeze a few more decibels out of a track with less loss of depth – most recent is the Sony Oxford compressor – doesn’t sound bad, but still needs something to liven it up. I use something like Waves’ C4 to add a little more life before I squash the crap out of.

How many times have you made a comment to someone that millions of readers will interpret dissect and form opinions…? Uh, most likely never. That is the reach and influence of this master. He can toss out a comment and the sheep me included jump all over it. Even the dopes who don’t like him can’t help but write about him. After something like 45 years in the biz people still hang on his every word. Dylan is as relevant today as he ever was. Over rated? Not by a long shot. I will bet RollingStone will sell a lot of magazines. Even though Britney and Paris are prettier they are representative of what modern music has become. It’s all hype and mostly crap. If not for Dylan they would not exist which of course is the downside of his influence. You want to disagree? Go right ahead but why would you want to disparage this icon? Oh on the Britney and Paris influence well maybe not My theory is that they were hatched in a laboratory and set upon the world to destroy it just like some dude that lives in a white house

Bob Dylan was a poor imitation of Woodie Guthrie when he started out. Nobody talked about production values back then. If they had, Mr. Zimmerman would never had made it in the biz. He was raw and pointed back then. He’s paid his dues and now pontificates from on high about how crappy music sounds today? I’m not buying it. Comparing 21st century music to 20th century music is like comparing Beatles to Beethoven. Apples to oranges, literally.

Everythings relative.

Who wouldnt love to have the perfect sound, if they knew how to get it at the first place ?

We dont get Vinyl LP’s, Tapes are not worth it and CD’s are better than MP3 or WMA.

Is there any other way than the standard CD, Multi band Equalizers, powerful amps and Good speakers to set the sound to the way we want it ?

Some people are miscontruing Dylan’s comments. He’s not talking about the quality of music today versus yesterday, or whether CDs sound better than vinyl or vice versa. What he’s getting at is the atrocious way in which music in the CD age is produced, particularly rock music. Everything is ultra compressed, and all you really get is a barrage of hissing hi-hat and sludged up guitars, and the definition, clarity, nuance and isolation of individual instruments in the mix is GONE from modern recordings. It’s the record compaines faults, they demand CDs be produced this way to sell. It’s the sonic equivalent of fast edit MTV style videos, junk food culture. There is the presupposition that kids these days have zero attention span, therefore brash, loud hissing music with the levels driven to +300 must be produced or someone might get, gasp, bored and turn it off, hence loss of revenue.

re rasterops’ comment way above: i think music is a matter of taste, or to put it less controversially perhaps, a matter of preference. while i don’t like a lot of the stuff on the radio, i do embrace the new opportunities that we have today. pretty much anyone can record something even with the most basic shareware software today – and that’s great. just because everyone now can have a voice, doesn’t mean we’ll all need to listen. but i think it is great we are moving away from the age where music is that divine thing achieved only by a few who have the privilege of getting into a studio, into an age where it can become a universal expression, with people putting their stuff on small homepages or releasing it, often even for free, through small netlabels. to me it isn’t important what story the words tell, all that matters is – does the music carry an emotion that i can relate to? if there are good lyrics coming along with it, great. but lyrics aren’t everything to me.

please don’t take this as a ‘bashing’ of sorts if you read this, rasterops. it’s not meant to be. but this is what came to my mind when i read your comment. fair enough, we have different preferences, maybe different expectations from a song.

on the subject of the wise man however, i start questioning the wise words of someone who goes to such great lengths to establish himself as his generation’s woody guthrie, and then has his music distributed through starbucks. guthrie had an ideal. i can see no idealism, nor anything of a ‘great american provocateur’, as somebody else wrote, in pumping money into the pockets of a company like that. in that case, i’ll turn to look for ideals in the noisy chaos that is fugazi

cheerio…

i like smoking crack ’cause it makes me feel good

Well Done Bob, well said.

thanks hank how are things out in nova scotia

Whoah nelly… here I go again.

I am REALLY pretty sure what the article was about was that IPOD type music formats aren’t good in Dylan’s opinion.

I think he also was implying that the compression (dynamic compression) put on recordings by the people who mix and master the sources can kill the ambiance and dynamic qualities of the music, although I don’t think this was as strongly implied.

In my post earlier, I tried to point out that it doesn’t really matter if you have CD’s or Vinyl or whatever, no matter what you still just have a representation of what really happened in the studio. I actually have to agree with some of the people that say some albums are “better” on vinyl (if only because that’s the way we “got used to” it), but I don’t think that’s the point.

The truth is CD’s are pretty high resolution, and they out-last other mediums because they aren’t as easily damaged by simply PLAYING them. You have do mishandle them a bit more. Tapes and Record however get a little bit worse every time you play them. CD’s don’t since it’s a laser reading them. Again, I don’t think anyone originally said anything at all about CD’s or Digital in general being bad — and they really haven’t got a lot to do with it. Yeah, it has *something* to do with it, but not a lot since they are so high resolution it’s really hard to find fault.

There are two kinds of compression to consider, and I do think both were hinted at.

When you compress audio dynamically (there is a difference between dynamic compression and storage compression) you are taking out the dynamic range of the audio. You basically make the quiet stuff quieter and the loud stuff either just as loud or even back it off a little bit (the latter is strictly called limiting not compressing, but most compressors are compressors/limiters built into one). This makes it so that when you are in your car you can hear the “quiet parts” about as well as the loud parts. But it does take something out of the feeling of the music. This dynamic compression is something you can blame either on the studio or on your own stereo, depending on if your stereo attempts any of it — in addition to anything the studio may have done.

Storage compression is something else. Storage compression is when you try to take the original PCM data (bits) that is on a CD and convert somehow mathmatically so that it fits in less space. CD’s can hold like 500 MB of data, which is really a lot. Typical songs are normally about 30-50 MB worth each. FLAC’s, OGG’s, MP3’s, WMA’s, whatever IPOD’s use, and other formats are nothing other than somebody running some math on the original data (30-50MB) and trying to make it smaller.

There are various ways of doing that, some of them involve “compromise”. Some formats, such as FLAC are considered lossless, meaning that if you take the CD data, math it to put out FLAC, then take the FLAC data and de-math it, you get the exact same CD data back out. Others, such as WMA, are called lossy, meaning that once you math the CD data to get the WMA version, you can never go back. They had to compromise mathmatically when they decided how to re-arrange the bits. And you can hear it because the resulting sound has imposed static and other audible artifacts, especially at lower bitrates such as 96 or the “std” 128.

To understand how storage compression works, I can give you an example that is mathmatically simple. Take this: 00000111. It takes 8 letters or whatever to write it down. But what if I did it this way: 0X51X3. Now I have reduced it to only 6 letters. There is actually an image compression format (PNG) that works exactly like that. Instead of recording 100 reds it records “red”,”100″. Works well for non-photographic images. As you can see this is not lossy — I can get back to the original easily. Obviously this is a very simple scheme. You have to get more complicated when you deal with photographic images or music, and sometimes they compromise. Have you ever seen a low-quality jpg image on the net? Sometimes this is because you can see the algorithm has compromised somehow, and when it gets reinterpreted back out to display on your screen, it isn’t the same as the original. If you want to test this, go get “the gimp” and install it. It’s like photoshop but free. You can save images in many formats, some of them lossy and some lossless. BMP would be lossless. You can copy the same image and save it as many times BMP as you want. But if you use JPG instead, each time you open the last saved image and save it again (after changing it slightly so it actually resaves) it will get worse. Each time you save it you lose something. The jpg compression algorithm is lossy — and so are lots of the algorithms used to put lots of music on your IPOD.

Note that you always have to de-math a storage compressed format in order to play it, since the audio hardware that ends up sending the signal out to your speakers (meaning the DAC) eventually has to have it in the regular uncompressed CD type format.

Although there is some real discussion to be had about media, artistry, and etc. It’s my opinion that the original comment was directed at two things: dynamic compression and storage compression. The result of both is that when the end listener ends up finally consuming the music that the artist put down, it’s a lot different than what it *really* sounded like to begin with.

It is easy to see how some of the other conversations have come up though.

I am so ashamed…..I am outta here.

i want to clarify. i meant that people like ashlee simpson should be shot. that is all. end communication

what about a laser that could read vinyl records?

The Grateful Dead were sponsoring some guy in the early ’70’s who was hypothesizing about holographic sound reproduction. Anybody know about that? Seems perfect to me-digital convenience plus analog soundwaves. And speaking of the Dead-if you ever heard the Wall of Sound you know that no recorded medium will ever come close to what can be achieved in a live setting. Go see a band tonight!

i think the first reaction should be’so what’. these comments need to be attributed to the source, and i mean in his current state, not to the mythical figure he allegedly was 40 years ago. bob dylan hasn’t recorded a credible, interesting, non-derivitive album since the 1970’s. the man is clearly out of touch with both the current state of modern music and that of his own to boot.
dylan is no longer a scenester and is more than likely basing his estimation upon the top 40 rather than the hours discovering good music requires, both in leg work and research. so the only difference between dylan and your grandfather is that people listen to dylan when he complains about the way today’s youth are ruining something he once enjoyed.
we can all name albums that have appeared over the last 20 years that entirely refute dylan’s assertion, though ironically, few would list any of dylan’s output over that same span.
dylan has publicly displayed his final descent, the vicious circle that has rendered him the embodiment of those who once slighted and attacked him for pursuing his artistic vision as he saw fit.
i think dylan’s comments should be cause for mourning and for skepticism. we should mourn the limited simple man dylan has become and we should be skeptical of those we elevate as heroes and experts.

Anybody that knows anything about good contemporary music performance AND recording, can immediately see that Dylan is talking from a position of extreme ignorance (out of his ass). He’s turned into a crazy old man. Get over it.

You are all fools.
How can one even begin to belittle Bob Dylan?

Fuck you all….everyone bitches and moans at Rolling Stone for not putting forth their interview with the legendary Bob Dylan….then, when they do, you bitch and moan about what the man has to say. Try to enjoy something for a change instead of picking it apart. And for all of you who are complaining about Bob Dylan being beyond his prime, let’s see you write some music that even comes close to his genius. I’m not reading these posts anymore, you all piss me off!

Hunter. . .If any musician has changed, it has been Bob Dylan. He went from Folk, to Psychadelic rock, to country. . .he even did an religious stint in the 80’s. Now he is hitting the bluegrass sound. He did all this on his own; certainly not because fans wanted to hear something different.

He was vilified on stage at the New Port folk festival in 66′ because he did change (he plugged in)!

And for everyone else, you should read the article before you judge. Now I understand that most people today don’t seem to have enough time to get the facts down before they judge, but try it sometime; you might just sound a little more intelligent.

He was talking about the quality of the sound, not the quality of the music (although I wouldn’t hold it against him if he was blasting the music itself).

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion (he is stating it as his opinion mind you, not implying it as fact). And I think if anyone were knowledgable about the quality of recorded sound, it would be Bob Dylan.

I’ll bet you over half the major producers today weren’t even born yet when Dylan was recording his first albums. He’s got 40 years of experience to back up his opinions. . .there aren’t too many folks who can match that.

So for all of you who think Dylan is some washed up, has-been; I am pretty sure Paris Hilton’s new album is on shelves right now!

And the saddest thing about it is she’ll probably end up selling more records then Dylan.

i meant that music hasen’t sounded the same since my LSD pump was removed 20 Years ago

Dylan is including his own albums from the past 20 years, even his latest, when he says no one has made a decent record in that time. That’s his opinion, and he’s entitled to it. I don’t particularly agree, but I think he’s right: most records fill in every space with sound, sound, and more sound, making most of it indistinguishable.

I remember when that Napster guy came up across, it was like, ‘Everybody’s gettin’ music for free.’ I was like, ‘Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothing anyway.’

Classic Dylan. Good to know he can still stir the pot up when he wants.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but an opinion is subjective. I think that music through the 80s and 90s overall wasnt as good as the 60s/70s. There was still some great stuff In my opinion music is good quality in all genres bar the charts. But thats my opinion. Whats this about not liking CDs? Vinyls are cool and its great to have the sleeves but the times they are a changin Bob. Start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone.

LSD is makin a comeback were i live

For anyone who is questioning Bob Dylan of all people, think about what it is you are saying.

Besides that, Bob has added at least 2 (Time out of Mind, Love and Theft) maybe 3 albums to his catalogue that are now considered classics within the last 15 years, so over the hill he is not.

Plus, he’s right. I prefer the sound of a record, and no I wasn’t born long ago enough to have been around when vinyl was still being sold, so I’m not just being nostalgic. I think the whole producing of an album thing was just a different concept then anyway, which might be the real difference.

Also, I haven’t read the interview, but it seems to be an attack on mainstream music from what I’ve read (besides the fact he is going to be touring with the Raconteurs, a band that didn’t exist until about 10 mins ago), which I am ALL for.

i agree with you 100%…ps you were awesome in the matrix

Maybe Bob is refering to the enslaught of crap that is marketed today. Kids today have slim pickings when it comes to quality music and songwriting. The record companies have sucked the life out the music industry and have infected our ears and eyes with utter nonsense. They spend all their time suing fifteen year olds instead of promoting real voices, real talent and real issues. Who better than Bob Dylan to highlight the plight of quality sounding music. He’s right modern music is in the toilet. Somebody pull the chain once and for all. Thank you.

bob is a great musican and composer

Bob Dylan made his national recording debut playing harmonica on Belafonte’s album “Midnight Special.” -1962- If he never recorded another track… (you ready?…)… that *one* would be enough to establish him as a FINE FINE FINE musician of the 20th century (listen, Dream Babies). He has not gotten any worse since, s’far as I can tell…
It is what it is.

There are really two issues which seem to be under discussion here. One is that modern recordings are horrible in quality, period. There are many excuses, but no reason why the producers can’t just turn off the limiters.

I used to fight forever with idiots on Phish tour who would produce absolutely horrible tapes because they knew nothing about electrical engineering or recording technology. I finally just gave up arguing with idiots who thought having more than two microphones was impossible.

One of the most telling points of a really good recording is the percussion. Have you ever noticed that a lot of live bands don’t mike the drum kit? That’s because it’s LOUD. I need a huge Marshall amp to keep up with a good drummer.

Let me ask you one question. When was the last time (assuming your stereo is as good as you think it is) that you listened to a recording and could close your eyes and actually believe there was a drummer with a real drum kit in your listening room? I have had that experience with old vinyl records from the 1950s and early 1960s, but not recently. The only CD I own that sounds even remotely live is a largely unproduced collaboration between Tom Marshall and Trey Anastasio when they were writing songs.

Let me say that recording if done right is hard work. You have to ride the gain controls like your life depends on it to keep that dynamic range because live musicians always will find a way to get louder during a show or a set.

On the other hand, it can be done, and it can be done well.

It just takes work and dedication, the same as making the music in the first place.

The other issue is the “quality” of modern popular music. Most people thought rock music was crap in the 1960s, that it was all “noise” and that anybody could play it. Dylan was not even speaking to this, but it’s a matter of taste. Get over it.

The recording issue, however, is the heritage we will leave behind to our children. Do you want your grandchildren to think you sucked as a musician merely because some moron couldn’t bother to adjust the gain?

You can’t go back and fix it.

I have read all the “creative”discourse about Bob Dylan…It must be heartwarming for him to know that there is so much thinking about him.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE HIM…I have loved him for all these years,since I first saw him in Greenwich Village,NY…. What a dream come true to be able to attend one of his concerts someday soon.
I saw the Scorcese documentary revuew on PBSTV,and just was so sad when the program ended. It was just a tease.. I was sorry for only the short interview with BOB DYLAN..Besides his musical talent, I LOVE,LOVE his sense of HUMOR…I love when he said there were 136 folk singers,and when pressed for more specific #,he said “maybe 142??”…What a GIFTED Quick thinking BRAIN lives in him..
My best wishes for him to continue more successes..I hope he is happy where he’s at..

Blah Blah Blah. I’m so sick of old men and women raving about old sucky music that makes one stomach turn. Dylan sucked then and he sucks now. He has one of the worst voices ever to be recorded and his music is so tired it’s pathetic.

Old people, please just die so we can get some peace and quiet for once.

Modern Times sounds like a sound track to an orange juice or pop corn commercial. I prefer the lingerie sound of Time Out Of Mind. Bob’s comments are absurd. Radiohead’s OK Computer and Kid A are far better than anything Dylan’s done in the past 40 years. Shane MacGowan and the Pogues kicked Dylan’s ass in the eighties. The Stooges and The Pistols owned the seventies. Modern Times is the final nail in the coffin of the baby boomers. But do not despair idol worshipers- Rolling Stone Magazine will be there to hand out it’s five star ratings to the next sixties icon who puts out a worthless record for the geezers. First Sir Paul, then The Stones and now Bob. What’s next? Maybe Yoko Ono should release a collection of ghost noises. I’m sure Rolling Stone and the rest of you fools will be around to fall for it, and give it a five star rating. PT Barnum was so right. Like Kiss, Bob Dylan is laughing all the way to the bank. Just wanted you to know Bob-I can see through your mask.

he isn’t complaining about the music just the production

Peter Riviera – I suppose you’d prefer the quality music being put out by artists such as Paris Hilton or Ashlee Simpson? I guess we’ll see who’s still releasing albums in another 5 – 10 years and let the longevity of the artists’ work stand for itself.

Reuters interview with a sound critic….
http://today.reute rs.co.uk/tv/videoChannel.aspx? storyId=ee7b5552d069aee1e7e5e2 497005105b1ade1fcf&rf=fr_std

jonny

get this thru you thick skulls people, Dylan WAS, IS and ALWAYS WILL BE a LEGEND. His musucial talents go way beyond your talents of even reading a simple article on a rolling stone website…. hge ain’t slaggin off modern music, he aint slaggin off modern groups or bands, hes slaggin off PRODUCERS of music today, he evn says that HIS OWN new album could have sounded better!!!!! DOH

Polecat-get this through your thin skull-legends make sappy, overated albums. Bob Dylan will always be a legend, but Modern Times will quickly fade. In ten years no one will be listening to this record. I stopped after a week of trying to like it’s annoying sounds. If this is a five star record, then the end of times must be near. If Noah had to listen to this awful album on the ark, he would have probably jumped over board.

DYLAN SUCKS PERIOD (JUST MY OPINION)

Listen again to “The Times They Are a Changing” and get back to me on prophetic vision, “Don’t Think twice It’s Alright” for the compassionate-insightfully-hum ble, or perhaps “Like A Rolling Stone” as in subjective, presumptive, ignorance sans anecdote. On the other hand, ‘60’s adolescent lucks out extant to “Summer Days” and remains an adolescently pertinacious, importunate witling to this day. Re. Ricky Nelson; “Mr. Hughs hid in Dylan shoes wearing his disguise”. E. A. Poe was of similarly entertaining psychosis and Dan Hicks is just as catchy a folk melodist. While y’all look for the hidden meaning to “White Room”, I’ll dust off an old Leonard Cohen LP.

Cylinder, disk, triode vacuum tube, magnetic wire, FFRR, vinyl microgoove, digital liquid transmitter, carbon/condenser transmitter, flame, ribbon, GE, RCA, Neumann, KMS, Blue….yadda yadda yadda. When it comes to then and now recording scenarios, go to AIR in London and ask to speak to both George and Giles Martin, not Bob Dylan.

It’s true that production in popular music is terrible these days, but if you dig a bit deeper you will find that there’s alot of great music being made and alot of it is (gasp) well recorded.

As for Dylan himself, he was an artistic giant in the 60’s that puttered out along with that era. Every now and then he’ll make a relevant or genuine album like Time out of Mind, but he’s mostly been coasting since the mid 70’s and Rolling Stone will always be there to call him a genius.

First off, kids, listen to Dylan. Dylan is the reason that pop music can actually mean something beyond parties and dance clubs…oops. Sorry, wrong decade.

Anyway, this is the greatest American rock ‘n roller who ever lived, who’s miraculously made a return to his greatness. Remember the mantra, kids. Listen to Dylan. Don’t become like the Thin Man.

He’s also right about CD’s being so small. They have such a small space of sound compared to vinyl. The difference is astonishing. Even the 2003 Dylan remastered CD – which are light years beyond the old shitty ones – remain a step below the original vinyl records.

Digital is the sound of music with its sould sucked out. The very soul of music has been taken away. Hell, our whole culture has no soul, no life, no color. Everything is drab and robotic and cold, just the way I imagined the world of Orwell’s 1984.

I do agree that today’s pop music is hideously bad. It’s the worst it’s ever been, even worse than the bad ‘ol days of ’80s hair metal. This shit is even worse, if such a thing were possible. There hasn’t been a single band or musician to come along this decade that’s worth their weight in salt. It’s now 2007. What the hell is going on?!

I will disagree, however, in going back 20 years. The music in the ’90s was terrific. Hello? St. Cobain? Isn’t that who we’re looking for today? The next Nevermind? Give me the Seattle sound, and the days when hip-hop actually mattered, before it collapsed into a wretched minstrel show.

Everything in this country is going to hell in a handbasket. We’ve got to get things back on track fast. Step one – stop paying for the lousy music. Step two – buy a turntable. Step three – listen to some music with a soul.

What an ass…

bob dylan is a terrible musician. i’m sure he’s a great guy, and I agree with his standpoint on modern music, but HE F*CKING SUCKS.

What most people don’t get about Dylan is that he is a professional provocateur. He always has been. He’s made a living out of stirring up sh*t. I don’t care for most of his music. I only like “Lay, Lady, Lay”, and only because for many years, I didn’t know it was him. I believe he perpetuates his popularity by making remarks like this one. I think that he is referring to the quality of the recordings, however, I don’t agree. It is true that some recordings have less quality than others, but I would much rather listen to CD that always sounds crystal clear than listen to vinyl with all the scratches and dust that take away from the music.

I’m so tired of people equating quality with clarity. CDs are crystal clear, sure, but this does not make them of a higher quality.

Don’t believe me? Try listening to the original “If You See Her, Say Hello” on vinyl and compare it to the version on CD. You’ll be a believer then.

Well, I have to admit that I made the mistake of “clarity over quality”. But still, I listened to “If You See Her, Say Hello”, (not on vinyl since I don’t have access to it, rather as a compressed format from the iTunes store) and I have to say that Dylan’s voice sounds so bad that the thought of listening to a “higher quality” version of his awful voice did not sound at all appealing. Sorry. Still, I believe that the quality of a CD or of vinyl has to do with how it was mastered, not with the medium. You can have a very good quality vinyl record and a very good quality CD of the same recording. And the reverse is true. It’s not the medium, it’s the method.

Most people stop growing after they reached 20 years. They won’t like Dylan.

the sound of most commercially popular music is generally atrocious today but so are the people listening to it man. True. As for vinyl/cd, they both kick ass and each have something that the other one doesn’t have. I adore vinyl especially for many older 7o’s and 80’s!! tape recordings etc (not mad on Lp’s pressed from digital masters when I could be listening to the digital master itself) but yeh. I love cd too, especially early pressings where generally sound was better (ok with the exception of some remasters but half the time older is better, back in the day where artists wanted their music translated with as much fidelity and detail as possible onto the then new format. These days they just do be slamming a bleedin exciter, and then louden the original wave, most the time which usually takes away more than it brings). What sucks is people with there 128kps mp3’s : P Later. Special hugs to the girls

i love bob dylan, my fav song of his is tears n heaven

i love bob dylan, my fav song of his is tears n heaven

for fairness sake, im not a bob dylan fan. i can’t stand him.

in 25 years 128kbps will be an aesthetic. i personally love the sound of a hyper-compressed record; when done right, it moves and acts as a unified force.

and unlike some of you guys, i’ve actually had to deal with storing and using vinyl before. trust me, you’d see the mp3 for the godsend it truly is after the 8th time you have to move 20 crates of records you can’t even remember if you like into your new pad.

middle finga’ wavin. the times are a’changin.

Comment from RickP.

“For anyone who is questioning Bob Dylan of all people, think about what it is you are saying.”

That’s why I am questioning him. I was told all my life through the media that he was a legend. As I got a little older (23 now) I listened to other folk and have come to the conclusion that he’s a awful musician, mediocre song writer

“no I wasn’t born long ago enough to have been around when vinyl was still being sold”

Guess what? Vinyl is still being sold.