I am not talking about the songs, but only the overall sound of the live albums.

There are 3 live albums sounding really great: Get Yer Ya Ya's Out, Love You Life and Still Life. Love You Live is the most outstanding one. It sounds really warm, close and every part played you can hear it.

Flashpoint, No Security, Four Flicks, Live Licks. They never make it to that great sound of the above mentioned albums. Flashpoint is the worst, very high (pain in my ears). Four Flicks/Live Licks has it moments, but considering the club show (Paris) it could've sound much better. It sounds too thin sometimes, too flat. Maybe you can compare it to a bad mp3-compression where there is nothing left of the sound.

I find it quite amazing in these "modern recording" times that they deliver such bad sounding albums. Even numerous old jazz/blues recordings from the period 1955-1959 sound much better! (Miles Davis, T-Bone Walker, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, etc). Even A Bigger Bang has a thin sound compared to Voodoo Lounge and Bridges To Babylon (these 2 sound great by the way), talking about studio recordings!

What is this????

Anyone else noticed?

in my opinion the stones albums don't sound good overall, you should expect more from a band like the stones. there are numurous albums that set a standard in their days like for example talk talk colour of spring, willy deville's miracle album, the cult's love album. all great sounding albums i wonder why the stones could never match theser albums soundwise.

muddyw wrote:

>There are 3 live albums sounding really great: Get Yer Ya Ya's Out, Love You Life and Still Life. Love You Live is the most outstanding one. It sounds really warm, close and every part played you can hear it


love u live is the best?? we must be hearing different versions. i would rate yaya's first and lyl last. side 2 of lyl is the only redeeming thing .

Speaking of bad you forgot, "Got Live If You Want It!" from 1966. The worst live album ever. They even overdubed phony screaming over two studio tracks to make them sound live. What a piece of dog shit that was.

During GYYYO, LYL and SL, I think they just plugged everyone in, checked the levels to make sure you could hear every instrument and let it go. As for the later ones I'm not sure why but they just don't sound as earthy and real. They don't just let it go, someone is analyzing and tweeking guitar levels and deciding what it should sound like instead of letting it sound like it is. (If that makes any sense)

what r u guys listening to.no security is the best live album i have ever heard,anyone out there hearing what im hearing.

john scialfa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2005-10-23 04:25 by backstreetboy.

No Sercurity sounds great! YGMR kicks the album version. Out Of Control sounds great, Gimme Shelter 2.

Does Live Licks sound simular to No security sound wise? I haven't heard it.

Muddyw is talking about the quality of the recording, not the performances. Clarity, frequency range, etc.

The Stones' studio albums frequently are less than audiophile quality b/c of their process: at least in the past, they would build the finished track from the original jam on the song. The original jam was often recorded in less than ideal circumstances (keith's house, for example) and as they kept adding, the quality might well deteriorate. The Stones have never really cared too much about that... trading off recording quality for the feel of the song.

cc

Love You Live the best?! Man, I'm the one that's had a few beers.. what are you on?

Muddyw is talking about the quality of the recording, not the performances. Clarity, frequency range, etc.
---------------


Yeah I did know that. No Security has a superb mix. It is not the performance. There are only a few songs I care for on the album.

smile: this is going to sound a bit bizarre, sorry!
a few months ago i had a series of dentist appointments
and spent them with my earphones on so i wouldn't have to listen to those dental noises.
i chose concert albums, since i didn't want pauses between numbers,
and No Security was *way* better than the others for drowning out the sound of the drill.
i'm real curious why that is.
i don't know beans about sound-engineering technology -
when people talk about the compression on NS being too heavy-handed (for example),
i always yearn to hear more details: what compressors do, how that changes the sound, etc.
but whatever it is they did to NS sure comes in handy at the dentist. :E

>> Does Live Licks sound simular to No security sound wise? I haven't heard it. <<

Live Licks has a really fine sound/mix, to my ear: the guitars! the guitars! the guitars!


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

Love you live has the best sound. No Security the worst, sounds like a sound track from a puppet theater. Live Licks just gets boring and has a dead sound, don't know why.

I think LYL is the worst. The sound on Stripped (ok not a full live album) is maybe the best of any stones album IMO. No Security is good to but for some reason it the album has a cerain lame feel, i don't if that's the sound or the song selection because there are indeed some killer versions on there! Also Flashpoint has a very clear sound.

Cheers,
Wuudy

I like Still Life best. Allot of audience noise is needed to give it that big stadium feel, which they obviously did nor on No Security nor Live Licks nor Stripped.

I like the guitarsound on Live Licks

I've always thought that LYL had a muffled, dull sound. Nothing seemed alive in it. To me, Ya-Yas, Still Life, Flashback and No Security sounded "alive" with lots of life in them. Doesn't matter about overdubs. So what.

I forgot about Live Licks. I only play the second cd but has a great sound (guitars!!!), only downpoint is that they turn of the audience on some tracks. You can really hear that on Can't you Hear me Knocking.

Cheers,
Wuudy

Live Licks/Four Flicks: Yes, the guitars sound a bit "dead" sometimes... But nevertheless If You Can't Rock Me from MSG and Street Fighting Man from Twickenham do rock the house, great versions.

But if you listen to the club show songs then the sound is a bit dead in a way... flat etc. I like club performances a lot, more than stadium, but not when it has this sound. Love You Live sounds better (disc 2 the club show part), more alive, you get a warm feeling by it.

Stripped: Yes, $#@$# great performances (Gimme Shelter, All Down The Line.. perfect, thrilling, rocking!), but still the sound is too thin/flat. It is not warm like Love You Live... compare them and you will hear it!

No Security has a better sound than Stripped yes. And this one is a stadium show. But it almost has that same warm sound from Love You Live. You Got Me Rocking, Waiting On A Friend, Out Of Control, The Last Time, Thief In The Night, Sister Morphine are great performances. Gimme Shelter lacks powerfull guitars and is the most dull version I've heard. No, the Stripped version is the best live version ever. That one is haunting, thrilling, the weaving of the guitars, it's just perfect!

>> Live Licks/Four Flicks: Yes, the guitars sound a bit "dead" sometimes <<

but ... the sound on Live Licks is totally different from Four Flicks.
which are you talking about - FF i guess?


"What do you want - what?!"
- Keith

To me Live Licks was very disappointing, because it sounds like it's simply ripped of Four Flicks.

FF is a complete sound and mix disaster. Live Licks is way better but still dead.

To me Live Licks and No Security are the best live albums since Get Yer Ya Ya's Out! i mean it...

Bärs Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> FF is a complete sound and mix disaster. Live
> Licks is way better but still dead.

Well, that goes for just about every recording of the Licks tour. The sound and mix just sucked there...

there last two live albums are as dead as a doe doe....ya yas is the best...little queenie just superb...still life also good..love you live...good

with sssoul Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >> Live Licks/Four Flicks: Yes, the guitars
> sound a bit "dead" sometimes <<
>
> but ... the sound on Live Licks is totally
> different from Four Flicks.
> which are you talking about - FF i guess?
>
> "Music, to me, is the joy, right?"
> - Keith
>
> - september 1965
> (courtesy BrownEyedGirll)


Live Licks is better, but listen to Neighbours (Paris) on Live Licks... it's just dead. Monkey Man from MSG is way better!

I think that the sound on "Stripped" is the best. Good sound level, and you can hear every instrument loud and clear. Four Flicks: First I was disappointed, but then I saw that you have to choose the stereo option, if you have no surround equipment. So I did and I had a very good sound. Live Licks: The problem is that many songs were mutilated by shortening (particularly "Rocks Off" (should it be a joke?), "Beast of Burden", "Neighbours" "Rock Me Baby" and many others) and that the collection isn't the best you can imagine. It was e.g. a big mistake not to integrate "SFTD". And surely the recorded concerts aren't the best of the Licks Tour. "No Security" and "Flashpoint": The sound is really poor. Many bootlegs of those tours are much better. And the same goes for the other Live Albums except "Get Your Ya Yas Out". Concerning "Ya Yas" I'm waiting on another soundboard recordings of this tour. "I'm Free" with a wonderful solo of Mick Taylor, the acoustic "You Gotta Move" and "Prodigal Son" and the best version of "Under My Thumb" that I ever heard ...

Stripped has the best sound IMO

with sssoul,

compression "squashes" the amplitude of the sound waves, if you visualize a wave form with high peaks and low valleys. It sets a cap and a floor to the wave, as controlled by you at the compressor. It's most useful for recording bass guitar -- when you want a constant pulse but due to the nature of the instrument, you get occasional leaps in volume. Radio mixes are heavily compressed -- I think stations apply their own -- to get a steady stream of volume into your car. Maddening to listen this way at home. Think of the highly varied dynamics of classical music as anti-compressed. But most listeners really don't want their rock music compressed too much either.

cc