Listening Habits Questionnaire.
1.How do you most commonly listen to music?
e)hi-fi speakers
2.Which 3 of the following genres do you most commonly listen to and from which eras?
Folk - 50's to modern
Indie - 90's/00's
Rock - 60's to modern
3.Name 3 of your favourite groups/acts and if possible what you consider to be their best works…
Okkervil River - Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See
Lullaby for the Working Class - Blanket Warm
The Good Life - Black Out
4.What tracks/albums/artists do you consider to be well produced? (i.e. sound good to you)
Most things Mike Mogis has produced. I tend to focus on the musicianship rather than the production, but he tends to get the balance right. All the Saddle Creek Records bands - The Good Life, Cursive, Bright Eyes, The Faint etc - get his touch.
Also, McCarthy Trenching's two albums are quite well produced. They're not too over the top and (if memory serves) were done on analog 8-tracks in various living rooms, which is perfect for the bluesy folk sound throughout.
Bon Iver and Onelinedrawing also use lo-fi, basic recording techniques to great effect. Onelinedrawing's "The Volunteers" is a particularly well-made album.
5.Have you heard of the ‘Loudness War’ with regard to record production?
Not until now. A quick google gave me some info on the subject, though.
6.a)When did you last purchase a CD & what was it?
5 days ago, on April 2nd: I brought The Faint's "Fascinatiion", Nickel Creek's self-titled first album, and "This Is A Landslide" by Intramural. Amazon is a double-edged sword - both incredibly useful and scarily addictive.
6.b)When did you last purchase a MP3 & what was it?
It was an album called "'Til I Reach The Sea" by Martha Tilston on a friend's suggestion. I'm not sure when it was because my iTunes is playing up, but it was in the last week.
It's worth noting that it's rare I download MP3s; I'd rather hunt around for the album on physical medium as you can normally find it cheaper and it means you always have a backup copy. I also note you don't give any questions relating to illegal music downloads. That makes for long and lengthy discussion; I am an advocate - or used to be, when I was forming my musical taste - of downloading one or two tracks from an album to see if I liked it before I purchased the CD. It's a shame so many just illegally download everything now. You could probably argue that having mp3 as a buyable medium only helps fuel this fire - it contributes to the notion of music as a formless product, and takes away the idea of an album as a solid work of art. It'd be interesting to see how many people ever listen to an album from start to finish now, in this digital day and age, instead of just "shuffling" as one long, random mixtape, missing the subtle intricacies of the artist's work - the way tracks are written to blend into each other, the recurring themes of an album, the forming of a story, or with subtle nods to other songs on the album.
7.Do you ever have a problem with the audio quality of the music you listen to? (if so please describe…)
I think the problem is with the technology - A lot of earphones/speakers tend to start to clip, buzz or distort at high volume. Sometimes, though, you do find that music is simply too cluttered - that "wall of sound" production technique is sometimes infuriating when you're trying to pick out individual instruments in the mix.
8.In what format is a majority of your music? (i.e. Vinyl,cd,tape,mp3,aiff,wav…)
I buy most of it on CD, but listen to it as mp3, as my speaker setup is an iPod dock and has no CD player.
I would rather have vinyl, though. I'm very glad some record labels use download codes to allow you to get mp3s of your vinyl records. There's something much more pleasing, aesthetically, about Vinyl. I'd much rather have a 7" than a throwaway shiny disc or just another mp3 lost in an iTunes library, for example.
9.If the above answer is a digital format what bit rate do you normally go for?
I rip everything in 128 Kbps. I honestly don't care about the bit rate - I don't think it makes any kind of difference when you're listening to it on such low-grade speakers. Unless you have £200 headphones instead of £10 earbuds, are you really going to notice? It's like buying blu-ray films because they're better quality when you only have a 1960's black and white TV to watch them on.
10.Are there any records/genres you really cannot stand?
There's normally something listenable in every genre. As a massive generalisation though, I can't stand contemporary/"gangsta" rap, dance/house/techno music, metal or pop.
This said, I like early rap (Run DMC, TCQ, etc), some electronica, some mellower metal, and indie pop... so make of that what you will.
11.Do ever find yourself switching the music off because you find it too much? (please describe why if so…)
Yes. Anything on Radio One makes me cringe. Hah. It's a tongue-in-cheek generalisation again, but it holds up to scrutiny for the best part. I used to work in an office, and they had it on all the time. Eventually I gave up trying to be social and took to wearing earbuds instead. If you were to compare music to the notion of a political spectrum, then I imagine it'd look something like this:
Classical..........Jazz......Folk....................Indie Pop.........Pop..........Pop Punk..........Dance......Rap...............House/Trance........
..............Prog................Indie rock.....Punk..........Mainstream "Indie"...............R&B....................Gangsta Rap..................D&B
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
There's obviously some stuff missing, but I hope that all lines up (if it doesn't, just give it a bit more space), because I think that's basically the spectrum of modern music. Most people sit in the center and then dabble into either side. I'm probably half way to the left - About the Folk/Indie Rock point. I'll go for some stuff either side, but I don't find much to interest me the further right you go.
12.What course are you currently studying?
English with Creative Writing. I don't know why - I play music much more than I read!
e)hi-fi speakers
2.Which 3 of the following genres do you most commonly listen to and from which eras?
Folk - 50's to modern
Indie - 90's/00's
Rock - 60's to modern
3.Name 3 of your favourite groups/acts and if possible what you consider to be their best works…
Okkervil River - Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See
Lullaby for the Working Class - Blanket Warm
The Good Life - Black Out
4.What tracks/albums/artists do you consider to be well produced? (i.e. sound good to you)
Most things Mike Mogis has produced. I tend to focus on the musicianship rather than the production, but he tends to get the balance right. All the Saddle Creek Records bands - The Good Life, Cursive, Bright Eyes, The Faint etc - get his touch.
Also, McCarthy Trenching's two albums are quite well produced. They're not too over the top and (if memory serves) were done on analog 8-tracks in various living rooms, which is perfect for the bluesy folk sound throughout.
Bon Iver and Onelinedrawing also use lo-fi, basic recording techniques to great effect. Onelinedrawing's "The Volunteers" is a particularly well-made album.
5.Have you heard of the ‘Loudness War’ with regard to record production?
Not until now. A quick google gave me some info on the subject, though.
6.a)When did you last purchase a CD & what was it?
5 days ago, on April 2nd: I brought The Faint's "Fascinatiion", Nickel Creek's self-titled first album, and "This Is A Landslide" by Intramural. Amazon is a double-edged sword - both incredibly useful and scarily addictive.
6.b)When did you last purchase a MP3 & what was it?
It was an album called "'Til I Reach The Sea" by Martha Tilston on a friend's suggestion. I'm not sure when it was because my iTunes is playing up, but it was in the last week.
It's worth noting that it's rare I download MP3s; I'd rather hunt around for the album on physical medium as you can normally find it cheaper and it means you always have a backup copy. I also note you don't give any questions relating to illegal music downloads. That makes for long and lengthy discussion; I am an advocate - or used to be, when I was forming my musical taste - of downloading one or two tracks from an album to see if I liked it before I purchased the CD. It's a shame so many just illegally download everything now. You could probably argue that having mp3 as a buyable medium only helps fuel this fire - it contributes to the notion of music as a formless product, and takes away the idea of an album as a solid work of art. It'd be interesting to see how many people ever listen to an album from start to finish now, in this digital day and age, instead of just "shuffling" as one long, random mixtape, missing the subtle intricacies of the artist's work - the way tracks are written to blend into each other, the recurring themes of an album, the forming of a story, or with subtle nods to other songs on the album.
7.Do you ever have a problem with the audio quality of the music you listen to? (if so please describe…)
I think the problem is with the technology - A lot of earphones/speakers tend to start to clip, buzz or distort at high volume. Sometimes, though, you do find that music is simply too cluttered - that "wall of sound" production technique is sometimes infuriating when you're trying to pick out individual instruments in the mix.
8.In what format is a majority of your music? (i.e. Vinyl,cd,tape,mp3,aiff,wav…)
I buy most of it on CD, but listen to it as mp3, as my speaker setup is an iPod dock and has no CD player.
I would rather have vinyl, though. I'm very glad some record labels use download codes to allow you to get mp3s of your vinyl records. There's something much more pleasing, aesthetically, about Vinyl. I'd much rather have a 7" than a throwaway shiny disc or just another mp3 lost in an iTunes library, for example.
9.If the above answer is a digital format what bit rate do you normally go for?
I rip everything in 128 Kbps. I honestly don't care about the bit rate - I don't think it makes any kind of difference when you're listening to it on such low-grade speakers. Unless you have £200 headphones instead of £10 earbuds, are you really going to notice? It's like buying blu-ray films because they're better quality when you only have a 1960's black and white TV to watch them on.
10.Are there any records/genres you really cannot stand?
There's normally something listenable in every genre. As a massive generalisation though, I can't stand contemporary/"gangsta" rap, dance/house/techno music, metal or pop.
This said, I like early rap (Run DMC, TCQ, etc), some electronica, some mellower metal, and indie pop... so make of that what you will.
11.Do ever find yourself switching the music off because you find it too much? (please describe why if so…)
Yes. Anything on Radio One makes me cringe. Hah. It's a tongue-in-cheek generalisation again, but it holds up to scrutiny for the best part. I used to work in an office, and they had it on all the time. Eventually I gave up trying to be social and took to wearing earbuds instead. If you were to compare music to the notion of a political spectrum, then I imagine it'd look something like this:
Classical..........Jazz......Folk....................Indie Pop.........Pop..........Pop Punk..........Dance......Rap...............House/Trance........
..............Prog................Indie rock.....Punk..........Mainstream "Indie"...............R&B....................Gangsta Rap..................D&B
|------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
There's obviously some stuff missing, but I hope that all lines up (if it doesn't, just give it a bit more space), because I think that's basically the spectrum of modern music. Most people sit in the center and then dabble into either side. I'm probably half way to the left - About the Folk/Indie Rock point. I'll go for some stuff either side, but I don't find much to interest me the further right you go.
12.What course are you currently studying?
English with Creative Writing. I don't know why - I play music much more than I read!