I’m not talking about the mid-atlantic accent which has been asked about on this sub. I mean how the actual recordings of voices have a distinct sound quality where you can tell they’re…. old timey. Not the graininess, not background-noisiness, but the actual timbre/character of the voices has some sort of… idk, almost slightly electronicky sound to it. And modern artists use it as an artificial effect. But modern recording technology recreates voices much more true-to-life. What is this?
If this makes no sense feel free to roast me and remove my post >_>
edit: someone suggested to link an example. This was on my mind when watching this clip of the Jordannaires singing at the Grand Ol Opry in the 50s: [https://youtu.be/qkJU8BS-jDU?t=337](https://youtu.be/qkJU8BS-jDU?t=337) I listen to a fair amount of barbershop, and lots of the old recordings have this vocal quality to it, but modern recordings are much more accurate to the person’s real-life voice.
In: Technology
I think the dynamic limitations of recording equipment also played a big part in this. In older songs, for example songs by Aretha Franklin, the voice has a “sharp edge” from time to time. This is due to the distortion of the original signal, which in turn is a result of the limitations of the recording equipment of that time. A good artist would use that to their advantage.
A really good example: if you would watch a video recording of the first season of Bob Ross’ “The joy of painting” (they’re all on Youtube), then you’ll notice that his voice seems to sound much harsher/sharper than in later seasons.
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