I’m not even real sure what constitutes Americana per se and not sure where R&B fits within that genre. Below is a list of bands/musicians who I think are very talented and at least somewhat retro and whose music I enjoy but whose CDs/LPs and hi res file are compressed to the point that they are nearly ruined in my opinion. With some of them you can get better quality on the LP or the hi-res file, but this is an exception rather than a rule and the improvement seems to be marginal.
Alabama Shakes
St. Paul and the Broken Bones
Leon Bridges
Vintage Trouble
The Teskey Brothers (Australian)
Neko Case
Tedeschi Trucks
Chris Stapleton (Traveller CD not too bad but not good in terms of SQ)
Gary Clark, Jr.
The Struts (not American or Americana but retro)
I think all of these are great bands with great music but horrible production quality....all related to compression/loudness. It makes me sick. I still listen to them but will admit that I typically futz with them with the computer equalizer. Pathetic. I know. But otherwise hard to listen to.
Contrast this with Mark Knopfler’s latest album, which I’m not crazy about but whose production quality is very good (10 and up on the DR database) and better on the LP.
The point is, it can be done. And I don’t think it requires much additional effort.
As a side not I was watching a YouTube video of a guy who puts together affordable vintage systems and one system had a built in equalizer with dB meters. When he went to test it he couldn’t understand why the needles on the meters were pegged in the red until he realized he was playing a contemporary, highly compressed artist. He changed to a better quality source and his meter was working just fine.
It makes me wonder that if every system had meters that allowed people to see how crappy a production was, maybe it would deter these idiot engineers from over compressing.
