Badly remastered albums

[kritikon]

I don't see how you can limit to -1.5db. I really didn't think that was possible.

Oh, I'm sure it's possibe. Lots of heavy compression on tracking, lots of heavy compression on groups, followed by serial compression on master followed by multiband compression then limiting. Even I wouldn't like music squashed that much though.

hrrm, I'd have to say all my really old stuff sounds crap - except the stuff I deliberately recorded onto the cassette 'too' loud. So there you go. Maybe it's because we grew up with squashed up dynamics on tapes and vinyl, and expect CD to be similar?

That's a good point.....remember when digital recording first came out? Lots of "experts" bemoaning the fact that digital was too cold and it didn't sound remotely like the beautiful tape saturation that was touted as one of the main factors in analogue tape's "undoubted" superiority So now we have half decent plugin saturators and valve emulations and warm s/w Eqs and then we hear that digital is too hot! You can't win.

I'm not on either side - there is no side to be on - some music will suit hot levels and being squished to death, other music won't. But there is a tendency (like in any field I suppose) to bemoan change and think that the "old" way of doing things was better. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not. And it's generally (IMO only) the ones who have access to topend expensive equipment that is threatening to become redundant (along with their skills - or so they perceive, although that is not actually true...because a good ear will always be a good ear) that are the loudest when the new media approaches the quality or supercedes the quality of the old media. It's only perceived threat that makes the whinging happen. Of course some expensive engineers feel threatened when they know that anyone at home can make quality music at home. Which is silly really - because good engineers will probably always be in demand for their mixing and mastering skills - it's only their skills in using the old equipment that is actually under threat.

Ask any 16 year old in the street how much a small amount of sonic degradation or overhot mastering affects how much they like the music they listen to - the reply will most likely be "durrrrrrr...you what? It's a bangin' tune though, innit?"

Says it all dunnit?

[CinningBao]

Fascinating stuff.. On the whole, it seems most commercially visible 'chart' music would be hotted-up to give it some sort of presence in the market place - Joe Bloggs WILL buy the cd in the music stand at <your local music store> which has the hottest mix since it instantly gratifies his ears.

Using dynamics to ensure a constant sound on the radio and television is something we cannot control, and despite it's HUGE annoyance factor most TV's and portable radios would be useless if the broadcasting bodies didn't compress the sh!t out of these signals.
But CD's are another matter. Vinyl, again, has different audio properties, but there is no excuse for CD's. I think kilroy spoke of offering his clients a proper nice 'kilroyed' mix and a (current) industry standard uberhot mix. I'm not sure which mix his clients ultimately chose, but I would put money on the majority of them choosing the latter pumped-to-the-max, whether that be the musician's or whoever's choice, simply because it sounds 'now' and 'pumped'.

It's ultimately up to the album engineer and producer, followed by the mastering engineer to give the album a unique sound, but perhaps if they collaborated on the overall result, we wouldn't have such dreadfully wacked out CD's.

And it will only get worse, like the site says, unless we can get it under control. Although I'm not sure how to convince goth-skateboarder kid over there to take back his nofx CD simply on the grounds of it being fatiguing to listen to. Urm that point's already been made.

On the whole, higher overall volume = more sales.
maybe

[CinningBao]

deleting double post

[chagzuki]

What a pathetic industry.

[donkey tugger]

Perfect mastering, that and 'hard to say I'm sorry' by Chicago.

[MickGael]

Aside from all the usual suspects, one recording I especially love is Big Star "#1 Record"

An overlooked, stone-classic record with a great, open and warm sound.

Fans of "That 70s Show" TV series will regonize "In the Street" which was used as the show's themes.

One of the great, lost records....

[Funkybot]

Let the overcompression occur on the radio, even if it's Slayer. It's fine and dandy to get a decent level out of CDs, and possible without overcompressing something, but CD's have gotten too hot.

BTW what's your vote for the worst remaster? Mine is Elvis Costello's My Aim is True (the 2 disc Rhino one still in print). Not overcompressed but full of audible digital distortion througout several songs. Damn shame too cause it's such a good album and the other Rhino remasters weren't bad.

[Scot Solida]

The problem is not how loud the records are during the loud bits, but how loud they also are during the quiet bits. The dynamic range is simply destroyed. I cannot honestly think of an album that has been released in the past five years that I can listen to often. I get ear fatigue, or too easily distracted. Much of the blame has to go to the fact that all of the dynamics are sucked out during these hard-limiting mastering sessions. The sad thing is that we finally have a technology that can reproduce a wide dynaic range, yet labels and mastering engineers refuse to take advantage of the range on offer. This over-compressed sound may be ear-catching on first listen, but after a few minutes, the attention is prone to wander.

In addition, the transients in these records are completely ruined by this approach. All the effort and work that the engineers put into that kick drum during tracking and mixing is gone. I imagine those engineers were none too pleased at hearing their efforts reduced to a squall. I find it ironic that some of the people tracking these records spend squillions of dollars on high-end compressors, limiters and preamps to track with, only to have such choices rendered pointless at the mastering stage. Hey, who cares how much time is spent delicately adjusting the reverb mix, when the damn effect will be slammed up to -000000001 dB with the rest of the program?

When taken in this context, comparison with the Prodigy records is pointless (no offense, DT), as I would think that such records are intentionally compressed by the artist, or at least overseen by them in the mastering stage. What is going on with many of today's records and re-masters (and this is what bugs me most) is that the craft and work of the tracking and mixing engineers is being tossed into the trash. It's incredibly disrespectful of their art. It's as if I, as an illustrator, made deliberate and concious choices about color and gradation, tint and hue, only to have the printers render everything in violent reds and oranges...

Certainly, some genres call for hard limiting and compression as a part of the desired "sound", but these choices should be left up to the artists and producer. A mastering engineer's job is to subtly correct and enhance the hard work of the artists...to cast the painting in the most revealing light.

[HanafiH]

No album, recorded this century, has made it into the top fifty best selling albums of all time chart. This the longest period since charts were first compiled.

http://members.aol.com/PaulHry/music/riaa.html

[crazed one]

No album, recorded this century, has made it into the top fifty best selling albums of all time chart. This the longest period since charts were first compiled.

http://members.aol.com/PaulHry/music/riaa.html

I don't think that this is due to poor mastering - rather shite artists/albums.

[tetraplan]

A clipped master is a bad master, period.
Unless you're Merzbow or Whitehouse or whatever.

Groet, Erik

[Kingston]

I was gonna come here to flame on some badly deducted arguments, but mr Solida already pretty much covered it all.

that illustrator example was right on.

And if someone still hasn't experienced modern master ear fatique, try Andrew WK's debut album (for example). By the way, the ear fatique is almost just as bad on average home hifi as in studio reference environment.

In a nutshell loudness war means multiband compression with clipped hard limiting, and more recently a drastic reduction of bass content to make it seem even louder. The treble trick is done to fool even the extremely drastic radio processing to get the extra 1-3db compared other tracks.

This has little or nothing to do with big beat and prodigy mastered sound, or compression effects or artifacts. Well, actually, every prodigy track after fat of the land has already been destroyed. And fatboy slim's latest is almost a school book example of the treble trick.

And by the way, radio pre-transmit processing is such that all the tracks will have very even levels, even if the original tracks had huge level differences.

Hence the point of mastering tracks to sound "radio-ready" is a dumb as can be. (We all still have the volume knob/fader/buttons)

And as the average consumer will not be able to tell the difference or care whether hot or not, why do it in the first place?

[kritikon]

I'm bored with this theme now, so no more posts from me on the matter. I will however state that most of the music I listen to is electronica in some form or other. I rarely nowadays listen to real instrument stuff, especially guitar based music.

Naturally this has an effect on the type of mastering that I can listen to. Many of you probably still either play, listen to or work on real instrument music, so that also has a bearing. With real instruments I do accept that there is probably a point above which is not usually good to go. But in many many types of electronica, even things like drum transients are not that important - the rhythm and tone is more often the main thing, not the dynamics - I listen to all kinds of stuff that doesn't even use sampled drums - synthesised drums, splats and hisses etc. And it's no less worthy of the term music than anything played by a 50-piece symphony orchestra, but totally different ground rules apply (or more like don't apply).

Sure some kids also listen to loads of guitar stuff etc, but it's all too easy to forget that there's a great swathe of kids coming up who don't listen to music on anything else apart from their PC, their minidisc portable or (more usually) on a club sound system drugged up to the eyeballs). And these types of music have completely different ethics - dynamics oftten mean diddly shit - a synth line can become a classic mainly for 2 reasons - A: it's got a good catchy riff, B: the patch itself, and the way the patch/sound is tweaked/modulated.

Totally and utterly seriously. Tweaking a riff can be the be-all-and-end-all. Laugh if you want, but all that does is show how you don't understand those styles of music. Think about 303 riffs (naff that they may be now) - but when they were the flavour of the day, a decent riff was needed, but more often than not, it was the way the filters were opened/closed, the way the tune built or broke down in terms of sonic character, and the rhythm (irrespective of dynamics) that made a tune a success. Many of the riffs were very similar, they were all made with a particularly undynamic synth and undynamic drum machines but they spawned 20 years worth of music to date.

And what you don't understand maybe is that much of that music wasn't listened to much at home. I bought loads of trancey acid stuff way back when - always we played it in the car in a traffic jam at 1am up in the moors up north on the way to a rave, or to some old airfield down south. Then we got off to it in the raves. But......we rarely if ever sat down and listened to it at home the way you would with other music - it's out of context to listen to it that way. And that is still the case with much electronica. In exactly the same way that I don't really give 2 shits about guitar music anymore, I suspect some of the whingers don't give 2 shits about that type of electronica - thusly they don't understand the context and their arguments about "hot" can be seriously out of tune with reality.

You may be right with much guitar music, I really don't care. However....to me, things like U2 sound extremely heavily compressed/ limited/ hot recorded....they always have done. In fact they're probably one of the main culprits - there isn't much dynamics in any of their stuff recently. Yet they are one of the few guitar bands I can listen to because they make great tunes, and have a good feel to them - I don't care about the dynamics or the lack of breathing room, or the playing or the skill involved - they just have an overall good vibe and sound ....they use guitars in the same way I use synths - it's not about playing pyrotechnics, it's about overall sound and vibe - in fact U2 guitar come to think of it is just how you would use a synth.(I don't even listen to Bono's pathetic lyrics, but he has a good sound and feeling to his voice is all - it's like another instrument).
I've heard musos sneering at the idea of tweaking patches on a synth as a musical effect, even main theme. It's no less worthy than some guitar engineer geek fiddling around with his stomp boxes for 2 hours to get exactly the right FX feel and sound. To me it's not worth the effort - it still sounds like a cat being disembowelled.....but you get my point? Completely different worlds. I used to hear things like Guns'n'Roses with wotsisface breaking sweat over some huge monolithic guitar solo playing about 50 notes per second - And all I could think was "why didn't he just play the 4 main notes and tweak the cutoff and resonance - that would work better". So bullshit about guitar music dynamics and mastering applying to heavily dense dance electronica where the main emphasis may be one just one riff and how it is modulated just is not correct.
And I don't mean clipping - that is just plain bad craft. But I hear many electronic tunes that if mastered less hot, with less compression just wouldn't work. It's music made with new gadgets with the limitations and possibilities that modern recording offers. Headroom isn't the holy grail for my type of music. Neither are pristine snare transients - in fact those are often failings not bonuses! Alot of dance is done that way precisely because we now have the tools to get every ounce of nuance from a synth by squashing it flat like a pancake under a Mitsubishi Pajero. Alot of electro producers don't give a shite about dynamic range - that to them is not what is good about digital recording methods.

And U2 still sell big. Technically I would bet their mastering is bloody awful (although very expensive for sure)- but guess what? It works. Because of good tunes/ good sound.

I just bow out with the firm belief that too many engineers are working on yesterdays rules for today's music too often. Don't treat dance electronica with the same rules as a regular guitar/bass/vocal/drums band. If you do, you will never get it right. In exactly the same way I probably wouldn't get a guitar band even close to right because I work with electronica and it's own constraints. So please when you're banging on about bad mastering, just bear in mind that your tastes in your style of music are only that - personal taste and there are in fact no firm rules. Even I would say that elctronica such as ambient type stuff benefits from less compression etc - so even within my own field, there are big differences.

Bloody guitar nerds - they think it's the only music that counts and their rules are always correct

[dystonia_ek]

Many of you probably still either play, listen to or work on real instrument music, so that also has a bearing. With real instruments I do accept that there is probably a point above which is not usually good to go. But in many many types of electronica, even things like drum transients are not that important - the rhythm and tone is more often the main thing, not the dynamics - I listen to all kinds of stuff that doesn't even use sampled drums - synthesised drums, splats and hisses etc. And it's no less worthy of the term music than anything played by a 50-piece symphony orchestra, but totally different ground rules apply (or more like don't apply).

So drum transients and dynamics aren't important to guitar nerds like Autechre or Venetian Snares? Should Francisco Lopez or John Duncan be given the same sound treatment as Slayer or Britney Spears? Imagine running Bernard Gunter through that Waves L2...

But I guess 500000000 club kids can't be wrong, can they?

And that's a bit of a judgement call pigeonholing everyone as into 'real instrument music' - a synthesiser is as much a 'real instrument' as a guitar. There is precious little music that falls outside 'real instrument music' - apart from pure musique concrete and found sound based things, and a few rare anti-music outsiders (The New Blockaders, Vivenza, Vagina Dentata Organ, The Haters, et. al...)

[kritikon]

So drum transients and dynamics aren't important to guitar nerds like Autechre or Venetian Snares? Should Francisco Lopez or John Duncan be given the same sound treatment as Slayer or Britney Spears? Imagine running Bernard Gunter through that Waves L2...

sigh.......I wasn't going to even look at this topic again, but I just couldn't help myself.
Please go back and read my last post properly

Autechre... dance electronica? Hmmmmm

Francisco Lopez or John Duncan

Absolutely no idea who they are.

Slayer or Britney Spears

Again...please read my last post properly. I'm not about to attempt to argue how to master either Slayer or Britney - if you can be bothered to read my last post you'd see I stated I have no experience or desire to get involved in that type of music. In fact I purposely try to post stating only my opinions on my own styles of music without knocking others'. I would have absolutely no idea how to master Britney, or Slayer or Autechre - none of whom fall in the categories I talked about.

And did I ever say that dance electronica is ever any better than any other type of music? I have no more respect for the dance kids than you obviously do...in fact I don't even make that type of music - not for several years now, anyway.

And to read from my post that I think every musical style should be overcompressed and limited..............please go back and read my last post properly.