Worst sounding Cd's ever

[Lance Lawson]

That must have been a damned cool experience, hearing the reel to reel of that album.

Part of it too is that CD isn't even really cutting edge for digital audio anymore - I mean, you own a digital home studio. Do YOU still record in 16-bit, 44.1? I generally track in 24, 88.2 with the intention of eventually having it mastered down to 16/44.1, but given the opportunity a switch to better bitrates and sampling depths could conceivably narrow that gap.

Drew no I haven't recorded @ 44/16 in a long time. I've recorded everything in my home studio for the past 5 years @ 96/24 & 44/24. 24 bit is a nice improvement over 16. However CD is still 44/16 so anything that goes onto CD reverts to the old standard.

Another somewhat modern CD that I'm well versed in is the Gin Blossoms New Miserable Experience. I originally purchased it on cassette and pretty much wore the cassette out over the years as that album is a favorite of mine. However when I did get the CD a few years ago I found its sound somewhat jagged sounding, very harsh and overly bright. This CD is a very bright CD as jangly brightness is part of the Gin Blossoms trademark sound. I've since recorded the CD onto my Teac reel to reel deck then recorded it back into my Cakewalk Sonar program before burning my "remastered" version onto CD. The result is that most of the unpleasantness of the purly digital version has been eliminated.

The Dylan Blond On Blond has an interesting history. When I was growing up a neighbor of ours worked in the record industry as a distributer. He was always given advance and promotion copies of everything that was going on in those days from 1963-1969. He routinely gave us records. He'd just come over with a stack of albums and drop them off. We had everything from the Beatles and British Invasion through the Beach Boys to MoTown. But the Blonde On Blond came as 3 versions. Mono, Stereo and the RTR tape. The mono version is very different in the mix and some of the songs such as Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands have Dylan's voice and acoustic guitar a little more up front. The stereo version sounds great. In the early 70's I became paranoid about wearing that original pressing out and purchased a new LP. Much of the album sounded very muddy and hardly as good as those first pressings. It wasn't until 1980 that I sampled a newer pressing that was right and bought that. But its that RTR recording that I suspect most closely resembles the way it sounded in the studio. The detail on it is supurb and thankfully its on a tape type that has remained stable.

 

[rayc]

I was listening to the remastered Diamond Dogs CD last night - admittedly with headphones on - and noticed something very, very odd.
The details was superb, I could hear, place focus on everything wonderfully well BUT the songs didn't hold together as songs. It was a case of less then the sum of the parts.
Now, I have the Vinyl, the original CD & the remaster. On last night's listening - and it may be a result of using h'phones rather than listening in the air - I'd much rather the vinyl which isn't a crystaline but is much more cohesive. The original CD - well, it is what they were before they realized what they'd left out!
Oh, Lance. Interesting story & insights but I reckon you should fix up the typo (suburb where I assume you intended superb) as something suburban sounding is usually construed as pedestrian at best. Hm, I quite like my old R2R as well.
Sometimes I think "all digital" recordings should have the caveat about revealing flaws in the source too. Then again, I've heard some wonderful all dig recordings - many of them in the MP3 clinic

 

[Lance Lawson]

Hi Ray fixed mine but you've got pasrt I assume for parts.

 

[leaningpine]

ALL of the 2007 Genesis remasters. They took all that time to remix the tracks on every album, and then completely ruined them by brick wall limiting them! Whoever mastered them needs to be shitcanned!

 

[leaningpine]

Little by little I began to realize that what I was hearing in the CD versions was less than what I knew those very same albums to sound like on tape and vinyl. The clincher came when I set up the Columbia pre recorded RTR version of Dylan's Blonde On Blonde. This tape has been played perhaps a dozen times since 1966 and is in essentially pristine condition. The "presence" that the RTR tape possesses was enough to sway me well and truly out of the CD camp once and for all. This is of course not to say that digital will ever give way to analog again, it won't. But it sure confirms that CD is hardly the last word in sound quality and something of a step away from sound quality.

I had the same experience after I listened to Todd Rundgren's "A Wizard A True Star" Reel to Reel. The sound quality was jaw dropping. All those years hearing LP's cassettes, 8 tracks and CD's of this album and the reel to reel was the most positive listening experience! I burned that reel onto a MFSL gold disc and have it archived!

 

[Seafroggys]

ALL of the 2007 Genesis remasters. They took all that time to remix the tracks on every album, and then completely ruined them by brick wall limiting them! Whoever mastered them needs to be shitcanned!

I was told they were absolutely amazing, but it was the DVD audio that my friend was listening to.

 

[PDP]

Look at the format currently killing CD. MP3's are so physically light and small that a literal lifetime of music can fit in your hand. They can be shuttled all over the world along the internet, and you can arrange them into playlists based on embedded metadata. And without any debate, they sound worse than CDs.

Sound quality is why vinyl remains. Sound quality has nothing to do with CDs' dominance over analog or mp3's dominance over CD.

So true, most listeners just want to hear music when they can. Like a microwave vrs an old fashioned home cooked meal.

 

[GONZO-X]

1/4" tape always sounded better to me, than vinyl....

that said, i think that we (modern digital recordists) need to study why the EQ of vinyl on playback, is so much more pleasing than the antiseptically clear sonics of modern 24 bit digital recording.

this is why plugins such as 'vinyl simulation', 'tape hiss', and 'tape emulation and saturation' even exist!

 

[grimtraveller]

Hopelessly human, both inside and out.....

i think that we (modern digital recordists) need to study why the EQ of vinyl on playback, is so much more pleasing than the antiseptically clear sonics of modern 24 bit digital recording.

this is why plugins such as 'vinyl simulation', 'tape hiss', and 'tape emulation and saturation' even exist!

We're human and therefore rarely satisfied ! In the analog 60s and 70s, engineers, producers and artists alike dreamed of a time when you'd have 'antiseptically clear sonics'. Boffins looked into this for decades. In those days it was rarely accepted that the current sound was wonderful. Just the opposite, much of the time. Analog was seen as pretty flawed when it was all there was ! "How can we make this sound cleaner, clearer, more defined etc".

Maybe sometimes we should be careful what we wish for.

That said, having spent decades trying to clean up the sound and succeeding, it's been for many years a source of amusement to me that "hiss, scratch, crackle, rumble and skip" type plugs and FX exist !

 

[dodgeaspen]

You all know I'd rather analog all day long but, I will give credit to 5.1 DTS Brian Wilson's Imagination CD sounds amazing. I believe the 1111's & 000000's are best used for chatting and checking email.

 

[Punk Spade]

Californication- Red Hot Chili Peppers
Mastering was crazy, ruined it and the CD distorts on many playback systems.

Yeah. The Californication sounds awful.

I'd like to remaster it.

 

[Villain S Deeds]

When I first bought CDs that I had had on vinyl, back in the 90s, I have to say that I thought the sound was, what I used to call "brittle"...
But CDs have greatly improved since 1995. there are good ones and crummy ones ~ just like vinyl before it.

Yeah, I'm finding more and more that I really hate the sound of those older CDs (sometimes I think they did it on purpose just to sell us those hyped-up digitally remastered versions [with or without crappy bonus tracks] years later). Fortunately I have some of the same albums on vinyl, and if I burn them to CD they always sound better to me than those professionally mastered versions from the 80s/90s.

 

[grimtraveller]

Yeah, I'm finding more and more that I really hate the sound of those older CDs (sometimes I think they did it on purpose just to sell us those hyped-up digitally remastered versions [with or without crappy bonus tracks] years later). Fortunately I have some of the same albums on vinyl, and if I burn them to CD they always sound better to me than those professionally mastered versions from the 80s/90s.

Yeah, that's what I've found. Back in 1999 I discovered by accident a way of transferring my vinyl onto CD so all my records went that way. Best of both worlds and a little scratchiness here and there for authenticity !

 

[Villain S Deeds]

Yeah, that's what I've found. Back in 1999 I discovered by accident a way of transferring my vinyl onto CD so all my records went that way. Best of both worlds and a little scratchiness here and there for authenticity !

It's vinyl to go. So much easier than installing a turntable in your car.

 

[grimtraveller]

It's vinyl to go. So much easier than installing a turntable in your car.

Funnilly enough, that's what the rich and famous did in the 60s and 70s !

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It's vinyl to go. So much easier than installing a turntable in your car.

Funnilly enough, that's what the rich and famous did in the 60s and 70s !

How do you think Motorola got started? The original "Motorola" was a "Victrola" for your motor vehicle, hence the name*. It was actually located under the hood in the engine compartment of the car, and when the record ended, you had to get out and open the hood and do it.

Chrysler also joined with Columbia and offered record players right in the dashboard of many Chrysler Plymouths and DeSotos as late as 1956:

G.

*Motorola has for some reason left this fact out of their official history on their website and instead claim that the name referred to their in-car radios only; that "-ola" meant "sound" more generically and was not meant to reference a phonograph like the Victrola name, which was no theirs. But those car phonographs did exist before or at the same time and their first in-car radios did.

 

[guitarbaz]

I hope this is the best place for this post. I was wondering what profecional CD's sound the worst to you as far as mixing & or mastering is concerned. My vote for the worst of all time is Metaillica And Justice For All. The bass sucks and their is a most annoying mid guitar moan that drives me out of my mind. It's not like they were in a low budget studio or didn't have the money to get project done the right way. I'd like to know what you think is a bad mix / master job.

late in the thread i know...

but i'd agree 100% with this. AJFA was a massive disappointment for me when i rushed out and bought it, great music sounding horrible, overcompressed kick drum and just....bleurghh. 1/10 see me after school.

that said i've got some small faces "rarities" that sound like they were recorded in an outside toilet, badly. but i'll give them that as it was the 60's.... although the beatles have made some of the best recordings around to this day...meh, what do i know...!

 

[oceanflame]

although the beatles have made some of the best recordings around to this day...meh, what do i know...!

Actually I like 70's music production better than today's stuff, with few exceptions of course. When I listen to Pink Floyd, The Alan Parsons Project, King Crimson, Yes, Frank Zappa, etc... to my taste it still beats everything on the market right now (well almost everything, mainstream-wise).

The Beatles sounded really great for their time, even today. I looked at the wav. file of their latest remastered cds, no brickwall, no peaking.

 

[Villain S Deeds]

How do you think Motorola got started? The original "Motorola" was a "Victrola" for your motor vehicle, hence the name*. It was actually located under the hood in the engine compartment of the car, and when the record ended, you had to get out and open the hood and do it.

Chrysler also joined with Columbia and offered record players right in the dashboard of many Chrysler Plymouths and DeSotos as late as 1956:

homerecording.com is the internet's best resource for historical info. I always thought it was funny that Mr. Bean had a record player in his Mini, but now I know it's not so unusual afterall. I should get one for my Grand Caravan, just to remind me to take it easy on the speed bumps.

 

[maximum octopus]

Vapor Trails by Rush. Vapor trails is nothing but a wall of overcompressed mush and I can't stand to listen to longer than 5 minutes. Atlantic was supposed to re-release a remastered version but I haven't seen it yet. The Exit... Stage Left DVD re-release is the same way, overcompressed wall of noise.

STP 4. Pretty loud mix with no instrument separation as well as brick wall mastering.

Death Magnetic, I felt sorry for the mastering engineer as he claimed he had no choice, he was forced to master it that loud, and I beleive it.

Gotta agree 100 percent on Vapor Trails. The remastered versions of Earthshine and One Little Victory on the best of are far superior. I would like to hear the rest of the album that way.