Most Compressed Albums ever ???

S

sushi-mon

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I would have to vote for the RHCPs "Californication".This is one of my favorite albums, but this CD sounds like crap in my monitoring room. I also hear a lot of distortion on the vocals, with pops and cracks here and there. I am very un-impressed with it sonically.

I was checking the levels in PTools with my VU meters. RMS value of -10db and Peak values of 0db and tipping. THIS IS NON STOP all the way through, every song, even in "quiet" parts. Also, it was astonishing to see how rectangular the waves were, with thick peaks cut off all over the place. I had to stretch them out quite a ways before I even saw any daylight...

What was their engineer/producer/mastering guy thinking ?!?! Essentially he pegged everything, and only left barely 10db of dynamic range !!! :eek:
 
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Do you mean compressed or limited (as in clipped) ?

One of my favourite mastering engineer, Leon Zervos, has a way of pushing levels beyond limits while still making it acceptable sounding. -8dbRMS (and square wave mania) is a common thing with him.

As far as the most compressed sounding mix, I'd say ...And Justice for all from Metallica.

The most limited and compressed mastering job IMHO was done on any 2005 record coming out of George Marino's room at Sterling Sound. This guy is a god. Most noticeably, the new Dream Theater Album, Octavarium and the latest NickelBack record, Fight for all the right reasons. Both of those are limited to the maxxxx and sound sooooo sweet with lots of high-mids that pinch your eardrums! Seriously, I like it when high mids pinch really hard.
 
It is just so far past wrong to me, that now I have to mix albums where the music gets QUIETER when a snare gets hit than before it

wrong on so many levels
 
I wish I could state the cream of compressed albums, just that there are so many now I wouldn't know where to begin.

One that felt insanely loud to me about a year ago was Yellowcard's Ocean Avenue.

I'm on the search for the most uncompressed rock album of all time to see how it sounds.
 
im new to this stuff.. so im not probably sure.. but i think

Shadows Fall.. The War Within is pretty compressed to the max.

thats what im trying to figure out how they do that.. without it being "Jumpy" or "Bouncy" sounding... when they have the whole song in a flat rectangular wave. been mixing for 3 months max.. so forgive the ignorance :D
 
LeeRosario said:
I wish I could state the cream of compressed albums, just that there are so many now I wouldn't know where to begin.

One that felt insanely loud to me about a year ago was Yellowcard's Ocean Avenue.

I'm on the search for the most uncompressed rock album of all time to see how it sounds.
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i have excile on main street by the stones on the background and there is hardly no compression at all on it.

sounds sweet.
 
Yeah, Vapor Trails is crunched, and Exile sounds great. I'll throw in the Pixies Surfer Rosa as the most uncompressed.
 
My most compressed album is "The Best of Rick Astley". Got it as a gift when I was a kid. Never listened to it so it sat at the bottom of my album collection. Got really compressed, looked like a pancake.
 
RAMI said:
My most compressed album is "The Best of Rick Astley". Got it as a gift when I was a kid. Never listened to it so it sat at the bottom of my album collection. Got really compressed, looked like a pancake.
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Does it sound like this now..."Nevah gonnah givvvve you uupphh, nehvah gonna llet chuu gooa.."
 
TheDewd said:
Do you mean compressed or limited (as in clipped) ?
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Although limiting is just compression to the EXTREME, I suppose that might be a more accurate description of what they were doing on that CD. I suppose that way you get as close to distortion as possible without clipping. :cool:
 
seismetr0n said:
anything on the radio = way too compressed
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Now come on, that doesn't really count. The stations add the extra limiting/compression so we can hear even the quiet parts of songs in our cars or in areas of poor reception. You really shouldn't bother listening to the radio on your nearfields. Actually, we all shouldn't really bother checking someone's mastering work on our mixing nearfields. Of course things will sound more compressed then we are used to hearing in a natural mix. Mastered works are for the enjoyment of the consumer, not us recording/mixing goofs.
I'm not saying there are not a lot of unnecessarily loud CDs out there; but come on, give 'em a little bit of a break.
 
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