Worst sounding Cd's ever

[Waltz Mastering]

I love the tone of the instruments, the vocal treatment, and the space, but if there's such a thing as too much dynamics, this CD has it. I found myself adjusting the volume to hear the detailed guitar parts, and then going deaf whenever her vocal line came in.

This makes sense. Sometimes the ambient /road noise inside a vehicle with the windows rolled up can easily reach 95dB and above, so not having a recording compressed enough could be a problem.

 

[Villain S Deeds]

Of those on your various lists (not remastered old goodies):

1. Californication
2. Death Magnetic
3. Stadium Arcadium
4. Jayhawks various releases.

all have something in common. What could that be?

I know what they have in common, but only because I Googled it. It's no wonder I don't like listening to Slayer.

 

[Villain S Deeds]

I haven't even heard it. I hate Metallica.

Everyone hates Metallica.

 

[punkrocker]

^ +1

I had mentioned that in post #27.. He says on his facebook page that it was a production decision. ..things that make you go Hmmm.

Opps sorry. I scanned all the previous posts first but for some reason I did not see your post. Yeah I saw that on his facebook page. I get a strange feeling that in the near future the trend will move away from extreme autotune into this level of L2 crushed mixes....

 

[BLP]

Don't worry in the year 3012 humans will no longer be aloud to record, mix, and master music. It will be done by robots. We are not capable of pleasing everyone's ears, but the robots will be. They will read your mind as you make a purchase online and they will automatically remaster the music to your taste in the speed of light. These robots are bad ass! They will make movies about these robots.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Don't worry in the year 3012 humans will no longer be aloud to record, mix, and master music. It will be done by robots. We are not capable of pleasing everyone's ears, but the robots will be. They will read your mind as you make a purchase online and they will automatically remaster the music to your taste in the speed of light.

You won't have to wait anywhere near that long. Most of that technology is already here, it's just a matter of someone putting it all together. Give it another 5-10 years. Then the answer to this thread's question will be, "all of them".

G.

 

[BLP]

You won't have to wait anywhere near that long. Most of that technology is already here, it's just a matter of someone putting it all together. Give it another 5-10 years. Then the answer to this thread's question will be, "all of them".

G.

i was being highly sarcastic, but that would be weird in 10 years if that was true.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

i was being highly sarcastic, but that would be weird in 10 years if that was true.

I think 10 years is on the long side of the estimate. I would be surprised if someone out there is not already working on software that does exactly what you describe. The individual parts are already out there.

The only point I'd contend is the "sounds pleasing" part. Most music today is NOT mixed and mastered to sound pleasing, and to expect a computer to make something more pleasing than that is indeed fiction on several levels. Not that that will stop anybody from doing it, because there will be lots of money to be made or saved doing it.

G.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

All I know is that I still read complaints all over the place (and hear clients in the studio during breaks complain about) about Metallica "selling out". It's not just them, you hear it about folks like David Byrne, Elvis Costello and a million others too - just not with the frequency that you hear it about Metallica.

Catching an old thread on the rise, but I missed this the first time around.

Tell me about it. I've got a lot of old school metal head friends (kind of a long story in its own right, since I'm way too young at 29 to even remember a pre-black album Metallica), and the amount of rage directed at the problem is really pretty shocking. I think it's the extent to which they sold out, going from this young,g ame-changing, up-and-coming anti-commercial thrash band to next thing you know appearing all the time on MTV, getting therapists, and suing Napster. A buddy of mine has been thinking of registering fuckbobrock.com for years now - I'm thinking of just picking it up for him as a birthday present.

 

[Supercreep]

Rush's Vapor Trails. Mastering hack-job. Dynamic range is like 3db.

/thread

 

[noisewreck]

In summary, all CDs sound bad. We should go back to vinyl

 

[oceanflame]

In summary, all CDs sound bad. We should go back to vinyl

+1, yes indeed

 

[dastrick]

Mine......................if I ever make one.

 

[Seafroggys]

Vinyl is overrated. A great sounding CD is a great sounding record.

 

[Rothko]

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned the Stooges' Raw Power after Iggy went insane on the fucking thing. Bowie mixed it the first time round, and did a crappy job, but the remastered version is something else. Clipping, compression, the works. It sounds horrendous. The spectral is a big, fat sausage, and it still gets called the loudest CD ever made, even by today's standards.

 

[Seafroggys]

Isn't that the one that came out in 97? I read about it, something like -4 RMS. I think the first CD to get that Ballpark was Death Magnetic, 11 years later.

 

[Rothko]

Isn't that the one that came out in 97? I read about it, something like -4 RMS. I think the first CD to get that Ballpark was Death Magnetic, 11 years later.

Yeah, its not quite as bad as that, more like -3, but still fucking atrocious. When you think about it, it was really a pioneering record... just in all the wrong ways.

Another bad one that comes to mind is the 1993 GDC remaster of Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth. All the worse for me because I adore that record. I listened to the '93 version for years as a teenager, and then a friend played me the original '88 release on vinyl. I was like "whoa, what did they do to it?"

 

[RWhite]

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned the Stooges' Raw Power after Iggy went insane on the fucking thing. Bowie mixed it the first time round, and did a crappy job, but the remastered version is something else. Clipping, compression, the works. It sounds horrendous. The spectral is a big, fat sausage, and it still gets called the loudest CD ever made, even by today's standards.

You have to realize that they had a budget of about $5 to make that record.

 

[RWhite]

Three more candidates that spring to mind. Firstly, 1975's "On your feet or on your knees" by Blue Oyster Cult. It sounds like it was recorded by someone who had access to two good quality mics and just set them up at the back of whichever hall or auditorium the band were playing in at various points on their tour. Sonically, the quality is decidedly ropey, you forget the band even had a bass player while his drumming brother is audible - but at times, just. The organ weaves in and out but the guitars are heavy and trebly.
But it's one of the best live LPs ever in my opinion because despite the sonic flaws, the songs and the playing are so wonderful and thirty years on, I wouldn't change a bit of it. It would almost spoil it if was all clear !

I guess you and I are about the only fans on earth of that album. Its the only LP that I actually wore out just from playing it too much. Even today almost 40 years later I can still remember every tiny nuance of that recording. It always sounded to me like it was recorded off the mixing board with crowd noises dubbed in later, but Buck Dharma's guitar player made all the shitty sound irrelevant to me.

 

[Greg_L]

You have to realize that they had a budget of about $5 to make that record.

The late 90's re-mix/master of Raw Power was made obnoxiously loud on purpose. Iggy wanted everything maxed out. He didn't like Bowie's soft mix. Yeah it sounds terrible, but that's The Stooges. In retrospect, everyone agrees that Bowie's mix is better.