1. Hm. I take your word for it, but I find it strange. I know some of his older stuff: King's X's "Dogman" and Dan Baird's "Buffalo Nickel" do sound absolutely fantastic to my ears.

    I know that the late Leo Fender had increasing listening problems, so his later guitar designs sounded harsh and shrill. Maybe Brendan listened to too much loud music during the last decade.

    Alex
  2. Originally posted by drewhiggins:[..]

    Nope, but that is interesting. I wonder if the limitations of CDDA is a reason as opposed to the supposedly higher DVDA quality. But still No Line is not too bad and in places better than HTDAAB.


    I don't think its due to the DVDA, cos just the digital download of Linear has a more dynamic mix than the CD. And thats just mp4 with a 192 kbps variable AAC stream.

    I don't think its down to just the accompanying visual imagery that Linear has either. Cos even if I turn the picture off, the audio on the Linear download has more clarity and dynamicism than if i play the NLOTH cd on the same setup.
  3. I'll bump this topic because it's an interesting discussion.

    I noticed two albums I bought: Sonic Boom (KISS) and Honkin' On Bobo (Aerosmith) are possibly the worst-mastered albums of all time. They both hit in the red if I play them back. No wonder people get headaches if this is how music is now mastered - it's absolutely horrible.

    I like my music loud too but not to the point of it losing everything it has and putting it all into a blender so nothing can be picked up clearly.
  4. I'm afraid to me the worst mastered album I've ever heard would be NLOTH. No bitching intended as I really like the music on its own, but it just really really hurts my ears. What hurts someone's ears might be pretty subjective though.

    It's not only a matter of excessive loudness. I'm a declared opponent of loudness but there's more to a natural sound than dynamics. NLOTH isn't exactly brickwalled but it does sound like it just as well. There's just no breathing, no space, nothing, it's a muddy mess without any definition, without any freshness, and I believe that's mainly due to very, very poor EQ'ing. It's the first time I felt the need to work over an officially released album.

    Worst mastered track of the album and definitely winning the gold medal for worst mastered track to have been recorded ever in the complete history of pop music would be I'll Go Crazy. I remember listening to that song performed live @ David Letterman and how suprised I was to hear a lovely fresh song (unlike most of you I believe, I actually think it's a lovely song, apart from the extremely sharp s's, excessive and very muddy bass, insanely harsh cymbals and so on).

    I've always been surprised anyway how a band of U2's standing and with a sonic genius like Edge among them, could allow their recordings being destroyed as badly as they tend to do. To my ears, both U2 studio and live releases are way subpar except for the first three (non-remastered!) records.

    As for the loudness war, unfortunately it isn't a problem of these days. For example Oasis's Morning Glory (1995!) is extremely loud. I'm pretty much in love with that album but I only listen to it on my iPod - with decent hardware & headphones it is pretty fatiguing.

    I really hope a new generation of "natural" engineers will stand up and raise their voice, and I wouldn't be surprised if it would happen within a few years. I wouldn't be surprised either when both brickwalled, very bassy iTunes versions and more natural versions on CD of the same album would be released in the future - at least, that's what I would call reasonably.
  5. What does this discussion has to do with mixing? I mean, we are just taking about mastering.
    I'll add a bad album to the list:
    Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication. This record is saturated all over...you can't hear a decent crash cymbal on the whole record.
  6. Originally posted by thechicken:What does this discussion has to do with mixing? I mean, we are just taking about mastering.
    I'll add a bad album to the list:
    Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication. This record is saturated all over...you can't hear a decent crash cymbal on the whole record.


    Everything to do with what's being done to audio nowadays. So mixing, mastering and production comes into it.

    Wasn't that the case with two of the Chili albums? They were both horrible to listen to.
  7. Originally posted by noiseless:I really hope a new generation of "natural" engineers will stand up and raise their voice, and I wouldn't be surprised if it would happen within a few years. I wouldn't be surprised either when both brickwalled, very bassy iTunes versions and more natural versions on CD of the same album would be released in the future - at least, that's what I would call reasonably.


    I'd like to see that happen. Two mixes of the album - I've been wanting that for ages.

    Anyone with the TUF and Joshua Tree remasters - who thought they were done so well for a modern remaster?
  8. Originally posted by noiseless:I'm afraid to me the worst mastered album I've ever heard would be NLOTH. No bitching intended as I really like the music on its own, but it just really really hurts my ears. What hurts someone's ears might be pretty subjective though.



    I think you might need to invest in some better speakers, and not listen to the iPod with the included earbuds.(:shudders

    On a decent pair of three or four-way speakers, I found NLOTH to be a masterpiece of production. Especially during White as Snow, listen to the light picking of the guitar at the beginning. Every single note the band plays throughout the album come through crystal clear and with plenty of dynamics.

    BUT, trying to play the CD loud in my car is a bad idea, I get plenty of clipping during quite a few songs and they also sound a bit muddy. Pop on the other hand, sounds a whoooole lot better in my car, yet when compared to NLOTH on my home system, sounds a bit flat.

    NLOTH is an album that really needs to be played on a higher-end system to hear it's genius... in my humble opinion.
  9. Originally posted by drewhiggins:[..]

    I'd like to see that happen. Two mixes of the album - I've been wanting that for ages.

    Anyone with the TUF and Joshua Tree remasters - who thought they were done so well for a modern remaster?


    I totally agree about those JT and TUF remasters. They were done very tastefully (although I can't help preferring the MFSL ones). I wonder why Boy, October and War didn't get a similar treatment.



    roflol.

    I respectfully disagree completely. But there's little point in repeating why I don't like the production while 1) I stressed the subjectiveness of ears, and 2) you apparantly didn't read very well what I wrote.
  10. Originally posted by thechicken:What does this discussion has to do with mixing? I mean, we are just taking about mastering.
    I'll add a bad album to the list:
    Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication. This record is saturated all over...you can't hear a decent crash cymbal on the whole record.


    agree, started listening to it yesterday on my ipod but had to turn it off
  11. Originally posted by noiseless:[..]

    I totally agree about those JT and TUF remasters. They were done very tastefully (although I can't help preferring the MFSL ones). I wonder why Boy, October and War didn't get a similar treatment.


    Did you ever notice clipping or some sort of digital noise artefacts in The Ocean on Boy? It seems to be in later masters too, like something has gone wrong in the transfer from tape to CD.
  12. Originally posted by drewhiggins:[..]

    Did you ever notice clipping or some sort of digital noise artefacts in The Ocean on Boy? It seems to be in later masters too, like something has gone wrong in the transfer from tape to CD.


    I'm not completely sure what sounds you mean. There's a lot going on in the background and some (unwanted?) sounds may have been there forever, just to be more noticeable due to a superior transfer from the master tapes.