Red Hot Chili Peppers New Album - I'm With You - Out 8-30-2011

nbakid, Easily on Californication is a 3 as well.

 

Just did a dynamic range analysis on the MP3s floating around the web. Here are the horrid results:

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Analyzed folder: /I'm With You
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DR Peak RMS Filename
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DR3 over -4.40 dB 01 - Monarchy of Roses.wav
DR4 over -5.69 dB 02 - Factory of Faith.wav
DR3 over -5.23 dB 03 - Brendan's Death Song.wav
DR4 over -5.70 dB 04 - Ethiopia.wav
DR4 over -5.06 dB 05 - Annie Wants a Baby.wav
DR4 over -5.10 dB 06 - Look Around.wav
DR4 over -6.18 dB 07 - The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie.wav
DR4 over -4.66 dB 08 - Did I Let You Know.wav
DR3 over -3.93 dB 09 - Goodbye Hooray.wav
DR4 over -5.08 dB 10 - Happiness Loves Company.wav
DR3 over -5.50 dB 11 - Police Station.wav
DR4 over -5.47 dB 12 - Even You, Brutus.wav
DR4 over -6.35 dB 13 - Meet Me at the Corner.wav
DR4 over -5.76 dB 14 - Dance, Dance, Dance.wav
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Number of files: 14
Official DR value: DR4

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To make matters even worse, some songs on Californication had a DR of 6 while this albums only has 3s and 4s. I'm afraid I'm just not gonna listen to this album if it's butchered this way! They most certainly did not learn from there past mistakes!

 

Monarchy of Roses was recorded off of the radio, you can hear the back announce start right at the end.

This will be a terrible sounding CD, but that's what you get with RHCP.

 

That's what you get with:

Recording personnel

* Greg Fidelman – mixing
* Vladimir Meller – mastering
* Rick Rubin – production
* Andrew Scheps – mixing

Vladimir Meller + Greg Fidelman = I'd rather be deaf. I'm not really a fan of Rick Rubin either. He has been involved with a lot of great records, but unfortunately most of those are more or less brickwalled.

I still have hopes for vinyl release (Hoffman treatment please).

 

Hear, hear(literally)! I heard some of it and it sounds tremendously brickwalled. I'll hold off for the vinyl. If it's anywhere near as good as Stadium Arcadium, I'm in!

 

Generic 21st century RHCP. The Hillel days are long gone.

 

Is that even possible? Damn...

 

Well as I said it depends which of the mp3s floating around you analyse. P: I think we'll have to wait for .flac of the album. I'm pretty sure values of only 3 and 4 aren't representative. "Easily" to me definitely sounds worse than, say, "Brendan's Death Song".

 

Wow....another RHCP album which has been brickwalled to death.
The warning on the wikipedia album site was right >>>
Next to "Vladimir Meller – mastering" it said:

>>> STOP the Loudness War <<<

 

"Goodbye Hooray"
>>>

 

Sheer idiocy.

I like about 2/3 of the tracks, but it will just be another RHCP album that I won't end up listening to very often.

That mastering is far worse than even the Stadium Arcadium CDs. WIth John's influence gone, they have gone back to absolutely killing the music.

 

Why would it depend which MP3s you analyse? Unless they are specially mastered for say iTunes but that doesn't happen a lot. Anyhow, here is the DR of MP3s mastered from the CD:

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Analyzed folder: /I'm With You
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DR Peak RMS Filename
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DR3 over -4.37 dB 01-red_hot_chili_peppers-monarchy_of_roses.wav
DR4 over -5.68 dB 02-red_hot_chili_peppers-factory_of_faith.wav
DR3 over -5.20 dB 03-red_hot_chili_peppers-brendans_death_song.wav
DR4 over -5.62 dB 04-red_hot_chili_peppers-ethiopia.wav
DR4 over -4.99 dB 05-red_hot_chili_peppers-annie_wants_a_baby.wav
DR4 over -5.05 dB 06-red_hot_chili_peppers-look_around.wav
DR4 over -6.13 dB 07-red_hot_chili_peppers-the_adventures_of_rain_dance_maggie.wav
DR4 over -4.65 dB 08-red_hot_chili_peppers-did_i_let_you_know.wav
DR3 over -3.85 dB 09-red_hot_chili_peppers-goodbye_hooray.wav
DR4 over -5.07 dB 10-red_hot_chili_peppers-happiness_loves_company.wav
DR3 over -5.43 dB 11-red_hot_chili_peppers-police_station.wav
DR4 over -5.40 dB 12-red_hot_chili_peppers-even_you_brutus.wav
DR4 over -6.33 dB 13-red_hot_chili_peppers-meet_me_at_the_corner.wav
DR4 over -5.71 dB 14-red_hot_chili_peppers-dance_dance_dance.wav
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Number of files: 14
Official DR value: DR4

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It's the same as my other DR range report so same mastering!

 

Because the difference between .mp3 and .wav is that the .mp3 is missing frequencies. The .wavs have more top-end, and the snares, which are usually responsible for the highest peaks, have lots of top-end that might change the waveform just a bit I imagine. Probably not more than a difference of 1 dB, though. (Compare lossy vs. lossless formats on dr.loudness-war.info, they offen have tiny differences)

 

This does not shock me at all with the album being squashed.

 

I think you're right, MP3 is indeed missing some frequencies, but as you said yourself, they would account for a minor difference in dBs so I think the final album in FLAC or similair lossless formats will have the same dynamic range.

 

This doesn't make sense to me. Trust me, there will be plenty of highest peaks (= 0 dBA or close to it) available even on the mp3 version.

What is missing are the quite parts.

Differences in dynamic range between mp3 and wav are usually less than 0.1 dBA.

I don't care how good the music might be, I am not buying crap masterings like that anymore.

 

I voiced my opinion at the Official Forum and let the Chili Peppers know they lost a sale.

 

The Stadium Arcadium forums aren't the official forums. ;P But they're by far larger.

 

So does any one else have any more comments on the content of the album? I'm holding off on listening until I get the cd on release day, but I'm interested in other people's opinions on it.

 

Paint by numbers album. Bored with it after giving it a few listens. Won't be buying it.

 

Will be buying it just for the reason that I bought their 9 previous albums plus Abbey Road EP plus Live in Hyde Park... I just can't not buy it. (Pathetic, I know)

 

"Rain Dance Maggie" (single) has DR5 (itunes download).

 

Likely no point for a vinyl release. Greg Fidelman tends to brickwalls his mixes before they even get to mastering.

 

My ears hurt just looking at those names!
Surely if Steve worked on their vinyl, then he must have talked to Flea or Anthony about sound quality and how their albums are the "poster children" for bad sounding CD's.

Are CD's literally like 8-tracks now- no care or quality control? Just done out of the need fulfill the assumption that somebody will still buy these, but everything is either done for vinyl (the wealthy) or downloads (the poor). They don't care about the middle class!

 

So this is going to be "Californication 2" (with most likely worse songs).

They had John Frusciante in the band who is quite an audiophile if I'm not mistaken. I don't think (rest of) the RHCP members care about the sound quality that much. Surely they would have learned their lesson by now.