Probably the wrong thread but. I'm sitting here listening to john lennons instant karma. On a deeper level quite possibly my favourite lyric ever but the production and arrangement are artrocious
Doesn't mean it came from the same tape source, but what I meant does it sound bad because of poor mastering, eg EQ choices, excessive compression? I agree though, a bad sounding CD is bad sounding regardless of the cause.
I think John really wanted it to sound like that. In other words, he didn't really want a polished sound.
Yes, absolutely Both the first Japan pressing and the Austria picture disc smokes the 1994 definitive remaster I remember having the MCA, and I didn't like it. I recommend the Japanese 1st edition and the Austria picture disc
As I stated before, these Virgin boxes use previously released mastering's. For a cheaper alternative search out the UK CD CASSCD20
This. It does sound awful! The fat boy edition was what made me realize how important mastering is and that even the majors can really screw up.
True enough if you want to split hairs. But it most definitely does not in any way shape or form measure LOUDNESS, which was the assertion I was responding to. DR stands for "Dynamic Range." Yes, there may be some finer points to how that is measured or how accurate it is, but that's the measurement. For example, DR=10 means that there is 10db of dynamic range between the loudest and softest points in the sample, subject to some amount of error. Whether the samples are peak, RMS, crest, whatever. The measured value is still dynamic range, not loudness.
Actually, when I hear people talk about "loudness," they almost always mean that it's too damned loud. True about the correlation thing. But reduced DR is only the means to an end. Generally, you have to squash the hell out of something to make it loud. Correlation is not causation. In this case, trying to correlate a low DR value with music being too loud is just erroneous. Yeah, it probably is most of the time, but not necessarily so. I think we're in substantial agreement on this. I'd just prefer that if folks are going to complain that mastering is too loud, that they instead talk about some replay gain value (or adjustment) needed to bring it back to some agreed upon reasonable level that's all. I use a replay gain tool for all my music. The worst offender required a whopping -8.4db gain adjustment to bring it back to zero on my metered audio interface. That recording happens to be Dwight Yoakam "Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc." The DR for that recording is DR=7. Pretty horrendous. But my lowest DR recording is a DR=5, which didn't require as much replay gain adjustment. Sorry, I write manuals for a living. Being specific and accurate about things is kind of what I do.
I take it to mean you don't like the fatboy yes? I tried to get into Brew for a while listening to the fatboy but couldn't...then I bought the remaster and it clicked; I could actually hear the basis of the music; bass lines, which were buried on the ole fatboy...
I bought the CD release of Kiss Alive! When it came out. Horrible shrill metallic noises made it almost unlistenable. I took it back to the shop at the time as I thought it must be faulty. The replacement was no better. I think I’ve listened to it once all the way through in 20+ years.
Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full The worst I think I've ever heard. Whoever mastered that should be banned from going within a hundred yards of anything vaguely musical.
Hawkwind’s Onward and Blood of the Earth. I can’t listen for more than 15 minutes without my ears hurting.
2009 Beatles White Album in spots it sounds like a completely different album.I ccan't even listen to it.Back in the USSR is compressed as hell and things just worse as the record plays.
Oh, god yes. It's mono but they EQ'd each channel differently to give it "depth". Then they jacked the upper midrange to ungodly levels. Probably one of the most incompetent digital masterings ever released. Reportedly, Sony wasn't at all pleased but Neil & his "engineer" scoffed at the notion that anybody would dislike it and demanded its release.
Skip to 2:09 and turn yer volume down! (Though this video is about 50% of the volume of the CD) (Apart from the monolithic wall of clipping, though, the song is fantastic!)
