The Wedding Present - Going, Going...

It seems like hi-res wouldn't make much of a difference if the source material is highly compressed. Has anyone heard both the CD and the hi-res digital versions of the new record? I'd love to see DR numbers for the hi-res.

 

Can't wait to hear it! I just ordered a bunch of stuff today, including the Take Fountain "singles and b-sides + dvd" set which I just learned about. Can't go wrong with Gedge.

 

Thank you! (I'm that guy.) -E

 

That's not the case; hi-res isn't just about dynamics (or even mostly about dynamics, IMO). In my experience, the higher resolution makes everything more audible, stereo spread deeper, etc. Of course, much of this can be mitigated by any decision from tracking through to mastering, but even the guitars on the squashed-to-death new Dinosaur Jr. pop in a way they wouldn't on other media.

That said, unpleasant choices can be heightened in hi-res, too. (Elvis Costello's This Year's Model is unpleasantly crispy in 24/96). -E

 

Finally got to listen to this twice, enjoying it so far. I find it odd that so many of the instrumental tracks are front-loaded though. Makes me want to go to Kill Devil Hills though, it's been a few years.

 

Huh?

 

For example: I'm working on one of my band's songs. When I listen in my studio, the limiter I've got going is fine and everything sounds good. When I listen on the stereo (still at 24/48), I lose the attack of the power chord that's leaping out of the mix; it sounds smeared. So: sounds fine on the monitors, where I can hear everything better, but needs to be tweaked for more common playback systems. -E

 

This is growing on my quickly.

 

Probably the studio monitors don't reveal the compression as well as your home stereo. In my limited experience with studio monitors they just aren't very revealing or resolving.

 

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, you're trolling me, or you're sincere, but I'll take this at face value: I have extensive experience with my monitors and my home stereo, so I can say unequivocally that, on this PARTICULAR point (i.e., the relative quality between MY monitors and home stereo), you're wrong.

I'd further point out that I'm pretty sure most MEs have excellent speakers and amps so, even if for some reason my studio monitors were inferior to my home stereo setup, I don't think that would refute my broader theory (which, admittedly, is just a theory when applied to any studio other than mine). I have had MEs send me stuff that's super compressed just because it's what the market expected (although I don't think it was expected of MY band, as no one has any expectations for us), so (back to the original point), I suspect some choices also can be chalked up the The Loudness Wars but I'm guessing, beyond that, I'm gonna double down on my theory that higher resolution in the studio + engineers/producers/artists/labels not doing their due dilligence/not caring = some disappointing final product. -E

 

I'm not trolling or being sarcastic and I just don't buy it. It runs absolutely counter to every thread of experience I've had with this. Without question the better the playback environment and equipment the worse dynamically squashed music sounds to me. Makes absolute sense why this would be. Makes absolutely no sense why the opposite would be true. Unless there is something about what you are saying that I'm not quite understanding...

 

The DR's on page 1 are 24/48.

 

To that last sentence: maybe. I agree that USUALLY a superior system will reveal what most of us would call flaws, but since the question was WHY do good/experience engineers make crap sounding records, I just posited what I would imagine is a rare case of a superior system's superior performance masking a sketchy choice; the improved transients and high end detail in my studio system enabled me to better hear an instrument--and processing--that my home stereo couldn't quite handle. Two more points:

1. Another example: supposedly ribbon tweeters (which you find in studio monitors) sound smoother than typical tweeters; I can see how increased high end would sound better in the fancy ribbon tweeters and worse in more typical situations.
   
2. A hackneyed analogy: a car that's built to go 140 mph while start rattling when you push it to 140 ("Treble too shrill! Compression bringing up too much bass!") whereas a high performance sports car built to go 200 can handle the same stuff much more easily ("I'm flat to 38hz--your pronounced peak at 55hz is nothing to me!"). I have no idea if those figures make any real-world sense, but you get the idea.

If these don't make sense as possible scenarios let's agree to disagree, but I hope we can at least agree that I know my systems/listening environments better than YOU know my systems/listening envionments. -E

 

I honestly just think you're giving the mastering engineers more credit than they deserve. I'm quite certain that the reason we have way too many dynamically squashed recordings is because they think that's what sells. It may sound "decent" in the studio environment. Heck it sounds decent on headphones or in the car. But it doesn't stand up to the critical listening of audiophiles on revealing systems.

So yes, perhaps we will have to agree to disagree.

 

This is what I wonder as well... if you have a low end smallish consumer speaker playing brickwalled music at a relatively high volume (in other words a high volume for what those speakers are deigned to handle) it might sound worse than the same music played at the same volume on better, bigger speakers.

I notice this on my systems to some extent: I just bought some low-end Grado headphones, which are much better than anything else that I own. Music that I once thought sounded *really* brickwalled only sounds *kind of* brickwalled on the Grados. So I think that the better headphones are able to properly resolve the limited dynamics that remain on badly compressed music (especially at a relatively low volume) but cheap headphones cannot.

But for me, I like stuff with a high dynamic range (a DR of around 12 is where things start to sound good, IMO, although it depends on the track) almost without exception, whether I'm listening on ear clips, car speakers, or the Grados.

 

Yuck.

 

I've finally got the record and, while it's more compressed than I'd like, I don't think it sounds bad (it sounds good, IMO)--that's clearly the aesthetic. There's a significant difference between a dynamic recording that's been squashed and a production that's built around compression. I also think it's a really satisfying and interesting collection of songs. -E

 

New release, Marc Riley Sessions Vol. 1, is now on Spotify if you're interested.

 

There's also a US pressing of the new album from Happy Happy Birthday To Me records that I picked up at my local store yesterday. Don't have any sound quality comments other than it was quiet crackle free vinyl. But I am happy to finally have this to play! I played it through twice and I definitely like it a lot.

Anybody else get tickets yet for the US tour next spring? I'll be at the Cleveland gig. Same place I saw them at 20 years ago!

 

I'll see 'em in DC! -E

 

Finally got around to listening to the UK double LP the other night and think it sounds really good.

 

Been listening to the Marc Riley Sessions all day, this might be my favorite radio session disc yet. Short and sweet.

 

GG has grown on me immensely but one thing that bugs me is that I think I can hear amp sims all over the place on the guitar sounds.

I'm normally pretty useless as detecting sound quality, DR, mp3 vs lossless etc, but having been exposed to amp sims in recording studios over the past few years (engineers swearing blind that I will get a better guitar sound if I record via DI and the re amp through an amp sim plugin...) I feel like I might be over-senstive to how unnatural they sound.

@Jet Age Eric are you close enough to the recording of the record to know if I'm hearing things? (quite happy to be told I'm wrong on this!)

 

Is it new or old material?

 

2007, 2008 and 2010, mix of older and new (at the time) songs.