DCC Archive What the hell is going on?

Once upon a time it seemed that there were a few good, dedicated remastering engineers out there. Now it seems those guys have joined the bad ones. Some of the ace engineers out there have been producing some pretty shi**y CDs lately.

Bill Inglot-boosts treble
Jon Astley-uses noise reduction to a fault
Shur Gur-compresses the living hell out of everything

Shur Gur and Inglot are still producing some stellar CDs but buying a CD by them is a gamble.

 

Gary... Like I keep telling my friends about various things is life: the truth usually is depressing.

 

Gary, even though it's depressing, you're right on the money.

What drives it all, is the fact that since 1989, better masters for a lot of great albums have been found. The one-two punch is, labels have found that reissues sell well, and in listening tests, people prefer what sounds best in cheaper sound systems.

If oyu took a preferred MFSL to a boombox, it would sound great. The remaster from last year will sound better, because it's riding a lot of technological "evils" in inexpensive electronics "HIGH". Jack up the levels so the natural midrange & dynamicsis thrown out of wack, but sprinkle a little extra bass and high end to make it sounds crunchy and loud, so that it sounds like "everything else". Put some testosterone in the boom box!

What's worse, is that a lot of 14-20 year olds are EQing the worst of these things even higher. The message is clear: FRY THE SOUND MORE!

You MAY slam the engineers, but I really feel that they're only doing what they've been told, and they want to keep working. It's not what's best, it's what sells.

What people don't care about as they slam down the highway, is that the dynamics in the sound, like the subtle and powerful passages are best left there. It's not the same house when you raise the roof and lower the floor. Thus, weather it's good or not, the house has been MODIFIED and NOT the intention of the builder.

Course, this adds more preaching to the chior. Sorry fellas.

 

Oh? I think everything I've heard from him is pretty good...

 

I agree with Luke on that. At first I wasn't always crazy about the way stuff mastered by Suha Gur sounded. His work has been consistently very good lately. But it is true, major label engineers simply aren't given enough time to work with the master tapes. This came straight from the mouth of a prominent engineer I spoke to about this. It's frustrating for all of us who want to stop buying the same music over and over again looking for the best sounding version. Record companies unfortunately are so profit minded that they're simply trying to stay on a set release schedule and keep studio costs down. The thing for us consumers to do is keep voicing our opinions, or better yet stop spending our hard earned dollars until they listen. As always, money talks...

 

...compared to the original vinyl? Or, even recent CD remasters? Have you heard any of the newer 70s Motown remasters he's done?

Luke, as far as the 70s, 80s Motown stuff goes, he's SLAMMIN' the dynamics! Now, maybe some of the audience who listens to Rick James and the Jackson 5 want brighter sound or listen on cheaper systems, but there is no excuse for over-compression!

 

Well, there was no excuse for 'electronic Stereo' either, but they did that just so they could charge an extra buck for the new "stereo" version...even tho it was a fake piece of S%%T.

Lets face it, they are biz to make money, and they will do anything that will sell.

 

I remember when I used to anticipate an album's release and when it came out - whoosh - I was at the record store to get it...

My son just downloads his latest favorite off the Internet onto his MP3 player and he and his buddies talk about it at school - no big deal.

Of course, his latest favorite is a re-mix, sampled rip-off of a great Led Zeppelin song that some rip-off group is calling their art - what a set of balls!

Quality? That's a forgotten word...by the artist and the industry...

Oh, well - that's progress...(sigh).

Best to the Board,

Ben

 

Nowadays, the record company/A&R person/musician/client has to REQUEST that the mastering studio bypass the modern "tricks" if a clean and accurate transfer of a master tape is needed.

If it isn't requested, the sound will automatically get slammed, squeezed, no-noised and rung out, just the way these record company suits think the kids want to hear everything these days.

Crazy.

 

Oh yeah, Zep themselves never ripped anyone off.

*cough*cough*cough*

Let's not get overly romantic about the "good ole days," um-kay?

 

Eh...I thought Cooley High sounded pretty good, as did Blind Faith. I'm not saying everything is *great*, but I haven't noticed any big problems.

I found his mastering of one of the Temps (60s) albums to be a lot better than Kevin Reeves' mastering of GH 1, which I found to be way too bright. Suha's mastering was a lot smoother.

 

Maybe he treats the 60s stuff differently than the 70s stuff. I know you're not really into 70s and 80s funk, Luke, but trust me on this. He overcompresses the stuff.

 

Yes, the 70s stuff I know about so well because I have had the Lps since the day they all came out, have heard or owned them on all formats and have heard tham on all types of playback systems. the rick james stuff came out in my high school and college days and I knew the sound intimately. I also have all the CDs and recent remasters, so I KNOW Shur Gur OVER compressed the **** out of it all.

Maybe he didn't over compress the hell out of the 60s stuff because he cared about it more.

He did a fantastic job on the recent Bee Gees HDCD Greatest Hits disc.

Perhaps Steve Hoffman is smart for just sticking with the music he knows and loves. If I mastered some country album I new little or nothing about, I may not care too much how it really should sound. But if it's Aerosmith or Parliament, i'll know!

About how long it takes to master a CD? John Matousek probably did the first Rick James "STreet Songs" CD master in two hours. It sounds cleaner than the new deluxe Cd which probably took two months. It takes a while to work out compression settings.

 

Hey, Patrick...

Besides obvious "influences" (not sampled rip-offs of actual bass and rhythm riffs)from Jimmy and John Paul's blues roots, who did Zeppelin rip off?

And the good 'ole days....well them were the good-ole days...all you have to do is listen....um-kay?

Best,

Ben

 

It's one thing to just cop a bass riff here, or guitar part there, and quite another thing to sample a fully recorded work of what someone else has already done. No musical creativity at all!

In the "good 'ol days" it still took some skill to copy a riff manually. Now all a lot of these basically non-musicians do is sample and paste someone else's work.

BTW, if we're talking about rap music here, and it IS music, this sampling stuff has been going on since it's beginnings in the late 60s. rap has been around a lot longer than most people realize.

 

Let me preface this by saying that I love Led Zeppelin.

But, in their canon (particularly the first couple of albums), there are tons of not-so-subtle liftings from guys like Jake Holmes, Willie Dixon, Bukka White, Bert Jansch, etc.

I don't want to open a new can o' worms here, because the argument goes that the blues are public domain, everyone rips off everyone else, it's just showing "influence" (not a "rip off"), and so forth. I recognize those arguments. My main gripe with Led Zeppelin is not so much the lifting as the giving credit where credit is due.

So, personally, I think it's a bit of poetic justice when Zep gets sampled.

Mr. Mackey

P.S. Drugs are bad.

 

Patrick:

Interesting viewpoint - well stated.

Regards,

Ben

 

I don't care much for Led Zeppelin, but I do like Spirit.

Have any of you guys ever heard the song "Taurus" by Spirit from their first (1968) album??

If not, search it out and see if "Taurus" doesn't sound like a "blue print" (putting it mildly) for a very famous song by the mighty zep that came out a couple of years AFTER the Spirit song.

Maybe Randy California should have gotten co-writer credit??

Tony

 

I've heard about that. I would love to hear "Taurus," but I don't know where to go for mp3s anymore.