Clicks and crud on new digital recordings

Hi folks,

I want to ask a little favor to vindicate me.

Try this mp3.

It's the first track of the new Jelly Jam CD, encoded with WinLame (VBR). It's 5 MB, 3 minutes long. Jelly Jam, as I've said elsewhere, is made up of members of King's X, Dream Theater, and The Dixie Dregs.

Now, besides that overall bad sound, do you hear digital crud all over this track? Does it sound like the beginning of the track was just cut off?

I posted about the glitches on this CD -- believe me, it's not just this track -- and I've gotten some great feedback from King's X fans. Let's see, for pointing out errors on this CD and on a KX bootleg, I've been called "f*ckf*ce" and a "whiner" and just today I got this:

For cataloging 17 glitches in this track alone. I'm pretty sure I missed some.

[Keep in mind, no matter how bad things get on this forum, it's still more civil than 99.9% of the other MBs.]

I think it's pathetic that I went out the day this CD was released, called one store, went to three other stores, drove an hour, and spent $16 to get this CD that not only sounds like crap, but has these glaring errors all over it. (Can I get an amen?)

Has anyone ever successfully returned a CD like this? What kind of rights do we have as consumers? Nothing?

BTW, the guy who mixed and mastered this CD is Ty Tabor, guitarist for KX, who wrote, plays, and sings on this CD. He actually has the audacity to advertise his studio and his mastering work in the liner notes. It's:

http://www.tytabor.net/alien.htm

Check the FAQ.

 

I say return the thing if it's defective. On this I have only one bit of advice, try playing that disc on a couple (several?) different machines, to see if maybe it's just "something" about that disc in your player. The only time I've ever had to return a CD was buying a couple of opened MFSL discs from Music Direct. Most were fine, but a couple wouldn't play properly and I could find little surface marks on the disc. Oddly enough, one of the discs that wouldn't play in my Pioneer DVD player, played fine in my Sony laserdisc player. That's not my primary listening source, however, and I still returned the disc because I paid good money for a disc that played perfectly anywhere, not just my old cantankerous laserdisc machine. So, hopefully, you got a bad disc that can easily be returned for a good one, and not a CD player that's starting to croak.

 

The problem is: how do you qualify something as defective?

I'm convinced that what I'm hearing and seeing are on the CD itself. Here's a case in point -- see that nasty spike in the right channel? That happens at 2:03.

Is this a botched production job or a manufacturing defect? I think it's the former.

 

Hmmm, I see what you mean. I wouldn't be surprised if some middle man screwed it up. Could be the mastering that did it, or it could have been some voodoo at the pressing plant. Clicking on a digital recording is obviously not one of the "virtues" of digital that we've been promised. Perhaps you could return that disc as defective for another copy, and when it also turns out to be defective (screwed mastering) then get your money back. Unless it's okay, and then you're okay.

 

Second try

Here's another mp3. It's only 48 seconds and 754 kb, so everyone can play along! This is a different track from the last one I posted.

Check out the mistake at 0:20. What the hell is that? Around 0:40 there is something that sounds like static.

So I ask -- is this acceptable?

BTW, the mistakes I've pointed out on this track are apparently on every copy of the CD.

 

Patrick,

After I stopped gagging at the fact that they're using complete digital mastering with all the joys, compression, supression and the likes and do not do analog mastering in any way shape or form, I think that you have a very good case for a full refund from the studio if not the store itself. (Can ya tell I actually read the FAQ's).

As long as there are so-called engineers like this guy, Steves work will remain stable until he really wants to retire.

 

Thanks for checking out the links.

These guys are, relatively speaking, small-time. I'm sure they can't afford a big budget producer and engineer. [Side note: Brendan O'Brien produced the 5th King's X record back and the results are wunderbar.] BUT, if they would just try a bit harder, I'd be happy. I don't expect the latest Ty-mastered album to be an audiophile delight, but, geez, how about if you don't leave all kinds of digital crud all over it? How about if you don't leave a skip or whatever the hell that is in the second example? Static? What is that crap? I'm not even talking about the 'clarity of the midrange' 'bass extension' or that stuff, I'm talking nasty digital errors that are, in my mind, inexcusable.

Realistically, I'm not hung up on whether the album is recorded digitally or analog, tubes, and all that. Reality says people aren't going to go to those lengths on the vast majority of modern recordings.

I do have a big problem with all the shortcuts that musicians want to take now. Take the person in question right here. He used to get one of the greatest guitar tones on earth. Now he records direct using this "POD" thing. Bye-bye, unique tone.

More and more musicians seem to think they can do it all themselves with a DAT and a few ProTools plug-ins. I wish they'd either educate themselves, or leave it with the pros. I'm sure there's someone in Texas or New Jersey who coud help these guys out and wouldn't charge a fortune.