New Zwan CD Mastering Problems?

New Zwan Cd Mastering Problems

Just a question to anyone who's heard the new Zwan Cd (Billy Corgan's new band). Anybody on here think the mastering on this disc is messed up? On the message board on zwan.com, people are complaining of clicking, popping, and beeping. Having heard the album myself, i noticed it sounding pretty bad. Since a lot of people on here know a lot about mastering, any info would be appreciated.

 

Do you have any info on this disc? Was it recorded in analog or digital? How was it mixed? It may not be mastering.

 

I personally don't know how it was recorded. The booklet doesn't appear to have any info. It mentions digital editing, don't know if that helps.

 

Perhaps the 'level wars' have peaked and they are now competing to see who has the loudest digital overload clicking

 

I just listened to the Zwan CD for the first time, and it sounds like the problems people are most likely talking about is severe "overdrive" in the recording/mastering process.

This thing is compressed to the max, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that the actual levels are peaking off the scale.

Other than that, the music (not the sonic quality) sounds interesting to me.

 

I'm sorry to hear this because I was planning on picking this CD up, even if the first single 'Honestly' sounds exactly like Smashing Pumpkins. Is the recording/mastering really bad enough to detract from any pleasurable enjoyment of the album overall?

 

It's still worth picking up. I think it's really only noticeable if you're looking for it, but then again, i'm not an expert on this. Besides, they will probably issue a replacement.

This quote is from the bands management, btw

 

Zwan mastering

I've noticed similar problems with compression and overload on this release as those on the recent Rush release, though not to as great an extent. On quieter tracks the sound seems OK- until the louder bits come in, then everything flattens out and the drums overload. On the title track "Mary Star of The Sea" this does not seem to happen - with the louder bits toward the end coming across well and relatively uncompressed. Compare this release to Pumpkins releases such as "Machina" and "Siamese Dreams" and the tendency toward making everything louder unfortunately -- throttles what is otherwise a fine album.

 

I went to www.zwan.com and joined their message board, and there is an 18 page thread regarding the distortion and clipping on this CD.

As of yet it seems there is no definitive answer - but some people there posted waveforms of some of the cuts - and you could see distinctly clipped soundwaves.

I wonder if this is a major mastering flaw, or something that Billy wanted as part of the sound of the album?

 

Doesn't the artist and/or their management sign-off on the mastering before product is manufactured?

 

Where was everyone when I asked for opinions on the Zwan release a couple days ago??
The volume is maximized just like the pumpkins cds, but I don't notice any clipping or clicking sounds. Some of this album is pretty darn good tho....I predict it will debut at no.1 on next weeks chart;0

 

Everything released by Billy Corgan in the last few years sounds horrible and over-driven - not just the Zwan album.

I know a band who worked with some of the Pumpkins' engineers - and the same travesty was inflicted upon them from time to time unless they complained.

 

I believe there's a vinyl Zwan out there. I have Siamese Dream on vinyl and it just blows away the cd (which gives me a headache). The guitars and hell, the entire band has warmth and focus that the brittle overdriven cd lacks.

 

Zwan CD - Mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masterdisk....

 

Maybe now people will stop compressing the crap out of their CD's. About freaking time...

 

Well, from what I've been told - there is a "finalizer" button that Corgan & Co. like to use after mixing - before it gets sent off to Howie.

 

Something tells me, Matt, that we're not over the hump yet.

 

Is that a Pro-Tools function? Exactly what does the "Finalizer" do?

 

Ok - yesterday when I posted right after listening to the Zwan CD, I had listened on a portable Sony with fairly inexpensive headphones - and I could hear distortions and crackling noises from excessive overdrive in either the recording and/or mastering process.

I just finished listening to the CD on my home system, via a Sony XA777ES SACD/CD player - and the results were stunningly different. The sound was "overdriven" yes with quite a lot of compression, but the crackling noises were, for the most part, gone. My impression was that this was a artistic decision to create a thick, impenetrable wall of guitar and bass so thick you would need an ax to cut through. I am sure that most, if not all of the distortion in the guitars was intentional.

One thing is for certain, this is an excellent album - and the best thing Billy Corgan has done since "Mellon Collie" - at least to my ears.

I am not totally giving the CD a clean slate, though. On three songs, for maybe a total of 10 seconds overall, there was some "crackling" distortion that did sound like "clipping", but not to the point that others seem to be complaining about - and not to the point of what I heard when I listened through my portable CD player. Granted the XA777ES is a great CD and SACD player, with triple paralleled DACs on each stereo channel, which could be why the disc sounded so much better tonight.

On the tracks "Endless Summer", "Baby Let's Rock" and "Mary Star of the Sea", when everything was at it's peak (guitars, bass, drums and vocals) - you could hear some "breakup" that was definitely due to too much signal either in the mixing or mastering stage. But it was nothing to write home about.

I guess- because of the type of sound Billy was shooting for on this album - it becomes system dependent how much clipping and distortion one might experience. And for the record - I was listening pretty darn loud tonight - enough to make my ears "buzz" a bit after the 65 minute album was finished.

 

Okay - I just had a look at the credits on the Zwan CD.

They ARE the same people who worked with the band I know - so I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt what the deal is with these Zwan engineers:

I asked the band why their CD was so compressed.

"You should have heard it before" is what they said.

What they told me: After mixing, the final mix engineer (Bjorn Thorsgud?) went into Pro Tools and used a function called "finalizer" on all the finished mixes. I was told that this made all of the tracks loud, shrill, and compressed.

"Before mastering?", I asked.

"Yes" was the response.

I was later given a CD-R of these "finalized", unmastered mixes and they are indeed loud and overcompressed - like something straight off the Zwan CD.

When the band found out what happened, they forced him to go back into Pro Tools and remove the "finalizer" on all of the tracks. This cost the band extra money - much to their disgust - since they didn't ask to be "finalized" in the first place.

The "non-finalized" mixes were finally released officially - Howie mastered the finished album - and it sounds great.

 

So in other words -

I can almost guarantee that it's NOT a mastering problem.

The problem probably lies with the final master that was sent to Masterdisc.

 

Looks like all of the weird sounds were intentional.

 

Check out the album, Steve. There's dynamics in it, I can think of 3 songs off hand that have 'calm before the storm'.
It's not all screech from beginning to end (You'd have to get THE HIVES - BARELY LEGAL for that