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I noticed! I am a bass player who now happens to write software in the audio industry (I work for a company that makes hardware). But I noticed before coming he

I noticed! I am a bass player who now happens to write software in the audio industry (I work for a company that makes hardware). But I noticed before coming here. Some of the worst CDs in my record collection are: 1. Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full (this is the worst album I own - considering Sir Paul left The Beatles over the mix of The Long and Winding Road, he should leave his own band over his master of this album.... I wonder if Phil Spector bribed Bob Ludwig to do that in time-delayed revenge???) 2. Rush - Vapor Trails (not helped by distortion during recording; it's one BIG square wave) 3. The Fratellis - Costello Music (distortion all the way through the album) 4. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium (there's no possible way to make the first track sound quiet, try it!); apparently the vinyl has a different master and sounds infinitely better. 5. Foo Fighters - One By One (boxy drum sound and non-compliant CD format aside [chock full of copy protection so you won't see "Compact Disc" on the CD at all....], it's loud loud loud). I could go on. Considering the effort musicians go to get the best sound engineers, recording equipment, A to D converters, studio time and instruments, to throw it all away on a LOUD CD seems stupid to me. It means the album won't stand the test of time, and will sound as abysmal in the future as the day it was released; it is very short-sighted to release a LOUD CD for commercial gain (radio??? does anyone master just for radio still?) in the short term.

StavrosK 12y ago
Try System of a Down's Holy Mountain, where the damn CD clips! I can't imagine who would let a CD track clip.
- boomskats 12y ago
  Pretty sure that first MGMT album clips all over the place. And yeah I agree. That first SOAD album is an impressive piece of mastering though.
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    > Pretty sure that first MGMT album clips all over the place. I haven't heard their first album but I'm surprised at this. In my experience, most indie acts have greater creative control over mastering and just about every indie act I listen to (with the exception of some of the heavier stuff) is very light on the "loudness". By contrast, some of the more "pop" stuff I like, even songs that should be clean and distortion free, are unnecessarily jacked up way past the redline. A great example is John Mayer's "Heavier Things" album, with clipping and distortion on the lightest, cleanest tracks, and it gets worse with each of his albums after. It's frustrating because I know he's a brilliant musician who knows better, but I imagine it's the label who has the final creative control over what sound is heard on the CD.
    - rev_null 12y ago
      It was produced by Dave Fridmann, who is pretty notorious for mastering albums way too loud.
- cnvogel 12y ago
  It's not clipping, it's just compressed at infinitely high compression ratio, and infinitesimally short attack and release.... ;-)
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  Unbelievably, some "mastering engineers" have been known to deliberately clip the track in pursuit of loudness, often at an ADC stage, and then turn the level down a fraction so it doesnt clip on playback. unfortunately, lots of DACs will produce inter-sample peaks under these conditions, which leads to that awful sound.
polshaw 12y ago
It was the fact that Youtube was normalising sound volumes that the author said nobody noticed, not that the loudness wars exists.. for which there are so many examples it might be quicker to list the counter-examples.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  Ahhhhhhhhh the penny drops Thanks!
mikepurvis 12y ago
The one which had me sad recently is the soundtrack to the game Bastion: http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/bastion-original-soundtrack http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/bastion-original-s... It's noticeable on almost every track basically as soon as the drums kick in. (About ten seconds into "A Proper Story", for example). It's depressing that this has occurred even on a piece of indie content for which so much care has otherwise been taken— Darren Korb was the sound designer for the game and gave a terrific presentation at GDC 2012.
- JoelHobson 12y ago
  I always thought that drum sound was on purpose. I kind of liked the way it sounded.
  - rinon 12y ago
    Yeah, I'm fairly sure this was entirely intentional. Fits the futuristic western sounds nicely.
  - mmarx 12y ago
    It also fits quite well with where those tracks typically play during the game.
  - mikepurvis 12y ago
    Intentional or otherwise, the waveform certainly clips— you can see it in any audio editor, eg: http://imgur.com/a/WacOy http://imgur.com/a/WacOy Since the drums sounds all started life as hi-fi samples, the detail is certainly there in the original Logic sessions. It would be an interesting experiment to do a listening test comparing the CD versions of the tracks against versions mastered with more headroom, either less loudly or to a 64-bit format. It may well be that a certain degree of the grunge is artistic versus technical, but I suspect that in a blind test I would still prefer a version with slightly less muddy drums.
dbcooper 12y ago
The last Dead Can Dance album was terribly mastered too. Why am I hearing clipping on one of their albums!?
lmedinas 12y ago
Addition to that Metallica - Death Magnetic is also on my list. It already makes 2 albums from Rick Rubin in the list. EDIT: Add reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...
VBprogrammer 12y ago
Metallica, Death magnetic was famously poorly mastered on CD. [1] So much so that people ended up downloading the rip from the Guitar Hero version as it was far better. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...
bsdpython 12y ago
Really interesting post thanks. Even as an audio novice I've noticed the terrible loudness trend in music, particularly in Foo Fighters releases. It literally makes my ears tired.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  The Foo Fighters are mastered loud a lot of the time. One trend they have is to have a massively gained snare drum shoved through a compressor so it chops the peaks of the snare off and has no crack like a snare should, so it sounds like this: PFFFFFT Older recordings from the 70s (perhaps early Kansas) have a different sound (not such harsh compression), so the snare drum has a sharp crack on them and they sound like this: CRACK To get that "sound" Foo Fighters layer distorted guitar on top of more distorted guitar (they use Vox AC30s apparently!). Doing this does make it sound thick but you'll get tired listening to an album of distortion. The bass is also distorted (a tube/valve amp in use). Then Dave Grohl will resort to shouting all the way through the song (In Your Honor was the worst), so his added edgy raspy voice will be added to the distortion soup for maximum distortion. Listen to some Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin and compare the snare sound to the Foos. Led Zeppelin is a good example because even though Led Zep 1's drums were only recorded with 2 (or 3) microphones, there is real dynamics in the drumming (listen to how the drums come in on Good Times Bad Times). You can tell how few microphones were used because the panning on the drum fill for the toms at the end of How Many More Times pans the entire drumkit, not just the toms. Modern setups would perhaps have close-miked drums panned around the stereo image so as the drummer does a fill on the toms, it doesn't take the entire kit with it (8 microphones for a kit, one for each drum + hi hat and overheads).
crowbar 12y ago
Fellow bass player here too, though I'm still learning! Just out of curiosity, did you ever listen to the Vapor Trails remaster that came out last year or so? What were your thoughts on that?
- veritas3241 12y ago
  I've been a huge Rush fan since I was a little kid (thanks to my parents for that). I loved Vapor Trails when it came out even with the poor sound mixing. The remixed version is even better in my opinion. To me, it's just a fuller sound that's much more enjoyable.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  No I didn't. I thought that Rush had taken my money in the first place for the album, and should have done a good job on that so didn't deserve me buying it again! It would be interesting to hear it though. The bass drum is completely lost in the first one (no punch at all). Their most recent album was also full of reverberation and distortion, which made listening to it in the car very very difficult. It fared better in a quieter environment I thought. How long have you been playing bass? In a band or anything? All good fun!
veritas3241 12y ago
Have you listened to the remixed Vapor Trails? It's phenomenal IMHO. There are tons of little quirks in the songs that you just couldn't hear before. Plus they might have added a few tracks to each song. I'd love to hear what somebody who actually knows what they're talking about compare the original with the remix. I'm a huge Rush fan and could discuss them for hours.
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  No, I will consider buying it again at some point perhaps, but it is sad they didn't do it right the first time, particularly as they're a 3-piece and there is so much space for them each :-( It's odd how much difference a mix makes: listen to Deep Purple's Roger Glover remixes of earlier DP albums (subtle), or Dream Theater's "official bootlegs" of Scenes From A Memory (massively different, like a different album).

StavrosK 12y ago

Try System of a Down's Holy Mountain, where the damn CD clips! I can't imagine who would let a CD track clip.

boomskats 12y ago
Pretty sure that first MGMT album clips all over the place. And yeah I agree. That first SOAD album is an impressive piece of mastering though.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  > Pretty sure that first MGMT album clips all over the place. I haven't heard their first album but I'm surprised at this. In my experience, most indie acts have greater creative control over mastering and just about every indie act I listen to (with the exception of some of the heavier stuff) is very light on the "loudness". By contrast, some of the more "pop" stuff I like, even songs that should be clean and distortion free, are unnecessarily jacked up way past the redline. A great example is John Mayer's "Heavier Things" album, with clipping and distortion on the lightest, cleanest tracks, and it gets worse with each of his albums after. It's frustrating because I know he's a brilliant musician who knows better, but I imagine it's the label who has the final creative control over what sound is heard on the CD.
  - rev_null 12y ago
    It was produced by Dave Fridmann, who is pretty notorious for mastering albums way too loud.
cnvogel 12y ago
It's not clipping, it's just compressed at infinitely high compression ratio, and infinitesimally short attack and release.... ;-)
JonnieCache 12y ago
Unbelievably, some "mastering engineers" have been known to deliberately clip the track in pursuit of loudness, often at an ADC stage, and then turn the level down a fraction so it doesnt clip on playback. unfortunately, lots of DACs will produce inter-sample peaks under these conditions, which leads to that awful sound.

polshaw 12y ago

It was the fact that Youtube was normalising sound volumes that the author said nobody noticed, not that the loudness wars exists.. for which there are so many examples it might be quicker to list the counter-examples.

72deluxe 12y ago
Ahhhhhhhhh the penny drops Thanks!

mikepurvis 12y ago

The one which had me sad recently is the soundtrack to the game Bastion: http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/bastion-original-soundtrack http://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/bastion-original-s... It's noticeable on almost every track basically as soon as the drums kick in. (About ten seconds into "A Proper Story", for example). It's depressing that this has occurred even on a piece of indie content for which so much care has otherwise been taken— Darren Korb was the sound designer for the game and gave a terrific presentation at GDC 2012.

JoelHobson 12y ago
I always thought that drum sound was on purpose. I kind of liked the way it sounded.
- rinon 12y ago
  Yeah, I'm fairly sure this was entirely intentional. Fits the futuristic western sounds nicely.
- mmarx 12y ago
  It also fits quite well with where those tracks typically play during the game.
- mikepurvis 12y ago
  Intentional or otherwise, the waveform certainly clips— you can see it in any audio editor, eg: http://imgur.com/a/WacOy http://imgur.com/a/WacOy Since the drums sounds all started life as hi-fi samples, the detail is certainly there in the original Logic sessions. It would be an interesting experiment to do a listening test comparing the CD versions of the tracks against versions mastered with more headroom, either less loudly or to a 64-bit format. It may well be that a certain degree of the grunge is artistic versus technical, but I suspect that in a blind test I would still prefer a version with slightly less muddy drums.

dbcooper 12y ago

The last Dead Can Dance album was terribly mastered too. Why am I hearing clipping on one of their albums!?

lmedinas 12y ago

Addition to that Metallica - Death Magnetic is also on my list. It already makes 2 albums from Rick Rubin in the list. EDIT: Add reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...

VBprogrammer 12y ago

Metallica, Death magnetic was famously poorly mastered on CD. [1] So much so that people ended up downloading the rip from the Guitar Hero version as it was far better. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regarding_production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Magnetic#Criticism_regard...

bsdpython 12y ago

Really interesting post thanks. Even as an audio novice I've noticed the terrible loudness trend in music, particularly in Foo Fighters releases. It literally makes my ears tired.

72deluxe 12y ago
The Foo Fighters are mastered loud a lot of the time. One trend they have is to have a massively gained snare drum shoved through a compressor so it chops the peaks of the snare off and has no crack like a snare should, so it sounds like this: PFFFFFT Older recordings from the 70s (perhaps early Kansas) have a different sound (not such harsh compression), so the snare drum has a sharp crack on them and they sound like this: CRACK To get that "sound" Foo Fighters layer distorted guitar on top of more distorted guitar (they use Vox AC30s apparently!). Doing this does make it sound thick but you'll get tired listening to an album of distortion. The bass is also distorted (a tube/valve amp in use). Then Dave Grohl will resort to shouting all the way through the song (In Your Honor was the worst), so his added edgy raspy voice will be added to the distortion soup for maximum distortion. Listen to some Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin and compare the snare sound to the Foos. Led Zeppelin is a good example because even though Led Zep 1's drums were only recorded with 2 (or 3) microphones, there is real dynamics in the drumming (listen to how the drums come in on Good Times Bad Times). You can tell how few microphones were used because the panning on the drum fill for the toms at the end of How Many More Times pans the entire drumkit, not just the toms. Modern setups would perhaps have close-miked drums panned around the stereo image so as the drummer does a fill on the toms, it doesn't take the entire kit with it (8 microphones for a kit, one for each drum + hi hat and overheads).

crowbar 12y ago

Fellow bass player here too, though I'm still learning! Just out of curiosity, did you ever listen to the Vapor Trails remaster that came out last year or so? What were your thoughts on that?

veritas3241 12y ago
I've been a huge Rush fan since I was a little kid (thanks to my parents for that). I loved Vapor Trails when it came out even with the poor sound mixing. The remixed version is even better in my opinion. To me, it's just a fuller sound that's much more enjoyable.
72deluxe 12y ago
No I didn't. I thought that Rush had taken my money in the first place for the album, and should have done a good job on that so didn't deserve me buying it again! It would be interesting to hear it though. The bass drum is completely lost in the first one (no punch at all). Their most recent album was also full of reverberation and distortion, which made listening to it in the car very very difficult. It fared better in a quieter environment I thought. How long have you been playing bass? In a band or anything? All good fun!

veritas3241 12y ago

Have you listened to the remixed Vapor Trails? It's phenomenal IMHO. There are tons of little quirks in the songs that you just couldn't hear before. Plus they might have added a few tracks to each song. I'd love to hear what somebody who actually knows what they're talking about compare the original with the remix. I'm a huge Rush fan and could discuss them for hours.

72deluxe 12y ago
No, I will consider buying it again at some point perhaps, but it is sad they didn't do it right the first time, particularly as they're a 3-piece and there is so much space for them each :-( It's odd how much difference a mix makes: listen to Deep Purple's Roger Glover remixes of earlier DP albums (subtle), or Dream Theater's "official bootlegs" of Scenes From A Memory (massively different, like a different album).