Coldplay's X&Y (Recording Quality - or lack of!)

I thought it was because they are mixed to sound good on a car radio at drivetime, not on an expensive hifi costing x number of thousands of pounds.

Can't do anything about how poor the music is though, regardless of recording quality

Similar thing with some of the U2albums as well, I think. I've not heard X&Y, not really my sort of thing, but the "mixed for ipod/car stereo" argument does rear its ugly head quite often. Ultimitely though, doesn't this mean its just badly mixed? I thought that a well mixed album should sound good on a portable tranny radio, a car,& even a £40k hi-fi. Or is that asking for too much?
matt.

Does that really stack up in with current development... i mean car stereos as factory fit are becoming more and more advanced. I had a listen to the vw / dynaudio tie up at the bristol show and i was extremely impressed... Even the most basic car has a reasonable head unit these days i would imagine - and if it does't I can't imagine it being anything more than a basic base spec model where people don't give a toss about the mixing. As for radio and ipod - most places such as R1 woudl put huge amounts of compression on teh output so as not to top out trannies and the like... so how does one mix for that? is it just people can't be arsed to mix it properly due to external influences such as timescales of pr - release dates being fixed massively far in advance? or is it simply because people often can't be bothered. Are debut albumns mixed any better hence giving some plausibility to the first suggestion as deadlines are not so tight generally as expectations are lower [arctic monkeys etc excepted] whereas follow up releases are jumped on as events. or is it simply there are some technical people out there who really need to go back a learn something? my 2p's worth of suggestions.

quote:

doesn't this mean its just badly mixed?

That's more like it. I struggle with conspiracy theories "mixed for ipod etc."

I think i was tryign to say in a very round about way that I might have believed that was the case some years ago but there really is no excuse even if this is true given the level of equipment as standard now; therefore it's either laziness or inability IMHO.

Pop is carefully mixed to sound good in the car as well as compressed MP3 on the iPod with those sad, sad earbuds.
The only time it gets near true HiFi equipment is when one of us buys it, plays it once and throws it in the bin.
Sad.
David

quote:

Originally posted by NaimDropper:
Pop is carefully mixed

I think it has something to do with PC/Mac based digital multitracking. I own X&Y, an album I don't particularly like, but it was fathers day gift. It has something in common with other crap sounding albums I own, such as the Long View album, Pro Tools is mentioned in the mixing/engineering credits. This highly convenient, easy to manipulate piece of software, and others like it, seem to bugger up the sound no end. Whether it is that the people using it can't use use it properly, or that this recording method is fundamentally flawed sonically, I don't know. Call me a luddite, but give me tape any day.
BTW I do think there's some validity to the MP3/iPod theory, why spend time and money getting the sound right, if it's only going to end up as a piece of crap MP3 etc?

True

I saw this album in Grahams last weeekend - really attractive packaging and, were it not for the fact that I had already heard it on cd, I would have been tempted to purchase it.

Unfortunately the production quality is the least of this album's problems - some tracks are scarily below pub band quality. As an album it doesn't stack up and could only be listened to on cd or other medium with remote control at the ready! Dreadfully disappointing.

Peter

You wouldnt believe this but i actually have this album and i have never, ever, listened to it.
One of the reasons is that it gets played on the radio every five minutes!

But, has anyone compared it to their previous works?

Yes, I listened to Parachutes the other day, and whilst not the last word in sound quality, there is more room for the music to breathe. True, the majority of songs are simpler, but it's still nowhere near as compressed. It would appear as the band made progressively more money, this had an detrimental effect on the engineering standards of their albums. A Rush Of Blood sits somewhere inbetween the two extremes. They should have a listen to the music on a Naim system during mixing, like Embrace. BTW I really like Parachutes, sorry!

There is a thread I started on a similar topic in 2002 on Rush's album Vapor Trails. Check it out.
CD Mastering

quote:

Originally posted by Heath:
Yes, I listened to Parachutes the other day, and whilst not the last word in sound quality, there is more room for the music to breathe. True, the majority of songs are simpler, but it's still nowhere near as compressed. It would appear as the band made progressively more money, this had an detrimental effect on the engineering standards of their albums. A Rush Of Blood sits somewhere inbetween the two extremes. They should have a listen to the music on a Naim system during mixing, like Embrace. BTW I really like Parachutes, sorry!

I think you'll find that this is an easily diagnosed fault. as they only seem to have made about 3 songs they CBA to record it more than once and the master is slowly degenerating.
IMHO Coldplay long long ago reached their media saturation point. They have not brought anything vaguely new or interesting to any album since parachutes and show sod all in the way of significant evolution of sound. I do like parachutes and some of the sound-a-like songs from subsequent albums but the sooner Mr Martin learns to accept he is not the next Bono and will not save the world with his sanctimony the better things will be. lawks a lordy at his lastest pr snippet that he wishes to become involved in classical music "when he is too old to be in a band" - move on there is nothing to hear here. /rant

Coldplay song formula:
Start off with slow mournful piano and high pitched vocal singing about tears and crying & sad stuff. At three minutes in, start guitar part at double tempo going "dang, dang, dang, dang, dang" on same chord for a few bars before the drums and bass guitar come in for the last minute. There you go, they'll trot out all their songs like that for the whole of their career, say 5 years and make shed loads of money. If Mills & Boon had a record label, they'd be on it.

quote:

Originally posted by Alan Miller:
I do like parachutes and some of the sound-a-like songs from subsequent albums but the sooner Mr Martin learns to accept he is not the next Bono and will not save the world with his sanctimony the better things will be.

It's not as if the first Bono has achieved much by way of saving the world!

agreed - but that has unfortunately never stopped him from inflating his own sense of self importance by believing he has.

Rasher,

How right you are:

http://www.everythingsoundslikecoldplaynow.com/

Peter

quote:

Originally posted by CPeter:
Rasher,

How right you are:

http://www.everythingsoundslikecoldplaynow.com/

Peter

Superb

Is any pop music recorded without compression nowadays?

Compression has to be managed very carefully or else the result is horrible.

One problem, as I see it, is that pop broadcasting services rival each other to play the loudest, when there is really no need, and if the repertoire broadcast has a wide dynamic range then most of it will be rather quieter than people are used to. Radio Three is always the quietest station, because the average level is fairly quiet before a (fairly) true dynamic range allows for something as loud as the neigbouring broadcasts. Listening to Classic FM can be instructive, as it is often quite heavily compressed, presumably so that in the noisy environment of the car the listener is not faced with stretches where the music is so quiet that it dissappears under road and motor noise.

Could it be something similar with pop broadcasting, which is often piped into noisy work-places and listened to in cars, and on relatively modest equipment, etc...?

Fredrik

Maybe it's just cheaper to mix quick and ship product. After all, the average "pop" fan is age 11 and unlikely to have a 552/500, or get anywhere near his/her Dad's.

Dave