Dodgy recordings?

Nope Jon, its not your system..they're just appallingly recorded. This really shouldn't happen when we have the technology nowadays.

Obviously engineers are being employed because of their modern technologically gifted knowledge.....but they seem to forget the basics, which is get it right with the recording first, the play with it.

I have a Simply Vinyl pressing of Portishead 'Portishead' and its unlistenable, its so bright......I'm scared to try it on cd, as my ears might bleed.

Ryan

The 'Snow Patrol' CD is a horrible recording. Squashed dynamics, messy, rough and Lo-Fi. It's a shame because I really like a lot of it.

There is a worrying trend on major labels to produce these deliberately grungy recordings.

Indie stuff made on PCs at home often sound better.

John Mayer's 'Continuum' is another example of a shocking recording on a major label. By contrast, Mayer's 1999 independent release 'Inside Wants Out' is a superb recording - though JM appears to have had a hand in producing both albums.

John.

Try some Louis Knox Barlow - perhaps his influence is greater than we thought.

The HMHB song Lark Descending, has the lyric: I could have been like Lou Barlow, but I'm more like Ken Barlow.

Lou used to make the master tapes on a cheap cassette recorder in his bathroom - why - I haven't a clue.

The Killers "Sam's Town" and Rush "Live in Rio" spring to mind.
I wonder if you could get your money back on the basis that they're not fit for the purpose intended? i.e. Playback in a high resolution system.
Maybe if they got a truckload of returns they would pay more attention to the production next time.
Regards,
Steve O.

Most 90's U2 is recorded atrociously. Odd for a bad that should have access to the highest level of quality.

Ah, good, I was starting to regret buying my 180...

Anyhows, I think Beautiful South, Gold Diggers is great. In fact I was surprised at how good it is, so some of the bigger labels still know how to do it. Shame they are splitting up though.

Jonners

Dixie Chicks latest got a Grammy for 'Best Production' or something. Are the judges deaf?

JohanR

Just about anything with the name "Joyce Hatto" on the cover, or so it seems.

quote:

The Killers "Sam's Town"

Yes indeed Steve. I'd forgotten about that particular Turkey.

Utter, utter shite - in terms of recording quality. Someone deserves to be shot!

John.

Maybe this article helps explain.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1992325,00.html

Steve

Very good article. Explains a lot.

RYan

Hi,dodgy recordings are a big problem and i wish there was something that could be done to stop record companies release these discs,to me they can make great atists totally unlistenale through decent hifi.Daryl.

Agreed about the Snow Patrol album. The otherwise excellent "chasing cars" track is all but crucified by being compressed to the thickness of a credit card with a good dollop of distortion thrown in for good measure - even Cold Play would have been proud of this!

Interestingly the same track on the "essential songs" compilation is actually somewhat better and only compressed to the thickness of a box of matches - so shows it is not the original recording per se.

Despite what the article says I find "dance" music is actually some of the better recorded/mastered material these days (wouldn't be difficult compared to most mainstream bands). Of particular note are the Cafe Del Mar and Buddha Bar series, the latest Faithless CD "to all new arrivals" isn't too shabby either.

Its OK on Cd , I used have an original vinyl copy which was also OK. Perhaps it is the pressing?

Regards T.C

quote:

Originally posted by ryan_d:
Nope Jon, its not your system..they're just appallingly recorded. This really shouldn't happen when we have the technology nowadays.

Obviously engineers are being employed because of their modern technologically gifted knowledge.....but they seem to forget the basics, which is get it right with the recording first, the play with it.

I have a Simply Vinyl pressing of Portishead 'Portishead' and its unlistenable, its so bright......I'm scared to try it on cd, as my ears might bleed.

Ryan

Hi CHap, thanks for the heads up. I didn't think it was the pressing as Simply Vinyl 180g perssings are normaly pretty good, I've got a few.

All the best
Ryan

Thanks for that link Steve.

Very interesting.

John.

Thanks for the link Steve.. it made worrying reading for us.

J.N. and I have been commenting on this subject for a number of years now during our listening sessions together... at first it was one or two albums and we were puzzled..but this now seems to have become the norm now for any releases aimed at the mass market... to be played on the radio and car stereo.

How refreshing it is now to play material recorded up to fifty years ago or more.... progress? I don't think so.... technically possible of course... don't get me wrong..there are still many albums released today that are quite superb sonically.

Snow Patrol and Coldplay have been mentioned..... pretty dire on CD...and yet in live performances the music shines through.

I recall in the 60's albums were released both in Mono and Stereo versions..... maybe we need "Loud and Compressed" and "Audiophile" versions..it won't happen of course...... economics....in the grand scheme of things what percentage of the cd buying public are us serious hi-fi owners?

The debate goes on..........

I can't help wondering with the download generation that mainstream music is effectively being mixed for 128mbit MP3 in the first place (or even coded to it before transfering to CD - surely they wouldn't do that?!)- The CD then just being a WAV version of the MP3.

This would certainly help justify the claim that the MP3 is CD "quality". Yes - they're just as bad as each other

And here I am hoping that native 24bit/96kHz quality downloads of popular bands will be available for download soon...

quote:

Originally posted by steveb:
Maybe this article helps explain.
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1992325,00.html

Steve

This is very old news in the recording industry. Radio stations always compressed everything to death so that they would be the loudest on the dial. There is some hope in that the audiophile companies are putting out remaster of some older music like Creedence, which is far superior to the originals, even on CD. This is on Analogue Productions, by the way. Great music. I don't think Fogarty ever did anything better after he dropped his band to go with studio musicians.

From cd's free with newspapers
to cd's in Tesco
to cd's that basically sound crap,

the music industry is really trying it's best to do it's own imitation of the dot com crash.


I was reading today that 90% of acts signed to majors don't turn a profit. It may actually dawn on someone of these that maybe, just maybe they are doing something wrong.


I don't think the artists are blameless either. If they are proud of their work they should make sure it sounds as good as possible.

Listen to The Police, The Clash, Squeeze, Costello etc from the late 70's, all recorded in a week, full of energy, work they can all be proud of.


SJB

Hi Simon,
Interesting quote about the Japanese pressings. Are they really that much better.
I have Ry Cooders "Bop till you drop" both on a german release and a Canadian release, the latter being much more open. Would the Japanese version be better than both?
I have looked at HMV's Japan website (the only Japanese site I know) but the CD's I was interested in were flagged as European pressings so I thought it pointless to order.
regards,
Steve O.

Interesting - I just acquired Starsaliors 'silence is easy' LP for £3 from a record shop near to Cymbiosis - and thats a good pressing.

The issue is 'does the pressing detract from enjoying the music'? Well, for me it depends what group/artist it is...

SJB, i get what you are saying, but that doesn't necessarily coincide withg good recordings. I was listening to zenyata mondatta the other night and its so compressed its unreal. It sounds pretty ropey actually which again is a shame as it has someclassic tracks. It was a cd i was listening to though.

Ryan

quote:

It was a cd i was listening to though.

Its out on re-mastered cd, and I have the lp. neither of these are compressed sounding.