Theory: Mastering quality has worsened in the last 10 years.

Pop music has always been overcompressed with eye to the car radio. As far as "bright" goes, I would say that it was a problem much more in the late 80's and early 90's, and that the recording industry has finally come to understand how to properly work with digital. (It took those engineers a long time to break their habits of overdriving the signal to make it sound better; in the digital domain, this is a terrible thing.)

Ultimately, I would have to disagree with you. I would say that today's releases are pretty much a mixed bag like they've always been, but the general level of quality has been going up.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

Nick,
I realize that it's naughty to divorce the actual music and think of just the mastering, but what the hell!
The Hooverphonic albums are a good example of what I'm getting at. I know you've got all of 'em-hear what I mean?

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Some of the stuff you talk about is definitely pants

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To clarify, do you mean I'm talking pants or the album is pants?
I haven't heard Scorpio Rising yet; does it sound worse than Contino Sessions or Dead Elvis? I think Contino had a fine mastering job.

I agree that the Massive Attack example is tenuous and that one can sometimes find artistic reasons for crappy sound, but don't you think Debut and Post are better than Selmasongs and Vespertine?
As for Good Humour vs. Sound of Water, I suppose
The latter is much more electro, so it obviously isn't as "organic".
I almost included Underworld, but their latest one is a cracker.

Paul,
Haven't spun Pulp in ages, but I remember them being a great band! I'll have to put some on tonight.

Mike,

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I would say that today's releases are pretty much a mixed bag like they've always been, but the general level of quality has been going up.

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Agreed that there's plenty of mixed-bagism as always, but I definately feel the general level of quality has been going down. Another example: Fiona Apple Tidal vs. When the Pawn...
I almost want to say that the golden age of pop music mastering was from 1994 to 1998.

"I almost want to say that the golden age of pop music mastering was from 1994 to 1998".

1967 to early 1980's IMO!

My original vinyl copies of 'Who's next' and 'abbey road' put most contemporary rock recordings to shame.

Compare Kate Bush's 'never for ever' on 24 track analogue to Hounds of Love on digital etc etc...

Early digital was poor, much better now but still not upto 32 i.p.s analogue tape IMO.

Simon,

Fair enough!
Contrary to supposed popular belief, I think there's oodles of kick-ass 80's pop vinyl.

My argument is geared more towards CDs from the 90's to today.

Let me quickly re-phrase:
"I almost want to say that the golden age of digital pop music mastering was from 1994 to 1998."

My view is that they got recording and mastering exactly right back in 1958 when stereo was first invented! I have quite a few original jazz and early stereo ‘exotica’ albums from this period and they put just about everything done since to shame. My theory was that as the technology was simple (three track tape / no desk eq etc) the engineers had to get it right. The mics were positioned correctly or the session had to be done again. None of the “Oh, don’t worry, we can fix that at mix-down…” crap. More care was taken, and the gear was simpler. This is why these early stereo albums are so incredibly good.

With rock it goes from quite rough and ready as early multitrack was introduced (example: Piper at the gates of dawn), through to the plethora of decent 70s recordings (the high spot IMHO being Can with their fabulous largely binaural two track recordings) and on into the hell that was the digital 80s. There are a huge number of great sounding 70s LPs.

Much 80s stuff sucks, not only by the insistence on using crappy digital recorders, but by assembling the stuff on glorified pocket calculators such as the Fairlight (8bits of grainy crap – Hounds of Love is a great example of music mangled in this way). Also the influx of crappy low bit studio effects units adds to the horror – an instrument may pass through many digital effects units effectively being resampled at each point. Not good. Many engineers working in the 80s were IMHO idiots – I hate heavily gated drum kits where everything is so separated out etc. Noise gates… don’t get me started on bloody noise gates! What’s wrong with a bit of hiss? Its what electrical musical equipment does, its part of the bloody sound! If there ain’t a hiss it doesn’t sound like a Fender twin or a Minimoog or whatever… This is not to slag all 80s recordings off, there are many classics – take the likes of Minutemen / Firehose on SST and other simply recorded indie stuff. Excellent stuff.

In the 90s digital started improving a lot, and albums such as Mogwai’s Come on die young ranks up there with original Can vinyl as the very best recorded rock ever. The majority of post rock stuff I buy is truly excellent, as is a lot of D&B and dance vinyl.

So IMHO things are getting better at the moment, though still have a way to go before they are as good as they were in the first place back in 1958-60!

Tony.

"Top marks to Sony for this".

Not quite top marks IMO. That would have been given if they bothered to put it out again on vinyl ( along with many other albums ). Especially in light of their use of it as a reference - how ironic.

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Originally posted by Tony Lonorgan:
My view is that they got recording and mastering exactly right back in 1958 when stereo was first invented! I have quite a few original jazz and early stereo &lsquoexotica&rsquo albums from this period and they put just about everything done since to shame. My theory was that as the technology was simple (three track tape / no desk eq etc) the engineers had to get it right.

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Tony,

if you ever come across one of those Chopin albums by the pianist Artur Rubinstein (guy with cufflinks and a big cigar, usually, on the sleeve) while you're bin diving consider getting it (especially the Nocturnes and the Ballades): these are RCA recordings from 1961 - 1964 and they put most later methods of recording the solo piano to shame.

It's like the piano sound is a bed, a very good bed, and you're in it.

Herman

BTW it just occurs to me that the Mozart I'm listening to at this moment is another 1962 recording, by Böhm and the Berlin PO on DG.

I fancy the new lemon jelly one.

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if you ever come across one of those Chopin albums by the pianist Artur Rubinstein (guy with cufflinks and a big cigar, usually, on the sleeve) while you're bin diving consider getting it (especially the Nocturnes and the Ballades): these are RCA recordings from 1961 - 1964 and they put most later methods of recording the solo piano to shame.

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Are these part of the RCA Living Stereo series? If so they are very hard to find these days as most hardened bin-divers like myself know instinctively to buy any Living Stereo, Decca SXL, or Columbia ‘Six eyes’ pressing in good condition regardless of content! I will keep a good lookout as ever.

I currently have about 5 Living stereos, a few more SXLs, and a couple of ‘six eyes’ lurking in my collection, and they are almost always stunningly good sonically. Another label I’m a big fan of early on is Audio Fidelity – astoundingly recorded, pressed, and presented, yet truly cheesy from a content perspective (in the best way possible). Fabulous stuff. If you can find a copy, any original pressing in their ‘Percussive Jazz doctored for super stereo’ series is worth killing the storeowner for. I have three!

Tony.

Fiona Apple - Tidal vs. When the Pawn...

Yes, I noticed that the sound changed from the former to the latter. However, the first was rather tough to playback, especially in the bass department. (Even a mid-range Naim system has trouble controlling the boom on the first track.) The engineers realized that she would have a much larger audience for the second, so they mastered it to sound good on the majority of systems. Often this means compressed and dead.

Tracy Chapman - Fast Car on original vs. Greatest Hits

Again, this is an issue with mastering. They were trying to make the entire greatest hits collection sound "together" as it was played start to finish. Due to the variations of production from one album to the next, the whole thing had to be taken to a lowest common denominator.

That's why I despise these mass-market, sample CDs (e.g. Women In Song, etc.). The mastering on these is so ham-handed, that I cringe every time my wife has the audacity to put one on my system.

Sadly, it doesn't have to be that way. I've heard a number of "collection" and "greatest hits" CDs that were mastered very well. It comes down to the ability and standards of the mastering engineer. Just like everything else, they're a mixed bag.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

[This message was edited by Mike Hanson on SATURDAY 12 October 2002 at 11:12.]

...first is the newly released "single" (it has two songs on it) by Kelly Clarkson, the winner of American Idol. Ok - don't gang up on me all at once for having this one in the house - my wife ordered it from Amazaon. But I digress.

Point is, this thing sounds terrible. Good thing we have a boom box so my wife can listen to it

We saw/heard American Idol and it looked/sounded rather good. Shame they can't produce a decent CD.

Second example is Best of Cat Stevens. Mike noted about another greatest hits CD that the producers wanted all of the songs to sound similar and so mixed to teh lowest common denominator. Lucily, this doesn't seem to have been done with the Cat Stevens. The cuts from Tea for the Tillerman, for instance, sound mucho better than the others. Any wonder MoFi chose Tea for the Tillerman to make a MoFi disk of?

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

Tony,

They are just RCA Red Seal. The big deal about these recordings is they were produced by Max Wilcox, who gets to write a little report on each of the sleeves.

On my LP of the Waltzes he tells how the recording was made in Rome. They had paid the studio for three nights. They started at six the first night. Rubinstein feels good. He's halfway through teh Waltzes at nine (or so). The team wants to call it a night, Rubinstein says, let's do some more. So eventually they record the entire album in a single session. Wilcox says it's a miracle, and evidence of Rubinstein's power. I would say he was thinking too, 'I'll take the check right now.'

Herman

Tony,
I hope you never hear a Rega Planar78 through a good hi-fi. If so you'll be saying the engineers got it right before stereo was invented and that early stereo is crap.

I just finished listening to the new Thelonius Monk CD from 1960/'61 and then put on a vinyl reissue of Coleman Hawkins (he's in Monk's band) from 1965. I then put on a early-50s 78 of Hawkins and I have to tell you that the tone of Coleman Hawkin's sax on the 78 is far superior to the vinyl or CD. Not even close.

If you listen to the Monk CD, it sounds like there are just two mediocre tenors (Hawkins and a young punk named John Coltrane). On the 78 it is clear that Coleman Hawkins is a jazz inovator.

Ron The Mon,
Needle-Freak

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Mike Hanson said: The engineers realized that she would have a much larger audience for the second, so they mastered it to sound good on the majority of systems...

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Interesting notion; it could be a factor with many artists.
The big shame of it is, they don't have to "dumb down"! I mean, put any CD with a nicely judged sound and wide bandwidth in your car stereo, and it sounds just fine compared to yer typical compressed mass market CD.

Does the radio copy of "Fast Car" sound any better (by anyone's standards) in car than the original mastering? Probably not!

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The big shame of it is, they don't have to "dumb down"! I mean, put any CD with a nicely judged sound and wide bandwidth in your car stereo, and it sounds just fine compared to yer typical compressed mass market CD.

Does the radio copy of "Fast Car" sound any better (by anyone's standards) in car than the original mastering? Probably not!

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I think that you're getting two contexts a bit confused.

The first involves homogeneity within a single CD. You need the production to seem similar from song to song. This is usually not too difficult for a single CD recorded during the same period, with the same individuals and equipment involved in all songs. However, with collections of tracks from different sources (different studio sessions, different CDs, different artists, or even worse, different genres), the results of mastering can be obvious and painful.

The "master it for the market" issue is much more annoying. It's where they make the CD sound just as crap as the rest of the software for the same target audience. For "rock" music, this usually means you compress the hell out of it, so that when your single comes on the radio, it will sound similar to everything else. That being said, radio stations (especially pop stations) often tweak each track when they create the playback master, so that the songs have the station's sound. (This is over and above the general processing that they jam between the original source and transmitter.)

In the end, it's all about making the songs fit-in. In contrast, I believe in making each thing as good as possible, and homogeneity is not a worthwhile goal. Needless to say, I don't listen to much (pop) radio, or buy many collects/greatest hits CDs.

-=> Mike Hanson <=-

The Nocturnes on RCA is one of my test records (even though it's old and scratched), and indeed I think there has NEVER been any piano recording that sounded that good. Of course, one shouldn't forget that Rubinstein used to have an absolutely unique piano sound. Not many pianists can match him - maybe Gilels and, well, Horowitz on a few occasions.

I remember the huge disappointment when I bought (in the mid-80's) the digitally remastered CD - there was just nothing left of the magic, it even doesn't sound like Rubinstein at all. Back then, I blamed CD technology, nowadays I think the mastering process was done by the wrong person ...

Cheese

Cheese,

have you ever copped an ear at the big Rubinstein Collection? The 75 or more CDs RCA remastered and released of the entire recorded output in 1999 or 2000 - meaning some Chopin is featured three times: thirties, fifties and the early sixties stereo recordings.

These cds come in little album-like formats, with a little essay about the how and why of the recording, and some nice conttemporary pictures.

I have about fifteen of these little albums, incl most of those Chopin recordings and I quite like 'em. Sure those eighties remasters were too bad for words, but you should give this recent edition a try. (By now they are often on sale.)

I would say, incidentally, that Horowitz's sound is completely different. Rubinstein is oriented toward the middle octaves on the keyboard, while Horowitz is a pinkie man.

Garth and Peter Litwack please correct me if I'm wrong!

Herman

Here's a bunch of examples from Amazon.de (the numbers are chronological, so 45 - 50 is around 1962)

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005426Y/qid=1034453773/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_0_3/302-6048856-6831232

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000031WBV/qid=1034453773/sr=1-6/ref=sr_1_0_6/302-6048856-6831232

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000031WBU/qid=1034453924/sr=1-13/ref=sr_1_2_13/302-6048856-6831232

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000054277/qid=1034453924/sr=1-20/ref=sr_1_2_20/302-6048856-6831232

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005427Q/qid=1034454051/sr=1-26/ref=sr_1_2_26/302-6048856-6831232

[This message was edited by herm on SATURDAY 12 October 2002 at 21:23.]

Thanks for the suggestions. You're not that wrong when you're calling Horowitz a "pinkie man" - but you must admit that those (indeed) high notes played in Rachmaninov's Preludes are simply god-sent.

BTW, I have always been looking for a CD-Online-shop allowing an accurate search - I just tried it on Amazon. Maybe I'm too thick, but the only search field I found was this "express search" or whatever. Pretty difficult to use it if you're looking for a particular Chopin work played by the pianist of your choice.

Is there any "Advanced search" section on Amazon ?

Thanks.

Cheese

And in your case the German Amazon would perhaps be most convenient. This link gives you advanced search for classical (lower box) and pop.

http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/tg/stores/static/-/music/search/302-6048856-6831232

Herman

Oh, Thanks. Have been looking for that for years, pretty dangerous for my wallet

Cheese

Ron The Mon wrote:

"I hope you never hear a Rega Planar78 through a good hi-fi. If so you'll be saying the engineers got it right before stereo was invented and that early stereo is crap."

A Swedish radio program called (translated from Swedish) "Hit's, but not anymore" often plays early to mid fifties 78:s and, yes, they sound realy great! And they are just using crap Technics SP10:s.

Otherwise I agree completely with Tony L:s views on pop music recording quality, I could have written it myself (well, I've never heard Can, or even heard of them, are they available in some format?).

JohanR

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(well, I've never heard Can, or even heard of them, are they available in some format?).

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Can's entire back catalogue is currently available on both vinyl and CD on their own Spoon label. The vinyl is good, almost as good as the original UA pressings (which thankfully I managed to land before the collectors price went through the roof), but unfortunately the CDs suck a bit in comparison. I would start with Ege Bam Yasi, Tago Mago, or Soundtracks - all are stunning both musically and sonically.

Tony.

A hasty reading of the above replies and
it all reminds me of my last days of vinyl!
The following is meant to beg the question:
How is it that you members can still enjoy the sounds your expensive hifi's produce? Am i right in imagining that most have gone over to using expensive, ie 1000£ plus, CD players?

Having used an Ittoked Sondek/Kans etc. in the
early / mid '80's, i tried some of the digitally
recorded vinyl and yes, the majority, in fact, all of these classical recordings were inferior to all of my analogue vinyl. I could not bear to
end up just listening to a few s/hand Deccas or Turnabouts. Hence my original question :how is it that a lot of you folk have managed to not only stay with your systems *but heavily upgrade them * as well? I ask this because if I could clearly hear the modern deleterious effects of mid 80's digital recording on a system,about 1500£ in value, then how much more apparent must the difference be with these more analytical (naim) systems.
Conclusion: When i sold the Sondek, I now realise that to get CD performance of similar quality, would have required the expenditure of some twice what i paid for the sondek, over £1000. This was more than i was prepared to pay.Now I am more inclined to say this: with a hook up of say digital radio, what is the highest upgrade possible ie. in terms of naim amps , before the system really begins to show up how awful(??) digital radio is?!(NB. I am not saying this is actually so)

[This message was edited by timparker on MONDAY 14 October 2002 at 21:10.]

[This message was edited by timparker on MONDAY 14 October 2002 at 21:12.]

I understand Tony's statement about mastering from the 50's through to the 90's. Hell, I've got some Reprise Sinatra LPs that destroy anything he did for Capitol.

My theory was that mastering was pretty good in the early 90's, but have generally gone to crap in the 00's.

Either I'm unable to get my point across or I'm totally wrong and need to reset the flippin' Mana again

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I understand Tony's statement about mastering from the 50's through to the 90's. Hell, I've got some Reprise Sinatra LPs that destroy anything he did for Capitol.

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Sinatra was on Capital first! The likes of Come dance with me, Songs for swinging lovers, Come fly with me etc were all on Capital. I have nice original pressings of these and they are truly excellent sonically. The Reprise stuff is also great, and dates from the late sixties onwards. As ever only form conclusions with original vinyl, the CDs or remastered vinyl are not consistant enough to draw any conclusions from (and usually suck)!

Tony.