mastering on 'oblivion with bells'

bryantm3 · #1 07-02-2007, 08:33 PM

since the first batch of 2007 genesis remixes have been released, and while the new mixes are very good, it hurts your ears. many of us fans are concerned about the sound of the CDs- it seems to have completely squished the dynamics and hurts your ears to listen to, and then i looked at the wave-forms and figured out why:

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y39...g?t=1183313296

the music has been boosted to the maximum volume on the CDs, and then compressed so that they fit to the limit. if you look at the wave-forms close up, those waves go all the way from the bottom to the top in loudness- and the variation and subtleness in the genesis songs that we've grown to love are ruined, not because of the new producer, but because of the mastering engineer.

and genesis are not alone.

apparantly, it's an increasing trend in the past ten years to make albums louder and louder, and more compressed- i was not aware because most of the music that i buy nowadays is older or very obscure. here's an article someone posted on the genesis forums that explains it very well:

http://www.austin360.com/music/conte...9/28cover.html

my point in all of this, is that i hope when underworld masters their new album, they don't follow into this new trend of loud and over-compressed music. but since underworld has never followed the main-stream i'm sure they'll consider this- i thought genesis would be more aware to things like this, but apparently, when they were doing the mixes with the producer, they heard the 'untreated' versions only, and don't know anything or haven't acknowledged anything about the mastering on these new editions. i just hope underworld won't make the same mistake.

DoctorRad · #2 07-03-2007, 01:41 AM

Yes, an interesting point I saw made recently - in Hi-fi News I think - was that with modern mastering trends compressing the dynamics out of recordings, old vinyl copies often have better dynamic range than new CD reissues. This is, of course, bonkers.

As you say, one can only hope that Underworld don't go down this route, or aren't forced down it by their record company. Given the amount of care and hardware they dedicate to recording real instruments - bells in particular - to use in their recordings, I'd be very surprised if this happened with the new album.

That doesn't mean it won't, mind you...

Dr. Matt...

big screen satellite · #3 07-03-2007, 01:53 AM

well the mastering is done on OBW so whatever they did its too late now...

i'm sure Super Producer (Rick) & Exec Producer (Steve) have mastered this album to the best audio quality possible...

i'd imagine - there will be some kind of downloadable files uploaded to the best music sites... in 'higher than itunes' quality encoding...

i don't wanna start the debate on quality of downloadable files, but i'd hope that they took on some of the previous 'complaints' by certain people about the lower than expected encoding of the RRP files... (i was fine with them, but then i'm not such an audiophile as others)

either way its gonna be an interesting time, i'm waiting for the first single and remixes to arrive, personally...

Matt

bryantm3 · #4 07-03-2007, 09:12 PM

if i'm not mistaken, the last two riverruns were higher bitrate mp3s (160 or 192 i think).
and it's not all that hard to re-master it, it doesn't take too long, but i'm sure they did the right thing with it.

i looked at the waveforms for 'a hundred days off' and it gives me hope- although it looks like they're very loud they do have some dynamic range. personally i like a quieter CD but that's just me.

gaborez · #5 07-03-2007, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by big screen satellite

either way its gonna be an interesting time, i'm waiting for the first single and remixes to arrive, personally...

woah, hang on there matt...
are you saying there's something on it's way to you already!?

big screen satellite · #6 07-04-2007, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gaborez

woah, hang on there matt...
are you saying there's something on it's way to you already!?

woah, no....

i'm just saying that it's been mastered, afaik, and that the boys are working on remixes of some tracks, which, i assume will be the make-up of the first single, which i think should appear officially, at least 2-4 weeks before the album, which will be around September time, which means, promos, if any surface, will appear in August...which is only 4 weeks away... i'm just guessing the schedule

a single is ceratinly coming before the album...

and promo's will pop up... soon

(i have no 'real' information...

)

gaborez · #7 07-04-2007, 01:01 AM

exciting times people

(sorry, this has gone OT from mastering but frankly every thread should be about being excited about the new stuff at the moment

)

TheBang · #8 07-04-2007, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bryantm3

if i'm not mistaken, the last two riverruns were higher bitrate mp3s (160 or 192 i think).

All the RiverRun's were 192 Kbps MP3. IaBS was initially (and erroneously) released as a 160 Kbps, but was quickly corrected and reposted.

Camiel · #9 07-04-2007, 04:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bryantm3

(...)

the music has been boosted to the maximum volume on the CDs, and then compressed so that they fit to the limit. if you look at the wave-forms close up, those waves go all the way from the bottom to the top in loudness- and the variation and subtleness in the genesis songs that we've grown to love are ruined, not because of the new producer, but because of the mastering engineer.

(...)

my point in all of this, is that i hope when underworld masters their new album, they don't follow into this new trend of loud and over-compressed music. but since underworld has never followed the main-stream i'm sure they'll consider this- i thought genesis would be more aware to things like this, but apparently, when they were doing the mixes with the producer, they heard the 'untreated' versions only, and don't know anything or haven't acknowledged anything about the mastering on these new editions. i just hope underworld won't make the same mistake.

I hate this. Just check out the CD of Playing the angel by Depeche Mode. It has the same flaws. The SACD/5.1 version doesn't however.

patrick · #10 07-04-2007, 04:31 AM

the riverrun's don't sounds muffy because of the bitrate, but because rick probably didn't spend weeks on it tweaking the last details out of it... And agreed that i hope they don't have it so amplified that some of the detail is lost as well!

And then i'm excited about these promos that matt has guaranteed us in 4 weeks !