Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: -9db of 1998 and -9db of today (Read 3164 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Well i was listening to Celebrity Skin by Hole that was released in 98'. I noticed a much more pleasing and natural sound in comparison to todays rock recordings. RG reading is -9db  - obviously not a quite CD. In contrast, A lot of recent stuff really sounds way too fat , muffled , static yet has similar RG reading.

I much prefer 90's loudnesswar - well i'd rather we go back to NO loudnesswar say 94' or before.. But faced with a choice of 2 evils the choice would be obvious .


So what are they doing to screw things up even more 2000 ~ present ?. Theres more to it than RG values.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #1 –
My first recollection of "loudness" mastering is that it was seemingly employed on Faith No More's 1992 "Angel Dust" CD.  It was a pretty "hot" mix for that time, but (as you've observed with others) far less obnoxious than stuff coming out these days.
The Loudness War is over. Now it's a hopeless occupation.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #2 –
I took a stab at the latest Rush remasters by Andy VanDette (of the infamous Masterdisk mastering studio), called "Section 1-3". I was surprised that he kept the dynamics mostly intact, and the resulting RG value is only slightly lower (read, the release needs slightly more attenuation to reach RG reference level) than my previous CD master.

What I did shockingly notice was that the sound is EQ'd in a (to me) horrible fashion. The low frequencies are heavily overemphasized, and in general I found especially the drums be be "muffled" and lacking impact, probably due to this EQing. I do know exactly if only the apparent EQing is the culprit, but it sure makes the music sound less crisp.

As a sidenote, in good Masterdisk tradition, the releases have some evil artifacts and clipping in loud sections, contributing to the bad sound of especially the drums.

To me, the main problem is that some engineers today fail to grasp the basics of good audio mastering, focusing too much on loudness and bass, while neglecting to keep the mix as true as possible. Everything gets muddled into everything else, for the sake of boomy sound.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #3 –
This is a nice topic to discuss.

I have the same feeling about 'The Colour and the Shape' by Foo Fighters from 1997 (RG = -10 dB). Still a pretty dynamic album, if you ask me, and a good master which perfectly suits the music.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #4 –
Yes and i also notice mid-late 90's loud cd's still contain subtleties  - Like quite intros, interludes then BOOM.  In recent yrs that has been obliterated too .

I mean they are gone irrespective of the RG value.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #5 –
Garbage: Not Your Kind of People.....We are going to reach a stage where we have to try and listen for music between static.
The guy who 'mastered' that must be very deaf to not notice that there is almost not musical content in there.

I was a fan of Garbage back in the 90s and the music back then was listenable, but very compressed. Today it is just unlistenable. Very sad

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #6 –
Radiohead's In Rainbows from 2007 has some soft tracks/passages despite being -9db throughout, e.g. Nude.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #7 –
RG value itself does not tell you much. If you compress the hell out of individual tracks before the final mix/mastering, then master it to have a specific RG value, it will still sound like crap. No matter what that RG value is.

-9db of 1998 and -9db of today

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Martel on
RG value itself does not tell you much. If you compress the hell out of individual tracks before the final mix/mastering, then master it to have a specific RG value, it will still sound like crap. No matter what that RG value is.

True, but unlikely. If the mastering engineer goes for extreme compression, he is also going to make it as loud as possible. In fact, it is compression that allows him to make it very loud without clipping (too much).