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Topic: Who Mastered This Album? (Read 15807 times) previous topic - next topic
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Who Mastered This Album?

A friend of mine just sent me this:

http://free.pages.at/volcano/temp/no-comment.png

I have no idea how new that album is (I don't even know its title), but if it's brand new, that sure enough is another attempt to fool customers into believing all the hype about the DVD-A's superiority over the CD.

Does anybody have a clue who is responsible for this?

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #1 –
I have listened to this album, and it sounds horrible. It's called "Stripped", by Christina Aguilera (was released two or three weeks ago). When she sings with a pressed, high voice, you can sometimes blatantly hear the clipping. But it's no big surprise to me, since this album is about as mainstream and chart-oriented as it gets, and this *always* shows in the way it has been mastered (at least in recent times).

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #2 –
hmm, could be true, but you have also to consider, that
Christina Aguilera is one of the Trash-Pop-Queens. So, they put the Volume to an maximum, because they don't want to make fastidious music. Just Pop... 
I'm mean she is also coerce to dance and sing in a pool of dirt nearly nacked.

But your theorie is also very possible..

rascality....but for this we got nice progs to correct them 

Greets Duke

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #3 –
Seems as if someone downloaded a bunch of badly encoded MP3s from various FileSharing Networks.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #4 –
No, it think it has nothing to do with DVD-A vs. CD. It also has nothing to do with the encoding quality, because it has the same sound on the original CD.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #5 –
Quote
but for this we got nice progs to correct them

Bad mastering can't be corrected with MP3Gain/ReplayGain. It will prevent clipping during playback, yes, but it can't do anything against overcompressed sound and clipping that's already on the record.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #6 –
You can't bring back sound-quality, but RadioGaining might at least bring all the tracks to an appropiate level of volume.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #7 –
Quote
You can't bring back sound-quality, but RadioGaining might at least bring all the tracks to an appropiate level of volume.

i hear ya man. couple days ago i was listening to a direct soundboard recording of an acoustic guitar concert (Stuart Davis) and had some tracks from Rush's Vapor Trails enqueued after that.. i did very nearly blow my eardrums out.. 
A riddle is a short sword attached to the next 2000 years.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #8 –
Vapor Trails was mastered horribly.  Some guy somewhere put up a very good idea for "remastering" this album Using CEP on the web.  It worked great.  Helps the sound quality alot.  I'm not at home right now, but when I am, I'll find the link.
"You can fight without ever winning, but never win without a fight."  Neil Peart  'Resist'

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #9 –
Hey Volcano, wanna hear something bad, listen to the track "Walk Away" from 3:05 minutes on  :x

Maybe we really need to find out who mastered this, so we can lynch him...

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #10 –
Quote
Maybe we really need to find out who mastered this, so we can lynch him...


Naah. I don't think the engineers can do all that much about it . If they're told to destroy the sound and refuse to do it, the record label will just pass the job to another mastering studio. (But they still could "destroy" the sound in a more graceful way )

I'll sure listen to parts of this album, just to make me enjoy some really good music even more afterwards.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #11 –
Quote
I have listened to this album, and it sounds horrible. It's called "Stripped", by Christina Aguilera (was released two or three weeks ago). When she sings with a pressed, high voice, you can sometimes blatantly hear the clipping. But it's no big surprise to me, since this album is about as mainstream and chart-oriented as it gets, and this *always* shows in the way it has been mastered (at least in recent times).

For really bad clipping, check out Shakira's "Laundry Service" CD - Track 6, "Ready For The Good Times," has some of the worst clipping I've ever heard on a commercial CD - I also have the "Stripped" CD and it isn't nearly as bad as "Laundry Service."  In case anyone really cares, "Stripped" came out 2 weeks ago from yesterday, on Oct. 29, 2002.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #12 –
Interview with the mastering engineer in question, Brian Gardner

Quote
Do you mean that people are sending you stuff cut hotter than ever?

No, not necessarily how it comes in; it's just they want the end product to jump. They always wonder, “Can't you make this a little louder?” It keeps moving up and it's got to stop somewhere. [Laughs.] I'd like to put out a record sometime that's the lowest out there: “Oh, did you hear that new record? It's so low. It's so cool.” But that's not going to happen. Although Steely Dan put out a record that sounded good and it wasn't loud. It didn't have to just slam the levels.

You're talking about losing dynamic range.

Of course. But a lot of today's music is enhanced by taking some of those things out — punching it up and giving it less dynamics. That's the nature of much of the music that's popular — it's just more intense.


In all fairness blame should be put primarily on the record companies. They give the orders. However, this guy seems to have become on of their favorites and is responsible for several unbearably loud albums, like the ones by Dr. Dre. Let's at least blame him a little. 

/ Uosdwis

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #13 –
So that's the bastard responsible for mastering 2pac's "All Eyez On Me"!

That record came out in 1996, but it's so damn loud... it can easily keep up with today's pumped-up productions
(and that's not a good thing)!

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #14 –
If I recall correctly, David Erstby mastered that Christina Aguilera album.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #15 –
it says in the booklet: "Mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner at Bernie Grundman Mastering"

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #16 –
Quote
Vapor Trails was mastered horribly.  Some guy somewhere put up a very good idea for "remastering" this album Using CEP on the web.  It worked great.  Helps the sound quality alot.  I'm not at home right now, but when I am, I'll find the link.

Can you post a link to this page? I searched google for a couple of strings (Vapor Trails CEP remaster, etc) but found nothing relevant. TIA!

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #17 –
Try the album Digimortal by Fear Factory for extreme clipping, I cant believe how much they ****** that album.
The dynamic range is so compressed it must be into negative figures.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #18 –
Portishead - Dummy is a pretty good cd.. mastered well, not any clipping..

This right here is Dr Dre - Chronic 2001 - Bang Bang:

http://warzone.org/clip.jpg

Thanks Dre.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #19 –
On the topic of DVD-A, given that dvda is 24bit 96KHz per chan, it should be much harder for it to clip, no?

Makes sense in my head. just making sure my head isn't broke.

gnoshi
happiness comes in brown paper bags.

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #20 –
Quote
Interview with the mastering engineer in question, Brian Gardner

Quote
Do you mean that people are sending you stuff cut hotter than ever?

No, not necessarily how it comes in; it's just they want the end product to jump. They always wonder, “Can't you make this a little louder?” It keeps moving up and it's got to stop somewhere. [Laughs.] I'd like to put out a record sometime that's the lowest out there: “Oh, did you hear that new record? It's so low. It's so cool.” But that's not going to happen. Although Steely Dan put out a record that sounded good and it wasn't loud. It didn't have to just slam the levels.

You're talking about losing dynamic range.

Of course. But a lot of today's music is enhanced by taking some of those things out — punching it up and giving it less dynamics. That's the nature of much of the music that's popular — it's just more intense.


In all fairness blame should be put primarily on the record companies. They give the orders. However, this guy seems to have become on of their favorites and is responsible for several unbearably loud albums, like the ones by Dr. Dre. Let's at least blame him a little. 

/ Uosdwis

Naah leave 'im alone, he seems to like vinyl & analog... 

Seems vastly experienced in the area of mastering, too.. at least that's the impression I got from the article.  Put the blame on the recording industry where it belongs, they are the source of all things evil... 

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #21 –
Quote
On the topic of DVD-A, given that dvda is 24bit 96KHz per chan, it should be much harder for it to clip, no?

Makes sense in my head. just making sure my head isn't broke.

gnoshi

Actually, the answer is no. CD-audio (also referred to as "Red Book") isn't prone to clipping per se. It's perfectly possible to make very dynamic CD's that are far from clipped peaks and with very little distortion. A 24 bit medium like DVD-A may bring improvements in low-level detail, but if you treat them like most pop releases today, it only means you've got an additional eight bits to waste by compressing the signal so the dynamic range (the difference between the quietest and loudest part) is a mere couple of dB. This translates to one or two bits.

However, DVD-A may actually help us out, since it's being used in DVD players and multichannel audio systems primarily used for watching movies. The movie industry does have regulations for dynamic range etc, and popping in, say, Ms. Aguilera's latest CD after watching a movie - without touching the volume control - will be unbelievably loud (and may actually damage both hearing and equipment). Today's mastering techniques simply will not work in that context.

Another point worth bringing up is the fact that the music industry is keen on us adopting the new formats (DVD-A, SACD). Why? Simply because they can charge more for the music, it opens up all kinds of possibilities to re-release stuff and hence charging for it a third or fourth time, and it has positive side-effects like copy-protection etc. The selling point (at least initially) is the "superior sound quality", and to prove this point they are being more careful with mastering. Comparing a heavily compressed and clipped CD against a carefully calibrated DVD-A will undoubtedly convince 99% of the population that DVD-A is indeed superior. (A carefully mastered CD versus a carefully mastered DVD-A will in a normal listening environment convince perhaps only 25% or less that the DVD-A is worth the extra cost). So yes, the situation may improve with DVD-A, but it has very little to do with the amount of bits.

/ Uosdwis

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #22 –
The maximum output level of a DVDA player will be the same as the one of a CD player : it must not overload the ampli input, and therefore it must match the "line" specifications (470 Ohm out, 47 kOhm in, voltage around 0.5 or 1 V).

The 8 extra bits of sound are thus in the low volume direction. There is nothing added in loudness, only in quietness.

Therefore in order to make DVDA sound as loud as CDs, they will have to butcher them as they do with CDs, with clipping, compression, and all 

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #23 –
I also have one album which clips as hell
Volcano by Satyricon... I don't hear any clipping with any CD player but on PC... vorbisgain solves this for me (a friend of mine thinks he can hear some clipping with vorbisgain applied...)

Why must they master the CDs so bad?!

  Gain  |  Peak  | Scale | New Peak | Track
----------+--------+-------+----------+------
-9.05 dB |  38543 |  0.35 |    13597 | 1 - Satyricon - With Ravenous Hunger.ogg
-8.34 dB |  40531 |  0.38 |    15516 | 2 - Satyricon - Angstridden.ogg
-9.17 dB |  39437 |  0.35 |    13721 | 3 - Satyricon - Fuel For Hatred.ogg
-8.45 dB |  39071 |  0.38 |    14769 | 4 - Satyricon - Suffering The Tyrants.ogg
-8.77 dB |  40002 |  0.36 |    14574 | 5 - Satyricon - Possessed.ogg
-9.70 dB |  39941 |  0.33 |    13074 | 6 - Satyricon - Repined Bastard Nation.ogg
-9.64 dB |  41345 |  0.33 |    13628 | 7 - Satyricon - Mental Mercury.ogg
-9.02 dB |  42337 |  0.35 |    14987 | 8 - Satyricon - Black Lava.ogg

Recommended Album Gain: -9.23 dB

Who Mastered This Album?

Reply #24 –
Quote
Seems as if someone downloaded a bunch of badly encoded MP3s from various FileSharing Networks.

That's a possibility.  I just listened to Christina Aguilera's entire "Stripped" CD and I didn't hear any "blatant" clipping as CiTay mentioned (but then again, maybe it's just because I wasn't really listening for clipping - usually I hear clipping easily without paying any attention for it).  Later, I'll rip it and try MP3Gain on it myself, just to see if that picture is right or not (oh, no!  I have to make an MP3!  The world is about to end! ).  Side note: "Stripped" is an unusually long CD for a "Trash-Pop-Queen " - it's over 75 minutes long (76 or 77?) if I remember correctly.  "Usual" Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera CDs are 40-50something minutes long.