Mixes and Mastering: Tales from the Studio Sessions

[tuonelan]

Well, I got obsessive LOL.

After Summer Ewe posted her thoughts about The Beginning of Times and the differences in how Tomi Joutsen sounded between recordings I started listening to the different mixes and masters for the Amorphis catalog the way that I did a while back with the Enslaved catalog. Specifically, I went in and compared the recordings of the songs on Magic and Mayhem: Tales from the Early Years to the original recordings.

I noticed a lot of things, but I wanted some objective confirmation so I ran the songs through the TT Dynamic Range Meter to see if what I was hearing as differences in the recording and mastering levels was actually the case. But that didn't answer other questions that I had about the mixes, so I ended up going out and finding a sound analyzer app made by Queen Mary University in the UK to let my eyes see what my ears had been hearing.

Pretty cool.

Here's the first 40 some seconds of Magic and Mayhem from Tales:

Now here's that same 40 some seconds of Magic and Mayhem from the Magic and Mayhem re-recording:

The colors are just to differentiate the two. What you can clearly see here, however, is how much louder the later recording is than the earlier one, and also how much less difference there is in volume between the loud and the quiet parts of the song. On the blue one you can clearly see where the snare drum pops are (the longest of the thin blue lines at regular intervals and you can see the pulsing rhythm of the track. On the red one the rhythm is much less visible because there is so little difference between the louder and softer moments. Everything is compressed into a very small range of volume right near the top of what can be played back without getting so loud that the amp starts to distort the signal and "clip" off frequencies (the 1 on the top and bottom of the scale).

Here's a direct comparison with the blue waves superimposed over the red so that you can see the difference:

That's a really big difference and your ears hear those differences. The earlier mix and master has a wider contrast to it that our ears pick up on and notice. It makes our ears less tired and brings out details. It doesn't necessarily mean that the first recording will sound more pleasing than the second (since the actual tones being recorded will have a lot of effect on that as well) or that the sounds being captured by the microphones will automatically be captured more clearly, but it does mean that the sound will be more dynamic.

Anyway, thought this was interesting and worth starting a thread for. I have more to say about the comparisons, but I wanted to get things rolling here.

(Let me know if those waveform pics are not showing. Not sure if I got the permissions set to public or not.)

 

[tuonelan]

My rough listening notes while going through the four albums and paying attention mostly to the recording and sound quality:

The Karelian Isthmus

Drums are articulate, but cymbals lack life. Snare pops. Bass drum audible, but small. Bass is audible, but not always distinct. Guitars are very present, though Esa's single note work is sometimes buried in the mix behind the rhythm. Vocals are slightly behind guitars, but very articulate and with some detail to the sound. Overall sound is very mid-heavy, with some thinness at the top and bottom. Not too much compression. Decent amount of DR. Mix is somewhat dry as well. Not a lot of reverb or delay. Most of the impact of the music comes from guitar and vocal and snare with the bass giving it a bit of drive, but not coming off as overly heavy, more brutal than heavy, except when the whole band locks into a riff in unison with the double bass . Exception being Misery Path and Vulgar Necrolatry, which were mixed by Timo Tolkki and have a lot more reverb in the drums, but also a lot more mud in the guitar and much less clarity in the bass.


Tales from the Thousand Lakes

More reverb in the mix, making the tracks sound a bit more wet and cavernous. More life to the drum sound even though it is still relatively quiet in the mix. Bass is not heavy, but it is quite clearly articulated in the mix. You can hear every note. None of the instruments sound like they are breaking up at all. Rhythm is more prominent than lead guitar, sometimes dominating the mix a bit (like In the Beginning,where it steps all over the keyboard part right up until the outro). But Esa's guitar tone cuts enough to get through the mix despite being a bit quieter. All the instruments benefit from the additional reverb, making the whole sound bigger than on TKI. Vocals seem to move around in the mix a bit, at times losing some presence in favor of bringing the guitars more to the forefront, but then the vocals get a bit of added oomph during the sections where they have to compete with the full band locked in on a big riff with heavy drumming. A big part of the success in the album's sound is that the mix makes use of dynamic range to give tracks more drama (like Moon and Sun where there's a 9-10db difference between the quiet parts and the loud – recent releases cut this variance down to around 6db.


Elegy

Very balanced mix. Drums have nuance and space – they pop, but you can also hear a bit of resonance in the bass drum. Cymbals have some detail and help make the drums sound less muffled. Guitars have a more organic sound, but that may be as much down to performance and equipment changes as it is to differences in mixing. Tomi's guitar is not tuned down as far, which makes the sound more "tight" and Esa is using a wah to give his playing more expression. Bass is as articulate as on TftTL, but it is also louder and more prominent in the mix, perhaps because the rhythm guitar has been backed off a bit to where it better matches the rest of the band's output. Whatever the case, it now sounds warm and melodic. Keyboards are also more prominent and the shift from synth to hammond organ fattens up the sound a lot which, when combined with Esa's effects, gives the overall soundscape a lot more complexity and things going on in the background. Speaking of which, it sounds to me like both the growled and clean vocals are at least double tracked here, which seems like a new thing. Within Koipu's growls you can hear a couple different frequencies overlapping and most of Pasi parts have to be doubled or done in two part harmony with the melody line doubled an octave below to give his otherwise thin voice more "meat." Dynamic range averages between 7 and 8 db. Nothing sounds unintentionally overdriven or clipped. Overall mix/master a notch hotter than the previous.


Magic and Mayhem: Tales from the early years

Hot and spitty. Dynamic range sounds very narrow with little distinction between loud and soft parts (DR is between 5 and 6 for all songs). Drums have some presence, but once again sound fairly flat. Bass is low and rumbly with not a lot of articulation and is closer to the center of both channels. Rhythm guitars are overdriven and chunky and fairly compressed with less of the buzzsaw quality of the first two releases. Lead guitar takes the front in instrumental sections and shares space with the vocals otherwise. Vocals are doubled and tripled to give them more fatness. Keys are somewhat lower in the mix than guitars, but use sharp tones and higher frequencies to cut through the mix. Overall sound is very big and slightly muddy with a bit of reverb to keep them from sounding dry. Not as easy to listen to for extended periods as the recordings done prior to 2001. Probably not a product of the recording mix, but of the mastering process as this recording spends almost all its time at the top edge of the yellow with some snare hits going into the red.

 

[Summer Ewe]

This is a really interesting topic, I wish I had enough knowledge on the subject to actively join the discussion. It's funny though, because just today I was thinking that Magic and Mayhem has the "fullest", most pleasant mix to listen to out of all the albums (on my mp3-player anyway). I think I might still be a sucker for loud, even though it's at the expense of other things.

That being said; I will definitely keep an eye on this topic, because I can learn a lot from it.

 

[tuonelan]

Are you listening to vinyl, CD, or MP3? That will change what you are hearing.

People talk about how much nicer vinyl sounds, but looking into all this stuff one of the things I discovered is that when they press an album to vinyl they master it differently because they assume that the person playing the record will have a decent stereo system playing it and speakers or headphones that are better than earbuds in quality. The vinyl master for M&M has six more decibels of contrast between loud and soft passages than does the CD (dynamic range of 11 db versus 5 db). They figure that if you are listening to the vinyl you are probably in a quieter listening environment and your equipment can do a good job reproducing the volume differences.

(For the record, I'm listening to MP3 on a laptop with decent quality on-ear headphones, and the measurements in this post are taken from those digital files, not from a fancy file made from a vinyl-to-digital rip.)

If you are listening to an MP3, try this: go into your app and find the equalizer. Play something off of Magic and Mayhem at the normal settings. Once you have an idea what it sounds like, go to the preamp slider and take that down about 2 db and readjust your volume to make it as loud as it was before you reduced the preamp setting.

Does the mix sound more or less full to you once you have done this, or does it sound the same?

 

[tuonelan]

I should probably add here that, of the four albums here, I personally enjoy the mix on Elegy the best overall. The earlier two have some of that Old School sounding production on them that makes everything sound a little hollow. The modern mix on M&M sounds too hot to my ears and I want to take it down a little bit to give the tracks more room to breathe. If I want it louder I have a volume control that will take care of that.

Other notes...my ears are getting a bit older and I was not as kind to them in my youth as I should have been. I'm not yet at the stage where I have a lot of hearing loss, but it's there and it affects mostly the upper range. I should, by all rights, love the mix that Tägtgren did on Circle as it sounds the most treble-heavy to me, but as a result it sounds too hissy to me and I lose some of the detail of the sound.

On the other hand, I've always been a big fan of Bogren's mixes despite his tending to squish the dynamic range a bit more than I prefer. I find his overall balance very pleasant. No surprise that I like the mix on Under the Red Cloud a lot.

My least favorite Amorphis mix/master is Far from the Sun.

 

[Summer Ewe]

Yes, Under The Red Cloud has a fantastic mix! Loud enough, but still a lot of space.

To return to your previous post; I usually listen to mp3 or CD. I wanted to try what you suggested, but I may need a little help... I am really a huge n00b with this stuff (which is also the reason for my short replies, which I'm really sorry about, I just don't have anything useful to say). I found this equalizer, it's Windows 10 media player:

The Dutch words from left to right are turn off, factory settings and enhanced. Which slider do I have to change?

 

[tuonelan]

It doesn't look like that media player has a preamp setting to change, so never mind. Not a big deal. I just find that if I can take the whole signal down a little before it hits the amplifier and raise the volume up at the amp it sounds a little clearer to me. But that could all be in my head, so...

 

[Summer Ewe]

Ah, bummer. But I do believe it can make a difference, there are so many factors that can influence your music experience.

 

[papajohnny]

Cool topic, tuonelan. Nice analysis, though I haven't read all of it.

Regarding the new album:

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=&album=under+the+red+cloud

I fucking hate the treatment record companies give to CDs and digital format. I myself am mostly a vinyl guy, but having this "vinyl ubermensch vs. CD untermensch" thing being propagated by publishers is really annoying. Crushing the CD sound while the CD can support good and sweet DR...yeah, fuck that.

 

[tuonelan]

At least Jens Bogren got to do his own master of UtRC, which helps things out a bit. He still has to jack up the master to please the label guys, but he has some control over how that gets done. Tägtgren had to hand off Circle to Jonas Kjellgren at another studio for mastering. They are friends, so I'm sure that Tägtgren had some input into the process, but it looks to me like Kjellgren was more heavy handed in his mastering than was Bogren. The heavy parts of Circle are crammed right up against the 0db clipping point with Rechberger's cymbals and snare hits losing a lot of detail in the process. Bogren's master leaves just a little more room for the drums and doesn't crowd the upper frequencies as much and it makes a difference.

As far as the Vinyl vs CD debate, there's a lot that goes into sound fidelity. The DR thing you point to has me rethinking vinyl a bit, but I also remember that my brother had a vinyl recording of Gryphon's Raindance album that he used to play on his home stereo with some awesome speakers (he's a hifi snob with a speaker fetish) it sounded pretty good, but I picked up a Japanese CD recording of the same album that just blew the vinyl out of the water. After that, the whole time I was living with him he'd choose the CD for listening.

Both can be good media, it's just that CDs are mixed and marketed to the average consumer and vinyl is aimed at audiophiles and hipsters with an equipment fetish.

 

[papajohnny]

As far as the Vinyl vs CD debate, there's a lot that goes into sound fidelity. The DR thing you point to has me rethinking vinyl a bit, but I also remember that my brother had a vinyl recording of Gryphon's Raindance album that he used to play on his home stereo with some awesome speakers (he's a hifi snob with a speaker fetish) it sounded pretty good, but I picked up a Japanese CD recording of the same album that just blew the vinyl out of the water. After that, the whole time I was living with him he'd choose the CD for listening.

Both can be good media, it's just that CDs are mixed and marketed to the average consumer and vinyl is aimed at audiophiles and hipsters with an equipment fetish.

I agree for the most part.

It really depends on the album itself - from recording the songs to the actual pressing of the medium and everything in between. So yeah, I've heard some CDs which sound way better than the vinyl, and vice-versa of course, as well as stuff that are roughly the same.

I don't fully agree with the part of the sentence that is in bold. Vinyls used to be aimed at audiophiles, but modern vinyls are mostly aimed at hipsters - so to speak. Proof of this is that a lot of modern albums (I'm not only talking about metal) are crushed hard and their DR is awful both on CDs and vinyl versions. Thing is, most of the hipsters don't really give a damn (or know about) DR or the Loudness War or anything tangentially related. They care about the fact that the object in their hand is big, round, black and it spins on their record player. This kind of consumer mentality is really killing the whole notion of what analog sound is supposed to be like and makes the production end of the market lazy.

As far as CDs quality goes - I do agree that the CD consumer is more average (both in price range, equipment and even basic storage), but that doesn't necessarily mean that these people want their music compressed and loud. I'm sure there are people who like that (many of the metalheads I know), but that really is unfair treatment for the CD (which is a cool medium on its own) and the rest of the costumers who want their music sounding good but aren't equipped for the arbitrary vinyl elitism. And people who like want their music to sound like loud and compressed crap...well, fuck you. Do it on your own.

That being said, there are a shitton of good, audiophile vinyl releases, and those don't necessarily need to have a label on the plastic wrapping that says "dedicated mastering" or something, as well as good CDs (though their numbers are far fewer when compared to vinyl) but as long as there is the notion of quality mastering being something solely reserved for the vinyl consumer there is a problem.

 

[tuonelan]

Went over to Metal-Fi to see what I had missed since my last visit a while back. Among other things they were reviewing the remasters of some older Agalloch releases and a really interesting review of the Be'lakor dedicated dynamic masters that they did for the vinyl releases. If you want to hear exactly what audiophiles are banging on about when they talk about the differences between an over-loud master and a full dynamic range master, then you should get yourself over to the bandcamp page for the original master of Stone's Reach (done by Jens Bogren [Warren Hammond]) and the dedicated dynamic master and listen through at least the first 1:30 of Venator on your best headphones. And don't just put them both on and listen to them, adjust the volume on each to a decent listening level so that both are relatively equal in volume and then pay attention to the drums (especially the cymbals) and the bass, and to the buildup in intensity between the intro and where the full band with vocals kicks in.

Paying attention to both mixes will tell you a lot about what you like in a mix. For me, I find that I actually enjoy turning up the vinyl master more than I do the original master because it feels more open and less taxing on my ears. Your mileage may vary.

I'm actually really interested to hear other people's listening impressions of this experiment, so please chime in.

In both cases, however -- Agalloch and Be'lakor -- it has me thinking it might be worth it to me to get the newer remasters. This is especially true of the Be'lakor, where they have given me the ability to download the digital versions of the vinyl mix for less than I would pay for the older master. Smart move, and a decision that should be rewarded.