Notable releases to come 2014

[dorian gray]

Depressing

 

[einride]

i only briefly glanced at this articles (intend to read in full later), but i believe those turntables all require a separate purchase for a rpm changer yes? otherwise need to move the belt manually. not a huge deal, but i always found that a bit frustrating about the "entry" level audiophile territory of record players, considering their price

well

probably

but most people don't really listen to 45 rpm records so much i don't think

 

[einride]

I get it for, and don't give a shit about, pop radio hits. Who cares about that, it's a product for people to have on in the background. It sounds abysmal, but the target market doesn't care, and everybody knows that louder = "better" because more people hear the loud shit above the low rumble of their dull and tasteless lives.

fun fact -- it's actually counter-productive even for pop hitz on the radio

because every radio station has really brutal limiting/compression/other processing before broadcasting, to ensure a good fm broadcast and an even output volume no matter what they choose to play

so when you put an already heavily compressed master through that really nasty process, it just gets worse and sounds bad

a good, dynamic master will generally sound better once it's on the other side of the fm process, but still have at least the same perceived loudness by the recipient

 

[NAD]

Well, sumbitch. In that case, death to it all!

Hey you know what would be fun? Go back in time and release Dark Side of the Moon using today's mastering standards. 10,000 copies sold to fanboys, quickly falls into obscurity.

 

[einride]

some folks even in the pop hitz world have started to wise up to this shit

daft punk get lucky was DR8 and seemed to do alright

 

[einride]

and people listened to that song and were like WOWZA! WHAT A SOUND! ITS LIKE ITS THE 70'S ALL OVER AGAIN?! SURELY THE TRICK MUST BE TUBE AMPLIFIERS AND TAPE MACHINES??? WOW WHAT A REAL MUSIC

no

it's just that they didn't apply waves L2 to the master bus and pushed it all the way down. what a fuckin concept.

 

[Krilons Resa]

Who doesn't enjoy a good Fun Fact?

 

[einride]

Hey you know what would be fun? Go back in time and release Dark Side of the Moon using today's mastering standards. 10,000 copies sold to fanboys, quickly falls into obscurity.

absolutely

i believe that so much music today that is actually well-written and good music gets quickly forgotten because once the wow factor wears off, it quickly becomes tedious to listen to. because it sucks. the sound sucks. it wears on you.

and if it's not conscious that it does (as it is not for most) then there are actual studies that show this fatigue happening. you can't and don't want to listen to music as much when it's a huge dumb blathering mess of 0 dB full scale all the fucking time.

people say "but where are the modern classics! where is the pink floyd/led zeppelin/beatles/iron maiden of our times! where!"

well they might just be out there somewhere and you might even have felt it if only they were actually listenable for more than 15 minutes at a time before vague feelings of discomfort set in

all these feelings people have of "man, music was better 20/30/40 years ago" -- i believe a lot of it is today's stupid idiot sound ideals.

it's not so much that people have forgotten how to make music, it's that people are blinded by all these idiot toys they have in the studio and therefore feel like they have to use. it's the fat catz at the record companies who don't even like music but give orders for masters to be COMPETITIVE (because music, much like racing ever closer to putting a literal 0 dBFS square wave on a compact disc, is apparently a competition that you can win) with all the other bland shit that also doesn't sell.

it's not all mastering. it's the autotune, it's the cut and paste, it's the awful shitgarbage guitar sounds in metal that all sound the same, it's the quantization, the perfectionism, the disregard of and contempt for literally anything that makes music human and dynamic and interesting and alive

but a lot of it is the mastering, certainly

 

[Krilons Resa]

^ Wurd to all of that.

 

[Agalloch]

I love this album musically, but seriously, it's fucking hard to get through because the mastering engineer raped it in the ass so severely.

 

[Agalloch]

And now, an example of near perfect mastering:

[youtube]c43fj53duJU&list=PLl9CObvb8KFi4PucsBXBAhUOL3fLMu5Ql[/youtube]

Hear the difference?

Edit: But seriously, youtube is not a good medium to show examples. Since many of you have both albums, just compare the CD's.

 

[General Zod]

Lots of very cool info. Thanks all.

 

[ChaosLee]

This thread has become incredibly interesting (and as Zod said, informative.) I'm curious what (if any) examples of really well-produced/engineered albums you all could show put out in the last 5-10 years. I feel like I have a horrible grasp of these kinds of things.

 

[Vittra]

Farseeing the Paranormal Abysm (linked above) is from 2009.

I really, really love Traveller, but I believe I can see what you guys are getting at.

 

[Vittra]

you could also listen to some Swedish band named Nasheim

i think they have a new album out or something

 

[Krilons Resa]

I love this album musically, but seriously, it's fucking hard to get through because the mastering engineer raped it in the ass so severely.

Duuuuuuuuuuuuude////right-fucking-on. It's soooooo BAD. The kick drum is distorted to all hell.

 

[J.]

as far as behemoth goes, ive heard everything up to demigod. satanica and zkc (nile rip off) are pretty good, but nothing stellar. from the pagan vastlands is good. everything else is so bog standard it becomes tedious. i sometimes think im missing something, but i truly think everyone else's ears are broken

 

[Agalloch]

It's really good info to know, but really, you're better off not knowing because once you begin to hear the quality of a master within 3 seconds of a song, it'll ruin much of your music listening. Here's some good master/bad masters comparisons by the same band:

The Chasm:

Good Master - Farseeing The Paranormal Abysm
Bad Master - The Spell of Retribution

Rush:

Good Master - Roll The Bones or Presto
Bad Master - Clockwork Angels (this album is a heap of garbage, sonically)

Nokturnal Mortum:

Good Master - Goat Horns
Bad Master - Voice of Steel

Ruins of Beverast:

Good Master - Foulest Semen...
Bad Master - Unlock The Shrine

Vader:
Good Master - Black To The Blind
Bad Master: - Impressions In Blood (this one is a fucking abomination)

Devin Townsend -

Good Master - Ocean Machine, Terria
Bad Master - Synchestra (horrendous), Ki

 

[Agalloch]

Also, as a general rule, avoid remasters like the plague and find the original CD or get the vinyl.

 

[Agalloch]

Handful of Stars by Drudkh is another great modern example of mastering, despite what you may feel about the music, it sounds tremendous.

Also, Part The Second by Maudlin of the Well sounds amazing.