Compression and Clipping on TLOS - is it that bad?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Having spoken with various US friends, it would seem that the troublesome sonics are a European phenomenon - apparently the US pressing is fine.

[The Heartical Don]

Having spoken with various US friends, it would seem that the troublesome sonics are a European phenomenon - apparently the US pressing is fine.

How is the price point then for the CD-only version of TLOS? I might consider ordering it for better sound.

[Wirestone]

Andrew -- What's odd about that is that CD mastering should produce identical discs. This isn't like vinyl, where the actual pressing plant could produce analog variations in sound. For what it's worth, my U.S. disc is definitely mastered quite hot, but not as bad as "Memory Almost Full," where some of the compression and loudness actually distorts the audio.

[Andreas]

Having spoken with various US friends, it would seem that the troublesome sonics are a European phenomenon - apparently the US pressing is fine.

What? The European CD was also mastered by Bob Ludwig according to the credits. Are you saying that Ludwig prepared two masters, one for the US and one for the Europe with additional compression?

I am skeptical about this...what did your US friends exactly say?

[Andrew G. Doe]

Having spoken with various US friends, it would seem that the troublesome sonics are a European phenomenon - apparently the US pressing is fine.

What? The European CD was also mastered by Bob Ludwig according to the credits. Are you saying that Ludwig prepared two masters, one for the US and one for the Europe?

I know - most odd. All i know is that the US CDs are apparently fine, and that mine (and those of several friends) have compromised sonics. Rogue pressing ?  Or did someone have a Spinal Tap moment and push all the faders up to 11 ?

[Andreas]

I know - most odd. All i know is that the US CDs are apparently fine, and that mine (and those of several friends) have compromised sonics. Rogue pressing ?  Or did someone have a Spinal Tap moment and push all the faders up to 11 ?

Digital compression is more than just pushing up the faders. It would have to be some kind of post-mastering then...but I would like to have more than just a vague description like "apparently fine" before ordering a US disc.

[Wirestone]

Indeed. My suspicion is that there are just different sets of ears at work.

[b00ts]

For what it's worth, I am an American who bought the CD in an American CD shop in the United States of... um... America, I think (may have to double check...)

Seriously, though - I bought the vinyl first and enjoyed it for a coupla weeks max before I was able to get the CD. I made MP3s of the vinyl with my USB turntable, and listened to the album like that on my iPod when I was out. Then I bought the CD a few days before releease, and was disappointed in the mastering, as it was way too harsh. Granted, it is not as bad as Memory Almost Full, and in both cases, I love the albums, so I listen to them... but take it from me, an audio engineer - the U.S. version still has ridiculous mastering. Oh well. Still a fucking great album...

I'd like to add that I have some tracks from BWPS which are pre-masters, at a very high bitrate (large files.) They also sound incredible, and I listen to them in lieu of the actual album sometimes. I am still trying to get her (my friend at Warners) to give me the rest of the album!

b00ts

[brother john]

A counter-example is Memory Almost Full, which was terribly overcompressed at the mixing stage and sounds accordingly. It couldn't be saved in mastering because the harm was already done.

It doesn't sound so bad to me, and unless you were there in the studio when it was mixed and mastered you can't possibly tell if this was how it made. Professional engineers almost never apply compression before a record is mastered because everyone knows you can't undo it. I think the sound of MAF is more likely to be Macca trying to sound young and groovy than due to incompetence or duff aesthetic decisions. But I agree, it is not as good a sounding record as Chaos & Creation.

[brother john]

It doesn't help that many CDs today are being mastered on the assumption that we will listen to them in our cars, or hear them in public where they are competing with other sound for our attention. Which is a shame, because such recordings sound horrible, even painful, when listened to in isolation.

I couldn't help but smile when I read this, as if anyone would ever do such a thing! (N.B. All the early BB records were mixed and mastered under Brian's direction for precisely this purpose!!  )

For what its worth, I have a European copy of TLOS and there are no audio problems with it. What bothers me is the awful mixing, which just kills all the background vocals, sucks the life out of them. Its impossible to tell one voice or one note from the next, and for the most part sound like a wall of Taylors. What is so great about the BB bg vox is that when you hear a falsetto you know its a falsetto, but having Taylor Mills in the mix, as well as the dreadful mixing, means that you don't know if you're listening to the 'soaring falsetto' Jeff or whoever of just a girl singing normally. The overall sound is so MOR, and I think that's a shame. 

[absinthe_boy]

I couldn't help but smile when I read this, as if anyone would ever do such a thing! (N.B. All the early BB records were mixed and mastered under Brian's direction for precisely this purpose!!  )

I wasn't around then but I am under the impression taht early BB records at least were mixed for mono AM radio.
The problem now is that radio stations seem to want to be the baddest, loudest thing out there. Even 20 years ago, across Europe at least, there were many fewer competing sounds. Now everywhere you go there is music (or muzak), phones, people, advertising....lots of noise...for your song to get heard on the radio it seems you require "faders at 11" as Andrew puts it.

Which is a shame, because some of us actually BUY a CD or LP to sit back alone in the quiet and listen. Hell, though I use speakers I know many people actually don headphones.

I've never heard Memory Almost Full on CD, only the vinyl, but it's clearly not as accomplished sonically as Chaos...
However I suspect, where a vinyl master is properly and separately prepared, it will be on the assumption that the listener is a serious music enthusiast...and that the person mastering for vinyl will do the best they can with the material they have.

Just one more reason to spin the old black wax...

[Andrew G. Doe]

OK... OK... this is odd. Most odd.

Just ripped my sonically challenged CD of TLOS to my iPod... and it's a different beast entirely. Is it possible that the thing was mixed and mastered with download in mind ?  Or did someone send the download master to Europe in error ?

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

What in hell? That's weird, to say the least.

[Wirestone]

Andrew -- it could depend on the bitrate at which you ripped the CD and the headphones you're listening to it with. If you ripped it as a lossless file (wav or Apple lossless) it should sound precisely the same -- it will be the same data as the physical CD. If you rip it in lower quality (as a 128 kbs AAC, for example), it will sound somewhat different. That lower quality file would be closer in spirit to an AM radio broadcast -- in which compression helps an audio recording "pop" instead of degrading it.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Ripped it at 128, using Sony MDR-V150 cans.

Thing is, none of the other CDs I've put on my iPod have shown any change at all, well, to these ears anyway.

[Loaf]

AGD, are you saying the UK TLOS CD sounds better on your ipod?

And are you using the same headphones as your CD player, or using the ipod buds?

Curious.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Never use iPod buds, even though it means the cans are twice the size of my Nano 3G  .

1 - the fidelity is crap
2 - my ears must be a funny shape, they fell out every time I tried.

And yes, for whatever arcane  reason, the CD sounds much better on my iPod. A definite WTF moment. I seriously think it was mastered, if not mixed, for download.

[absinthe_boy]

Ripped it at 128, using Sony MDR-V150 cans.

Thing is, none of the other CDs I've put on my iPod have shown any change at all, well, to these ears anyway.

Interesting, as I would assume your ears are quite educated

I've never owned an actual iPod, but I have owned a couple of MP3 players and my phone (Nokia N73) is reckoned to be pretty good at MP3 reproduction.

Any time I rip a CD, even at high bitrate, I can notice a difference. One can tweak the settings and produce a reasonable, enjoyable set of MP3 files from a CD...but there are always differences...especially in the top end.

However, AGD's suggestion that maybe TLOS has actually been mastered for download is interesting...and I should think quite possible. By that I mean I am sure it is possible that they made a download master, and perhaps were lazy enough to use it for the CD.

I've not heard the TLOS CD...US or UK version...so I cannot comment further.

[Ethan]

Used some audio software on my TLOS - a bit of stereo expander - bought up some intrumental lines wonderfully - gave the BV's better seperation and punch - thus smoothed 'in' the dodgy vocal moments from BW (most noticable on MAD- it's now georgeous) as a unexpected bonus.

[MusicLover]

Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it's not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists.

Today, artists generally feel they have to master their records to be as loud as everybody else's. This certainly works for many artists. However, there are many other artists who feel their music would be better served by a more dynamic record, but who don't feel like that option is available to them.

This all comes down to the moment a consumer hears a record, and the fear that if the record is more dynamic, the consumer won't know to just turn up the volume. This is an understandable concern, and one Turn Me Up! is working to resolve.

http://turnmeup.org/

I have yet to hear TLOS but am surprised to learn that it sounds better as a non-hi fi 128 rip!

[Andrew G. Doe]

Ripped it at 128, using Sony MDR-V150 cans.

Thing is, none of the other CDs I've put on my iPod have shown any change at all, well, to these ears anyway.

Interesting, as I would assume your ears are quite educated

Most people reckon they're smarter than all the rest of me put together... 

That was a very poor piece of writing - of course there's a difference, but it's never something I can't live with (unlike mini-disc, which I could not listen to). The change in the sonics of TLOS is quite remarkable.

I've used a simple type of spatialiser on the CD too, and yes, it sure helps.

[Pablo.]

Check this great article about over-compression:

http://www.austin360.com/music/content/music/stories/xl/2006/09/28cover.html

And, believe it or not, there's difference between digital pressings. I know a friend who have A/Bed a record like Flaming Lips's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the local edition and the US one, and the differences were there. I can say than local pressings of Presley reissues and Macca's Chaos and Creation in the backyard are prone to skip on many cd players.

But you don't have to take it from me. Here's an expert on the matter, Don Was:

(from a mid 90s Bass Player magazine)

How much does the mastering process affect a bass tone?

Tremendously--you can do amazing things when you master records. But it's not just the mastering process that affects it; sometimes what happens after a record is mastered has an even greater effect on the end result. For example: When I helped the Stones reissue their catalog, [engineer] Bob Ludwig spent an incredible amount of time on the remastering, because there weren't any EQed master tapes of those records around. We ultimately found that the best versions to refer to were the original vinyl pressings. Then, after Ludwig went to all this trouble matching the newly remastered versions to the vinyl, we discovered that somewhere in the CD-manufacturing process there's something called "jitter" that can dramatically change the quality of a disc. So even after the remastering, on the discs we got back from the factory all the warmth of the bass had vanished, the high end had become tinny, and the echo had disappeared. The jitter defect had so totally altered the character of the sound that we went to the head of Virgin Records and asked to have the discs recalled. This was all because someone had made a defective part that went unchecked! People used to talk about the erratic nature of vinyl, but CDs are just as uncontrolled in terms of quality.

So all the work you do in the studio can be dramatically changed in the manufacturing process.

It's frightening. When they decide to re-press the new Stones record after the first batch is gone, no one's going to call me and say, "Don, we just ordered a new batch of CDs. Some are being done in Germany, some are being done in Atlanta--we'll send you random samples of all of these to compare." It won't happen. And maybe some schmuck who works in one of those factories will decide he knows better than Bob Ludwig. Maybe it's always bothered him that hi-hat cymbals don't sound as if they were made of tin, so he's going to fix it! He's going leave his thumbprint right on Charlie Watts's forehead! [Laughs.] I'd say if you're going to buy an album, buy it when it's released, because that's what's closest to the truth.

[matt-zeus]

The Genesis remasters were my first tip off that things were getting ugly with compression.  I love the entire Genesis catalogue dearly, and the first time I heard those remasters I almost cried.  Not only compressed, but completely remixed with every fader at full volume!  Loud parts...LOUD!  Quiet parts...LOUD!  Absolutely zero dynamics. 

I'm a big 70s Genesis fan and picked up the remixed Trick of the Tail and was really surprised to hear Steve Hackett mixed way down in many cases! I look ahead to the new Gabriel box with dread, though thats the material I love the most.
Memory Almost full was poorly mastered indeed, I didn't think Chaos and creation was as bad as that at all.

[absinthe_boy]

I'm a big 70s Genesis fan and picked up the remixed Trick of the Tail and was really surprised to hear Steve Hackett mixed way down in many cases! I look ahead to the new Gabriel box with dread, though thats the material I love the most.
Memory Almost full was poorly mastered indeed, I didn't think Chaos and creation was as bad as that at all.

I picked up a copy of Trick on CD circa 1991, and it sounded fine. I later managed to get my hands on an original vinyl pressing and gave away the CD to a fellow fan - no need of it for me. I have since heard the remaster and it is horrible. OK so one could argue it is a new interpretation of the original work....but to my mind you can't say it is the same album even if the original recording was used.

I know Tony Banks supposedly dislikes Hackett, but I understand that animosity has reduced a lot in recent years...so I don't think it is Tony deciding Steve should be mixed out or low. Its all a shame, because Steve wrote and played some beautiful stuff on that record.

Chaos wasn't bad at all, it's a pleasant listen. Thing is, I prefer the music on Memory...but the actual album is horribly mastered...another to look out for (especially the very odd bass guitar sound) is Marillion's "Afraid Of Sunlight".

BTW I am talking vinyl all the way with the above...never even heard Chaos or Memory on CD.

[Jim McShane]

Turn Me Up!™ is a non-profit music industry organization campaigning to give artists back the choice to release more dynamic records. To be clear, it's not our goal to discourage loud records; they are, of course, a valid choice for many artists. We simply want to make the choice for a more dynamic record an option for artists.

Today, artists generally feel they have to master their records to be as loud as everybody else's. This certainly works for many artists. However, there are many other artists who feel their music would be better served by a more dynamic record, but who don't feel like that option is available to them.

This all comes down to the moment a consumer hears a record, and the fear that if the record is more dynamic, the consumer won't know to just turn up the volume. This is an understandable concern, and one Turn Me Up! is working to resolve.

http://turnmeup.org/

I have yet to hear TLOS but am surprised to learn that it sounds better as a non-hi fi 128 rip!

Hey MusicLover!

Thanks for the post, I had forgotten about Turn Me Up!

Some other thoughts...

I just wanted to say that some compresssion can be useful and necessary. Vinyl records of classical recordings are often compressed so the music will be playable off the record. The most famous example might be the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture, which features real cannon fire! Even with some limiting it was not uncommon for the stylus to literally jump out of the record groove due to the tremendous excursion required to reproduce the original sound. Also, even with the best quality vinyl stock, some surface noise was apparent if the recording level was too low. So in the real world, an LP was limited to somewhere in the area of 40 db (40 db = 100 times) dynamic range, i.e., the relationship between the softest and loudest sounds. That doesn't mean it's all used - older rock recordings were often VERY highly compressed. But on the other hand you had companies like Nautilus and Mobile Fidelity (or even CBS!) who remastered rock records with little or no compression, cut the master disc at 1/2 the normal speed (this reduced the power required and therefore the distortion from the cutting head amplifiers), pressed it on to premium vinyl, and produced absolutely glorious sounding records.

The "red book" (standard) CD was once hailed as the solution, the end of the need to compress. With its 90db or better dynamic range it offered the ability to record a range of sounds well beyond even the best vinyl records. True, there was a noise floor in the 30-35 db range (from the electronics), so the usable range was more like 60 db instead of 90, but that was a HUGE increase since the db scale is logarithmic, not linear. That's a roughly 10x improvement over LPs! One disadvantage though - in the digital format exceeding the maximum recording level produces some of the most horrid sounds you may have ever heard. So while the vinyl could be "pushed" a bit, that's a no-no with digital (unless you like intensely loud bursts of noise!). Ensuring the signal never exceeds the max level is a necessity in digital recordings so signal processing of some sort is usually used. But a much better way (IMHO) is to record at a low enough level to not exceed the maximum!!

But what has evolved now - especially but not exclusively in rock/pop recordings - is a generation of recordings with a dynamic range of 10 db or less! If you follow the link on MusicLover's post you'll find it takes you to a bunch more links that do a terrific job of explaining in much more detail why this was/is done; and why it makes things sound the way they do.

Music like BWs deserves better. As an outsider (I'm barely on the fringes of the industry, to put it mildly!) it's not clear to me who has the final say on the amount of compression used.  But for Brian, somebody ought to step in and demand higher quality recordings. His music is great, he has a spectacular band, it needs to be made available to the consumer in the best sound quality the format will allow. And I promise you - if somebody ever remasters the TLOS (calling JVC, calling JVC - we need your  HELP!!) CD and takes full advantage of what the format can offer - well, just prepare to be amazed. Or (fantasizing) a well mastered high bit-rate digital format (SACD or DVD-A).

The CD in circulation in the USA is pretty crappy - which is sad since it could be so much better WITHOUT COSTING BW OR CAPITOL ONE MORE DIME!!

Sorry this was so long, I thought it might be useful.