Grumpyrocker - Latest comments on The Loudness War

Harry [Member] in response to: The Loudness War

Harry [Member] — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:46:54 +0000

A quick bump of this as the new Metallica album Death Magnetic suffers terribly from a hot mastering.

Harry [Member] in response to: The Loudness War

Harry [Member] — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 12:40:25 +0000

Yeah, some CDs are pretty good and don't suffer the problem. I read an interesting article on the issue here a couple of days ago.

Dan (rhythm) [Visitor] in response to: The Loudness War

Dan (rhythm) [Visitor] — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 12:29:43 +0000

Just listening to an old Jethro Tull CD (Aqualung, must be 15 years old at least) and it PLAINLY has none of the processing in place as My God varies wildly between quiet and loud, just as it should. Gives a very good example of the processes you discuss up there, Harry

Bill Door [Member] in response to: The Loudness War

Bill Door [Member] — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 19:32:08 +0000

I know the matter I refered to was a different one but it meant that prior to the current mastering trend, you couldn't get a decent cd press of a vinyl album because the transfer was crap, meaning that very few unadulterated CD's must be floating around.

Dan (rhythm) [Visitor] in response to: The Loudness War

Dan (rhythm) [Visitor] — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:42:02 +0000

The only times I've spotted this are with the 25 year anniversary version of DSotM and the aforementioned RHCP albums, but that was because the changes were blindingly obvious. That said, I am going deaf at the mo so my opinion can't really be trusted on these matters ;-)

Harry [Member] in response to: The Loudness War

Harry [Member] — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:13:29 +0000

Those problems you speak of have nothing to do with this issue really. It's a case of vinyl mixes of old pre-CD albums being transfered to CD with no thought of working on them to fit the less warm digital medium.

New material released on CD in the formats early days wouldn't have suffered the same way.

There's nothing wrong with mastering or remastering records. It's what you choose to do in that process that's the problem. Hot Mastering to make everything loud is a huge problem. Remastering an old classic to bring it closer to the original vinyl release on CD is worthwhile.

Bill Door [Member] in response to: The Loudness War

Bill Door [Member] — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 16:01:28 +0000

There must have been a tiny tiny window (no more than a few years) where CD's sounded good. I have a stack load of old "AAD" (Analogue recorded, analogue mixed, digital output) CD's and they sound shite. When the Levee breaks sounds like some scrawny bloke hitting a tin paint can and there is always the terrible terrible hiss

The unremastered (is it a word, it is now!) Floyd albums I have from the 80's sound flatter than the mid nineties remastered too.

So, where CD's ever bloody worth having in the first place then?