Albums ruined by poor mastering

[danofmayz]

Rush Vapour Trails, you are guaranteed to have an headache listening to the album all the way through. Compressed to hell.

Totally agree with that one!

[Drarok]

I'm far from knowledgeable on the subject, but I do know that I hate the "pumping" effect used on basically every boom-tish song in the UK charts (not to mention how awfully boring most of it is). I did have to chuckle at Metallica's St Anger being mentioned, as it reminded me of this abomination:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odVbjYeeCiU

Oh, and I put forward Saosin's self-titled album. In particular, the intro to "Come Close" is ruined by a crossfade from the previous track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PookmGJRQcM

Just... What is that noise?!?!? ARGH!

[Bert]

List your top picks here.

/R

Oh dear... I am guaranteed to anger Bert so let's hope he doesn't pop his head in.  

Culprit number one - the Genesis remix/remasters from 2007-2008 (stereo CD versions.) My favourite quote about these from someone on another board.... "Who knew cymbals could sound like glass breaking, and be mixed so loud that they are the lead instrument?" By contrast, the 5.1 mixes are dialled back a tiny bit so that they're at least listenable. I really wish these had been done more in the style of the Floyd / Queen / Beatles remasters.

As for new albums, unfortunately I find them all over the place, even in our lovely field of prog.

I was listening to Martin Orford's "The Old Road" yesterday, great album, but distorted all over the place. The Tangent's "Down and Out in Paris and London" is perhaps even worse, I genuinely thought something was wrong with my copy (perhaps it is.)

I'm going to stop there before I offend anyone who might actually stick their nose into this board...  

James just doesn't like hearing the bass on the old Genesis albums. They are, by several light years, better than any previous mix.

Going For the One has been remastered a couple of time I think, but not in the modern idiom using the latest techniques but sounds pretty good.

Vapor Trials was massacred in the mastering just goes to show that bands don't know how to listen. I cannot believe they signed-off on that album.

[D S]

Culprit number one - the Genesis remix/remasters from 2007-2008 (stereo CD versions.) My favourite quote about these from someone on another board.... "Who knew cymbals could sound like glass breaking, and be mixed so loud that they are the lead instrument?" By contrast, the 5.1 mixes are dialled back a tiny bit so that they're at least listenable. I really wish these had been done more in the style of the Floyd / Queen / Beatles remasters.

Damn you James!   I bought these remixed versions of Nursery Crymes, Foxtrot and Selling England a couple of weeks ago and after reading this, I now can only hear cymbals!  :lol:   (Similar comments I read on here previously about Matt Bellamy alway taking a sharp intake of breath before every line means I can't listen to Muse in the same way anymore - I must be susceptable to suggestion!  8-))
Notwithstanding that, I agree with Bert that they are miles better than the original 1990s versions I have on CD.  The bass pedals really stand out with a deep growl now, offsetting the high-end cymbals to some degree.  Still, I can understand why Peter Gabriel banned cymbals on PG 3 and 4 now!

[LivingForever]

To be fair, the Gabriel era ones are the least bad... the 76-82 ones are the worst.

It's funny how differently people can hear things.  

[Mikey]

To be fair, the Gabriel era ones are the least bad... the 76-82 ones are the worst.

Which ones are in 76-82 time?

[mr_john]

To be fair, the Gabriel era ones are the least bad... the 76-82 ones are the worst.

Which ones are in 76-82 time?

 :lol:

[Fat Bastard]

It's often hard to tell whether it's poor mastering or poor mixing unless we're talking about re-masters of classic albums (even then they sometimes re-mix as well )

The problem I hear more and more these days is less to do with true 'mastering' by mastering engineers in mastering suites but the common myth that 'mastering' can be done by anyone and is just a case of strapping a multiband compressor and a brick wall limiter to the stereo buss of your DAW or mixer of choice to make it as loud as possible...all the time. That massive difference between professional mastering engineer with dedicated mastering equipment and years of experience as a mastering engineer ( as opposed to a Sound Engineer )  and the 'jack of all trades' - Masterer of none !

Mastering is an art form of its own with a very unique and very different set of rules, gear and experience needed by those few  who are good at it

Fats.

[El_Mayonnaise]

Have you guys been over the the Mike Portnoy forums lately? There's been a huge amount of threads on mastering vs mixing etc

Some really heated (and sometimes pathetic) arguments going on.

Each to their own but those saying "Oh I can't listen to x because it's brickwalled/I can hear the limiter/ it sounds like the Bus is late/ I'm making these up/the clippings are all over the new furniture" really do my head in!

The only album I can maybe hear some example of bad mastering/mixing is Death Magnetic (?) it just sounds a bit stuffy....someone will know what I mean.

The biggest argument over there seems to be about Dream Theater's new album A dramatic turn of events with the usual "Can't listen to it/ Can't connect because of the keyboards being to forward in the mix/ Old dream theater was better, even though I complained about those too."


There was this thread, right, about time signatures, yeah, and there was a massive argument, yeah, about time signatures in a pop song. That was a doozy.

[owen]

Led Zep 2. I had the LP second hand, worn to buggery, and someone invented CD's. When my albums got nicked (25+ yrs later it still pisses me off) I bought one and got LZ2. Dreadful. Turns out the original tapes were damaged in a fire. Even in the state it was my old record made it unlistenable. Jimmy Page remastered the lot about 10 yrs ago and I bought Remasters which sounds proper again. I assume they've remastered the original release, too?

[JimD]

Isn't it the case that some of the early CD versions of Zep have the channels swapped?  I've never had their stuff on vinyl so wouldn't know, but I bet that was a shock to a die hard listener if it was true.

I've not really got golden enough ears to know when an album is badly mastered or not, but I do remember Faith No More's "The Real Thing" sounding insanely good in the early 90's in a club setting, so I guess that meant hearing it on CD and pumping out through a big rig.  But I've always been surprised by how small it sounds on my own CD, especially compared to other rock records.  Maybe it was a case of them maxing out what was expected in 1989/1990 from a rock record, and then subsequent tech allowing for a different audio experience.  I remember someone saying on the radio how the Smashing Pumpkins records were early examples of rock with very wide ranging audio.  I like a bit of Smashing Pumpkins now and again but can never manage a whole LP however!

Porcupine Tree stuff has always sounded really good to me.  Deadwing has some great light and shade on it for example.  I think I read somewhere that SW is not fond of super loud records.

[EVP]

Pretty much everything by The Mars Volta but especially the last 3 albums.
The most recent one "Noctourniquet" just does my head in. Not only the mastering
but the music as well. The music of their earlier efforts makes up for it though
especially "Frances The Mute"