Question about today's LP mastering and final sound.

[dennilfloss]

Gonna set my sound system again soon and pondering about buying the LP version of an album instead of the CD version. My main concern is the loudness war phenomenon that makes many of the recent crop of CDs sound so bad. I prefer the sound of LPs I own that were pressed during the classic 70s-80s period (even most K-Tel compilation crappy LPs where they overuse the RIAA equalization curve to make the grooves much thinner to cram more songs on the record) and older CDs to recent CDs. It's subjective. However, if new LPs are mastered the same way as CDs from the last decade and are also affected by the clipping, uniform loudness and smaller dynamic smaller dynamic range during the recording & mastering, prior to making the master press, then there is little point in me buying LPs over CDs as the warmness will be sucked out by the sound engineers before it has a chance to end up on the master vinyl.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

So for those who have both 70s-80s LPs and recent LPs in their collection, do they sound similar or do the new ones sound harsher, colder and 'crowded with sound everywhere' because they use just the same mastering of the piece imprinted on a different medium? Can the qualities of vinyl in terms of dynamic range overcome enough of the bad habits expected by executives from their sound engineers to matter to my ears? I mean, if it's garbage audio at the mastering level, it will still sound like garbage when pressed on vinyl...

 

[Drako]

What is this "LP" that you speak of ?

 

[Platypus]

It totally depends unfortunately.

I have modern LPs (last 10 years) that have a totally different mix than their CD counterparts and I also have modern LPs with no dynamic range at all, aka the same mix as their CD counterparts. A good case in point for this was that utter abortion of a new Metallica album a few years ago. The CD and Vinyl versions both got raped but the version of the audio that made it into a videogame was not given the same treatment.. so people just ripped it out of the game to listen to that version which is, although much better, still utter shite

So thats the rub in my experience. Your best bet would be to go to a proper record shop that lets you listen before you buy.

 

[Platypus]

It also largely depends on the band and the medium. You can bet that a band that cares enough to put out their album on 180g vinyl and at 45rpm is going to have a proper mix on it, but I'm sure there's an album somewhere that proves me wrong.

 

[spidey07]

Vinyl simply won't let you clip. The recent vinyl recordings are still quite good and superior to their compressed CDs. But again it's all in the master recording and what they do with it.

 

[mmntech]

Audio levels should PEAK at between -12dB and -6dB for proper sound. This is what I was taught in editing audio for broadcast. That's pretty much the industry standard, for tv and radio that is.

Here's an example of it for those who don't know what we're talking about. I took Something by The Beatles from two CDs.

First the 1990 release of Abby Road.




Next, The Beatles "1" compilation album from 2000.




This video that explains the issue visually. It also explains a bit of what Spidey07 said about vinyl not clipping. Take a look at the part where he discusses how the loudness treatment cuts data out of the song. So the reduced volume version they put to LP but still wouldn't be the original waveform.

So why do record labels do this when it destroys the quality of music. Well the video goes into it a bit. It creates the illusion of sounding better. Especially in an era of portable music where the player is likely to be using weak internal amplifiers and low quality headphones. The signal loss isn't so noticeable on these devices but it gives that loudness that people seem to like.

Nobody uses hi-fi audio equipment anymore so the industry considers it an acceptable trade-off. I think this is why a lot of audiophiles swear up and down that vinyl sounds better. Old vinyl does because it isn't over-processed.

 

[NutBucket]

In general, new LPs tend to be better than CD versions.

So really, its a crapshoot. If you're not satisfied, you should definitely let the record company know about it.

 

[mmntech]

For shits and giggles, here's the original LP version of Something from 1969.


It's gotten about eight times louder in 30 years!

 

[spidey07]

What was the biggest complaint when dolby digital 5.1 and DTS came about? "Why do I have to turn my volume up so loud to hear everything! Explosions are loud and a bird tweeting is soft! This sucks!"

No you big dummy, that's incredible dynamic range and realism! A bird isn't as loud as a building blowing up or a gunshot.

 

[mugs]

What was the biggest complaint when dolby digital 5.1 and DTS came about? "Why do I have to turn my volume up so loud to hear everything! Explosions are loud and a bird tweeting is soft! This sucks!"

No you big dummy, that's incredible dynamic range and realism! A bird isn't as loud as a building blowing up or a gunshot.

It's not the bird tweeting people care about, it's the dialogue. A lot of people don't want to have "realistic" explosions that are uncomfortably loud in order to be able to hear the actors talking.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

It's not the bird tweeting people care about, it's the dialogue. A lot of people don't want to have "realistic" explosions that are uncomfortably loud in order to be able to hear the actors talking.

100% agreed. I don't want my movies to have realistic dynamic range - gunshots and explosions are fucking loud. I watch movies for entertainment, not to have my hearing damaged just so I can hear dialog.

 

[spidey07]

It's not the bird tweeting people care about, it's the dialogue. A lot of people don't want to have "realistic" explosions that are uncomfortably loud in order to be able to hear the actors talking.

I know, and we're getting way off topic but the nighttime feature was put in specifically for that purpose. It normalized the incredible dynamic range you had in a real movie theater. You can easily take away range but you can never get it back.

 

[IGBT]

Nearly all vinyl LP's are now made via digital master. So there's no escape of the 1's and 0's.

 

[Rubycon]

Garbage in, garbage out!

THE issue is not digital domain (or 0s and 1s) but the processing that's going into the mastering process.

As far as movies are concerned the soundtracks are doing a fairly decent job of preserving dynamic range. HOWEVER the latest trend is to push the music too loud in them often fouling the clarity of the dialogue!

I cannot believe consumer playback equipment fails at controlling dynamics and focus of the dialogue. Especially with 5.1/7.1 setups. In the pro world this is very easy to manage. Many times the musical score is too hot and needs to be dialed down to prevent the dialogue channel from flailing the audience to center row! This could be achieved fairly well with a few DSPs on midfi receivers. Certainly not what a rack full of processors costing $600k can do but certainly better than just making everyone at home a volume knob jockey! Another function that could be added is a commercial tamer.

If the movie soundtracks are excessively RMS normalized the impact is gone forever. Once it's castrated it's gone for good.

 

[mmntech]

Nearly all vinyl LP's are now made via digital master. So there's no escape of the 1's and 0's.

It's not digital that's the problem but what they do with it. You can get a vary high quality audio file recorded at 192khz/24-bit that's transparent to a good analogue recording. It's slopping audio editing that causes the problem.

 

[IGBT]

It's not digital that's the problem but what they do with it. You can get a vary high quality audio file recorded at 192khz/24-bit that's transparent to a good analogue recording. It's slopping audio editing that causes the problem.

all that is true. But the vast majority of "golden ear" vinyl is digital master not analog. So many of these guys buying the "golden ear" stuff think it's analog master and would jump off the roof if they knew the truth.

 

[Anubis]

It's not the bird tweeting people care about, it's the dialogue. A lot of people don't want to have "realistic" explosions that are uncomfortably loud in order to be able to hear the actors talking.

adjusting the center channel +2-3 normally fixes that issue really easily

 

[Dubb]

For shits and giggles, here's the original LP version of Something from 1969.


It's gotten about eight times louder in 30 years!

Probably not really a good example. The RMS values of a digital file sourced from an LP will depend a lot more on the recording chain between the turntable and HD than on the mastering of the LP.

Does that file even peak anywhere near 0dBu?

 

[NL5]

It's not digital that's the problem but what they do with it. You can get a vary high quality audio file recorded at 192khz/24-bit that's transparent to a good analogue recording. It's slopping audio editing that causes the problem.

LOL. Too rich.........

 

[Ns1]

relevant to the OP's interests:

Long interview, very recent. Talks about recent masters (Coldplay, RHCP), famous masters (Death Magnetic), the "good ol days", and "the future".

so the debut album has been mixed, sequenced, titled, and the artwork is underway, with the tapes' next stop being Gateway Mastering Studios and into the hands(and ears) of legendary kingpin Mr. Bob Ludwig. and here you can check out his recent podcast interview that explains the fine art of mastering, including lots of anecdotes that apply to today's current musical landscape. *highly recommended listening for anyone into music in general!* enjoy!

http://freezingprocess.net/mediafolder/episode48.mp3

If you have interests in audio mastering you NEED to listen to this.