new Rush CD problems

[Dan]

Hmmmm. Listening to "Vapor Trails" with a friend right now. SERIOUS problems! The newsgroups are full of complaints about it too. Now I know why the DVD-Audio disc wasn't simultaneously released like it was supposed to be.

Lots of digital distortion! The album is mastered VERY hot. We've listened through analog inputs and digital as well. It just doesn't sound good. The disc also tends not to want to read quickly on some CD players.

Howie Weinberg at MasterDisk mastered it. I don't blame him though. Reports are that Alex Lifeson of RUSH claims they had problems during the recording process.

Anyone else listen to it critically or have anything else to add?

[Drew]

Yeah! I mentioned something about it below in the new Van Morrision/new Rush thread. I think it sounds horrendous. The worst sounding Rush album they've ever done. And I know there are alot of people who claim to be their biggest fan... but they're all wrong. I am!

Some of the music underneath seems ok but I find it very difficult to believe that an album that sounds this compressed could be anything but intentional.

[Dan]

We (my friend and I) tend to think that there is a pressing problem. The disc reading problems have been mentioned by a few people.

We'll see, this could be like a Firestone tire recall!

[Holy Zoo]

I've only listened to the first track so far. It was in my car, and I wasn't listening that closely to the "sound" - I was listening to see if I liked the song (I did - a lot). Haven't heard the rest of the album though.

One thing I felt I had to do, though, after listening for about 20 seconds, was to turn the treble control down a few notches on my car stereo - seemed way too bright.

Anyways, I'll listen more carefully tomorrow and report back.

[Drew]

hey HZ... how do I attach pics in the forum? I have some interesting screen captures of this album... Nothing but saturation and cutoff.

[Dave]

Drew,

When I go into your link it says page unavailable.

[Drew]

Dave... I couldn't get it to work either so I deleted the post with the link.

[Uncle Al]

No Rush fan here (but no disrespect for three fantastic musicians), but Holy Gort - unless you have a super system in the auto - turning down the treble is a bad sign.

Now maybe some of you can understand how i felt about turning down the BASS on the latest Elvis Costello album. That disc is all compresion and "smiley" EQ (emphasis on the low end). Sad part is - the music is a defining moment in his career. The reviews of the latest Rush disc seem similar - they have "streamlined" their essence (no flames - this is a non-fan reading reviews), and the sound is so............ "current" that the life is sucked out.

Maybe I'm getting too old. I remember when I had to buy the sheet music to "Exile on Main Street" just to have half a clue as to what the lyrics might be.

Sometimes I wonder if we judge to harshly, but it always seemed to me that an artist's latest release ususally sounded better that the previous one (at least sonically). Maybe our criteria for judgement has changed (after all, how many would name the Velvet Undergrounds "White Light/White Heat" as a defining moment, despite the fact that it always sounded like *****), or maybe our favorite artists feel the pressure of competing with the latest discs by the youguns'?

Maybe I should go to bed.

[Holy Zoo]

Originally posted by Uncle Al
No Rush fan here (but no disrespect for three fantastic musicians), but Holy Gort - unless you have a super system in the auto - turning down the treble is a bad sign.


I dunno if it's super or not - but it is one of these new-fangled systems that has the tweeters way up at ear level in the corner of the window (you know - the place on old american cars where the little A-shaped window winglet that opened up used to be). The result is if something isn't balanced really well in that range, it tends to get overemphisized.

Steve's cds all sound great in my car, as does nearly every vinyl->cdr that I've made. Most recent rock cds that I've bought hurt my ears unless I turn the treble down a tad. Yeah, it gets a too mellow, but I find that preferable that thrashing my ears.

HZ

[Dave]

All I can say, after all you brave souls who bought the new Vapour Trails today, is :(

[clayton]

I purchased the Peter Gabriel re-masters and think they sound great, the biggest improvement is in the earlier titles, SO doesn't sound terrible just not that much better than the original.

[sjc]

Here is a link to an interview with Alex from a Canadian site. Some of the issues concerning the recording and mastering are mentioned. It is also interesting to note the band dynamics.. ...steve

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicRush/may7_rush-can.html

[KLM]

My Vapor Trails is on the way but I must say that from an audiophile standpoint, I have always thought the last several albums starting with Power Windows/Hold Your Fire have not sounded all that great. Now don't get me wrong, the music is great but the sound quality has benn so so; not very dynamic, bright sounding, compressed. It actually got worse as the music became more complex and layered such as with Counterparts and Test For Echo. So unfortunately, I am not surprised that the new album may not sound all that great. I will enjoy it for the songs.

It seems that many of their earlier albums didn't suffer from these problems and I expect that has to do with analog recording, less keyboards and layered complex musical passages and no 90's style compression.

[Sam]

The old Rush lp's sounded great. The stuff on cd from Hold your fire to now sounds like crap. I remember Hold your fire being touted as DDD. That's your answer for the most part. What a shame that Neil's drums aren't heard the way they should be. I will cherish my german lp pressings of Moving Pictures and 2112. Don't these guys listen to the finished product before they release it?? As much as I love Rush, their cd's were key in my getting rid of digital from my system.

[Drew]

I don't think you can say that that all Rush albums since Power Windows are compressed. I do think that the first 15 albums that were 20 bit remastered by Bob Ludwig have the "1 step forward and 2 steps backward" problem. I do think that most of the 20 bit remasters that came out in '98 have more detail than the original CD's but are very fatiguing. The 20 bit remastered Power Windows is about 6 db louder than the original CD but with less dynamic range. The 20 bit remastered 2112 is very shrill from the very first WHOOSH at the beginning of the album. I've heard people in this forum talk about the smile curve of the MFSL's but if they applied it to the 3 Rush titles they did, its far less obvious than the 20 bit remasters. MFSL 2112 and Moving Pictures sounds far more natural as far as tone.



But the new Rush album is far worse. The music is so loud its actually clipping in almost every song. I'll have to check out that interview with Alex Lifeson when I get the chance, but they spent most of last year in the studio working on this album claiming they didn't want to rush (pardon the pun) the creative process due to the multiple personal tradgedies in the life of drummer Neil Peart. If they recorded this album over the course of a couple weeks and wanted a raw, spontaneous sound I could understand it. But on first listen last night the only time I heard Geddy Lee's vocals sound uncompressed was the opening verse of the 3rd track "Ghost Rider". I sounds to me like the individual tracks of vocals and instrumentation are compressed and that was their intent before the mixing or mastering stage.


Just for the record, I really liked Counterparts. And even a 3 or 4 tracks on their last one: Test For Echo.

[efhjr]

I bought the CD yesterday. I've been enjoying the anticipation -- I haven't looked forward to a new album in a *long* time. For the record, I'm more a fan of "Signals" and earlier Rush. I just never got around to listening to their later records. But I think the songs from "Vapor Trails" are strong and confident -- this is the album Rush has had in them a long time but haven't been able to get out.

Anyway, I'm listening to the CD on my PC at work now -- playing it through WinAmp (with EQ off) and listening through a pair of cheap Jensen headphones. And man, is it fatiguing and bright. I just finished listening to two other CDs on this PC and they didn't bother me at all. I needed a break halfway through the third Rush song.

Sadly, I am not too keen to play this CD on my home system. Maybe my McIntosh tube amps and Maggies will warm it up a bit, but I doubt it. It's harsh, edgy, and seems to have a lot of digital brightness to it. It also seems to be the problems lie with the recording *and* the mastering, but I could be wrong on that. Beats me.

I'll give it a shot, anyway. Maybe I'll warm up to it after a few listens.

I am really hoping it's released on vinyl. And that the vinyl sounds as warm and natural as my beloved "Hemispheres" and "Caress of Steel" LPs.

[Drew]

I saw over on cdnow the new Rush will be out on vinyl first week of June.

[Beagle]

This is pretty sad, isn't it. I heard the same "clipping" distortion on the recent re-re-re-master of Ozzy's "No More Tears". Have commercial mastering engineers all gone deaf en masse?

[Uncle Al]

I'm beginning to think that we blame mastering engineers to harshly. After all - to quote Alex Lifeson in the linked interview, "To get the kind of levels (we wanted), we had digital distortion." Why do they want such exaggerated levels? Radio will add sufficient compression to ensure quiter passages are heard equally. Based on the descriptions given of the music, I wouldn't be overly concerned about such a broad dynamic range that passages dissapear when played in a car based player....

I think record producers and artists often force mastering engineers to make the levels hotter. So they boost and compress. What more can they do, who do they work for?

[Beagle]

Originally posted by Uncle Al
I think record producers and artists often force mastering engineers to make the levels hotter. So they boost and compress. What more can they do, who do they work for? You're correct, it's not necessarily the mastering engineer to blame. I find it pretty pathetic that a format with supposedly greater dynamic range is used to make loud flat lifeless recordings. Why were we getting so much better life and dynamics 25 years ago, hell 40 years ago!

?

[nashreed]

Exactly right about the Rush CD. It sounded completely lifeless played in my store today. A real drag to listen to (and that was in random). Why did everything else I had in there with it (including the old Sly and the Family Stone "Greatest Hits" CD) sound better? Why on earth would they release something that makes you think your speakers are cracked? A real shame. I certainly can't recommend it to customers, and I like Rush.:confused:

nashreed

[Holy Zoo]

Basically the same discussion is going on at the Rush forum... pretty interesting theories abound on what happened:

http://www.worldwidewebtour.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=006582

(btw, I think you have to register to read the board)

[Holy Zoo]

Hmm.. a thought (or question):

I noticed that the album is slated for release on vinyl in about a month.

Is there any chance that they vinyl itself would "mellow" the harsh sound at all?

[KeithH]

I have not bought Vapor Trails, but based on what I am reading here, I am in no hurry to do so. This is really bad news. I am tired of modern pop and rock CDs sounding so terribly compressed. Earlier this evening, I listened to the Alison Krauss Now That I've Found You: A Collection SACD followed by the Soul Asylum Black Gold: The Best Of Soul Asylum, both of which I bought a few days ago. I didn't expect the Soul Asylum CD to sound as good as the Krauss SACD, but despite this expectation, I was terribly disappointed with the sound of the Soul Asylum disc. Most songs sound like crap. It's a shame because I really like Soul Asylum.

[Dan]

Regarding the vinyl....I don't think it will sound better. I think the problem is inherent in either some of the original tracks, the finsihed master, or both. I find it hard to believe they will just leave this problem as-is. We'll see.