CD's Released after after year 2000 That Are "NOT" Compressed/Brickwalled/Loud

Can you help me out?

Is the mastering good or bad for a modern pop record? (urgent reply needed, somebody in the "bizz" told me that Belgian mastering jobs are less loud and brickwalled than UK & UK mastering).

 

Yup. One of the good guys.

 

I haven't listened to it so I can't really say how it *sounds*. It's funny, some engineers are able to get relatively compressed material to sound like it has some life in it, even though the waveforms look terrible. Some of Emily Lazar's work is like this. I think she is a pretty good engineer (although there are some stinkers in her oeuvre) Some of the waveforms of her masterings look brickwalled but in fact sound decent. Not sure what "tricks" she employs to do this. It also makes me wonder how good her stuff would sound if she didn't use so much compression--probably very good, but industry practice (i.e., brickwalling) seems to have gotten the better of her.

Anyway, some of the waveforms you posted look very compressed, some of them less so. The *very compressed* tracks are about average for today's mastering, although the tracks with lighter compression look okay, at least in comparison to the norm today.

 

Mix Online has an interesting quote from Emily Lazar:

http://mixonline.com/recording/applications/audio_follow_vocal/

 

edit

 

the Allan Holdsworth -Road Games Japanese mini is compressed . but i found that the Japanese Mini of Metal Fatigue, IOU, Atavachron and Sand are nice. i believe these use the same AH label remastering

 

OK thanks very much ... To me the track 1 and 2 seem "too compressed".

 

What do you think about this album?



01 Glass
http://img821.imageshack.us/i/01glass.jpg/

02 Sleep Alone
http://img101.imageshack.us/i/02sleepalone.jpg/

03 Moon and Moon
http://img200.imageshack.us/i/03moonandmoon.jpg/

04 Daniel
http://img444.imageshack.us/i/04daniel.jpg/

05 Peace Of Mind
http://img576.imageshack.us/i/05peaceofmind.jpg/

06 Siren Song
http://img85.imageshack.us/i/06sirensong.jpg/

07 Pearl's Dream
http://img811.imageshack.us/i/sdream.jpg/

08 Good Love
http://img339.imageshack.us/i/08goodlove.jpg/

09 Two Planets
http://img841.imageshack.us/i/09twoplanets.jpg/

10 Travelling Woman
http://img834.imageshack.us/i/10travellingwoman.jpg/

11 The Big Sleep
http://img248.imageshack.us/i/11thebigsleep.jpg/

 

I think the Brian Eno remasters are not compressed and sound just great

 

Keane
Hopes and Fears
Deluxe Edition

One of those rare cases where the remaster has less compression.

 

Remarkable how much the opinions are differing among the audiophile fans at this audiophile site. I know tastes are differing, but I noticed here really complete opposites. How is that possible?

 

Well, whether not something is brickwalled or compressed is not really down to taste. That is soemthing that is objective and not decided by opinion.

Whether or not something is loud, that certainly is subjective.

Therefore, for the purposes of this thread, I have tried to stick with the objective stuff.

 

Not the last one (Wilco the album). It's squashed to hell in several spots.

- - - -

The Villagers (2010)

Karen Elson - The Ghost Who Walks (2010)

most of the Spoon releases

Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, The River In Reverse

The last two Shelby Lynne titles

All of the Yep Roc Nick Lowe titles.

Hal - s/t

 

Okay, now that we've all had our leg pulled, let's get back to the subject at hand.

 

I think her Shins cds sound really decent, but I have not heard
much of her other work. Can't name any of it, actually.
I suppose it's possible that she's been handed some jacked up
compressed mixes and was forced to work from those. Not the case
with the Shins, obviously. Mercer seems to know what he's doing.
I adore his records.

 

What is the theory as to why these albums do not fall in the categories mentioned above? Is this the artist wanting these albums recorded this way? Are producers reading about all the complaints in these threads and making adjustments? Any chance the tide turns back and things are done the way they were in the 80s or are these just exceptions to the rule?

 

Tracks 3, 5 & 11 look really good, tracks 7& 9 look flat out awful!!!
The others look compressed but bearable.

 

Anything by Dave Alvin

 

These waveforms look better than average to me for a post 2000 cd.
I see worse than this every week!

 

The Rolling Stones SACDs sound really processed,
the Dylan's really shriek from a boost in the 6k-10k range.
I would not rate either of these catalogs as decent sounding across the board.

Neither of those are anywhere near the quality of the average Audio Fidelity or Sundazed titles.
As for the Beatles stereo remasters . . . don't get me started!

 

Greg Calbi's recent Dylan vinyl sounds great, but some of the cd counterparts
of those titles have obviously been tampered with. Did he master them badly just for the cd? Doubt it!

His original mastering on cd of 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts' (Eno/Byrne) sounds
twice as good as his remastered-with-bonus-tracks version of the same title!

 

I don't know if anyone's see this article on Weezer's Red Album from 2008:

More here:-
http://mixonline.com/recording/tracking/music-weezer/

Of course, the follow up album, 'Raditude' was brickwalled.

Weezer have just signed to Epitaph and have been making noises about no longer needing to adhere to major label demands with the release of their new album 'Hurley', due out next month or so. Whether this is reflected in the mastering remains to be heard.