crap sound quality...

hi guys - my lady bought some cd's yesterday - and one of them was Ami winehouse (forget the name, but it's a black cover!)

anyway, the sound quality's crap...so flat and the bass just stinks...the same goes for that hard-fi (stars of cctv...)...maybe they're meant for the mp3 market..? as in most people who buy it was simply pop in on their mp3 player?

where does the buck lie with this? - sound engineer..? - why..? - laziness, cost...?

are their any main culprites of this (i.e. record labels etc?)

I know this has been covered times before...

 

A lot of recordings are now compressed to buggery to ensure that they are as loud as you can go and that they are optimised for playing on media with a limited bandwidth (which used to be radio but now is mp3 or other lossy compressed streaming audio or mobile phone) and since that's how most consumers listen to their music now, fidelity is no longer a consideration.

It will get worse. Music is a product, a commodity and a money maker. It ain't art any more.

 

The Cranberries...

Hello, I remember quite a few years back buying a Cranberries album on CD and it was dreadful. It was extremely loud and thrash and brash and compressed to hell. I bought the same album on yellow vinyl and it was a joy to behold. It had been completely remastered and was superb. It can be done if they want...!

 

Cranberries?, terrible?, surely not?


Are you sure it was the Cranberries you bought on vinyl? tee hee...

 

Are there good labels and poor labels?

 

not sure...would be interesting to find out...

 

As the exact opposite of that, I remember Neil Young's "Ragged Glory" was superbly done on CD and was ghastly on vinyl.

With regards to good and bad labels, the problem is usually with the producer not the label.

 

The Winehouse CD is a well known 'dog' audio wise.

I was listening to a compilation given away as a cover CD on a magazine highlighting the up and coming releases using my new headphones (ATH-AD700's) and 90% of them sounded dreadful, huge amounts of distortion and clipping. Never would have gotten away with it 10 or more years ago.

Shameful. I also blame PC/MAC home recording studios. Members of the public shouldnt have access to such things.

 

I'm confused - how would that stop albums like "Back to Black" sounding toss?

 

Has anyone heard the Adelle CD...? It is yet another recorded at a very high level and constantly breaks up into distortion at certain points. Personally I think it is now a matter of the music industry assuming that most folk are listening via iPods and Godawful MP3 files. I am fairly sure it's a case of getting away with it because they think they can. As a result of that I don't blame anyone for making bootlegs and illegals.

 

The record companies aren't 'getting away' with anything. The bulk pf sales have always been about the tune that you can hum or the most 'in' artist.

Most people don't care about the quality of music. Never have, really they want a convenient format to hear the tune, not the production.

 

No matter how 'in' the artist happens to be, if people don't buy the music, the record company don't make the money. The music industry now knows it can get away with producing crap recordings and generally crap quality because it relys on idiots who don't care. These same people are happy with the dreadful quality now marketed as MP3's and the like, therefore the music industry do in fact, get away with it.

 

The music industry has always done that because, as you agree, the majority of consumers don't care.

However, because they don't match our minoity view of acceptible standards of fidelity, you seem to suggest that this puts the record companies somehow in the wrong.

I don't like it any more than you but I think it's a case of how lucky we've been for a few years with the quality of releases and now it's going back to how it was. Just think how awful most singles and cassettes sounded back in the 70s - and they sold by the ton.

 

Given the appalling quality of most of the musical content being released by the major labels, i don't think it Matters much how badly the recordings are mastered. I think it is up to the artists rather than the labels to ensure decent quality sound - that is, at least, those who have the integrity to care how their music is represented

 

Mmmm... lbr, I have to agree with you. A case in point is Eleanor McEvoy who takes full control over the recording and final production of her CD's, SACD's and vinyl records. If she can do it and be inherently proud of her pieces, why can't others. Christ, she even goes as far as to tell the listener what cables were used in the recording.

 

Good point but it can be the case that an artist is (contractually) bound do have an engineer and producer 'do' the recording. In fact, most 'new' chart acts are probably in that position and it's only those who have been in the business longer who can control it.

This is actually one of the good things about the 'net and the democratisation of the music making process. It enables people to produce music under their total control well away from (major) label influence.

 

its a shame that a lot of good music gets recorded so poorly. I just received my copy of "the stokes: is this it" which is by all accounts a great album with some fantastic tracks.

However, it sounds bloody dreadfull... thin, tizzy, splashy, and lacking any kind of real bass. I can only listen to it at pretty low levels, because even at that level it sounds too loud.

A real shame, because i want to enjoy the music, but its almost impossible to enjoy something so poorly recorded.

 

That damn Duffy disc is just horrible. My mate likes her so much that I feel I ought to blame the production (which hurts), but I'm not entirely convinced that it isn't her voice as well (also hurts).

She was surprisingly acceptable on Jool's new year show, but still screechy.