Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits on vinyl, bad pressing ???

I am not sure if it is just mine, but I have just bought RW Greatest Hits, on vinyl, but it sounds awful ! The sounds stage width, height and depth are really small, it almost sounds comes out of a letterbox !

I wondered if anyone else had bought this and had the same experiences.

 

Not surprised - most modern pop vinyl is manufactured without a jot of care IMO. There are some exceptions like the new elbow album, which sounds fine to me.

Also, before the analogue cutting minefield, you have to first assume that they actually took any care & diligence in mastering the original recording, which is not ususally the case.

Pretty sure its all mashed up in pro-tools anyway....

DT

 

Are you sure it's not just the "musical" content? <duck>

Seriously now though - an awful lot of modern pop sounds blinkin' awful - no dynamics, and as DT says, Pro-Tools has a lot to answer for!

 

Ah, yes.

The problem here is indeed the poor quality music & probably pressing, too.

RW is infamous for palming off 3rd rate re-hashed soft rock & pop crap, passing off re-used melodies & hooks as his own. He is bereft of any discernable talent & is basically out to cynically rob poor chaps of their hard earned money in exchange for as little of his effort as possible.

To be avoided.

 

Blimey, poor chap asks a civil question only to get his musical tastes eviscerated .

As folks have said though probably a combination of duff recording techniques and careless mastering. Bet it sounds shiite on CD too.

 

Pro Tools has nowt to answer for!
It'll quite happily work at 24 bit 192KHz, as well as at MP3 rates. It has a very full range of effects, and emulators of all sorts of vintage compression etc. And it's not exactly cheap rubbish (I know, I bought one when I worked for Auntie Beeb...)
If engineers and producers choose to use Pro Tools as a device to cock up records, surely that's their fault and not of Pro Tools!

 

Leonard - Would it be fair to suggest that Pro Tools, like a lot of modern "improvements" (digital cameras are another such thing which springs to mind), on the one hand allow those willing to invest the time and effort to do something really good, but on the other allow the lazy and careless to more easily produce something shoddy and "that will do"? - rather than learning to use the tools of their craft properly.

 

I don't think so - it was just as easy to cock up a recording back in the days of multiple 1/4s, or 2" players and Neve outboards.
If anything, it's easier to produce a good product with Pro Tools as everything is there on the screen in front of you, with no rewind times, no fiddling about with patch bays or bouncing tracks to lose another generation of quality.
It's just that chart music is mixed for radio play (compressed to something like 4dB dynamic range) or ghetto blasters from Argos... No point spending time with minute details of phase and resolution if it sounds worse on the target market's gear!

 

Then ... there is no hope :cry:

 

So it is not just me then !

 

Not if you like stuff by The Fat Dancer From Take That

 

You have a point ... I don't ... but I do like quite a lot of indie stuff ... a lot of which is sounding shonkier and shonkier as the years go by. Anyhows ... I'm not sure I entirely buy this argument. Whether or not its to your taste - I had a spin of some Frankie Goes to Hollywood a while back and it was incredibly well produced - and bloody dynamic too. I remember it sounding pretty damned good on the radio at the time as well.

 

Mebbe his producer was cheap then

 

Mebbe Mr Rock Star doesn't give a sh*t

Mebbe he never listens to his own records on those whopping great speakers of his

 

New Belle & Sebastian album sounds great on vinyl. Single CD spread across two LPs - really top notch.

All is not lost!

Rich

 

Maybe that's the problem, perhaps PMC's don't show up the differences

 

Good old Trevor Horn - see "ABC" for further kick arse examples of how pop music SHOULD sound!

Remember - it ain't over til the fat dancer sings