CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Music and Recordings => Topic started by: LFF on January 18, 2012, 04:44:53 PM
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When people hear my retail collection of CD's one of the first questions I get asked is the following one:
"How did you find this recording?"
Well...it's no big secret!! I read what is on the case! In some instances, I'll actually research a particular recording looking for certain information.
I have been saying this for years! Buy (re)masters done by engineers who know what they are doing and who give a shit about the actual music. Once again, here is a list of people I recommend going from best to worst (relatively speaking as they are all great and this is strictly in my humble opinion):
Steve Hoffman
Alan Yoshida
Roy DuNann
Barry Diament
Kevin Gray
Joe Tarrantino
George Horn
Paul Stubblebine
Bob Ohlsson
George Massenburg
Keith O. Johnson
Andrew Mendelson
Bob Ludwig
Bob Katz
Larry Walsh
Doug Sax
If any of these names are associated with what you are buying, chances are it will be a cut above the rest of the compressed crap out there.
The only mastering engineer I avoid like the plague is Bob Norberg UNLESS is was produced by Ron Furmanek. That's proof right there, that the producer can have a major impact as well. I would also consider the purchase if Bill Inglot was involved.
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Cool. This gives me an excuse to run over to Amoeba this weekend.
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Cool. This gives me an excuse to run over to Amoeba this weekend.
Ha! Maybe I shall see you there.... 8)
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Do you have any opinion of Rudy Van Gelder's remasters? I always see "RVG Edition" plastered all over old Blue Note and Prestige recordings. I always assumed those were the ones to get, but also remember reading somewhere that Charles Mingus didn't like using him.
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Do you have any opinion of Rudy Van Gelder's remasters? I always see "RVG Edition" plastered all over old Blue Note and Prestige recordings. I always assumed those were the ones to get, but also remember reading somewhere that Charles Mingus didn't like using him.
Did you see his name on the list on top?
'Nuff said.
Actually....
In his day, RVG was a brilliant engineer. He knew exactly how to EQ those LP's to sound amazing on those old console systems and low-end phonographs. His recording techniques were quite good as well and he was constantly experimenting. RVG didn't record something and re-dub it adding compression, echo, EQ, etc., he did it all live in real time while the music was being recorded. That's why all releases have echo, some compression, etc on them. If you have a flat transfer of the master tapes, you need to do some reverse mastering to get them to sound natural and sweet.
His current remasters are totally crap though. I avoid them like the plague. He had the actual STEREO masters to work from in most cases and he chose to collapse the stereo to nearly mono. As if that weren't enough, he really raised the high end on them. EQ'd them to sound unnaturally bad. Too add insult to injury, he compressed them by quite a bit as well. Some are much worse than others and you really have to judge them on a case by case basis.
It's a shame I am not at home or else I would post actual samples....
Anyway...here is a sample waveform of the typical RVG remaster compared to a nearly flat Japanese transfer:
(http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/xx92/FirePhoenixAudio/BlueTrainCompare.jpg)
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Here is RVG vs. my remaster of Lee Morgan's "Tom Cat":
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f8/LeeMorgan08.jpg/220px-LeeMorgan08.jpg)
RVG:
(http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/xx92/FirePhoenixAudio/RVGTOMCAT.jpg)
LFF:
(http://i745.photobucket.com/albums/xx92/FirePhoenixAudio/MYTOMCAT.jpg)
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Oh wow. Those graphs really illustrate the story there. Thanks for that.
It's a shame it's so hard to just tell from the CD case what's the good recording or not. You pick up two copies of the same CD, the average person will usually go for the "Special RVG Master Series Edition".
This list of engineers certainly is a good reference.
Now, the real question is, where does one buy the LFF version? 8)
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i hate the loudness war. i still don't understand why it's still going on since lot of people already complained to the record labels about it especially after the most horrible sounding Metallica's Death Magnetic album came out. these people should be punched in the face and be set on fire. no wonder people my age tend to have severe high frequency hearing loss cause bad dynamics=bad piercing/sharp,unbearable treble/top-end response. listening fatigue never existed till the loudness war began. you never heard someone during the 70's say something sounds ''fatiguing''. you hear it all the time though nowadays but they still do it.
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I don't agree with that. The fatigue I get from headphones isn't from the loudness war. If I have a problem with a peaky headphone I have it no matter when the album was recorded, mastered, etc. Compressed music isn't great, but it doesn't sound nearly as bad as something like a GS1000.
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i know that can be it of course. speakers too. just saying it was not much of a problem back then as it is now.
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It's not always easy to know who did the (re)mastering before buying. It's almost never written on the CD sleeve, and sometimes it's not written anywhere. How can you know, then (unless you have connections)? Another problem is that some early cd masters in the 80s sounded quite "cold" (with poor bass) compared to vinyl. So now we have to choose between those, or compressed remasters?
Though they're not on the list, I would like to have LFF's opinion about Peter Mew (did the Marillion, UFO and some Whitesnake remasters and they are not very much compressed and sound close to the original vinyls), Andy Pearce & Matt Wortham (the Thin Lizzy Remasters, sound good too and un/lightly compressed) and James Guthrie (Pink Floyd).
What's wrong with the Led Zeppelin remasters? They don't seem highly compressed. George Marino did worse on the AC/DC remasters (the Ted Sterling's were better IMOHO).
As for Bob Ludwig, he did so many "loud" highly compressed remasters recently (Nirvana, Queen) that I wonder whether his name is still a reference.
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I think Peter Mew did the recent David Bowie Let's Dance remaster (talked about somewhere on this site). The noise-reduction seemed overdone and the treble was kicked up a bit too (from the original CD which was already bright).
I dunno, I get the feeling that these guys are being pushed by the studios to do their evil bidding. I wish some of these guys who have done good work in the past would remove their names from the credits of the shit remaster jobs (or commit suicide.)
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Gosh, you're right Purrin: Peter Mew did the Let's Dance remaster! Though I trust your ears more than mine to call it bright, I listened to SACD rip and to my ears and with my far from neutral set-up (LCD-3/Lyr with E188CC) I must confess I didn't find it overly bright. Treble might be a little pushed but bass didn't seemed shelved. Is it possible that the CD used a brighter master than the one the SACD? Or is it just that, even modded, the LCD-3 colored the sound too much and masked the bright sound? ;D
Overall, though not perfect, I still prefer a remaster to be slightly off tonewise than overly compressed crap: one can adjust tone with EQ, while a brickwalled master cannot be corrected. The lesser of two evils... :(
And though I am angry and depressed that so many remasters are crap and I think the guys who did those remasters should be ashamed, I am even more angry with the executives who authorize/push these poor masters to us. They are even more responsible, as they have the final decision in their hands and choose to butcher the sound. ::)
It's the same with video: even Blu-rays are plagued with excess DNR (to the point of removing the grain that was on the original negative) and edge enhancement >:(.
Bernie Grundman did a lot of remasters. What's wrong with him?
And yes, the good question is: where can you find LFF's remasters? ;)