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Thread: BWGK on Vinyl
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Old 11-01-2010, 05:37 AM   #558
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Re: BWGK on Vinyl

Quote:
Originally Posted by dobyblue View Post
It's mastered from a separate 24-bit source as per Sterling Sound.

It's pretty squished to begin with, but boy they really did a number on the CD. The vinyl is definitely better, you can really hear it on Dive In and LITHOG. It's not a shining example of mastering done right, but it's a much more enjoyable sonic experience than the CD.

The difference between the CD and the vinyl is quite striking, here's a comparison between Why I Am:

1) The CD:

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4...mparison50.png

Brickwalled to death! Clipping is not being viewed here, but there's plenty of it.

2) The vinyl:

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/139...mparison50.png

However the only DMB CD that's really worth mentioning when it comes to mastering is Stand Up. Dynamic Range Compression is at a minimum, so is clipping, brickwalling and limiting, not so with UTTAD, Crash, BTCS, Everyday and Busted Stuff.

I'll quote some of what I said on the Steve Hoffman forums a while back that illustrates the differences and shows just how much better Stand Up is than any other DMB CD, what a shame this isn't how the big three were mastered. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the worst CD's, Everyday notwithstanding as Glen Ballard likely cocked that one up well before it got to Bob Ludwig, are all mastered by Ted Jensen @ Sterling Sound. Crash, UTTAD, BTCS and BWGK were all made worse in some way by Ted Jensen.

Crash suffers from a massive amount of clipping and is a prime example of the loudness war, whereas BTCS suffers from too much dynamic range compression. UTTAD is the most well-mastered of the big three, but Stand Up is actually better as there appears to be very little drc.

All examples here are from lossless 100% EAC rips of the original US CD releases.

UTTAD - Nancies

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/5...omparis.th.jpg

There really is no reason for this to be as loud as it is, but it's the best of the big three; limited use of compression and limiting because because there's no clipping and those peaks needed to go somewhere, decent amount of dynamic range.

Crash - Tripping Billies

http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/3...omparis.th.jpg

Blech! Massive amounts of clipping, heck even Let You Down has clipping on it! DIDO, Two Much and Billies are the worst culprits. This album needs to be redone. It's the worst of the big three.

BTCS - Rapunzel

http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/924...parison.th.jpg

I don't know, look at the last minute of this song, there seems to be no dynamics at all, it's too loud! This it what an Oasis record looks like.

Stand Up - Louisiana Bayou

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/3...parison.th.jpg

In comparison, Stand Up looks much more like UTTAD, there's no clipping, lots of dynamics which Nancies seems to lose in the louder parts of the songs, it's not perfect, but it looks better than Crash or BTCS to me.

Chinese Democracy - Shackler's Revenge

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/4...acklers.th.jpg

This is a heavy metal song - how come it looks so much better than any of the DMB examples? This is why I look forward to remastering all of the albums, DMB's dynamic should result in a more dynamic sound than a heavy metal band, they do in the live scenario. There's no excuse for it.
Always a good read! I do appreciate you're analysis of these.
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