Compression etc

[dclaassen]

Old guy rant warning…

 

So, I was listening to some older music on Prime Music in the car. “Superstition “ came up, and I was really struck by how thin the sound was. I remember the depth of sound on the vinyl original…and this was not that. All compression and lots of midrange. So, I started listening to other tracks with an ear out for what was missing, and the results were grim.

 

Then, I reflected on how some you fine folks set your sound…all midrange and compression.

 

 Is that really the sound you want? It’s definitely not the sound I am after….what am I missing?

[BigRedX]

There's a whole host of problems here and it could be any one of them or several in combination.

 

1. How good is the sound system in your car? IME most are fairly average.

 

2. Is is a stream or a download from Amazon Prime that you are listening to? Do you know what data compression has been used and how much has been applied?

 

3. Do you know how this version of "Superstition" was created?

 

The sad fact is that for a lot of older recordings (almost everything before CDs became mainstream in the 90s) the original master tapes have been lost or destroyed, and what is easily available is what is known as a "production" master, and it may already have additional EQ and level compression applied. Back in the day when there was only vinyl as a serious delivery medium that didn't matter. The production master was set up for cutting vinyl and that's what it was used for. It meant that every time it was used to make a new acetate for record manufacturing it would sound the same as the previous one, and all the pressings wherever they were produced  would sound the same as each other (within the limitations of what vinyl can reproduce).

 

As soon as it starts getting used for other media there are problems, because the production master hasn't been created for the purposes of making CDs/streams/digital downloads. Each one requires the master to be created in a different way, and a lot of the time they are not.

 

It takes a lot of time and effort and often detective work to find the original stereo (or mono - remember for most recordings made before the end of the 60s the mono mix of an album was the one that had the time and effort put into it, and the stereo version would be dashed off in a couple of hours once the mono version had been finished and approved) master tape and optimise the audio for all the various digital formats, and even then listeners complain that the new versions don't sound like they remember, and of course if the original artist(s) is involved in the process it can be very tempting to tinker with the mastering to take advantage of processes that weren't available when the original was mixed.

 

4. Finally what are you comparing this version to? That will have a significant impact on how they differ.

 

HTH.

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by BigRedX

[dclaassen]

Okay, but I also hear the same mid-heavy and compressed sound when listening to anything streamed at home on my desktop studio monitors or the main room 15’s. I have a pretty good tonal memory, having been a band and choir director for 41 years. One example…you hear the guitar riff in Mr. Robinson…in no way would you equate this with the live sound.

 

 I vividly remember my musician buddies when we listened to our first CD…everyone had the same reaction…clean but thin. Add now the modern trend of mixing the vocal and kick drum twice as loud as everything else, and it’s almost unlistenable.

 

Surely we can reproduce sound more evenly and realistically….

[Cosmo Valdemar]

1 hour ago, dclaassen said:

Old guy rant warning…

 

So, I was listening to some older music on Prime Music in the car. “Superstition “ came up, and I was really struck by how thin the sound was. I remember the depth of sound on the vinyl original…and this was not that. All compression and lots of midrange. So, I started listening to other tracks with an ear out for what was missing, and the results were grim.

 

Then, I reflected on how some you fine folks set your sound…all midrange and compression.

 

 Is that really the sound you want? It’s definitely not the sound I am after….what am I missing?

Personal preferences for bass tone has nothing to do with how you like a mixed and mastered track to sound. 

[dclaassen]

I would respectfully disagree. The modern bass tone is very midrange dominant and three are a lot of folks on this site that own and use a compression pedal. We used an eq light on mids and with boosted treble and bass. 
 

I guess what started all this is messing about with vintage tube amps…felt and sounded like home. 
 

I learned sound mixing from the guys who mixed the Greek Theater (Stanel Sound) Start with the bass tone and work your way up. So, bass tone fundamentally impacts total sound.

[Boodang]

So, I grew up in the age of vinyl. Then it was 'how good is my hifi'. Stereo separation  decent speakers, amp and preamp.

Now it's a small portable bluetooth speaker with mono bass at best, or ear buds powered from a cheap op amp.

So, are engineers now mixing for a decent hifi or cheap op amp driven ear buds?!

Having said that, I've listened to more music and expanded my music vocabulary since listening to spotify on cheap ear buds than my considerably bulky vinyl collection can deliver. 

[dclaassen]

Okay…granted. However, we also listened to a huge amount of music through a mono am radio speaker. 
 

we have an amazing capacity to record and produce music…why do we accept tone production that is worse than the 1960’s?

[Boodang]

2 hours ago, dclaassen said:

I vividly remember my musician buddies when we listened to our first CD…everyone had the same reaction…clean but thin.

On this point I might disagree! Vinyl can never encode in its groove a decent level of bass... if it did the needle would jump out the groove. Bass frequencies are attenuated then bumped up on playback with a RIAA filter in the phono preamp. Most people's RIAA preamp is pants! A cheap CD digital to analogue chip is probably way better than most people's vinyl setup.

I still prefer vinyl over CD but only when I'm wearing rose tinted glasses.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Boodang

[dclaassen]

Actually, I prefer tape….

[Boodang]

4 minutes ago, dclaassen said:

Okay…granted. However, we also listened to a huge amount of music through a mono am radio speaker. 
 

we have an amazing capacity to record and produce music…why do we accept tone production that is worse than the 1960’s?

Just guessing, but in the vinyl days not everyone could master, it took a lot of outboard. Now anyone with a laptop and software can give it a go.

[thodrik]

I listened to Electric Ladyland through my laptop from a YouTube video and was really unimpressed. It really didn’t compare to my memory of the first time I heard it on my dad’s really expensive hifi system in the early 1990s. 

 

I was particularly aggrieved when the solo to Crosstown Traffic was interrupted by an advert for a Nic Cage film. 

[dclaassen]

But almost everyone ends up with the same uninspiring mix

[Boodang]

8 minutes ago, dclaassen said:

Actually, I prefer tape….

Well, not going to argue with a good Revox B77

[Boodang]

4 minutes ago, dclaassen said:

But almost everyone ends up with the same uninspiring mix

... go figure!!!

[Boodang]

7 minutes ago, dclaassen said:

But almost everyone ends up with the same uninspiring mix

You would think that with the plethora of mixing and recording options available today there would be more variety but maybe there's something about the digital work stream of modern software that precludes that.

[dclaassen]

10 minutes ago, thodrik said:

I listened to Electric Ladyland through my laptop from a YouTube video and was really unimpressed. It really didn’t compare to my memory of the first time I heard it on my dad’s really expensive hifi system in the early 1990s. 

 

I was particularly aggrieved when the solo to Crosstown Traffic was interrupted by an advert for a Nic Cage film. 

Kinda my point…most consumers are listening through some pretty crappy gear…so crank up the kick bass and forget about everything else.

[Boodang]

I play drums as well as bass. Whenever I do a gig with a house engineer I have to post someone at the desk to stop them turning the kick drum into a hand grenade!

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Boodang said:

Well, not going to argue with a good Revox B77

 

The Revox B77 (and A77 for that matter) is a semi-pro machine at best.

[BigRedX]

2 hours ago, dclaassen said:

Okay, but I also hear the same mid-heavy and compressed sound when listening to anything streamed at home on my desktop studio monitors or the main room 15’s.

 

IMO that's your problem right there. Stop listening to streaming music and instead choose digital music with no data compression.

 

Even delivery medium has it's strengths and weaknesses. We all prefer the ones that we are used to because we have become accustomed to the sound, rather than because it is actually "better".

[Suburban Man]

Pretty much anything that is streamed has been reduced to a minimum number of bits to squeeze it down the pipes of the internet.  Ditto if you listen to DAB radio, or Internet radio. I would suggest that its fine to browse, but not so great to 'listen' - you just won't ever get wide dynamic range because of the delivery format.  If you want a good listening experience then its CD, vinyl or an FM radio station that hasn't been Optimoded to destruction. 

[dclaassen]

31 minutes ago, Suburban Man said:

Pretty much anything that is streamed has been reduced to a minimum number of bits to squeeze it down the pipes of the internet.  Ditto if you listen to DAB radio, or Internet radio. I would suggest that its fine to browse, but not so great to 'listen' - you just won't ever get wide dynamic range because of the delivery format.  If you want a good listening experience then its CD, vinyl or an FM radio station that hasn't been Optimoded to destruction. 

Hard to find though…(the radio station)…what scares me is that young ones think that’s how music is supposed to sound

[Leonard Smalls]

23 hours ago, Boodang said:

Most people's RIAA preamp is pants

Not mine 😉

[SteveK]

Just listened to Superstition on Amazon Music. The quality is supposedly Ultra HD🤔 Guess that depends on the source.

I have to agree with the dclaassen! I know my ears are bad, but... the drum intro sound is pretty dire! That, and the bottom end generally sounds pretty poor.

 

We all know that Turd Polishing abounds in the music world!

I guess in the case of Superstition (which was hugely successful) it shows that it's very hard to tarnish a diamond🤩

[51m0n]

You can mix and master now to far higher fidelity than anything produced in the 70s and 80s. On a laptop. All on board. No studio.

 

You can't track for stinky poo without a good room though. There were great rooms in the 70s and 80s. There still are, but they cost a huge amount of cash because there are even less of them.

 

Vinyl cannot reproduce bass as accurately as digital, so that is not the issue. 

 

The consensus of quality has changed vastly over time.  The loudness wars on cd ruined 2 decades of cd quality masters in a never ending spiral of average volume over everything crystal meth style addiction. 

 

Streaming has actually addressed this more than anything else due to all the algorithms these sites have generated to figure out equivalent playback output volumes across masters from all eras as close as possible. But bit depth is compromised and they are lossy compression formats normally which tends to affect the loudest masters the most adversely by nature of data compression mechanisms. Its super important to understand the difference between data and audio and audio data compression before trying to understand what might be adversely affecting your playback in a given instance. 

 

Mastering engineers now work on gaming those Streaming algorithms to their advantage. 

 

And so it goes on....

[51m0n]

Anyone really interested is a greater understanding of up to date audio engineering would do worse than check-out Dan Worrell on YouTube. 

 

https://youtube.com/c/DanWorrall