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Topic: The Corrs - borrowed heaven (Read 41757 times) previous topic - next topic
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The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #25
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just thought about another idea:

A very good method to make people sensible to overcompressing artifacts could be the following:

Take a track which was brilliantly mastered. Then make a copy of it and run it through a really agressive compressor.

Then put both songs into a player which supports replaygain, like foobar. Trackgain both files. Then disable the "adjust volume depending on peak-information" and add a high-quality limiter to the dsp-chain to avoid hard-clipping.
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Could you do that? I listend do the "angel" clip and, well, didn't  really notice anything very bad. The "night" clip had a kind of "clipped off" base to it. But I don't really know, if that's the part you are talking about.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #26
Quote
Quote
just thought about another idea:

A very good method to make people sensible to overcompressing artifacts could be the following:

Take a track which was brilliantly mastered. Then make a copy of it and run it through a really agressive compressor.

Then put both songs into a player which supports replaygain, like foobar. Trackgain both files. Then disable the "adjust volume depending on peak-information" and add a high-quality limiter to the dsp-chain to avoid hard-clipping.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=237389"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Could you do that? I listend do the "angel" clip and, well, didn't  really notice anything very bad. The "night" clip had a kind of "clipped off" base to it. But I don't really know, if that's the part you are talking about.
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You're joking? I'm a cloth-eared idiot and plainly heard how bad they both are. Listen to a nice, old, dynamic recording (like 'Nightfly' by Donald Fagen...) and tell me that Corrs album isn't appalling.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #27
Quote
You're joking? I'm a cloth-eared idiot and plainly heard how bad they both are. Listen to a nice, old, dynamic recording (like 'Nightfly' by Donald Fagen...) and tell me that Corrs album isn't appalling.
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I listened to both, and found "Night" bad, and "Angel" not-so-bad. They weren't appealing, but they weren't appalling either. Most of the stuff I listen to is classical (= "correctly mastered"), so it's not like I've grown up listining to compressed garbage...

I guess that means my ears have thicker cloth than yours! 

(Actually, I'll be replacing my headphones next week. Going from Sony MDR-V600 to Etymotic ER-4S. I'll see if the Etys make it more noticable.)
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" - Vroomfondel, H2G2

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #28
Not so bad at 30 seconds = unbearable at 30 minutes

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #29
Quote
You're joking? I'm a cloth-eared idiot and plainly heard how bad they both are. Listen to a nice, old, dynamic recording (like 'Nightfly' by Donald Fagen...) and tell me that Corrs album isn't appalling.
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Maybe it sounds kind of loud, but i can't really tell, because i don't have anything to compare it with - the same thing but done "how it's supposed to be done". Thats why it would be great if there would be a overly compressed version and a good version of the same thing, people (like me) could tell the difference.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #30
Quote
Maybe it sounds kind of loud, but i can't really tell, because i don't have anything to compare it with - the same thing but done "how it's supposed to be done". Thats why it would be great if there would be a overly compressed version and a good version of the same thing, people (like me) could tell the difference.


Nope marq, your reply is totally reasonable imho. If one doesn't have anything to compare it to, except stuff which is the same - then it appears "normal" to oneself.


I currently dont have the time to do it myself, so here's a step by step guide how to do it, in case someone wants to:

1. Choose a track which is nicely mastered, has lots (but not too much) dynamic range. A track where there dynamic range is not just there, but also used as an effekt - like for example loud kicking in punches at the beginning of a refrain, etc. So, something were the "usefulness" of dynamic range is apparent even to the casual listener. The track not having a positive trackgain value is a bonus, but not a must. Best would be something near 0db trackgain.

2. Make a copy of the track..... then load it into a wave-editor and apply a very aggressive compressor to it - just asume you're one of those bad record labels and want to get a really loud record - however, dont exaggerate it, stay realistic in your approach. Then save the file

3. Load both files into foobar and trackgain them

4. in the preferences, >disable< "use peak info to scale down tracks that still clip after applying replaygain". This is necessary to make sure that both tracks will be at the same perceived average volume. This step is the reason why a near-0db trackgain-value for the non-compressed track is of advantage.

5. add "advanced limiter" to your list of used DSPs. This is primarily meant to tame clipping of the non-compressed track, since we disabled the scaling down in step 4.

6. in the diskwriter settings, make sure that "use replaygain" and "use DSP" is activated

7. diskwrite both tracks to wav

8. load up both files into a wave-editor, choose a representative 20secs section of the track, and trim both tracks to this 20secs section.

9. load up both trimmed tracks into foobar again. Disable "use replaygain" and "use DSP" in the diskwriter settings! Then diskwrite both tracks to a lossless format.

10. upload the two 20secs versions to ha.org :-)

- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #31
You can listen to Grieg-Dynamics, and Grieg-normalized here : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=207754

However, this is a technically extreme example, the original has too much dynamics (maybe it is really uncompressed), and it is clipped ! Which makes the compressed and normalized verision much less agressive.

EDIT : It's Grieg-Dynamics, and Grieg-Normalized, not Grieg-compressed, as I first told.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #32
Hey everybody,

I don't mean to stear the discussion off-topic, well actually off album  but there is an album by Era, Era2 which been driving me nuts for like over 2 years now, the worst thing is that other people insist there is nothing wrong.

Since you guys could pick up the problems with Corrs album, and those distortions are more subtle than the ones I'm hearing with Era, I was wondering if you guys could take time to listen, and put me out of my misery. (confirm either my correctness or insanity)

Thank, you!

P.S. What I'm hearing is sort of static, especially strong in right channel. (I did replay gain the track, for no good reason, but it doesn't seem to affect anything, but you might wish to turn up the volume)
The Plan Within Plans

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #33
I hear a background hiss (analog master?), and a stronger one when the voices sound. But this last one sounds like air, I mean, I think you can hear both the sound produced by the vocal cords and the air that comes out of the people when they sing. I don't know if I explained this clearly

Other than that, I can't hear any kind of distortion...

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #34
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Here's another sample. I think this is the worst sounding part of the album... it's just amazing, if you think the other sample was bad.. then.. well, just listen to it
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This is probably just a new clever way to punish pirates. Make it sound bad enough and no one will listen to thier illegal copies. If it hurts sales in general, just blame it on illegal copying. Pretty much the same old tactics in a new wrapping.

But seriously, that sample was terrible.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #35
I didn't get what you mean

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #36
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Other than that, I can't hear any kind of distortion...
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So... preliminary diagnosis: insane 

Because what I'm hearing is kinda mix of metallic grains robbing agains each other/and hissing radio static (all subtly quite compared to voices of the chorus).
The Plan Within Plans

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #37
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Because what I'm hearing is kinda mix of metallic grains robbing agains each other/and hissing radio static (all subtly quite compared to voices of the chorus).
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I'd say a metallic grainy sound for sure, which gives it a kind of breathy quality. It certainly doesn't sound like a naturally recorded voice. To be honest, I don't spot the radio static you describe so much though.
There are a couple of little peaks where the voice/s create an usual, high pitched sound, 13 seconds in the left channel is the most noticeable. Could just be someone with an unfortuante lisp. 
daefeatures.co.uk

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #38
Another instance of horrible clipping: The Californication album by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #39
I was quite disappointed with Borrowed Heaven as well.  Clipping is very frequent I think.

Here is the 2:00-2:10 segment from Angel, from the Australian release of Borrowed Heaven.


The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #41
Im glad i read this thread before i bought the new Corrs cd. Thanks for the samples, those are distorted so bad. I atucally played the distorted clip for a friend of mine who listens to only heavy metal,  he couldnt hear any problem with it he said. How are we going to educate the people to only buy quality cd's when they cant even hear a difference?

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #42
Like it was mentioned before, for some people it may not be easy to pick the flaws unless there is a flawless version available to compare with.

One could try to find a promo version of some album and compare it to the retail. For example 'Nightwish - Once' promo seems to be less aggressively mastered than the retail.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #43
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I atucally played the distorted clip for a friend of mine who listens to only heavy metal...
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Electic guitar is a distortion to begin with, so it is understandable that he couldn't find anything wrong with Corrs album. It would be pretty hard to convince a person who listens to distortion as a form of music to belive that it's bad to have distortion.

It took me a while to hear the difference, since as I was reading this thread I was listening to Slipknot
The Plan Within Plans

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #44
I've tried overcompressing material before.

I was aiming for that squashed "sound" you hear on commercial music radio. So I didn't try to retain the dynamics or fidelity of the track - I tried to imitate the washed out "all loud but naff" sound. I started with a well mastered, dynamic track, and squashed it to the point where it started to distort.

It allowed the track to sound much louder, more aggressive, and the "home made" multi-band compression I carried out in Cool Edit Pro it also has the effect of EQing it to sound much brighter. The version I've uploaded has been normalised to sound the same volume as the original, and has had the EQ change reversed.

So what you hear is just the compression. It makes it sound like a completely different recording. More commercial, more aggressive, but much less like a real trumpet!

There is a little distortion on the trumpet and the bass, but there's more distortion on The Corrs Angle track - more dynamics too.

Cheers,
David.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #45
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Here is the 2:00-2:10 segment from Angel, from the Australian release of Borrowed Heaven.
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It sounds just as bad, but it's been re-dithered and there are a couple of small glitches - either ripping errors, or copy protection? They're inaudible, but visible if you invert mix paste one of the other versions over the top.

Cheers,
David.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #46
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It sounds just as bad, but it's been re-dithered and there are a couple of small glitches - either ripping errors, or copy protection? They're inaudible, but visible if you invert mix paste one of the other versions over the top.

Cheers,
David.
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Yeah, the CD was copy protected though EAC was able to rip it using my old Toshiba DVD drive.  I do hope they are inaudible or else I'm taking the CD back.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #47
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Yeah, the CD was copy protected though EAC was able to rip it using my old Toshiba DVD drive.   I do hope they are inaudible or else I'm taking the CD back.
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Whilst I would suggest people should be awkward (!!!), if the copy protection bothers you, take the disc back and buy it from a different country on-line. The USA release I have isn't copy protected.


btw, the distortion isn't nearly as obvious through my stereo at home. However, the sound is just generally "horrible".

Cheers,
David.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #48
As a post script, if you thought the album sounded bad, you should have heard them live from the Proms in Hyde Park, UK on Saturday night!

The performance was quite good, but the sound was awful. I've heard better bootlegs. In fact, I think I made better recordings when I was 10 with a portable tape recorder!

Cheers,
David.

The Corrs - borrowed heaven

Reply #49
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As a post script, if you thought the album sounded bad, you should have heard them live from the Proms in Hyde Park, UK on Saturday night!

The performance was quite good, but the sound was awful. I've heard better bootlegs. In fact, I think I made better recordings when I was 10 with a portable tape recorder!

Cheers,
David.
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Was that on a radio show, on TV or in front of the stage?