Once again LoudnessRace.net has an update so important that I actually feel the need to tell people about it. Unfortunately, it's not exactly a very uplifting one. To see what all the hubbub is about, head on over to the news page.

Of all the albums to do this too, why did it have to be the Smashing Pumpkins? Once upon a time they were known for some of the most beautifully produced rock albums out there.

Disgusting.

No kidding.

I love the pumpkins.

I think I have all of their CDs... NOT REMASTERED (as far as i know).

I must say they are well produced... Siamese Dream being my favorite...

I don't know how I feel about the mastering on MACHINA/The Machines of God, but I dont know really...

Anyhow, this is indeed sad.

ps. it was....

pumpkinz99 -> spaseboy -> spase

(spaceboy is a great song by the way...)

Ya... those Smashing Pumpkin remasters sound terrible.

I noticed you have Collective Souls "Dosage" CD on your worst list. Interestingly enough, their "Hints Allegations And Things Left Unsaid" (1993) sounds great.

Looks like they have become Smashed Pumpkins

today... it's a QUIET SONG! goddamn it. of course it's got loud bits in it, but it doesn't anymore (not after replaygain...)

how can you enjoy a song that's covered with clips so stupendous that they're actually more like dropouts!

grrr. it's more like DC shift than fullscale. why would anyone do such a thing?



[edit]

i'm wondering whether it's wise to email billycorgan.com about this, as i'm sure people buying these reissues will never go near the pumpkins again.

i hope there's no legal issues with the samples posted. i suppose they're demonstration purposes only.

[edit edit]

bugger it, i will email them. mastering this bad could be regarded as professional negligence, and grounds for litigation by the pumkins. i'd be claiming damages if i was in their place.

[edit 3]

hang on... this news was posted on april 1st...

(sinking feeling)... i just emailed billy corgan. (i linked to the news item though)

edit: haha very funny.. first and last time I visit or care about your website, or your mission

we shoulr invent af "probaly mastered" HA certificate.
Then HA could cash in on certifiyen CD's :-D

kinda like divx certification

Yep. Looks like you all just got prankd!

http://www.loudnessrace.net/news/

Come on, where is your sense of humor ?

Better stay off the Internet, and don't turn on your TV on April 1st, because idiots everywhere are trying to be funny and clever with their April fools "jokes".

OMG TACO BELL BOUGHT MICROSOFT!!! LOL AHAHAHAH APRILFOOLS LOLOLOL!!!1111onehundredandeleven

STFU!

Can't say your contributions will be missed.


It's a mixed bag. The songs on the album were recorded at three different studios, and I do know that some of tracks were taken off an old demo that Ed Roland submitted to the record label who liked them so much that they put them on the album. I'm not sure if the rest of the tracks were taken for other demos or recorded for the album itself, but a couple of them do sound studio-quality. For example, "Shine" and "In a Moment" were most likely from (the) demo(s), whereas "Goodnight, Good Guy" and "Heaven's Already Here" were probably recorded in a professional studio environment, judging from the sound.

But it's not even funny Did he compress the songs himself then?

Hey, it's my first April Fool's joke. Cut me some slack. I'm sure the next one will be better.

Just be glad I didn't report something like Tool getting injured in a tour plane accident and ending up in critical condition (someone actually did this a long time ago during the Ænema period).

I don't mean it for you, I mean it for the guy who wrote that article on loudnessrace.net

It's not funny and there's no clue to tell that it was in fact a joke

Unless you write for loudnessrace.net

I DO write for loudnessrace.net. And there IS a way to tell that it's a joke: it's called Google. You'd think reissues of a band like the Smashing Pumpkins would be announced all over the 'Net long before being reported on a site like mine.

Frankly I don't give a shit if it was funny or not. I get enough humor out of people taking everything they see on the Internet as absolute fact.

EDIT: Fixed vB clutter in quote.

Icic, so you wrote that article

/looks up
/me cuts Kuuenbu some slack

Now, where's your site gone, mate?

[Paranoia]RIAA have forced him to take it down[/Paranoia]

Shows up for me, but does an in-frame redirect to http://landing.domainsponsor.com. Looks like the domain expired and a squatter got it.

Squatter shall fuck off. I feel like being taken the piss out of me.
They're fooling and dulling the people's minds for their maximum profit.
"top quality"

just to let you know, unfortunately the new Tina Turner 2004 Best of double album is hurt by loudness race, too.

edit: spelling

Yes, many of my favourites 80's albums (REMASTERED versions) too. It's a plague !!!

Many REMASTERS of 80's albums sounds like ..... sh*t ????

I'd like to add one bit of good news. I own two CD releases of Yes's "Relayer", the first one being released somewhere around 10-15 years ago and the second one being a remaster on Rhino IIRC, and there was no change in loudness. In fact, all three tracks have even lower RG values than before!

Go back to GBS-FM you goon.

If for some reason you want to hear the remaster that *is* a casualty of the loudness wars, get hold of the Japanese HDCD version (with the lovingly reproduced mini-album sleeve) released a few years back.

Now that's irony.

Yes, Rhino tend to make really good sounding remasters.

The Emerson Lake and Palmer Brain Salad Surgery CD remaster sounds excellent, and they've just remastered it again and re-released it as a DVD-A...I have an SACD/CD only player though

I have that BSS version, actually. It does sound very good, although I don't have any other versions to really compare against. I have a DVD-A player too... hmmmm.

Hmmm... interesting. But, I prefer the original releases of 80's and 70's; because have many more dynamic range, as consequence the music for my ears is more pleasant and good taste. In my personal collection I have many CD's of 70's and 80's ("YES - Relayer" was produced in 1974; I don't have this CD).

In one occasion I made a experiment:
I ripped 15 album's of 80's (original releases; jazz, heavy metal, and pop). I normalize all the tracks to 100% (aprox. 150 songs !!!); and after analized with WAVEGAIN. The maximum RG track value that I can see was -5 (incredible not???) and was a track of heavy metal music !! Other types of music (jazz and pop) had less RG track values (max. aprox.: -3.5).

This albums I hear many times without ear fatigue... but... many new albums (98's and more recent).. Oh God !! ... I heared 4 songs and turn the music off !!

P.D.: sorry my bad english...

I've compared it to some japanese pressing that my dad has that was released around the time the CD format was just coming around.

It sounds like mud compared to the remaster

The original master tapes weren't used as sources for that CD until its first remastering in the States...on the Victory label , I think, circa 1990.

The DVD-A version is a complete *remix* as well as a remaster, and there's no dedicated two-channel track (just a downmix from the 5-1 channel mix).

No the domain registration expired because I compltely forgot about it.

Replaygain is only valid for measuring the loudness if all tracks have been normalized to the same level; I'd say we should always use 0dB. Then it tells the peak-to-average difference. Have you done that ?

Any chance of getting it back online some time soon? Maybe on a different domain?

I have

For 'Sound Chaser', in order of release, here are the left and right channel peak amplitude-to-average RMS Power differences in dB, and the (average of L +R), after track normalization to 0 dB, using Audition:



Interestingly, the only version that doesn't show *any* visual evidence of flat-topping (clipped peaks) is the first one.

I'm curious to know, how does 'old fashioned' clipping/limiting (analog) show up in a wavform visualization? Does it show up as flattops below 0 dB FS? Because that's what I see in 4 out of the five visualizations. Or does this come about from
digitally clipped mastering that has then been backed off a little bit from FS?

*for this one, I could not get the file to normalize to 0 dB; the normalized peak would be in the left channel which would go to -0.05 dB but no higher. Don't know why.

You can view the raw data and the wavform screen captures here.

It should look like the first one of your screenshots (This one also doesn't look like "natural" dynamics.) Analog clipping doesn't look like the flattops of digital clipping, it's way more 'diffuse' or 'chaotic' and much more difficult to detect. The sound is surprisingly similar to digital clipping, but less harsh.
Most likely: yes. On many modern clipressed CDs the clipression isn't obvious (perfect flattops for clipping).