I have been wanting to buy a few Beatles CD, but I read from wikipedia that the mastering techniques on those CDs are outdated and remasters are coming out soon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatles_discography (Under Historical Background)

I have a few other 80s CDs as well and they sound alright to me. So my question is, is it worth waiting for the remasters or should I buy the old 80s masters, just in case the remasters end up with clipping, etc?

In response to the discussion about the mastering of R.E.M.'s Accelerate a nice article is written by Drew Crumbaugh:

http://remring.com/index.php?option=com_co...0&Itemid=26

I have Automatic For the People, And I thought the mastering on that is great, they made that as loud as it possible could be without damaging the sound quality. ei making sure there is no barely audible single loud bit bringing the overall volume down then peal level normalising, same goes for alot of other albums from that eara though such as Nevermind, I do have a couple from about that time that are overly quiet though.

Yeah, they're outdated -- they retain the full dynamic range of the source tapes. That's so old-fashioned.



The wiki is dumb. It fails to take into account that the Stones catalog, for example, was rarely if ever mastered from low-generationmaster tapes, prior to the msot recent catalog remasters. Certainly George Martin put more care into the Beatles on CD, than anyone did on the original Beach Boys , Stones, or Dylan CD releases





I would buy a set of the current versions, just in case.



One that allows you to travel back in time?

I agree the mastering on Automatic for the People is just excellent (so is the mixing, and the music by the way).

It's a shame that their latest album (Accelerate) is a Loudness War Victim, though.

I noticed last years winner of Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, is also one of the albums picked out on the WP article on the loudness war, is that award based on Vinyl versions?

Opeth - Still Life

Worst mastering ever, good thing they remastered it recently. The remaster came out like, 1 month ago.

Hi, long time reader, first time poster.

I was very unpleasantly surprised with a few recent releases that are awfully mixed and/or mastered.

So here's my current top 5:

1. Duffy - Rockferry. This girl's album is very promoted over here in Poland, with lots of radio and tv presence (the single "Mercy"). I was wondering how this album would sound and... well... it doesn't sound any better compared to listening to the song "Mercy" on radio in mono.
In the first song, it's apparent that they used SO much dynamics compression on the singer's voice it's a pain to listen to. When she sings louder, the only thing that gets louder is the reverberation or echo in the background - sounds really, really bad.

2. Avantasia - The Scarecrow. Their previous releases, The Metal Opera part 1 and 2 were loud, but besides brick-wall hard limiting the dynamics were pretty much ok and each instrument, each singer had it's place. This new release is... well... tragic. A pure example of how to destroy music. I never listened to the whole album in one sitting. I always turn it off after the third track, which starts with a guitar, but when the rest of the band starts playing, instead of getting at least a little bit louder, it actually gets quiter. I could live with that, only if the sound quality was okay... but it isn't. The songs sound, I don't know, flat? The most fascinating thing about this album is that Tobias Sammet, the project leader, is very pleased with the production and said in one of the interviews that the band spent a lot of money to get "good" production...

3. Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet. The production is pretty good in overall, but sometimes, due to the loudness war, the drums disappear below the wall of guitars. Thankfully, the DVD-Audio 5.1 mix sounds surprisingly well - and the drums which disappear on the stereo mix, sound very good: properly loud and audible. Steven Wilson even got a Grammy nomination for the 5.1 mix.

4. Antimatter - Leaving Eden. The album may not be as loud as other recent releases, but somebody totally ruined the drums. I don't know if it was during the mastering or during the mixing, but the drums sound... well, they just don't sound You can achieve the same effect using hard limiting at, say, -15dB (I don't know much about audio production, but I like playing with audio editing).

5. Riverside - Second Life Syndrome. I don't know what the band and what the engineers were thinking. I also think this album is not as loud as other rock/metal music nowadays, but... everytime there's some keyboards and guitars at the same time, the drums fade out... it's extremely annoying - the drums' loudness is simply reduced by a lot when everybody in the band is playing at the same time.

That should be it

You may dislike the sound but it's definitely not related to the loudness war. Just look at the wave form and the ReplayGain values. There's no "clipression" whatsoever.

Steven Wilson even stated this:
Source: http://www.caerllysimusic.co.uk/contents/en-uk/d77.html

Ok, maybe it's not a loudness war issue, but... why are the drums disappearing under the guitars on "Way Out Of Here", during the heavy part in the middle? On the DVD-A 5.1 the drums sound a lot better, and it's not just because it's 5.1 and there's more speakers to put sound in... the effect of disappearing drums does not occur on older stereo releases, so I thought it's a loudness war thing. I have to say I never looked at the waveforms for this album.

Hmm, I think it's a matter of taste here. While the drums in the stereo mix are indeed much less prominent, it contributes to the overwhelming character of the (wall of) sound. It somehow fits to the song. But If you ask me, I also prefer the 5.1 mix.

Nine Inch Nails - 2008 - The Slip

At least it's free.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

I downloaded the high resolution version (24-bit, 96 kHz). Album gain is -9.39 dB. The waveforms of the majority of tracks look awful. And they call it audiophile.

A bit OT again, but does anyone have the 2005 re-issue of Automatic, the one which includes a DVD? Has the CD been affected by the loudness war?

I think he means a visual output like that. And I'm afraid I don't know, but it would actually be quite interesting to find out (probably not useful, but interesting.) So if anyone what software that is then I'd be interested too, although I guess it wouldn't be too hard to knock one up in Octave or similar.

why is the album gain value an issue? and how can anybody seriously say its the worst mastered cd lol

Don't you know Cool Edit?

I am sad to include this one here:

Def Leppard - Song From The Sparkle Lounge

The RG values for a few songs exceed -10dB.

"Hallucinate" starts with just a guitar playing and my Foobar's VU meter is at 0dB almost constantly. Where's space for the rest of the band here?

The Pigeon Detectives - Emergency has an album gain of -11.38. The worst track comes out as -11.98!

What is annoying is that the vinyl is also mastered very poorly (sounds muddled).

The album gain is measured across the whole album, and is designed to give the same gain adjustment to each track, on the assumption that they have been mastered consistently relative to each other. Consider, for example, the effect of using different per-track gains on a continuously-mixed album.

An album gain that strong is pretty darn bad, and suggests that at least several of the individual tracks are worse than that.

But how does loudness translate into bad mastering?! I am certain you can create the lousiest mastering and still get a replay gain of zero. If this was a list of the loudest CDs, then I'd agree with using the gain value to identify them, but this is about how the music SOUNDS... . Is it not?

I'm sure you could - but in the wild this is not what is most often seen. There is a strong correlation seen between insane replaygain values and insanely compressed mastering.
So, while you are correct, I think it is not unexpected that outrageous replaygain values are used as a shorthand when discussing "poor" mastering.

I was thinking about this myself the other day. I have a few heavy metal albums with high replay gain values (at or near -9.0dB) that sound really good and don't feel overcompressed.

But when the RG values exceed -9, reaching -10 or even over -12 (Airborne - Running' Wild album - just when I thought the loudness war can't get any further) it's impossible to achieve good mastering. This often results in volume changes of certain instruments when another one starts playing - like keyboards, orchestration or a chorus, can lower the loudness of drums (I hate it especialy, since I love drums) or the guitars, which sounds very annoying.

When an album annoys you, even when you love the songs, it has to be bad mastering


Not only the Airborne shocked me with it's -12dB album gain.
(just take a look at this:


and a zoom-in:


Good mastering won't ever look like this.)

The latest Blaze Bayley's release is at around -10dB and the guitars are so loud, you can barely hear the vocals!
The new Judas Priest album "Nostradamus" also sounds terrible, even though the album gain is at "just" around -9.00dB and the wave in Adobe Audition doesn't look like a square.

I saw an old Beach Boys video a few days ago, "Help me Rhonda" I think. The sound was so terrible, that it occured to me: the history simply makes a turn and repeats itself. A cheap production from the 1960's sounds just as bad as a multi-million production from the 21st century.

From the CDs I own :

Red Hot Chili Peppers : "Californication"
Foo Fighters : "One by One"
Queens of the Stone Age : "Songs for the Deaf"

I think they are already mentioned here .

All of the Musica Transonic discs that were mastered by Nanjo Asahito. XYOSFBIGKOU is the only listenaable one, and that was done by Yoshide. Here is a sample from the 1st Musica Transonic disc mastered by Nanjo. I can't tell you what it's called cause it's in Greek: 30 sec sample.

I tried to get a refund from the record company (P.S.F.), but all I got was a polite PFO. It really is terrible.

I read in many articles, that the 2006 debut album of the Arctic Monkeys is one of the biggest casualties of the loudness war.
But it isn't that bad, it has only a -9.26dB RG. Yeah, it is bad if you were to be comparing to albums of the 80s and 90s, but I also own CDs from similar genres released before the Arctic Monkeys that have a more negative dB value, like -10 or -11dB!

I know it's late to talk about it but I guess there was confusion.
There are different remastered versions of Blizzard of Ozz (1980). One is from 1995 (22 bits SBM), other 2002 with rewritten drums and bass.


I noticed that too. Previous albums like Archetype, Digimortal, Obsolete and Demanufacture are well done.

I analysed the two tracks that Metallica released as singles from their upcoming new album and I must say that I'm really really disappointed. Mastering-wise they have learned nothing at all since "St. Anger". The RG value of "The Day That Never Comes" is -13.7 dB and "My Apocalypse" doesn't fare much better with -11.3 dB. After TDTNC's introductory phase the peakmeter in foobar2000 moves in a range of about three pixels (refresh rate of 5 ms with zero hold time!). That's far less than 1 dB. Even Hypocrisy's Scrutinized (RG: -15 dB) doesn't behave in such an extreme way.

Edit: Here's a picture of the waveform.

Ah Rick Rubin...the 'great' producer...I think its time Metallica realised that they have become a legacy act ( a band that writes new albums purely for the sake of touring ie: AC/DC)

I'll have to go with Dream Theater's Greatest Hit ...and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs. The compression on this compilation is just unacceptable...

At time of writing:

Metallica - Death magnetic

This Metallica album is really bad, quality wise.

(I like the songs much better than St. Anger, though)

This album is as bad as their first single from this album mentioned above.

The single was actually so bad-sounding that iTunes refused to sell it.
And I agree, nobody should have to pay for this crap, mostly clippingnoise.
It's a disgrase to any digital format.

Heavily over-clippressed, which gives wall of noise, and absolutely no dynamics.

Album RG value -13.44dB


Some years ago I thought the LOUDNESS war/race couldn't get any worse...I was wrong.

Several days ago, I looked on iTunes and the single was available for sale. What is your source that iTunes initially refused to sell it? (presumably you're referring to TDTNC).

This article:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermo...wsitemID=103625

I guess they've replaced the old file with a "better" sounding one.

I couldn't agree more. The compression is unbearable. Especially TDTNC is catastrophic because you can easily hear the distortion caused by it. I really hope the Japanese SHM-CD release, that I have ordered, will be mastered differently, but I rather doubt it. A last resort would be to buy the vinyl version, just to digitize it. This is really making me mad.

I heard The Day That Never Comes, which the track gain was over -13db and the mastering is terrible, and I recken the final album will be just as bad. Its a shame since that track itself is a HUGE improvement over Shite Anger and their post Black Album work.

And this yet another example of Rick Rubin going to far in the loudness war. I wish that f****r would stop it, most of the badly mastered CDs I own are produced by him.

Dam you Rick Rubin.




Their debut album Soul Of A New Machine (orginal release) is a nicely mastered for a Death / Industrial Metal album.

But am not sure about Archetype though and there is plenty of bricked tracks on it such as "Cyberwaste", but it does sound better then Transmission though.

It seems that the cd will sound better (clipping-wise) , the RG level should be of about -11 dB vs -13 dB of the previously released singles like TDTNC (that probably comes from a pre-master track).
-11 dB is very loud but much better than -13 dB

Sadly not. There is a leaked version of the whole album that in all likelihood has been accidentally sold in France. It has an album gain worse than -13 dB.

I know but fortunately it has been proved that the leaked version doesn't come from the cd...

So, there's still hope then? Well, I wouldn't expect too much. The latest Slayer album, also produced by Rick Rubin, has an album gain of about -12.3 dB.

Yes... Read here, I wrote a topic about it http://www.metallicabb.com/index.php?showt...=83111&st=0 I also don't expect too much but a little less clipping diefinetly yes