PETITION: Red Hot Chili Peppers CD Remastering, Reduce compression & no clipping! (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Ulmer]

This isn't correct. The premasters may have been the same but you can not use full range masters for LP production, they have to be processed to the RIAA curves to create the mother (stamping master). Every release has to be mastered for the medium it is intended for, so while the source mixes may be the same, the production master is different. Even the original CDs went through a mastering process, and there was EQ and limiting applied, it's just that in the old days the A&R departments hadn't been exposed to the extremely limited dynamic range made possible by look ahead limiters, and therefore the older CDs had more digital headroom, and as a result, sounded better in that regard because they aren't clipping the D/A stage. The problem back then was that the A/D chain was weak due to poor filter design, which caused its own problems.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Of course, RIAA equalization is one of the last steps for lp. I sort of assumed that everyone knows that. And what specifically proves my point, is that in spite of a lot of people's fears, it was very rare for the RIAA equalized master to be mistakenly used for any early CD releases.

 

[Simon Howson]

It means a great deal because the entire album was recorded and mixed on analog tape.

Just a question, why can't the actual 'unmastered' tapes be used for a CD transfer? Surely CD has the potential to reproduce those tapes quite accurately. It's only the hyper-compression style of modern CD mastering that seems to require intermediate stages in the place of just transfering the tape to digital.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Yes, CD could represent the raw mixes just fine, but raw mixes are just that, they are not finished product, and would lack consistency. Mastering has always been part of the production chain. What is done during mastering (extreme limiting, and more importantly extreme limiting causing multiple digital overs) is what people are complaining about. Extreme compresion/limiting is nothing new, broadcasters have been using it for decades, but when you start clipping the D/A stage it gets nasty.

 

[Simon Howson]

The tapes Hoffman used weren't "raw mixes"... they were certainly the finished and absolute final mix of the album.

I'm starting to doubt that Vlado Meller even used those master tapes when he made the CD. I wonder if he somehow just received a digital version of the album? Is sending master tapes from L.A. to NYC something that happens often?

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

He most certainly would be using the raw final mixes, by raw I mean unmastered, not rough mixes. No major label product is released without the mastering stage which is where the "finished" product is assembled and processed to create a coherent listening experience across the album. Raw mixes, while locking the mix of the tracks, always have inconsistencies between them that the mastering stage is supposed to fix, while enhancing the overall tonal balance. In many, if not most cases, the raw mix would simply sound wrong if released as is, since engineers will specifically compensate for what happens during mastering when making mix decisions.

As for shipping masters, this happens all the time. The tapes go where the mastering house is.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Duplicate post.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

There is the final non-RIAA EQ'ed master. This master is then sent through the RIAA equalization process for lp. But that same master could be used as-is for CD. Like I mentioned twice before , this is exactly how the same analog masters for lp were used for CD in the early days. One is RIAA eq'ed, and the other isn't. The original non-RIAA eq'ed master is used for CD. The RIAA process is just the final step for lp. Not used for CD. And then the obvious A to D conversion for CD. Been done many, many, many times. The record companies know how.

 

[Simon Howson]

I would prefer that over the CDs that are being sold...

 

[Simon Howson]

Steve Hoffman, mastering engineer for the vinyl version of Stadium Arcadium, has posted in his forums a waveform comparison of the vinyl and CD versions of three songs from Stadium Arcadium. He says:


Notice how in the second (middle) song that the vinyl version gets progressively louder as the song goes on. Why the hell isn't that dynamic range perserved on the CD version!?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

There's no scale marked for the CD.

I have this CD, and while it's not the best mastered CD out there by a long shot, it's still much improved compared to Californication.

There are 4 graphs there. From how most spectrum analysis software works, I'm assuming that it's L and R channels of the lp version, and L & R channels of the CD.

I doubt the lp version is getting louder. It's simply a snapshot in time of a particular musical section.

 

[Simon Howson]

It's three different songs in a row, LP verison on top, CD version at bottom.

I agree that it isn't as bad as Californication, but how could it be, that is a terrible sounding CD, that is on average about 3 dB louder than Stadium Arcadium.

Oh, one other thing, apparently the LP was cut from the unmastered tapes, the RIAA and other equalisation was added in real time as the lathe was working. It was not cut from an intermediate tape as you suggested earlier in this thread.