Tim Hoover
Screenwriter
- Joined
- May 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,422
Referring way back to the original post, U2's Best Of 1980-90 was not, AFAIK, digitally remastered. The original masters appear because the band wanted them to sound the same as when the songs were originally released.
Now onto the current topic: As an anal-retentive musician myself, I'm also somewhat appalled by some of today's recordings. Drums sound over-compressed and mushy, bass guitar is bloated and indistinct, and lead vocals are often swamped in reverb. It also annoys me when you can tell exactly which songs were recorded in different sessions - usually by differences in drum tonalities. Now, I know that is something that's a pain to fix, but with today's multimillion dollar album budgets I'm sure a little headway can be made...
I'm also surprised by some of the mistakes that are left in albums. I'm not talking about the ones that give an album character, but rather technical snafus. Take Live's "The Distance To Here" album, with no less a personage than Tom Lord-Alge behind the board: On the song "Voodoo Lady" there is a line in which the vocals don't trigger the compressor until the third word, causing a large volume shift. It's pretty easy for the average listener to hear. You'd think that someone would've caught it in production.
Now onto the current topic: As an anal-retentive musician myself, I'm also somewhat appalled by some of today's recordings. Drums sound over-compressed and mushy, bass guitar is bloated and indistinct, and lead vocals are often swamped in reverb. It also annoys me when you can tell exactly which songs were recorded in different sessions - usually by differences in drum tonalities. Now, I know that is something that's a pain to fix, but with today's multimillion dollar album budgets I'm sure a little headway can be made...
I'm also surprised by some of the mistakes that are left in albums. I'm not talking about the ones that give an album character, but rather technical snafus. Take Live's "The Distance To Here" album, with no less a personage than Tom Lord-Alge behind the board: On the song "Voodoo Lady" there is a line in which the vocals don't trigger the compressor until the third word, causing a large volume shift. It's pretty easy for the average listener to hear. You'd think that someone would've caught it in production.