Saturday, February 4, 2012

Fixing Shitty Mastering: an occasional series

Deep in the recesses of my reptilian brain, I've had an idea for a semi-regular (longtime readers will know how much this blog sticks to a plan...) series of posts exposing really poor mastering, or other critical sonic faults with some of my favorite records.

This plan, at times grandiose, scaled itself back when I realized a lot of the records I'd critique - and post my fixes of - are still in print.  And nothing bugs me more than when I hear a "better" version of a favorite, but only tantalizingly brief, and therefore I can't get the whole thing.  Therefore, if I were to do this right for myself, meaning that it would satisfy me as a critical listener, I would want to post the entire thing.  So, with my mostly-solid stance on not posting full length in-print records, I would only be able to put up snippets of in-print records.

Which, while limiting the reach of this series, doesn't cripple it.  There are plenty of my favorite records that are in dire need of "fixing", and out-of-print.

What is a shitty mastering?  The ten-second version:  Band records a record.  Tapes are finished.  Stuff happens.  Record is manufactured, and you buy it.  It's the "stuff happens" in that process that really defines what the end product will sound like:  were the songs recorded in different sessions, with different studio characteristics?  Different personnel?  Different engineers/producers?  That "stuff happens" is mastering - whereby the discrete entity we call a "record" is assembled from the component parts being the "tracks".  One of the key, if not THE key, aspects of mastering is to give the record an overall feel and cohesion, a sense of the record being an "album".  It's hard to describe, but let's say you record ten songs, in ten different studios, with ten different engineers.  John Smith plays guitar on three tracks, Jim Bob on four, and your stepfather on the closing song.  Track six is your neighbors banging on their laundry tubs, with your guitar plugged into your Walkman.  While you could just take those ten final tracks and bang them in sequence onto your "record" as-is, they will sound like ten separate, discrete, non-cohesive sessions.  For some, this is what works (see Guided by Voices).  For the majority, though, the record isn't complete until various magic happens to give the ten discrete tracks a sense of unity, cohesion, and common (in as much as is needed) feel, a "record".  This magic is what mastering is, in this definition.

Sometimes mastering just doesn't happen because the band can't afford it.  Sometimes a record is mastered for a particular format (say, vinyl), and isn't really re-jiggered for different formats, as there is a distinct difference in what is needed for records mastered for vinyl, and those same records mastered for CD.  Sometimes it's just that, shitty mastering (did the mastering engineer forget to take out his earplugs?).

I have my own evolving list of classic indierock, "alternative", what-have-you records that meet one of the above categories, and sound worlds different when I get to work on them.  The list is smaller when in-print records are winnowed out - I really don't want to be DMCA'ed...

What would readers like to see worked on?  What do you think is sonically terrible, but you still suffer through it because the songs are just so damn good?  I'm curious to see if our opinions of shitty mastering overlap.

27 comments:

  1. Surely mastering can't be that hard? Just take this masterclass by Monolake: http://soundcloud.com/monolake/mastering-a-step-by-step-guide.

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  2. Are you aware of this thread on ILM?: http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=14797&bookmarkedmessageid=3064438#msg3206446

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  3. I'd like a track-by-track album essay of one of the classic offenders so I could follow along and try to hear what you're hearing. I think this subject is fascinating, I just haven't developed my ears to make this kind of distinction.

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  4. I'd love that...especially to pick up some tips maybe on my own mashups/mixes/podcasts...it's hard to master without it sounding LOUD and killing all the dynamics, but if you totally ignore the brickwall/limiter etc. you've got no chance on the dancefloor or the underground...most people are listening on mp3 players which is why the current TOOLOUD overbricking takes place, although I think certain people are learning not to do that as say the first Hard-Fi album was too painful to listen to cos of the mastering, it was just too hard.

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  5. I'd love to hear some of those tips - I think I'd learn for some of my own productions!

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  7. I would have said New FADs a while ago, but a while back you fixed that for which I thank you immensely.

    I think top of my list would be Furniture's "The Love Mongers/When the Boom Was On." A nice job was done by Cherry Red with "The Wrong People", but my guess is that's the last of it. The versions on iTunes are crappy vinyl transfers.

    Second to that Earwig's two albums and single (the one that became Insides).

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  8. I would LOVE to hear a better sounding version of Iggy Pop's "the Idiot"

    the only cd copy I have of it sounds like it was recorded directly off of the vinyl.
    Back in the day, I feel like this happened with multiple other artists/bands... but I can't think of other examples off the top of my head.

    ...or there's the 'advance, unmastered version' of R.E.M's "Reveal"

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  9. Not 100% sure it's out of print, but I would love to have a remastered digital copy of Game Theory's "Big Shot Chronicles". Or any other Scott Miller/Mitch Easter stuff.

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  10. besides the obvious, (New Order's "Substance")

    how about Naked Raygun's "Throb Throb"?
    (not sure if it needs it, but i'd be curious to hear what you could do
    with it anyway)

    or Human League's "Fascination"?
    (never released on cd, and itunes mp3s are also crappy vinyl transfers)

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  11. Some good suggestions...

    Have to admit my taste for protopunk such as Iggy/Stooges and their ilk never developed to much. I just plain like the bands that took their lead and went further, basically the late 70s and onward punk/postpunk stuff.

    Never got into Game Theory or any of the Mitch Easter-led acts. Same with Human League.

    New Order - Substance. Yeah - but it's all been done over at Recycle (piecemeal, but done).

    Naked Raygun is a band I had in mind when developing this series. Their 80s catalog is pretty poor sounding on CD; even the Quarterstick reissues from 1998 are straight transfers (I suspect actual CD copies for the original albums minus bonus tracks) of the Homestead/Caroline pressings. Jettison in particular is wretched. I've improved Throb Throb, All Rise and especially Jettison muchly, for my own enjoyment. The problem is the catalog is still in print and T&G/Quarterstick yank things down pretty quickly.

    Maybe I'll do up a Raygun sampler to show how much they can be improved. The catalog deserves better than to be mastered by monkeys (if the CDs were mastered at all).

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  12. I'll bite: How about Tim by The Replacements? The weird blaring mix has always made it hard for me to enjoy this album.

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  13. Peter Gabriel's fourth album (aka Security) always struck me as one that had great songs but shitty sound. I always attributed it to the fact that it was recorded digitally in 1981/82 (i.e. before the technology was properly developed).

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  14. Husker Du - New Day Rising

    "SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS"

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  15. Japan -- especially the early records.

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  16. I played around with this for "New Day Rising" and "Flip Your Wig"...but I also edited them down to two 7-Song EP's.

    I don't think you can fix "Tim" in the same way...You'd need to remix it from the Master Tapes - Hopefully all the effects that buried the music, weren't recorded directly to tape. It's pretty much my least favorite Replacements album when I'm listening to them...but my favorite when I'm reading the track listings.

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  17. i would have to say depeche modes black celebration album the mastering was so damn low esp on the track new dress listen to the first pressings on lp or cd

    then listen to the remaster that alan wilder himself worked on

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  18. Perfect Example is Depeche Modes Black celecration Album


    Perfect Example is New Dress listen to the first pressing on cd there is so much hisss sound like a tire going flat then listen to the remaster that alan wilder did youll be like wtf

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  19. Disintegration by the Cure. Excellent despite muddiness, which the remaster didn't really "cure". IMHO, the single releases of the album tracks really shone, much better mastering. But I lack the vocabulary to describe how or why.

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  20. Low-life.

    I know it's in print, but having discussed this before, it needs to be transferred from vinyl to avoid the pre-emphasis on every (?) CD pressing. Since the New Order camp let us get away with Recycle, it's possible they'll let a vinyl transfer slide, as that's supposedly inferior to the CD remasters now available.

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  21. Low-life.

    It needs to be transferred from vinyl to avoid the pre-emphasis found on all (?) CD pressings. Since the New Order camp let us get away with Recycle, this too may be overlooked since it's (supposedly) "inferior" to the remaster currently available.

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  22. The original Qwest CD of Low-life wasn't affected by the pre-emphasis bug. Just the Factory FACD100 pressings.

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  23. Any version of the Go-Betweens last album Oceans Apart sounds terrible. Even the vinyl version has distortion all over it but particularly on "This Night's For You". I have never heard anything so bad, but like the article says, you get past it because the songs are so good. I would imagine that it's so bad that it can't be fixed.

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  24. The go-betweens' last album Oceans Apart is one of the worst sounds CDs I've ever heard. The LP isn't much better, but the CD has distortion all over it, that sounds as bad an AM radio that's not tuned in properly, especially on "This Night's for You". Like the article says, you stick with it because the songs are so good, but this CD isn't just a case of muddiness or flatness, it's just plain distortion.

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  25. I'd love to hear remasters of some of Daniel Johnston's earliest works, such as "Hi, How Are You?"

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  26. Dino Jr's Bug and You're Living All over Me sound like crap. i wish they'd get a nice cleansing.

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