Dazza said:

Fuck the mastering - the production and arrangement are piss poor. I can't get past that awful tinny piano

He's always been frustrating that way. I remember listening to Sign after watching th PR concert and wondering why the guitar parts sounded so thin and tiny. I know he wants to create a "fuller" experience in concert but damn, turn those guitars UP!!

At the end of Ainturninaound where it goes psychedelic, there's really bad distortion. It's unfortutanate cuz that's the best part, but it sounds so bad it distracts from the song.

ozone14 said:

At the end of Ainturninaound where it goes psychedelic, there's really bad distortion. It's unfortutanate cuz that's the best part, but it sounds so bad it distracts from the song.

"We apologize for the volume.." he says I think in the end as well..lol

djThunderfunk said:

Mindflux said:

I'm well aware of the "loudness war", I'm in the industry! (btw, there's a lot of debate as to whether this is at all detrimental to the overall sound quality anyway - poor mastering is poor mastering, regardless of loudness).

Which leads me to the fact that poor mastering would not have necessarily introduced the distortion we are hearing. Despite the "loudness" of all other cds, you don't hear widespread distortion on modern releases. It is impossible for you (or I) to say exactly what is causing it and I also highly doubt that it isn't going un-noticed! Surely Prince himself must hear it - but, he's ok'd it before so, who knows, maybe he likes it?

Actually I do. It's the main reason I buy very little newly released music. Even when I like an album I usually hate the sonic fidelity (or lack there of). I haven't heard a new CD that "sounded good" with no distortion in over a decade.

This is a truly ridiculous overstatement, or you have truly terrible & limited taste in the music have heard over the past decade.

Replica said:

I agree. The only stuff that sounds good is the type of music that profit from that type of treatment. Some sorts of electronic dance music etc are already artifical("art official"). Maybe it's a statement from Prince. He is treating all the music like it was EDM. It doesn't sound good if you treat a ballad like Breakdown as if it was an EDM track.

This makes you sound like EDM (pff) is your only reference point for talking about production / mastering techniques.

Replica said:

I agree. The only stuff that sounds good is the type of music that profit from that type of treatment. Some sorts of electronic dance music etc are already artifical("art official"). Maybe it's a statement from Prince. He is treating all the music like it was EDM. It doesn't sound good if you treat a ballad like Breakdown as if it was an EDM track.

thx185 said:

This makes you sound like EDM (pff) is your only reference point for talking about production / mastering techniques.

How did you get that out of my post? I'm just stating the facts. Usually most electronic music that is made for the dance floor is supposed to have less dynamics in the drums. Every drum hit is making an equally heavy, full of bass and thick sound that makes the dance floor move. Often they will use sidechain compressor to give even more room for the drums, as the rest of the time in between is filled with the melodic, harmonic parts, and often a huge bass sound. Electronic music can of course be devided in thousands of genres and sub genres. But the dance club friendly type of electronic music usually has very small change in dynamics. And it serves it's purpose. Classical, jazz etc are often based more on dynamics though, and can't be treated the same way. Rnb, soul, funk with live instrumantation will also suffer from extreme compression and heavy mastering.

You can clearly hear that the cymbal crash hit on Breakdown doesnt sound like an actuall crash anymore, and if they were going for a sci fi sound, the lazers did a good enough job creating that star wars feel. The crash distortion though just sounds like a mistake.

I think his songs that are based on drum programming is suffering the least from it.

On music that is supposed to sound more live, they usually go for a more dynamic sound. A well used technique is to route the same signal to two different track groups, and then treat the two groups differently. You can treat one left and right signal containing a drum track with small adjustments and evening out some disturbing dynamics, then the copy of the drum track that was routed to another group track can be treated with more agressive compression, limiter, clipping etc... the ultra flat sound can be lower in the mix, while the more dynamic sound will be more up front. When you are putting these tracks together, the flat sound in the background is so flat that it will bring more clarity and appearance to details that disappeared in the dynamics of the original recording, but still maintaing the feel of dynamics because of the less treated signal.

I don't have very much experience in mixing band music, but I do know enough to hear a difference. I do not think the same way of treating the sound can be used on all types of music. Do you?

yeh ..he mastered the non-existant guitar solo RIGHT- OUT- OF- IT

Elle85n09 said:

I used the disc drive in my laptop to transfer these songs to my itunes acct. and they sound terrible. I'm not an audiophile, but I know what distortion sounds like. I've been listening to the cds via computer using adequate skullcandy headphones, and they sounded fine to me until I uploaded them a short time ago. I hope the speakers in my car make a difference. Is this the mastering/clipping problem everyone is talking about? Just need some advice from people in the know. Thanks for any help! Btw, The songs I've listened to from PE don't sound as bad as the AOA tunes. Thanks again. Sandra

Not sure how bad this is, but I have had to re-rip many CD's as they ripped distorted (REM Monster and Morcheeba Greatest Hits spring to mind) and some even sounding considerably worse than others at the same bit rate I gernerally go for 256 (but Kosheen Resist sounded terrible so I uped to 320).

Replica said:

Replica said:

I agree. The only stuff that sounds good is the type of music that profit from that type of treatment. Some sorts of electronic dance music etc are already artifical("art official"). Maybe it's a statement from Prince. He is treating all the music like it was EDM. It doesn't sound good if you treat a ballad like Breakdown as if it was an EDM track.

thx185 said:

This makes you sound like EDM (pff) is your only reference point for talking about production / mastering techniques.

How did you get that out of my post?

"He is treating all the music like it was EDM". You drew that direct line of reference, I'm just saying that EDM isn't the only point of comarison for production. Including bad production like the clipping on The Breakdown. No worries, cheers.

Mastering is about soooo much more than just making sure it's loud but not distorted – and Prince's recent releases are indeed distorted too. I love both new albums but they make my heart and ears bleed they are so badly mastered and so distorted.

Good mastering is also about setting natural-sounding gaps between songs and setting levels in relation to each other, amongs others.

Just listen to 'U Know', it sounds unnaturally hot compared to anything else. I always have to turn the volume down for that, even though I like the song.

Of course listening to these albums on a high end equipment makes them sound a bit nicer, but they will still be distorted and badly compressed. Sadly, this has been the case for over a decade now with most of Prince's releases. From a technical viewpoint they are just as amateurish as his cover artwork has been ever since he parted with Warners.

[Edited 10/16/14 3:19am]

Daveoooo said:

Having finally listed to it at volume on my home hifi (seperates - Cambridge Audio CD, Rotel amp & eltax speakers on a solid floor), I can say it's fine with no distorsion.

I really don't believe it has anything to do with the quaity of equipment. I can clearly hear some distortion whatever source I listen from.

"Breakfast Can Wait" contains some of the worst examples on the album (though the distortion is not restricted to this one track) ... just listen to it repeatedly for the first 20 seconds (particularly around 8-9 seconds in).

I've heard people on other websites say that Prince knows exactly what he wants the album to sounds like, and this is an effect that has been done on purpose ... I just don't belive that.

I don't know if it's a problem with mastering or with the initial recording ... but it sounds bad, the worst I've heard on CD.

thx185 said:

djThunderfunk said:

This is a truly ridiculous overstatement, or you have truly terrible & limited taste in the music have heard over the past decade.

Replica said:

I agree. The only stuff that sounds good is the type of music that profit from that type of treatment. Some sorts of electronic dance music etc are already artifical("art official"). Maybe it's a statement from Prince. He is treating all the music like it was EDM. It doesn't sound good if you treat a ballad like Breakdown as if it was an EDM track.

This makes you sound like EDM (pff) is your only reference point for talking about production / mastering techniques.

There is no logic in what you just said. Even if there was a link between sonic quality and genre (which there isn't), then surely the reverse is true anyway? If the majority of music I buy is well-recorded and not suffering from poor mastering, then I'm clearly enjoying well-crafted and loved pieces of work.

Of course, you could prove your point by telling me what amazing music you're listening to that has had piss-poor production and/or mastering. Just a couple of examples will do.

As I stated before in the thread, there is hardly any "chart" or "mainstream" stuff that I buy (with the odd exception). But I listen to an enormous range of styles and genres - I'm a music producer myself, so I like a diverse palette from which to take inspiration. So, in my vast cd collection (over 2000 now) you'll find anything from Squarepusher to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Vaughan Williams to Amon Tobin.

But, as I said, feel free to enlighten me or keep your ridiculously assumptive and ignorant comments to yourself.

Daveoooo said:

Having finally listed to it at volume on my home hifi (seperates - Cambridge Audio CD, Rotel amp & eltax speakers on a solid floor), I can say it's fine with no distorsion. But to be fair on my work laptop at mid volume it sounded shit! I may add that it sounds even more beautiful with a fade speaker left to right wobble back and forth on his vocal on the into. Amazing!

Well, that is a "budget" system (most let down by the Eltax speakers, they are certainly the weak link there), but its still far better than what most people will listen to music on. Still, it really ought to be revealing those details. Whether I listen to the album in my studio (clinically revealing) or my hi-fi system (Musical Fidelity CD, Audiolab bi-amps and Kef Reference speakers), the distortion is (unfortunately) all too apparent.

If you've got the money, consider trading those Eltax speakers in for some budget Missions or B&Ws - your system will sing and suddenly come alive and it might be the best hundred quid you've spent

thx185 said:

Replica said:

How did you get that out of my post?

"He is treating all the music like it was EDM". You drew that direct line of reference, I'm just saying that EDM isn't the only point of comarison for production. Including bad production like the clipping on The Breakdown. No worries, cheers.

I think Replica is more than aware of that. But the album clearly has taken a dance music approach for its production and it doesn't necessarily suit all of the tracks.

You do make some strange inferences from what people write! Do you produce music yourself?

Mindflux said:

Daveoooo said:

Having finally listed to it at volume on my home hifi (seperates - Cambridge Audio CD, Rotel amp & eltax speakers on a solid floor), I can say it's fine with no distorsion. But to be fair on my work laptop at mid volume it sounded shit! I may add that it sounds even more beautiful with a fade speaker left to right wobble back and forth on his vocal on the into. Amazing!

Well, that is a "budget" system (most let down by the Eltax speakers, they are certainly the weak link there), but its still far better than what most people will listen to music on. Still, it really ought to be revealing those details. Whether I listen to the album in my studio (clinically revealing) or my hi-fi system (Musical Fidelity CD, Audiolab bi-amps and Kef Reference speakers), the distortion is (unfortunately) all too apparent.

If you've got the money, consider trading those Eltax speakers in for some budget Missions or B&Ws - your system will sing and suddenly come alive and it might be the best hundred quid you've spent

BUDGET?? at £100 poundish per item 15 years ago it may well be worth an upgrade of some of it! Cheers for the guidance.

1. Turn the preamp volume down in iTunes equalizer window, way down.

2. Go to http://newt.phys.unsw.edu...aring.html , follow the instructions (2 mn max.)

3. With the equalizer, draw a curve corresponding to the curve you got at step 2.

4. Deactivate all automatic "loudness", "maximize bass", or stuff like that in your audio chain.

5. Feel free to add a little infra bass and high treble.


If all goes well, you will realize that every distorsion in AOA is intentional and part of the prod. Just listen to the voices, even they reach high volume levels, they don't distort.

And the distorsion on the last choruses of The Breakdown is intentional : only the background vocals distort.

Pretty much every song on the album has a crunched-to-death compression on some tracks, to the point of distorsion.

You may go back listen to Gold Experience, Musicology, LotusFlower without loudness, and preamps lowered as much as possible. Ain't nothing wrong with yo ears.


I hate the consequence of the loudness wars (Jeff Buckley's Grace album, sigh...), and to some extent Come, TGE and Exodus were not good examples for the rest of the business.

But... If you set your audio chain so to attenuate any compression or loudness, on albums that have been mastered (stupidly) as if your average Joe had a Studio audio system worth thousand of bucks, they have a very, very good sense of dynamics. Sure everything's compressed to death, but still. Exodus is a great example, it has a fabulous sound.

[Edited 10/17/14 9:27am]

[Edited 10/17/14 9:34am]

Daveoooo said:

Mindflux said:

Well, that is a "budget" system (most let down by the Eltax speakers, they are certainly the weak link there), but its still far better than what most people will listen to music on. Still, it really ought to be revealing those details. Whether I listen to the album in my studio (clinically revealing) or my hi-fi system (Musical Fidelity CD, Audiolab bi-amps and Kef Reference speakers), the distortion is (unfortunately) all too apparent.

If you've got the money, consider trading those Eltax speakers in for some budget Missions or B&Ws - your system will sing and suddenly come alive and it might be the best hundred quid you've spent

BUDGET?? at £100 poundish per item 15 years ago it may well be worth an upgrade of some of it! Cheers for the guidance.

You're welcome mate. The speakers are the most important part of the system and have the greatest influence over sound quality. If you can spend £150-£200 on a new pair of Missions, B&Ws (or better yet, a pair of Dali's - tiny, but sound absolutely incredible), you'll never look back. Your cd and amp are decent enough to deserve better speakers (and decent cable - QED or Van den Hul, you can't go wrong - £30 - £50 cables will be more than enough for this sort of system).

My cd player was a grand, each Audiolab amp was £800 and my speakers were £1500 for the pair. I've got £400 worth of Van Den Hul speaker cable feeding those beasts and £160 Van den Hul interconnect - it may seem a lot, but if you heard this system.....it is like the band is in your room. The detail on offer is incredible, with rich bass, sweet treble and a neutral presentation. It's just jaw-dropping with any decently produced cd