I've alway thought TRC sounded really good from a dynamics point of view. I have a feeling that they recorded and mastered in 96bit and dithered down to 16 bit. That may explain why you have such a HOT wave pattern when u extract the audio file.

My kind of thread!

'The Rainbow Children', a musically magnificent album, indeed does sound as if it were recorded on 2" tape, then perhaps mixed and mastered within ProTools, which is how I believe it was done.

Yes, Femi Jiya was involved in the recording, but likely not the mastering.

In terms of the comment and graphic sample comparison above... the least dynamic song on the album was used for the example. "The Everlasting Now" doesn't have nearly the dynamics as nearly ANY other cut on that album.

The album is rich, dense, AND dynamic. The only other recent release that was recorded and mixed as well (but perhaps with a different sonic result) was 'Planet Earth', which was also recorded and mixed beautifully.

L4OATheOriginal said:

You're missing the point.

There is no sense in comparing a destroyed wave-form with another destroyed wave-form to highlight the problem. This use of over-compression in mastering is a recent fashion, so to understand what the difference is, we have to compare a modern wave-form to one from the 80s or early 90s, when this "technique" wasn't being used.

L4OATheOriginal said:

We're not comparing music; we're comparing mastering.

Graycap23 said:

No, dithering would not produce what we're seeing here. There is only one culprit that produces this kind of effect - over-compression in the name of loudness.

Giovanni777 said:

OK - let's look at:

Everywhere


The Last December


1+1+1 is 3


All of the dynamic peaks on this album are at the same level - namely 0dB (that is, as LOUD as possible). Every song has this characteristic. The wave-forms have been crushed, and all the dynamic peaks are maxed-out. This is not good mastering.

Giovanni777 said:

"Recorded and mixed beautifully" - perhaps, but the mastering is a disaster. In fact, Planet Earth was mastered even louder than The Rainbow Children.

Generally speaking, on this issue of the trend of over compression, I would be in complete agreement, but not when concerning the dynamics of both 'The Rainbow Children' and 'Planet Earth'. The dynamics are indeed preserved, regardless of volume maximizing U R seeing. Also, in the other examples U gave, they were also songs that were, indeed, more compressed, but on 'The Rainbow Children' album, much of the "compression" is from being initially recorded on 2" tape, where, as I'm sure U know, the tape saturation gives a compressed effect sonically.

Also, if U listen 2 the musical dynamics of the entire 'The Rainbow Children' album, it all makes perfect sense.

Giovanni777 said:

Not possible. There can be no dynamic peaks when the signal is hard-limited and maximized

Giovanni777 said:

The compression on TRC that I'm showing and discussing is digital, not analog - this is not from tape saturation; this is from a deliberate attempt to maximize the volume of the album, at the expense of sound quality.

It is very a very common practice, and the audio signature is unmistakable. This is sonic butchery.

Giovanni777 said:

I'm not sure what you're saying here.



:edit:
Incidentally, Planet Earth was mastered *louder* than Tool's last album (10,000 Days), by 3.32dB. Utterly ridiculous.
[Edited 11/20/08 19:31pm]

PsychedelicGoof said:

i was thinking the same thing