Is it just me, or is the issue of the distorted mastering on this song corrected on the album release?

I can't compare it to the one I bought a while back from Amazon, because it bothered me so much that a song I really enjoyed was made unlistenable due to the distortion. Even a friend who heard it in my car asked me if there was something "wrong with the MP3."

Interestingly, although the bass is still incredibly high in the mix on the album, I'm not hearing the distortion like I was before, and as a result I'm really digging this song.

Did I just get used to it? Or was it corrected prior to the album's release?

I don't know about mixing and all that but it did sound clearer and more concise to me on the album. Seemed to be much less distorted.

Its terrible. It might be improved a tad, but as I loathe that song, I havent bothered to compare. I have already removed it from the album playlist and find that the album is so much better for it.

Yeah its not much better to be honest, a couple of other tracks are quite badly mastered too IMO.

Not sure why after all these years that this is something he still cant manage to sort! I mean its not hard to send your tracks off to people these days to have it done properly.

Nope, it hasn't been sorted. The track on the album is still quite distorted towards the latter half.

There are several other tracks that have prety noticable distortion. It's a shame, as I otherwise really like both albums.

Are you guys talking about that one point in the song where there is some crackle on his vocal?

Pfffeeehhhww, happy to read that there's nothing wrong with my ears.

I hear it as well, also on the album version and in other songs as well.

How can this happen?

TweetyV6 said:

Pfffeeehhhww, happy to read that there's nothing wrong with my ears.

I hear it as well, also on the album version and in other songs as well.

How can this happen?

Which other songs?

Yet another album where the mastering engineer is competing in the loudness war. The mastering issues are all over the album, but more "visible" some places for the non audiophile. It's a nightmare for the audiophile. I studied sound engineering for a year, and my father is an audiophile. I'm quite sure he hates the sound quality, while I have learned to accept it, and enjoy whatever's left of the music.

Replica said:

Yet another album where the mastering engineer is competing in the loudness war. The mastering issues are all over the album, but more "visible" some places for the non audiophile. It's a nightmare for the audiophile. I studied sound engineering for a year, and my father is an audiophile. I'm quite sure he hates the sound quality, while I have learned to accept it, and enjoy whatever's left of the music.

I don't think its HORRIBLE, but there are a few areas where it's obvious it was mixed by different people/recorded subpar and was impossible to master to the point where it sounded cohesive. At the same time there are issues where the layers are done quite well (the underlying "cloudy" background vocals on U Know sound pretty great on good speakers).

[Edited 10/2/14 6:19am]

Replica said:

Yet another album where the mastering engineer is competing in the loudness war. The mastering issues are all over the album, but more "visible" some places for the non audiophile. It's a nightmare for the audiophile. I studied sound engineering for a year, and my father is an audiophile. I'm quite sure he hates the sound quality, while I have learned to accept it, and enjoy whatever's left of the music.

Actually, I'm wondering if Prince needs to get his mixing desk checked out! I'm not sure that the distortion is being introduced in the mastering stage (if so, it's such a basic error that the engineer needs a new job!!).

But this has been happening for some time now - I first remember noticing it on TRC - specifically Muse 2 the Pharaoh. The Rhodes piano and particularly the harmonized vocals all have distortion at peak points. It's the first time I'd noticed unintended distortion on a Prince album which, up until then, had largley been immaculate. (Yes, I know there is unintended distortion on a couple of tracks on SOTT, but they actually gave the song a certain sound, which Prince liked and kept - this is something entirely different - totally unwanted distrortion).

Hence, given it has happened a number of times over the last decade or so, I'm beginning to think there might be an issue in the studio, as opposed to a problem in the mastering stage.

It's mastered poorly. And Plectrum is worse than anything on AOA. Stop This Train and the mellower songs on PE are not as bad as the loud songs, which are among the worst mastered songs I've ever heard. Just try listening to SOTT or The Black Album cds, and then putting PE in. In my car, I only need to have it on volume 4 for it to be too loudn. Black Album on Volume 8 is quieter than PE on 3. Hard to believe.

This is not a problem with Prince or his equipment per se, it is the current industry wide standard that is the problem. EVERYTHING is mastered this way for a long time now.

Google "Loudness war" and watch some videos that come up in the search and you'll see that this is not about Prince. In this case he's just following standard operating procedure for the entire industry.

Enjoy those remasters folks! The originals will sound better. Let's hope for lots of bonus material, eh?

djThunderfunk said:

This is not a problem with Prince or his equipment per se, it is the current industry wide standard that is the problem. EVERYTHING is mastered this way for a long time now.

Google "Loudness war" and watch some videos that come up in the search and you'll see that this is not about Prince. In this case he's just following standard operating procedure for the entire industry.

Enjoy those remasters folks! The originals will sound better. Let's hope for lots of bonus material, eh?

That just depends on who does them. If Steve Hoffman or someone competent does them they can turn out beautiful. I would love if Steven Wilson was given a shot to remix/remaster them in stereo and 5.1 (I think he's a Prince fan. He's done several covers) but I know that shit won't happen. ( And yes, I'm a huge SW fanboy!)

.

[Edited 10/2/14 15:21pm]

djThunderfunk said:

This is not a problem with Prince or his equipment per se, it is the current industry wide standard that is the problem. EVERYTHING is mastered this way for a long time now.

Google "Loudness war" and watch some videos that come up in the search and you'll see that this is not about Prince. In this case he's just following standard operating procedure for the entire industry.

Enjoy those remasters folks! The originals will sound better. Let's hope for lots of bonus material, eh?

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?

djThunderfunk said:

This is not a problem with Prince or his equipment per se, it is the current industry wide standard that is the problem. EVERYTHING is mastered this way for a long time now.

Google "Loudness war" and watch some videos that come up in the search and you'll see that this is not about Prince. In this case he's just following standard operating procedure for the entire industry.

Enjoy those remasters folks! The originals will sound better. Let's hope for lots of bonus material, eh?

Loudness war and distortion from clipping are two different things. You can have a record that is mastered very loudly that doesn't distort.

.

Count me as one more mystified musician/audiophile/fan that has no idea how this unintended distortion like on Breakdown can make it through to release.. Prince why

thx185 said:

djThunderfunk said:

This is not a problem with Prince or his equipment per se, it is the current industry wide standard that is the problem. EVERYTHING is mastered this way for a long time now.

Google "Loudness war" and watch some videos that come up in the search and you'll see that this is not about Prince. In this case he's just following standard operating procedure for the entire industry.

Enjoy those remasters folks! The originals will sound better. Let's hope for lots of bonus material, eh?

Loudness war and distortion from clipping are two different things. You can have a record that is mastered very loudly that doesn't distort.

.

Count me as one more mystified musician/audiophile/fan that has no idea how this unintended distortion like on Breakdown can make it through to release.. Prince why

Bad clipping especially by the end on the original. They got it a little better on the release, but the ending still gets a little touchy. Same with Aint Turning Around...holy clipping at the end....

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

Yeah I dont think the mastering is great, I think it seems that "Jamie Lewis" is there for the mastering stage

It annoys me most at around the 3:30 mark in Breakdown when he sings "It's cool..." and it obviously distorts. Pathetic and unforgiveable. Anything Prince has to say about sound quality is simply laughable when he allows this to happen.

I thought this was just the poor quality of the leaked release last week. Was amazed when the actual CD sounded this bad. Can't recall any song on any other album I have sounding this distorted, and its such a great song as well. Astonoshing to me that this passed quailty control

I can't claim to know exactly what causes these problems. They're all over the record (at least "Breakdown", "The Gold Standard", "U Know", "Breakfast Can Wait" and "Time" are all clearly distorted).

One way to get the final recordings louder is to intentionally overdrive the preamps on a mixing console for the full mix. This type of a process is done before applying the limiter(s) in the final mastering stage. You'd be surprised how much you can pump up the mixes that way, but the price will be of course that the peaks will be distorted (and not just "limited"). A lot depends on the character of the distortion provided by the preamps and some think it can add high-end "sparkle". Another benefit of the method is that it makes it easier to avoid ending up with that squashy sound of having used too much compression for the masters. I believe this is something that was done on TGE (this was speculated by some audio engineers on a recording forum).

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.

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.

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. However songs like The Gold Standard profit from it. It would be different if they were to play The Gold Standard with a drumset kinda like songs on Controversy or Dirty Mind though. It would take away alot of the life in the music, even though the drums do punch hard with smart use of compressor and mastering. It's very much hit or miss with how the treatment helped the overall sound of the songs. But I agree with Mindflux that the amount of not on purpose distortion are not usually as huge as on this release. It's not on every song. But The Breakdown does have some issues that might have come somewhere in the process that I don't think is intentionally. If it was on purpose, then it was not a genuis move like the mistakes he did with "help" from Susan Rogers.

I would disagree with the argument "it is industry standard nowadays". There are many discs out there that have a great, balanced sound, not an in-ya-face sound. It probably is a matter of taking your time and having the right people do it.

Also, just maybe, the equipment Prince uses to record is not 100% up to scratch anymore. Would be interesting to know where the songs were recorded, and from what time period the hardware is. Maybe a typical case of not doing regular capex / maintenance on the hardware side?

But whatever, if the stuff is as funky as The Gold Standard or groovy as Art Official Cage then I don't mind...

I agree

I did not notice when playing Cd on my home stereo

(which is petty high quality)

but when I played CD in my truck (stock stereo system)

I could hear it as really distorted like bad bass behind his voice

I had to turn it down it was so bad....

Replica said:

djThunderfunk said:

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.

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. However songs like The Gold Standard profit from it. It would be different if they were to play The Gold Standard with a drumset kinda like songs on Controversy or Dirty Mind though. It would take away alot of the life in the music, even though the drums do punch hard with smart use of compressor and mastering. It's very much hit or miss with how the treatment helped the overall sound of the songs. But I agree with Mindflux that the amount of not on purpose distortion are not usually as huge as on this release. It's not on every song. But The Breakdown does have some issues that might have come somewhere in the process that I don't think is intentionally. If it was on purpose, then it was not a genuis move like the mistakes he did with "help" from Susan Rogers.

You might like to check out this article - it's in line with what you are saying in terms of having to treat styles of music differently to have them sounding their best. It does also point out that the loudness war is not actually that detrimental to the sound - there is just good and bad mastering.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm

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.

Fair enough. All I can say is that the albums I'm buying do not suffer from it! The music I buy (and produce) has been lovingly crafted and aims for sonic excellence. The industry is so instant and disposable these days, that many mainstream releases just don't have the time and care lavished on them like they should. But I don't really buy mainstream stuff so.......