Mastering has become horrible with all the compression and clipping.

Chili's last three albums are not listenable at all.

What can we do about it?

Chili only had one solo album...are u talking about the last TLC albums?

Chili peppers' lol
There's been petitions and it well known how fucked up their albums were on cd!

personally, i liked the days when music didn't sound crystal clear. the 50's to the 70's and into the 80's. today, everything is too in its place. the beauty of Beatles, Stones, Elvis, James Brown, Phil Spector, Jimi, early Bowie, etc., is that because of the limits of recording technology, things weren't as crystal clear and there was a lot of user interaction in what the listener could hear in the song. gave it a lot of mystique that is missing from modern music where you can tell what everything is.

That's not the problem at all^^.

It's the loudness of the mastering making distortion and clipping.

Crystal clear is great i hate any crackles such as on hendrix remasters(esp AXIS).

MikeMatronik said:

Cute.

My beef with Kate Bush's 1986 hits compilation The Whole Story is that there is a load of tape hiss. And I bought it on CD!

mikek1 said:

I thought I was one of the few who noticed how bad the "mixing" is starting to sound. If you ask me people need to stop being lazy and break out the Reel To Reel and the giant Mixing Console sit their ass down and get it right. All this Micro Wave Ass Music, just because you can cook it faster does not mean it is good for you.

I think the new Chili Peppers sounds great. I don't think it's over produced. 3121 sounds like shit, however. And some of the big pop stuff is so glittery it doesn't sound human anymore.

NDRU said:

you must be joking!

Read about the mastering of the chili's; petitions have been sent to WB to get the last three albums re-released without distortion and compression!

Californication is the worst sounding cd of the millenium and one of the worst by a major label in history!

MikeMatronik said:

I didn't even know she released on solo album.

Tessa said:

Interesting perspective. I agree with you about the Beatles, Stones etc.

mikek1 said:

Was that the Rolling Stone critics poll or Q Magazine, I forget?

VinnyM27 said:

It's was called Supernova



It was not released in the US

MikeMatronik said:

That ain't Chili!

ElCapitan said:

Lisa 'Left-eye' Lopez

Babydubistzuschnell said:

I'm such an ass!

mikek1 said:

Maybe it's your ears. New technology is making everything superclean to almost a fault. No distortion or clipping. Not sure what's wrong with the Peppers...maybe they should get a better engineer to master their albums for CD and not for vinyl. There are many many different recording processes these days to choose from...though many go with the most current one and lose that dirty sound.

Just IMO

superspaceboy said:

Loudness gets my vote

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...udness_war

MikeMatronik said:

superspaceboy said:

You know nothing!
Californication hads clipping nearly constantly. Audio engineers have complained about the way in which cds are being mastered now. Do some quick research on the net; The chili peppers are one of the prime examples put forward by everybody for overly' compressed mastering!

It's called 'the loudness war' and there's alot of info on the net.
Alot of cds aren't listenable; just l;ike as if you turned your t.v right up and the sound becomes distorted!

Are you listening on an IPOD, by any chance? They sound like shit. Noise all over the place, like everything is too mloud.

I know records are getting louder & louder, but I listened to Stadium Arcadium yesterday and it sounded great. Way less produced than other superstars' music.

NDRU said:

depends on the headphones you use, i think. i hate those earbuds that come with it (they hurt my ears and give me zits in them ) but, uh, anyway, i noticed the same thing when listening to louder music on my iPod, but when i switched to a different set of headphones, everything sounds fine.

Tessa said:

I love my ipod, and with different headphones it sounds better, but still I get noise.

Seems like the only way to get rid of it is to turn the EQ off. Actually that's another complaint. I only have a choice of EQ settings. I can't set my own.

Maybe they've improved things since I bought mine, though.

NDRU said:

my complaint about the EQ levels is that my iTrip (that broadcasts the music to my car radio) doesn't recognize any of them, including the my pre-set volume settings for quieter CD's. turning on "soundcheck" in the settings menu helps some, but it's still not that great.

Tessa said:

You're able to set different volume for different albums? I never knew that.

I use the soundcheck & I like that.

NDRU said:

yeah if you go into the "info" section for a track (or a group of tracks)... where you can title it or name the artist or give it a track or disc number.... there's a volume slider on the bottom. or it may be in one of the other tabs in the same dialogue box.

Tessa said:

interesting

do you like your itrip? mine only works so so.

As much as I love my ipod,they aren't designed for an audiophile experience no matter how much volume adjusting you do. They're for listening on the go, and for that they are adequate.

Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact that CD's have been getting mastered louder and louder over the years to the point where the quality of the actual recordings have been sacrificed.

NDRU said:

depends. if i can find a decent radio frequency that i don't have to change very often, i like it very much. if not, then it's a pain in the ass.