
JIM50
QUESTION
One of the greatest Albums released was “Genesis Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” and it sounds way better on the Vinyl than on the CD. I guess the digitizing process looses some signal thingy’s that made the music of yester year. What would happen if you took digital to analog to Vinyl ? I guess the Vinyl release’s are done that way, so would their sound different ???
JIM50 REPLY
Now you’ve got me goin’ ……
This is a topic that can be quite controversial… and I do want to stress that this is just my opinion… and I’d like to share a few thoughts, if I may. take it or leave it -it’s all good
You’ve raised some good points.
I agree that Genesis - Lamb Lies down….. is a great sounding record…as many of the albums coming out at that time was at the height of Vinyl production….and the tech who mastered and CUT the grooves made fantastic sounding products… the record execs in suits knew no different…and trusted the guys who did the cutting to do their thing.
Here’s a KEY point
One of the limitations of records..vinyl… is that “BASS” frequencies were very VERY carefully engineered in the mastering process to ONLY BE SO LOUD and not one dB louder …. why…???
Because Vinyl has physical limitations… what happens when you put too much bass frequencies into a master that’s destined for vinyl production?? the vinyl grooves from the bass become so large and wide, that a stylus (needle) can’t ride in the groove… and you have mush. Record producers knew this at the time, and everyone agreed on a standard, (see RIAA etc) so the ‘cutting’ of records were technically very refined… and audiophiles LOVED the sound… the dynamics in tact, the overall balance of EQ perfected. The bass was only so loud, and consumers tone controls and equalizers would beef things up if need be (hence the great big SMILE curve, in the graphic equalizers).
Enter Cassettes… aha…. now the record producers can make the sound bigger, and fatter, and LOUDER… they can saturate the tape with rich warm BASS and not have to worry about the size of the grooves… so cassettes got mixed one way, and the vinyl another…now we have 2 EQ curves (or more) that become standards in the music production industry.
Enter Digital Tape and CD’s : AAAHHHHHAAAAAA !!!!
now the dynamic range is wider than it’s ever been, as close to reproducing ‘the recorded event’ with almost the same dynamics, same frequencies as the original performance… what a wonderful GIFT digital was.
Spoiling a GIFT.. enter the young, ‘record’ producers of the digital age (who don’t know what a record is, let alone produce one)… now we can make CD’s that sound so clear, so dynamic.. and we can make it LOUD, by getting so close to “0″ DBFS and smacking the whole thing with a Brick wall Limiter ..and you have a really loud CD that is going to sound better than the one before it because it’s 2 dB louder… and people interpret louder as BETTER…the NON audiophiles that is.
Next thing you know, almost all of today’s engineers are ‘directed’ to make it LOUD and don’t know any different…slam that sucker against the wall because we simply can’t AFFORD to have a product that sounds ‘weakish’ compared to the competitor. $$$$. Make it LOUD or you’re GONE!
It’s a shame that the dynamic range that’s possible to achieve on CD’s has been ignored by so many suits in the ‘commercial’ music industry, creating a “Loudness War” that has spanned 20 + years. (Some of the early CD Masters were done VERY well, IMO, and it wasn’t till later that the dynamics got sucked out of the product so it could sound as mushy ..rrr.. loud as the next guy.
Now Enter VINYL again…. what’s going to happen to the way things are Mastered… will the bass still be a pumpin’ and thumpin like the way it’s mixed for CD’s…. or will the smart engineers realize the only way to make good sounding records is to GO BACK TO THE 80’s and earlier, and study those techniques and practices, and put the same dynamic range and frequencies BACK into the product… and we’ll have GREAT sounding records again.
If the suits decide “hey keep that bass up in the mix and make it FAT”…. those records are DOOMED!!! IMO
Oh… yah, I don’t really like to listen to RE Mastered works either… I’ll take the pops, clicks, ticks and hiss that analog has… over the same thing digitally reproduced and slammed to the wall with 20dB of limiting. I also come from the analog world and when I operated my commercial recording studio, I used to think Limiting more than 6 dB was really pushing it, and that was for the loud rock bands I’d record. So, for me to hear that much of today’s CD’s have been made with 12 , 18, 24 dB of limiting is just mind boggling. Losing all that dynamic range for the sake of sounding loud…
I’m glad there seems to be a grass roots movement in the recording industry to start looking at what has happened to quality of music production … and how everyone is getting short changed in the process. … but there is awareness now starting to spread… maybe.
It will all turn around when someone realizes there’s $$$$ to be made in restoring the dynamic range and making Masters that sound good.
Hey, maybe an equivalent of something like ‘carbon credits’ can be made… you know, pay the producers to NOT kill the dynamic range…. ummm “decibel credits” we could call them!
I should end here…I wouldn’t want to ramble…
CHears