Rubbish Recordings! (Shoot the engineer!)

[Les Adams]

Ok guys, let's "out" them.... The sound engineers, cutting engineers or producers who were given the job of balancing the mix or eq-ing the final cut of an otherwise great or classic piece of music and got it wrong!

Apart from the many rock engineers of the 70's who's were either deaf, on a very tight budget or limited studio time, (or just drugged out of their minds and it sounded good to THEM) there have been others who really had no right to be behind the controls! Guitars too loud, drums too quiet, vocals recorded using old socks as pop sheilds and so much compression that PPM meters stand still like battery level indicators!

They can't blame the technology. 60's and 70's Studios had classic gear such as Valve Neve desks, Neumann and AKG condenser microphones and great sounding analogue tape machines such as Studer and Otari. Most of this equipment would give today's over complex and sonically inferior equipment (such as SSL recording consoles) a run for its money.

Sure, in the early days of stereo it was common practice to put all the drums on one channel and the vocals on the other, even George Martin did it with a lot of Beatles recordings, but maybe this was a gimmick to sell the stereo effect to a public who grew up listening to A.M mono radio! But from the 70's onwards, stereo surely did not have to be "sold" in this way?

I would like to start the nominations with the original meatloaf "Bat out of hell" album with the tag - "Where did all the low frequencies go?" Was it the mix engineer or producer that didn't think a bit of bottom end would add some weight to the sound or did the cutting engineer nod off and switch on a high-pass filter by mistake?

Which "classic recordings" would you nominate because of that muddy sounding vocal or piano, or a confusing, poorly mixed or just plain silly soundstage?

[Finch Platte]

The latest Bad Brains sounds terrible. One of the Beastie boys (Adam Yauch) recorded it for them, and was trying to get the sound BB used to have on old recordings. Why???

All this technology to make a good-sounding disc, and it sounds like crap.

fp

[Slosh]

I'll take your old sub par analog and raise you one new compressed-into-clipping-virtually-no-dynamic-range digital. Blech! It's really frustrating when it's easier and cheaper than ever before to make high quality recordings, yet most record labels ruin what may have in fact been a decent recording. Oh, and not even vinyl makes much of an improvement far too often. Great, now we get that same clipped sound and surface noise

As much as I would have liked to see SACD/DVD-A gain some acceptance can we please get CD right first? Sheesh, it's only been 25 years. I'd hate to think circa mid 1990s is the best we're gonna ever get out of CD.

When I was auditioning SACD players five years back I took a couple of MFSL Pink Floyd CDs with me and they sounded better than most of the SACDs the store was using for demo material. I still ended up buying a player but it kinda drove home the point that the original recording and mastering has far more impact on sonics than the format.

[BradH]

I would like to start the nominations with the original meatloaf "Bat out of hell"

To hell with Meatloaf, let's just go straight to the producer of that album because he should be Culprit #1 on the list: Todd Rundgren.

How he got a reputation as a good producer/engineer, much less a genius wizard, is beyond me. Musically, I've always loved his early 70's stuff and consider it some of the cream of the crop from that weird, progressive era. But holy crap, what is he thinking? What is he smoking? Something harsh and compressed I'm sure.

[PeruvianSkies]

I'll take your old sub par analog and raise you one new compressed-into-clipping-virtually-no-dynamic-range digital. Blech! It's really frustrating when it's easier and cheaper than ever before to make high quality recordings, yet most record labels ruin what may have in fact been a decent recording. Oh, and not even vinyl makes much of an improvement far too often. Great, now we get that same clipped sound and surface noise

As much as I would have liked to see SACD/DVD-A gain some acceptance can we please get CD right first? Sheesh, it's only been 25 years. I'd hate to think circa mid 1990s is the best we're gonna ever get out of CD.

When I was auditioning SACD players five years back I took a couple of MFSL Pink Floyd CDs with me and they sounded better than most of the SACDs the store was using for demo material. I still ended up buying a player but it kinda drove home the point that the original recording and mastering has far more impact on sonics than the format.

Ever compare the DSOTM CD with the SACD?

[Woochifer]

Well, defining a good recording would also depend on the intent of the recording. Your example of 70s rock has nothing to do with whether the engineers were deaf or drugged out. The recordings came out exactly as intended ... you just don't happen to own the type of system that those recordings were optimized for.

The biggest selling studio monitor in the 70s was the JBL 43xx series, and the best selling home audio speaker of that era was the JBL L100, which just happens to be the consumer version of that same studio monitor. Put two and two together and it's not hard to figure out that recordings from that era will sound best on speakers that emulate the characteristics of those vintage JBLs. Neither of these speakers were models for frequency response accuracy, but they were optimized for each other and many of the recordings that came out of that era. When I used to bring rock LPs to audio stores, I remember how horrid they sounded especially through the British speakers of that era. Sure those speakers sounded great with the more audiophile-oriented demo material, but who'd want to subject themselves to that kind of wretched music?

Plus, you have the various compromises needed because of the LP medium. While the LP can hold a lot of music information, the fact is that most people in the 70s were listening to their LPs through some rather horrific record players (remember the automatic record changers with the stack spindles?). Put too much dynamic range into the grooves, and you got tracking problems for the majority using lower quality record players.

This is no different than the 90s when the best selling studio monitor was the Yamaha NS10. As with the JBLs, the Yamaha did not have an especially flat response, but what it did produce was a very good approximation of how music would sound on a compact satellite speaker or car audio system, which made it popular with recording engineers. Given that the majority of pop music nowadays is heard through either a car audio system, compact satellite/multimedia speaker, or headphones, the NS10 was an appropriate monitoring choice for those genres. This explains why so much recent music sounds better in a car than on a good home audio system. If a newer pop recording sounds good through a higher resolution home audio system, that's more by coincidence than by intent.

[Slosh]

Ever compare the DSOTM CD with the SACD?

No, for years I got by with a good quality metal tape recording of the LP but never bothered buying it until it was released on SACD. Hehe, I still have a couple of nice cassette decks but they haven't been used at all in around six years.

[Les Adams]

Hi Woochifer,

You make a valid point to a degree. I owned a pair of JBL Century L100’s for many years when I had my own studio, I also had a second pair at home so I amvery familiar with how they sound. I have a friend who still uses a pair of JBL 4311’s at home (!) which are, as you say the equivalent thing, except that the drivers are mounted the other way up with the tweeters at the bottom. I agree that if the mix was correct on those, it would sound wrong on for example a pair of Spendor BC1’s which were hi-fi speakers of the same era and, I suggest, were in far more UK homes than any JBL model including the cheaper but similar sounding 2–way L26’s. I do not however agree that playing those recordings back on JBL Century’s or 4311’s suddenly makes them sound good. It doesn’t, I have done it!

Where we will disagree is when you say that the poor mixes were mostly down to these monitors being used to do the final mix down, rather than the engineer’s incompetence or inexperience. The JBL’s may have coloured the sound, I have yet to hear a speaker that doesn't, but they were still very clear with good detail and could be used to create an effective soundstage. They would also reveal imperfections in recordings such as muffled vocals, distortion, poor balance and lack of bass clarity as the 12” woofer was actually quite articulate. The JBL’s had a rather prominent mid and upper mid sound, (although this could be compensated to some degree by adjusting the two pots behind the grille) so if an engineer got it right on these speakers, the result would be a lack of these frequencies on a flatter, more accurate speaker, but this was often not the case as guitars on many rock recordings of that era sound very harsh on modern speakers. So, I still put it down to engineers who had maybe been to too many live concerts and had their ears battered! Either that or they just loved to try and make those beloved guitars screech at them till their ears bled! Meanwhile any subtleties were completely lost…. In some recordings of that era, even the poor drummer struggled to be heard amid the harsh and distorted guitars. I believe that quantity of sound, not quality and balance was the objective. This may possibly a result of trying to emulate the “live” sound of bands who often played through vastly under-powered and inferior sound systems.

Incidentally, I also owned both of the Yamaha variations, the NS10 with the over-bright tweeter with a dome shaped grille that required a sheet or two of toilet tissue over it to attenuate high frequencies, and the later NS10M with the flatter tweeter and proper connecting terminals. I agree that too many engineers relied on them as their reference (and still do), rather than the larger more accurate main monitors (in my studio they were Westlake BBSM 8’s which I still own today) and this often led to too much bass being applied to the mix.

Another nearfield “monitor” that really had no place in the studio but was used extensively by engineers and producers was the Auratone Cube. This was a single very small full range (?) driver in a box just about big enough to hold it and was used to emulate the “car stereo” or “radio” sound. They were bloody awful things and had “Room 101” existed in those days would have been a worthy contender to be put inside!

I do however conceed your very valid point that groove velocity had to be kept to a level that the average Dansette record player with a crystal cartridge could track! This did of course lead to reduced dynamic range and sound quality, especially at low frequencies.


All this said and done, I still maintain that a bit more training, a lot more care, some more talent and a lot less wakky baccy and whiskey would have helped preserve many classic peformances in a more listenable form! After all, there are many recordings fromthat era that DO still sound good.

[BradH]

Plus, you have the various compromises needed because of the LP medium.

But that comes down to disc mastering which was almost never done by the producer or engineer. I thought Les was looking for examples of producers who were incompetent or asleep at the wheel when great moments were going down on tape. Maybe I misunderstood the question.

[MindGoneHaywire]

Raw Power.

[cjpremierfour]

Awhile back, I rushed home to play a Journey 2001 concert DVD only to find that a 5 year old had recorded it. The Sound Engineers took all the power and dynamics out of this concert and nobody at Colombia Records noticed. How could you not hear this mess?

I have since found SACD and DVD-A which seem to be done very well so far. The RCA Living Stereo's are just miles ahead of anything recorded today. I just purchased the George Benson and Al Jarreau CD called Givin' it up, from MonsterMusic, it's in there High Definition Stereo and many other mixes, it's not bad, but compared to a 1950's to 1970s master tape recordings, it's not even close.

There should be a thread on this site to warn others of the total incompetence that these recording companies seem to hire. As a consumers, I wish there was a way to get in touch with the recording engineers and give them some feedback.

[Woochifer]

Hi Woochifer,

You make a valid point to a degree. I owned a pair of JBL Century L100’s for many years when I had my own studio, I also had a second pair at home so I amvery familiar with how they sound. I have a friend who still uses a pair of JBL 4311’s at home (!) which are, as you say the equivalent thing, except that the drivers are mounted the other way up with the tweeters at the bottom. I agree that if the mix was correct on those, it would sound wrong on for example a pair of Spendor BC1’s which were hi-fi speakers of the same era and, I suggest, were in far more UK homes than any JBL model including the cheaper but similar sounding 2–way L26’s. I do not however agree that playing those recordings back on JBL Century’s or 4311’s suddenly makes them sound good. It doesn’t, I have done it!

It's not a matter of whether it sounds good or bad, since that's a subjective call, but rather if a given recording sounds optimal on the JBLs (or similar "west coast" speakers of that era) compared to other speakers. You're right that it might not sound good on any speaker, but on so many of those recordings, it sounded more "right" (for lack of a better term) on the JBLs than those other speakers.

Where we will disagree is when you say that the poor mixes were mostly down to these monitors being used to do the final mix down, rather than the engineer’s incompetence or inexperience. The JBL’s may have coloured the sound, I have yet to hear a speaker that doesn't, but they were still very clear with good detail and could be used to create an effective soundstage. They would also reveal imperfections in recordings such as muffled vocals, distortion, poor balance and lack of bass clarity as the 12” woofer was actually quite articulate. The JBL’s had a rather prominent mid and upper mid sound, (although this could be compensated to some degree by adjusting the two pots behind the grille) so if an engineer got it right on these speakers, the result would be a lack of these frequencies on a flatter, more accurate speaker, but this was often not the case as guitars on many rock recordings of that era sound very harsh on modern speakers. So, I still put it down to engineers who had maybe been to too many live concerts and had their ears battered! Either that or they just loved to try and make those beloved guitars screech at them till their ears bled! Meanwhile any subtleties were completely lost…. In some recordings of that era, even the poor drummer struggled to be heard amid the harsh and distorted guitars. I believe that quantity of sound, not quality and balance was the objective. This may possibly a result of trying to emulate the “live” sound of bands who often played through vastly under-powered and inferior sound systems.

I'm actually not putting the onus entirely on the speakers, I'm merely suggesting that the shortcomings that you identified in your post are very reminiscent of my listening impressions when I played certain rock recordings on vintage B&Ws, KEFs, Missions, Acoustats, or Quads. It was no panacea taking them home to my parents' JBLs, but they did often deliver a sound more appropriate to the music itself. Of course, while they would sometimes render a decent playback with rock music, they were equally capable of butchering a more tonally accurate recording or a classical or jazz recording.

Incidentally, I also owned both of the Yamaha variations, the NS10 with the over-bright tweeter with a dome shaped grille that required a sheet or two of toilet tissue over it to attenuate high frequencies, and the later NS10M with the flatter tweeter and proper connecting terminals. I agree that too many engineers relied on them as their reference (and still do), rather than the larger more accurate main monitors (in my studio they were Westlake BBSM 8’s which I still own today) and this often led to too much bass being applied to the mix.

Again, that comes down to how the engineer presumes that the recording will ultimately be heard. Unfortunately, the majority of the pop music audience does not listen to their music on a high resolution home audio system, so the CD releases out there are simply making the compromises based on how the audience is likeliest to hear its music -- through small satellite setups, computer speakers, car speakers, and ear buds. I knew some musicians who sat in on a mixing session and they thought that the engineer was totally messing up the mix, and he told them to play it in their car and it sounded great there.

It's the same compromises that explain why CDs get transferred at high levels and dynamic range compressed in order to maintain a higher average level. Unfortunately, good sound quality in the pop space when played through a higher quality audio system is more accidental than intentional nowadays. Not saying that this is right, simply how it is.

[Les Adams]

But that comes down to disc mastering which was almost never done by the producer or engineer. I thought Les was looking for examples of producers who were incompetent or asleep at the wheel when great moments were going down on tape. Maybe I misunderstood the question.

No you didn't misunderstand...we just went off at a tangent! You are absolutely correct that was the intention of the thread.

[Les Adams]

All understood woochifer and I think we are singing from the same hymn sheet! This thread was really about producers and sound engineers who got it badly wrong, but I enjoyed the equipment debate! Classical music played on L100's? Grate! ..... and that isn't a spelling mistake!

[basite]

he who produced the latest white stripes CD, must be shot...


seriously, when I loaded this in my wave edit program (creative wavestudio) I was horrified, I saw clipped sinewaves from the beginning to the end...
and way to much bass...

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

[BradH]

he who produced the latest white stripes CD, must be shot...

These days, I wouldn't automatically blame the producer or engineer or anyone who's name is listed on the cover. They eventually have to hand the tape over and it gets mastered by an anonymous engineer working for the record company.

[Mike]

Don't know if it's the engineer, producer or whoever mastered it but the 2007 release by Dinoasur Jnr - Beyond is a contender for worst recorded album of the last decade.

They've managed to squeeze and compress the life out what is probably a decent recording and produced something that sounds like it was recorded in a cupboard. No treble to speak of just a wall of truly unlistenable crap, worst of all there's some decent tracks on it.

Anybody else heard this mess? and to counter the argument it's not produced to sound good on a decent hifi it sounds just as bad in the car.

Cheers
Mike

[3-LockBox]

I'll take your old sub par analog and raise you one new compressed-into-clipping-virtually-no-dynamic-range digital. Blech! It's really frustrating when it's easier and cheaper than ever before to make high quality recordings, yet most record labels ruin what may have in fact been a decent recording. Oh, and not even vinyl makes much of an improvement far too often. Great, now we get that same clipped sound and surface noise

As much as I would have liked to see SACD/DVD-A gain some acceptance can we please get CD right first? Sheesh, it's only been 25 years. I'd hate to think circa mid 1990s is the best we're gonna ever get out of CD.

I'm afraid you're right. When faced with the technological advancements and trends of downloading on the internet, the record companies responded with CDs that sound like MP3s, in hopes that that might win back their target audience. Morons.