Memory's Almost Full Distortion Fest-o-Rama

Xenu · Postby **Xenu** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:26 am

Ehh, because I had to, that's why...

Much has been said over at the Hoffman forums about the slightly loud sound of McCartney's new album (which, for the record, I enjoy, but do not love by any stretch of the imagination). Some analysis of the tracks gives the impression that whatever problems occured with the dynamics might have occured during mixing, not mastering, but it's a bit of a moot point: the thing is uncomfortably loud.

Here's the deal, though...it actually exhibits an artifact I don't see too frequently, but which can be a result of overzealous compression. I first discovered this particular issue on a rather unwholesome reissue of Box's first two albums. Basically, compression can end up compromising the "center"-channel, causing no end of unpleasantness when a track is taken out of phase. To wit, here's a quick OOPSed clip of "Dance Tonight," a track which is (I must emphasize) a largely acoustic track. You can hear a ghost of the vocal, but it isn't pretty...there's a static "overlay" across the entire thing, a result of it being unequally mashed across channels.

http://lukpac.org/~handmade/dtclip.flac

Lovely, innit? And this is a professional production...

Chris M · Postby **Chris M** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:09 pm

Wow, that is nasty. You should come ot of retirement and post that on sh.tv...

Xenu · Postby **Xenu** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 3:57 pm

You've got my permission to post that there if you'd like.

Chris M · Postby **Chris M** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 2:06 am

Xenu wrote:You've got my permission to post that there if you'd like.

Cool. I might do that loathe as I am to contribute the insanely long Memory Almost Full threads..

Beatlesfan03 · Postby **Beatlesfan03** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:35 pm

There was a link in one of those "MAF" threads (#856 i think) that linked to the message board at the McCartney site where someone posted that they asked Bob Ludwig about the sound of "MAF" and Ludwig said it was mastered to McCartney's liking. :shock:

Postby **lukpac** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 7:40 pm

Not good, but have you ever heard the Jayhawks' Rainy Day Music. The vocals distort like crazy all over, and they don't even seem to be pushed that loud.

J_Partyka · Postby **J_Partyka** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:14 am

lukpac wrote:Not good, but have you ever heard the Jayhawks' Rainy Day Music. The vocals distort like crazy all over, and they don't even seem to be pushed that loud.

True, and it's even more painful on the vinyl version.

Which is why I think those who are waiting for the LP edition of MAF to save the day sonically may end up being quite disappointed.

Postby **lukpac** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 9:46 am

J_Partyka wrote:True, and it's even more painful on the vinyl version.

Indeed. A pretty miserable pressing - mine is warped and seems to suffer from some distortion on the inner grooves. And the problems with the CD aren't any better.

What's interesting is the distortion does *not* seem to be the result of compression/limiting in mastering. While the CD *is* compressed, viewing the waveforms seems to indicate the distortion is well below 0dB.