badly mastered CDs

[Ormion]

ok elaborate! what exactly is wrong with the mastering? too much bass that kill the highs? give me some more details

The highs in more complex tracks are blending each other and create a small chaos I love that though. Also many sounds sound very cheap. Check out Electric Bubbles.

 

Now keep in mind, that not only I don't care about mastering, but I simply love MFG, but yeah the mastering is NOT good

 

 

+1 about California Sunshine and pretty much most of the Israeli oldies. Except Avi's mastetin....maybe.

[Lemmiwinks]

Thats bullshit. Its possible to make music that sounds good everywhere. I know for sure britney spears sounds good on every stereo. Its just that some people dont know how to do it....

yes but Britney Spears sounds good everywhere because that's the definition of pop (popular) music... music made to appeal to everyone. So instead of getting something that sounds great in some circumstances and not others like some psy, you get stuff that sounds moderatley good everywhere. Name me just ONE dark psy track that sounds good on a small sound system and I will shut up

 

 

"Dude". I'm not listening to my music through my mobile's speaker (though I did try it and for example "Skylon" sounds wonderful on my Blackberry). Most of the music I own sounds similar and good on headphones, car stereo or on home hi-fi. But the releases I mentioned fail on every sound system I tried unless I start fiddling with EQ. Why? Because they diverge from that optimal sound picture.

same as I said above: some stuff is made to sound great on certain systems, other is made to sound moderatley good everywhere... I doubt you tried listening to those CDs on a multi-thousand watt system in open air

[Sideffect...]

to be honest just like Lemmiwinks I use a turntable to adjust/equalize,

and yes almost each time when I put on a different release I adjust a bit...

 

if you want to play it loud, you have to...

 

for the rest my 2 cents

[Sawfly]

Thats bullshit. Its possible to make music that sounds good everywhere. I know for sure britney spears sounds good on every stereo. Its just that some people dont know how to do it....

If Britney sounds good for I guess everything's lost

[seraph]

TRANSWAVE - HYPNORHYTHM - Amazing album, but with such bad mastering. Argh ! I need those melodies crisp and clean and not dusty as they sound.

 

ETNICA - THE JUGGELING ALCHEMIST UNDER THE BLACK LIGHT - Same problem as with Transwave, music is never better but it sounds so raw.

[Goa Bill]

If Britney sounds good for I guess everything's lost

Good Sound and Good Music are 2 different issues.

Britney Spears has a far better sound than any Psy Trance producer.

As for music, well...

[Snapinho]

this is supergroover:

 

yes but Britney Spears sounds good everywhere because that's the definition of pop (popular) music... music made to appeal to everyone. So instead of getting something that sounds great in some circumstances and not others like some psy, you get stuff that sounds moderatley good everywhere. Name me just ONE dark psy track that sounds good on a small sound system and I will shut up

Its not because its the definition of popmusic. But because it is very well produced.. The fact that dark psy sucks on most systems is because most of the productions are pretty damn bad. If they were to be produced by junkie xl or someone similar i am sure they could sound loads better. Maybe Penta is a better example of well produced dark psy.

 

I seriously doubt some music is differently produced (we are talking about processing/ eqing etc here) with a certain place for playing in mind. Of course the sounds and type of music are chosen with a certain place to play it in mind. Nice spacious reverbs and lots of delayed sounds are nicer to hear outdoors than in a busy club.. There is a difference in the two.. Production processes are there to make the sound as good as possible independent of the place where it is played. The structure, sounds, rhythm etc of a track will be place dependent.

 

The people of the soundsystem on festivals can of course also alter the eq settings specified for that party.

[Goa Bill]

Penta, Ocelot, KDD, Psykovsky (to a least extent) sound OK. I don't like their music recently but they sound better than the rest.

I remember Ocelot's debut and it sounded very sharp and clear to my ears. Psykovsky's album sounded much more muddy but I guess it was his intent in the first place.

[Tessemi]

I actually think that "bad" sound quality sometimes has its charms. It's what I love the oldskool goa trance for! It just gives it this warm edge. And I actually *hate* some overproduced/mastered tracks.. they tend to sound more boring! The more "perfect".. the more boring (*cough* Ott *cough*)

 

I WANT UNDERGROUND SONGS WITH ERRORS IN THEM

[Guest antic]

I actually think that "bad" sound quality sometimes has its charms. It's what I love the oldskool goa trance for! It just gives it this warm edge. And I actually *hate* some overproduced/mastered tracks.. they tend to sound more boring! The more "perfect".. the more boring (*cough* Ott *cough*)

 

I WANT UNDERGROUND SONGS WITH ERRORS IN THEM

I fully agree that this fuzzy, noisy hardware sound of old-school goa has it's distinct appeal and that is exactly why, in my initial post, I've excluded them from this list. Many people, who had not been listening to the music back then will find those old CDs as badly mastered, just because they don't have that clear, crisp and sharp sound of current releases. One thing is, the mastering tools were not as common and cheap (or free) as they're now, but more importantly back then 'good mastering' meant something completely different. Nowadays, many releases simply hurt the ear when listened to on headphones, because of excessive compression and heavy "disco smile" EQ-ing. Old releases, even if the music was as much aggressive as now, were much more balanced and gentle.

 

Luckily, the mastering quality seems to be improving again and people have noticed the loudness war leads nowhere.

 

And let me disagree on Ott remark. I think that his last album gained a lot thanks to awesome mastering - rarely you can hear so much detail, variation and life in today's stuff. True, it is not as flashy and "look what else I can do!" as Blumenkraft was, but then it sounds so much more confident and relaxed. I didn't liked it at first, but somehow it was the only CD I was listening to for almost 3 weeks. And now I love it to bits!. The only thing that beats it, is The Last Days of Gravity, but then it's from S. Posford so I wouldn't have expected anything else...

[Tessemi]

And let me disagree on Ott remark. I think that his last album gained a lot thanks to awesome mastering - rarely you can hear so much detail, variation and life in today's stuff. True, it is not as flashy and "look what else I can do!" as Blumenkraft was, but then it sounds so much more confident and relaxed. I didn't liked it at first, but somehow it was the only CD I was listening to for almost 3 weeks. And now I love it to bits!. The only thing that beats it, is The Last Days of Gravity, but then it's from S. Posford so I wouldn't have expected anything else...

Time to give it another listen during my traintrip today

[Guest antic]

Time to give it another listen during my traintrip today

Please do! You won't regret it

[Goa Bill]

Skylon to me sounds both more relaxed and more emotional than Blumenkraft. It's not as classic as Hallucinogen in Dub but it's really really good chillout album. Easily the best in ages for me. Even the Indian samples don't ruin it.

[Guest antic]

Skylon to me sounds both more relaxed and more emotional than Blumenkraft. It's not as classic as Hallucinogen in Dub but it's really really good chillout album. Easily the best in ages for me. Even the Indian samples don't ruin it.

Again, I agree. HiD was much better than any Ott release, simply because Ott is an awesome producer, but not necessarily a musician. He knows his stuff, but that's about it. HiD was combining musical genius of Simon P. and production talents of Ott, plus it had a lot of parts played live by them or other people, like the wonderful basslines in LSD or Solstice. One thing I really miss in Skylon are exactly those live parts - nothing can replace real bass guitar in dub music.

 

But, that's all off-topic. So, what other albums are badly produced?

[fluffymushi]

the first future prophecy album has quite cheapo yet incredibly fun production imo

[Sideffect...]

the first future prophecy album has quite cheapo yet incredibly fun production imo

funny listening to it right now,

it's not bad mastered imo,

not very good but don't forget it's from 1997, that's 11 years ago

it has to be that way, that's what makes it old skool goatrance

[Goa-Head]

Arsonik, track 4 on Transwave's Backfire album.

 

The volume is ridiculously higher than the rest!

[faze]

Alpha Circuit - Module Z

 

Man, it is horrid. The kicks are about 3 times the volume of everything else. Ears destroyed.

[NEMO.BOFH]

I dont know, maybe it is my monitors or something, or maybe my mackie mixer or maybe it is just that I have really bad hearing, but how on EARTH did you come to the conclusion that Eat Static - De-Classified has bad mastering? Sounds P E R F E C T to me here on my super bad setup

[psytones]

Some music that seem (and have) a bad master could in all reality sound wicked on a trip, no?

 

Psykovsky`s Debut got a some complaints about being a bad mastered CD. Like Pavel said, maybe it`s supposed to sound that way. I got two copies of the Debut CD. The first copy is in a moving box in CPH, and that CD has a great master to it (In my memory). The secoind copy I have here, and to be honest, it seems as if the master on this second copy sounds .. bad? As if all the complaints I`ve read about it`s soundquality is true. ..

I`m not 100% sure about this, because I havent been able to compare the two of them, yet.

 

But still, I prefer a charming sound with personality before plastic. Unless it`s super crystal acid mosakk like Osom (Peace for the wicked) where the sound should be.. plastic.

 

peace

[Veracohr]

Don't blame it all on the mastering. The ME can only work with what they get, and a bad mix can't always be made to sound good in mastering. Bad mastering often has more to do with compression and distortion than bad EQ choices.

[Colin OOOD]

Don't blame it all on the mastering. The ME can only work with what they get, and a bad mix can't always be made to sound good in mastering. Bad mastering often has more to do with compression and distortion than bad EQ choices.

+1

 

Whilst I wouldn't say Declassified is mastered badly, it certainly is louder than almost every single other CD I own.

[Darkarbiter]

@ "Bad mastering sounds good sometimes"

 

Erm no, thats impossible... if it's bad then that means it isn't achieving the intended effect. If you meant a low level of mastering that's different.

 

Anyway in the whole mastering debate, i've come to the conclusion that there's a pleasent medium between oldschool goa and pop music/overcompressed/something like mindsphere-inner cyclone.

 

My favourites in terms of mastering however though are:

 

Infected mushroom Intelligate-b.p. empire. Kind've low volume... but dynamics and such are just preserved really well... kind've sounds badish if you listen to it in a critical light but sounds more raw and more powerful in the best mood.

Jikkenteki-flights of infinity... sounds kinda similar to infected mushrooms mastering.

X-Dream best of. Were the older tracks remastered? Regardless... all the songs on that album except maybe first half of second cd sounds absolutely great. Things stand out, things sound very solid... lots of dynamics and such I guess.

 

Or maybe I'm getting production quality mixed up.

[danet]

VA - A Violent Re-action from Acidance rec has a terrible mastering. it is totally useless for a dj because of the way toooo low volume to the whole cd.

 

Then Dark Soho - Sun Spot as allready mentioned but didnt they rerelease it with a proper master?

 

I must agree it is charmy with a lite shitty sound with errors and everything. If it is too well produced it loses so much dynamics and i think the soul in the music get lost.

 

I think it is sad when every producer sits with the same presets and all sounds exactly the same, the fullon scene especially but also a lot darkpsy producers sounds the same. It feels that a lot producers dont create their sounds from scratch. It is so easy to just pick a preset and add some glitch to it. Boring. I want to hear more creative sounds.

Move the music forward and not copy what allready sounds fat.

 

Now I went offtopic but it was my 2 cents.

[healium]

Help me out - what is the difference between the mastering and the production?

 

What would tell me that the sound is poorly mastered or produced?

 

What is a "compressed" sound? How do you know if it compressed?

 

Why would pop music be better mastered? Is it hard to master something well - do psy producers lack the technology or skill to master their music at the level of pop music?

 

Is pop music considered better "produced" than psy music? I always thought that psytrance was way ahead of pop trance or pop music because of all the sound panning and other tricks that are lacking in pop music...

 

BTW - I don't understand the comment about Ott lacking musical ability and instead only "knowing his stuff"? Hallucinogen in Dub sounds to me like 80% Ott and 20% Posford anyway, and Blumenkraft and Skylon are exceptional musically..