I just recently bought an album by a local musician after seeing his live show that a friend of mine was involved in. It was a great show and I enjoyed the music which was a sort of blend of country, folk, bluegrass and rock elements. Very catchy stuff so I bought the album. Love the tunes and I would love to be spinning this thing non-stop for a couple weeks in the car, but...I just can't do it. I can't listen to more than 2 or 3 songs because there is too much distortion and sonic mush.
I loaded one of the worst offending tunes into Audacity to look at the waveform. There's no sign of clipping. The limiting (or whatever - it also sounded like it might be some sort of tape saturation effect) was actually done on each individual track. Even one of the mellower, more subdued tracks has this issue.
Anyway, yesterday I had band practice with my friend who was involved and she said that the original recordings she heard did not have this issue. She offered to let me have a copy of the earlier recordings and that would be cool, but much was changed later on (horn parts moved around, entirely different drum grooves, etc.) so I wouldn't really be hearing the same album.
When I mentioned one particular song that I thought was particularly bad in terms of distortion/compression she said that was the main one they were going to get behind to try to promote.
So my question is: what is the mechanism that provides a connection between "modern production/mastering techniques" and "success"? Is there someone somewhere actually saying "hey, this isn't limited to hell, it will never be a hit"?
For the guys who made this album, apparently there's a direct connection, but is that just the way things are now - this sort of thing is a requirement?
I'm pissed that another album I could have really immersed myself in from a musical standpoint has been ruined...I only paid $10, but I'd pay $10 more for a properly engineered copy. Or maybe just give me my money back...
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