Zappa.com

When listening through my soundsystem on the torture never stops i can hear a decently loud hum i dont think it is my speakers! any others?

The song is fifteen minutes long. Can you please be A LITTLE more specific?

_________________
_________________

well the whole song and the whole album. no one hears some noise?

I recommend an appointment with your audiologist. Just kidding, but never noticed any unusual humming.

I think there's a little amplifier buzzin' detectable here and there on the album, e.g. at the start of Lagoon/Approximate -- I'll have to check 'Torture', but if this is what you mean, don't worry too much, as it comes from the P.A. setup as heard at the Spectrum, 1976, so-to-speak, just see it as a bit of livin' history. I, for one, care much more for the fact that the entire album seems to be bathed in tape hiss, whereas 'Gas Station' on YCDTOSA is not -- and that thing was mastered 20 years ago--

That's a good opportunity to compare two mixes from the same material.

The old mix is a million times better. I still think that all those Filipetti-treatments are a mess. It is not a very joyful experience to listen to those albums. I have listened to Philly, Odeon and Buffalo two or three times each and couldn't stand any more. Gives me physical pain. I have no problems with a thing like Halloween which was done by Joe Chicarelli, though.

Th.

_________________
Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from public forum activity in 2013

Yeah, Thinman, though I must admit that Hammersmith and, in parts, Philly, too, greatly benefit from a bit of home EQing, thereby losing some of their 'muffled' feel and overt bass-iness -- I fumbled a long way to get me Odeon a little 'agitated' (and less sounding like an Aerosmith recording)-- That said, Buffalo seems to be hopelessly lost, I'm afraid...

Ever listen on a good, old fashioned boom box? Sounds great.

Ha, that's what I suspected it to do, exactly

I always liked Tom Waits claim that he approved his cd masters by testing them out on his car system, while driving around. It makes sense to me.

A friend of mine used to record local bands in his house, and he tested the mixes out on his car stereo too.

Try converting those three into 128kbit/s mp3's. I garantie they'll sound bitchen to the general public.

_________________
"You can fly like a Penguin when you're dealing with Turkeys."

That makes sense when it's full scale rock and pop music and listening to it in cars is the only intention. BUFFALO is such a case. It works in cars in a noisy environment (which seems to be a typical US habit). It is not a good idea to listen to Edgard Varèse on a car system, unless you don't care and music is for you background entertainment mainly and you only care for the loud passages anyway.

Th.

_________________
Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from public forum activity in 2013

And Alice Cooper i seen it posted somewhere.

_________________
Arf you out of your fucking mind.

Most studios have a set of lousy speakers so that engineers can check how their mixes will sound on the lousy stereo setups most people have.

I should think so that's where it ends up being played.

_________________
Arf you out of your fucking mind.

Bit of a broad generalization there. Loads of music sounds better in the outdoors with the birds chirping, leaves rustling, etc. It's more reality based, natural, less of an isolated art object thing.

For the pet peeve thread: people who think if they shut out every popcorn, candy munching sound in a movie theater that what they are watching somewhow becomes real.

If this is what the ZFT had in mind, they must intend us to enjoy Buffalo & TF next to a jackhammer

No shit!

Philly'76 CD1&2:

my playback systems come with a volume knob. have you heard of it before?

I guess you are not dealing with a magic button that uncompresses the sound and restores its dynamic range and fidelity. It is a completely different story. Adjusting the volume does not improve anything, the crescendo and decrescendo have disappeared forever, and this sound irritates some people ears. This is not just a matter of taste, except for those who enjoy pain. It just seems that there are people who are sensitive to it, and some who are not (= most people on earth probably, so who cares).

Everybody is sensitive to it. Those who don't care at least show some unconscious reaction: they get bored very soon when witnessing anything undynamic (which can be anything, not just music or a recording of it). The brain NEEDS changes from time to time. In earlier times you had to be able to distinguish between calm environment and the moment when the beast comes out of the woods. This quality can be life-saving.

@brainpang: It's the other way around: if a recording has a wide dynamic range the average volume will sound low to you if you have been listening to something highly compressed just before. So simply turn up the volume then.

Th.

_________________
Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from public forum activity in 2013

There are good aspects of compression that many don't realise.
Since I am rarely in a quiet environment when I listen to music, I appreciate a bit of compression so that I'm not constantly saying "What did he say/sing/play?" Imo, every car stereo should have a built-in compressor so you can listen above the noise of traffic without loud portions blowing out your speakers and eardrums.
And lets not overdo the analysis of compressed mixes too. Even a heavily compressed mix will still have some variation in volume. Also, flat-lined visual records of a mix, headroom levels, and compression ratios can be extremely decieving to many people. There are more things that can ruin a mix both consciously and sub-consciously than just compression. Some compression is almost always a good thing.

_________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To

True.

It is to some extend impossible to make a functioning recording of dynamic music without compression. The dynamic range of a classical concert in a superb hall would otherwise let the quiet stuff drop below environmental noise when played back at home - where there is more surrounding noise than during the orchestral performance in the hall.

What we are discussing here is that it is overdone sometimes for no reason. Why must a live recording from Frank's "stadium rock period" that hasn't much dynamic range by nature (compared to the orchestra) have the remaining life compressed out of it?

Of course there are more aspects of a mix than just the compression. But in the case of Buffalo the source material must have been good, judging from other released material recorded on the same tour (TTR). From my perspective the compression is the main factor that ruins the recent releases of live recordings. The WUWIAGS mix that Frank released on YCDTOSA seems to capture the presumed "real" dynamic of the original performance way better than the version on Philly.

Making everything equal by extensive compression is of course a cost effective way to create a mix: this way you don't have to worry about the details which would cause a lot more work and costs. I fear this is the main reason for the substandard sound of those releases.

Th.

_________________
Active forum member since 2005 - R E T I R E D from public forum activity in 2013

I hear ya. I'm not real fond of the listed mixes even when I like the performances, but by extension, I'm not real fond of many of the mixes on YCDTOSA. Chrislu might be considered godlike to some, but not me. I'll have to compare WUWIAGS.
Imo, the component that works hand-in-hand w/ compression is EQ, and the heavier the compression, the more attention that must be paid to the EQ. More than anything, these mixes have a grating brightness that I find offensive. I do allow for the fact that those who were at stadium performances probably weren't able to hear much in the way of dynamics, since the moment the level dips, you start hearing the chick behind you complaining how her boyfriend should go buy her a drink, hahaha.
I have some other guesses as to why flawed mixes get marked as overly compressed, but thats what they are... guesses... like poorly set a/d+d/as, old engineers who can't admit it, overcompensating for deteriorating masters, time budget, incompetence, preference, who knows? Its hard to prove alot via backwards engineering. Even when the visuals prove that there was compression going on, that may not be the reason that the sound ends up sucking.

_________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Don't Be Stupid Unless You Want To