<blockquote style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;" class="gmail_quote"><div>'Piece of Mind' on CD still sounds good to me -- sweet guitars,
crisp drums, very simple and uncluttered mix. It's not like the
over-distorted, over-processed, and over-compressed crap that too often
makes it to CD these days. (n.b. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>I
want my dynamic range back!</div><div><br></div><font color="#888888"><div>-Sean</div></font></blockquote><div><br>I half-way agree. The instruments sound "nice".<br><br>The overall mix seems flat and extremely cold, to me.<br>
<br>I'm sure some of this is just my 'grown up ears' though. <br></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 9:59 AM, Monty Montgomery <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:xiphmont@gmail.com">xiphmont@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="im">> I wonder why no one would've seen something like this coming though?<br>
><br>
> Was it just a bunch of suits saying, "Yeah, let's sell some cds!" while the<br>
> original mastering guy prepared to cringe come "Digital Release Date"? (1<br>
> day later?)<br>
<br>
</div>Oversimplifying it... yeah that's sort of what happened.<br>
<br>
The industry wasn't technologically prepared to rerelease all those<br>
albums. They didn't have enough equipment, much of the equipment<br>
wasn't yet very good, they didn't have enough qualified people who<br>
knew how to use the equipment they had. The 80s/early 90s simply did<br>
not have the cheap ubiquitous digital power that exists today. The<br>
inexpensive machine on my desk beats a Cray2 on every metric. It<br>
wasn't too long ago that good custom 12 bit (12 bit!) sampling<br>
consoles cost hundreds of kilobucks. And good mastering engineers<br>
were (and are) high priced talent. Last but not least, not everyone<br>
took good notes. "Did this cutting master have preemphasis?" "How does<br>
it sound?" "Meh, it sounds OK." "Then go with it."<br>
<br>
It took a long time to sort out the mess that the rush caused, and the<br>
reputation of the CD suffered for a really long time. But they made a<br>
*ton* of money. The late 80s and early 90s were the music industry's<br>
version of the housing bubble. oh boo hoo sales are down recently--<br>
sales had never been so incredibly inflated as during the great<br>
vinyl->CD switchover when just about everyone replaced their<br>
collections at $16 a pop. Some had to do it twice after things were<br>
finally properly remastered.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Monty<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>