# Bad Recordings



## Foglght (Aug 2, 2007)

I was listening to Tool on Pandora radio at work yesterday, and I liked the Aenima album so I decided to go pick it up at the local best buy. Popped it into the CD player in the parking lot and was severly dissappointed in the production quality. It wasn't even good enough to rip to my hard drive and save. 

Anybody have some ideas of well produced recordings like tool?


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## pontiacbird (Dec 29, 2006)

Foglght said:


> I was listening to Tool on Pandora radio at work yesterday, and I liked the Aenima album so I decided to go pick it up at the local best buy. Popped it into the CD player in the parking lot and was severly dissappointed in the production quality. It wasn't even good enough to rip to my hard drive and save.
> 
> Anybody have some ideas of well produced recordings like tool?


I have noticed with newer albums, sound quality has become quite degraded. Look up 'compression' on wikipedia, you will stumble across how they compress the audio to make it seem louder...which comes at the expense of dynamics....this also induces premature clipping- at the source....that can not be eliminated at all


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## Foglght (Aug 2, 2007)

Well the drums and highs were pretty decent, but the midrange was dead, and sounded horrible. It sounded almost as if the producers were catering to the crowd with bad stereos that have mids but no lows and highs.

My Alice in Chains CDs are fantastic though.


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## Diru (May 23, 2006)

I like most all of tools recordings


Dream Theater 'train of thought' or what ever , now that sucks bad , and i'm a big fan of DT 

Alice dude total parydium shift in tonality to Tool, not even the same drug.


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## FoxPro5 (Feb 14, 2006)

To me....
Undertow = Awesome
Aenima = Good
Lateralus = Average
10,000 Days = Poopie

Play "Sober" on your system and pay attention to the overall dynamics and impact. Also take note at the volume level on your HU. Then, take it out and put in "Vicarious." 

Your experience should rival something like this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

That guy said it best....wimpy, loud sound. To me, it's ****ing crap!  

Compared to 10,000 Days, Undertow is probably 5-8 dB quieter. That means a lot more headroom with greater macro and microdynamic content.


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## Foglght (Aug 2, 2007)

FoxPro5 said:


> To me....
> Undertow = Awesome
> Aenima = Good
> Lateralus = Average
> ...


Agreed. I was more upset at the guitar recording. I do like some heavy metal, but that sounded horrible. Maybe someone's kid was playing with the dials?


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

FoxPro5 said:


> Play "Sober" on your system and pay attention to the overall dynamics and impact. Also take note at the volume level on your HU. Then, take it out and put in "Vicarious."



And if you play it loud enough it's easy to ****-up a midbass, even witht eh whole album. Just because it's not hitting 0dBFS all the time does not mean that it's not still hammering when it wants to


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