Well recorded / Poorly recorded

ranjeetrain

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Sometime we buy an album going by its public reputation. Only to find that its very poorly recorded. You bring it home, unwrap it with so much of anticipation, you hear the sound and are disappointed.

Has it happened with you?

Mention in this thread, any albums you have/have listened to, give it a rating on a scale of 10. Let this be a buying guide for visitors.
 
Album: 19 of the Biggest Hits
Audio on: Sony BMG India
Recording quality: 7 (of 10) [Sounds flat :(]
Compilation quality: 7 (of 10) [I like 11 tracks out of 19 :)]
Overall: 8 (of 10)
 
The worst sounding albums (poor mastering) in my collection are:
Oasis - What's The Story (Morning Glory) All time reigning champion - so much compression you can't play it on anything but a walkman for more than 2 minutes
U2 - The Joshua Tree
U2 - The Unforgettable Fire both examples of poor recording and mixing, believe The Edge did the latter himself. Leave it to the pros.
The Who - Ultimate Collection Awful sound, possibly a poor transfer further ruined by excessive noise reduction

Will add more as I think of them
 
Oh that reminded me of one more poorly recorded album.

Made in India - Alisha Chinoy
Audio on: MagnaSound
Recording Quality: 6 [Absolutely flat sound. Bought when album had hit the market. Don't have guts to play it on my current system anymore :D]
Compilation Quality: 8 [All nice songs peepy numbers, what else to expect from the "original" queen of Indian pop]
Overall: 7
 
Hi Ranjee Train

Very interesting and Useful thread , definitely it will help people to choose their CDs

My Well Recorded Cds

1. On Every Street -------------Dire Straits ( Almost all Dire straits albums are well recorded )
2. Virve ------------------------Andrea Bocille
3. Continuim -------------------John Mayer
4. Greatest Hits ----------------White Snakes
5. Messiah --------------------Dr.Illayaraja
6. The Wall -------------------Pink Floyd

Regards\
 
There are some record labels who can be trusted (almost) blindly to put out only well recorded material.

Among these are:
Verve, ECM, Telarc - for Jazz
Deutsche Grammophon - Classical
Waterlily Acoustics - World/New Age

Then of course there are bands who insist on playing a role in the recording and mastering process to ensure perfection. Steely Dan is the best example of this.
 
Oh god Ranjeetji this is a tough one. Tons of cds are poorly recorded. All U2 are poorly recorded and so are most pop recordings to my mind. Where as all APP, Dire straits, sting, most western classical are good recordings.
Another point to note is that different peoples opinion on recordings can also differ.(equipment comes into the equation too). Someone mentioned Dire straits-On every street as a good recording , where as i feel its bass heavy and not one of the bands better recordings!!! I heard Madonnas Confessions on the dance floor and it was a typical pop recording with really aggresive treble but my nephew said its a "rocking recording"(a teenager who mostly blares it on his car HIFI).
Regards
 
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Hi All,

While Agreeing to with dinyaar ! I have to also say that yes what you say is true but we can give it try and see how many people have similar opinion on what cds,this way majority of the stuff recommended (i.e. which ever cd is recommended by most can be considered as the benchmark or whatever)

As dinyaar said their are tons of badly recorded cd both Indian (not enough space here to list !) and international !

Recent worst 1 is KK's humsafar ! Piece of crap (though the songs are good)

the dire-straits on every street is good but give MARK KNOPFLER's "Rag Pickers Dream" a listen, its a truly class recording with full bodied sound and warmth ! sound seems to come from thin Air ( you can distinctly hear his breathing in between) when listened on good setup (thats the best way I can Explain the sound) !

then off course there's Chesky's Ultimate demo cd,FIM's Audiophile Reference Vol II ( 2 track will mesmarise you for sure !),Naim"s Reference disc is also very good so is Linn's sampler disc !


Hope to read some more good disc's re-views!

Regards
 
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Excellent Recordings-
1. Dark Side Of The Moon-Pink Floyd
2. The Wall-Pink Floyd
3. Masterpiece-The Temptations
4. Unforgettables-Jagjit/Chitra (Pretty good, not excellent)
5. This is K2 Sound-classical sampler ( This showcases JVC's latest technology in mastering/pressing, its a standard RB CD-has some wonderful music pieces & has mindblowing quality.
6. Chhanda Dhara series in Hindustani Classical Music.
7. Deutsche Grammophon for Western Classical Misic
8. XRCDs
9. AR Rehmans Stuff- he does take a bit of care.
10. Band On The Run-Paul MCartney & The Wlngs
11. There goes Rhymin' Simon- Paul Simon
Bad Recordings-
Abba-Complete Studio Recordings, Box Set- heavily compressed: I compared 'The Visitors' of this Set to much earlier uncompressed version-the diff in quality hits you in the face.
More to come - lemme think....
 
My Bad Recordings

1.Now thats what i call music , i have 4 volumes everything is average recording.

Its easy to pick the bad recorded Cds , only great recordings are very rare here.

Some albums from the Putomayo collections are excellently recorded - eg. Blues around the world.
 
Hi,
I couldn't agree with you more Soundofmusic, its very easy to find a bad recording then good !

The Silkroute group's Boondien and pehchan are one of the better recordings
Rabbi's Bhulla ki is also supposed to be great recording(I've personally not heard it) as the producer of the album KJ Singh is one of the top studio engineers in the country !

Ek Rishtha from Cosmic Music is also a very well recorderd Album,infact most of the cosmic's album fair decent in their recordings but they only produce maximum classical type of music ( I have a load of them with me)

Their well known and most popular Non Classical is Indian Ocean's Jhini which even today is used for testing by AVMAX and other's

Regards.
 
in my opinion , the CDs manufactured in European countries are always better then what we get here

tharun.

Good observation Tharun. That's generally true.

Among Indian audio companies some are better than others. Talking about good old days, you could always trust Venus and Tips audio cassettes to sound better than T-Series ones. T-Series, while being cheaper than others was unable to maintain the quality on the production floor.

I have bought CDs/DVDs from T-Series that had finger prints on them as I unwrapped them. Not to speak of the horrid mixing. On the other hand, Sony BMG maintains a good quality. Just some general observations from me.
 
in my opinion , the CDs manufactured in European countries are always better then what we get here

tharun.

Its true , i have some few discs which are manufactures in UK , and the same which are from India , there is a vast difference in the sound quality .

The Man The Machine which was manufactured in Germany ( if i am correct) is far more superior to the lastest ones what we get here,

Some of the good recordings if not great ( Made in India)

1. Music for Relaxation -----Viswa Mohan Butt

2. The sound scape series ,. \

3. The element series

4. Thiruvasagam --- Dr.illayaraja

regards
 
Hi,

Yes buddy I do have them ! Hmm Jealous aie'h ! ;)

I agree with both tharun and soundofmusic but its not entirely true as there are also good number of worst recording from europe,few example's trisha yearwoods made in germany Cd sounds no better then any Indian one's with lots of siblance and in your face sound,billboard top 10 (2002 or something) is another one,best of pop from SONY DADC Austria sounds shit.OHH there's one too many there as well !

Its very difficult and almost impossible in todays date to blindly buy on the companies name or artists name ( excluding the Audiophile's companies like chesky,telrac etc who maintained their dignity ),this is my experience !

Regards
 
Soundsgreat wrote-
"Its very difficult and almost impossible in todays date to blindly buy on the companies name or artists name ( excluding the Audiophile's companies like Chesky,telrac etc who maintained their dignity ),this is my experience "

I guess thats why a thread like this could come in very useful for all members!
 
One of the best recorded albums I have is Diana Krall - The Look of love. Very well recorded. Bought it locally and its a CD/SACD hybrid. A good value at Rs 395. Two thumbs up.

George Michael - Twenty five. Another very well recorded album. A collection of 2 CDs. Great compilation. Two thumbs up.
 
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