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Audio/Video Gear and Systems => Owner's Circles => Digital Amplifier Company Owners => Topic started by: AmpDesigner333 on 19 Feb 2012, 04:20 pm

Title: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 19 Feb 2012, 04:20 pm
I was listening to Adele 21 on a really great system yesterday (more about the system later), and the recording pretty much sucks.  What a shame!  It sounds flat and compressed!

It took me a while to get "talked into" really listening to Adele.  Finally, I caved and bought the CD after hearing the AAC from iTunes just to determine if I like any songs.  I thought it sounded like crap due to the compression, but what I heard sounds like they decoded the AAC file and wrote it to CD as-is.

Does anybody out there agree?  She really has a beautiful voice and stunning inflection.  I'm sad to say that I can't enjoy her voice in an audiophile fashion.....

 :cry:

-Tommy O
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: kfr01 on 19 Feb 2012, 04:26 pm
I was listening to Adele 21 on a really great system yesterday (more about the system later), and the recording pretty much sucks.  What a shame!  It sounds flat and compressed!

It took me a while to get "talked into" really listening to Adele.  Finally, I caved and bought the CD after hearing the AAC from iTunes just to determine if I like any songs.  I thought it sounded like crap due to the compression, but what I heard sounds like they decoded the AAC file and wrote it to CD as-is.

Does anybody out there agree?  She really has a beautiful voice and stunning inflection.  I'm sad to say that I can't enjoy her voice in an audiophile fashion.....

 :cry:

-Tommy O

I agree 100% and actually just made a post to this effect on another site yesterday.  It is too bad Melody Gardot's producer didn't handle the Adele album.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mhconley on 19 Feb 2012, 04:29 pm
Buy the LP.  See my post in the Music Circle for why...

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=103653.msg1053897#msg1053897

Martin
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: kfr01 on 19 Feb 2012, 04:30 pm
Also, wtf is with the echo on Rolling in the Deep?!  Such a shame.   I ordered the Vinyl version of 21 yesterday with hopes of better a better transfer.  I don't have high hopes, but after her grammy performance I am wanting for better quality Adele recordings.  I'll report back soon on the Vinyl.

Edit:  Thanks, Martin.  I'm glad the Vinyl will be an improvement!
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mhconley on 19 Feb 2012, 04:31 pm
Also, wtf is with the echo on Rolling in the Deep?!  Such a shame.   I ordered the Vinyl version of 21 yesterday with hopes of better a better transfer.  I don't have high hopes, but after her grammy performance I am wanting for better quality Adele recordings.  I'll report back soon on the Vinyl.

IMMHO The vinyl sounds great.

Martin
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: Barry_NJ on 19 Feb 2012, 04:39 pm
I haven't heard the Adele CD, but I've had tbe same experience with other artists/albums, and it really is one of the most dissapointing things there is...
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: Mike B. on 19 Feb 2012, 04:43 pm
I agree about the CD. Strictly a top 40 type presentation.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 19 Feb 2012, 05:37 pm
I agree about the CD. Strictly a top 40 type presentation.
I think you captured the spirit of this recording with "top 40"!  Waiting to hear about the vinyl version, but also need to check out that link (above) about why it's any better.....
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 19 Feb 2012, 05:40 pm
I haven't heard the Adele CD, but I've had tbe same experience with other artists/albums, and it really is one of the most dissapointing things there is...
We played it at your house yesterday.  You must have been upstairs at the time.

People left the room since it sounded so disappointing.  They came back after we switched to other music.....
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: Affordable$$Audio on 19 Feb 2012, 07:47 pm
An interesting read on the recording process for "21".
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/it-0911.htm

The CD does suffer from dynamic compression but not as much as "19".  I had a chance to hear it at ToneAudio's studio on truly one of the great setups in existence.  Much of what I heard was the rooms in actual homes with their sound limitations where tracks were recorded. I look forward to what MoFi will do with the album down the road.

(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=58252)
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: Barry_NJ on 19 Feb 2012, 08:14 pm
We played it at your house yesterday.  You must have been upstairs at the time.

People left the room since it sounded so disappointing.  They came back after we switched to other music.....


Yeah, as host I was running around a bunch and didn't get to listen as much as I would have liked to ;)

Post up the pix you took, there are some nice comments about the sound we were getting yesterday...

http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=3715.0
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: coverto on 19 Feb 2012, 08:14 pm
The punchline here is that the producer supervising this album was none other than the "legendary," "Grammy-Award winning" producer Rick Rubin.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mrhyfy on 19 Feb 2012, 08:31 pm
Maybe HD Tracks will come to our rescue with a better version!!   Doubt it!
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mhconley on 19 Feb 2012, 08:35 pm
The punchline here is that the producer supervising this album was none other than the "legendary," "Grammy-Award winning" producer Rick Rubin.

Actually the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the CD mastering engineer - Tom Coyne st Sterling Sound - he must be freakin' deaf.

Martin
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: oldmp3 on 19 Feb 2012, 10:33 pm
An interesting read on the recording process for "21".
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/it-0911.htm
[old-fogy-rant]

Yup, try counting the number of PT dsps, plug-ins, and effects in-play just for "Rolling..."

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of modern post-production works:
Quote
As I [Elmhirst] said earlier, the loudness wars are a daily battle for me, because all reference mixes come in pumped, and I have to compete with that. I can’t send in a mix that sounds 10dB less loud then the reference mix. These days I use the UAD Precision Maximizer for that, which is the best one I’ve heard that doesn’t shred the sound.”

Check out the "UAD Precision Maximizer" (http://www.uaudio.com/store/mastering/precision-maximizer.html (http://www.uaudio.com/store/mastering/precision-maximizer.html)):
Quote
The Precision Maximizer is a dynamic impact processor that magically increases apparent loudness without reduction in dynamic range, by a unique combination of UA’s analog/tube know-how and digital mastering expertise. There are other products that aim to “finalize” or “inflate” a mix, but UA’s Precision Maximizer uniquely increases perceived loudness while maintaining peak level control, with little effect to the signal level and without the fatiguing artifacts.
(bold added)

[/old-fogy-rant]
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mjosef on 19 Feb 2012, 10:58 pm
I don't quite get the adoration for this singer...she sure ain't the second coming of Aretha Franklin.  :nono:
I'll take the dearly departed Amy over Adele any listen of the week.
21 I bought...played once, gave it away.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: coverto on 19 Feb 2012, 11:53 pm
Actually the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the CD mastering engineer - Tom Coyne st Sterling Sound - he must be freakin' deaf.

Martin

So is the harshness corrected completely with the LP? I ask partly because it also appears they used the demo versions of her vocals for some of the tracks, having decided that their raw energy simply couldn't be duplicated in the studio again with better equipment...
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: OzarkTom on 20 Feb 2012, 12:06 am
Adele's first CD, "19", is fantastic on a high-end system, "21" is a waste of money. I guess she was produced as more commercial on her second CD.

Buy her first CD, Tommy.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: oldmp3 on 20 Feb 2012, 01:36 am
The same engineer mixed Amy Winehouse - "Rehab"  :cry:

(http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=58271)
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: FullRangeMan on 20 Feb 2012, 02:28 am
IMMHO The vinyl sounds great.

Martin
To your happyness, any bad master sound good on vinyl, even digital 16bits, it is the most euphonic format avaliable today.
Even a cassete tape master will sound very better in vinyl than any optical disc, as they are more transparent than LP.

I never forget the shock the first time I listen Brain Salad Surgery and Tubular Bells on SACD, the huge SACD deph capability show the master tape was a veery sloow analog master tape, 3ips or slower.

On CD these both albums are not great sound, but on vinyl the recordings errors are not audible and only the music shine.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: FullRangeMan on 20 Feb 2012, 02:34 am
I read the Whitney Houston producer and husband used a very cheap PCM DAC to her voice to add pre-ring and post-ring to her voice, to fit the Pop-Rock dirty sound standards the silly fans are used to listen. :duh: :duh:
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mhconley on 20 Feb 2012, 03:23 am
Tom Coyne mastered the CD; Ray Janos mastered the vinyl LP.  (RJ is in the dead wax)

I am sure they both used the same recordings but one compressed the hell out of it while the other did not.

Martin
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: lonewolfny42 on 20 Feb 2012, 06:05 am
Tom Coyne mastered the CD; Ray Janos mastered the vinyl LP.  (RJ is in the dead wax)

I am sure they both used the same recordings but one compressed the hell out of it while the other did not.

Martin

Some Ray Janos clips from YouTube...about the vinyl process..on a different album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPj7KZQhqo4&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptiRXZ0t70&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMOl9iDzdEo&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnwlLiEcxLg&feature=relmfu
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: bunky on 20 Feb 2012, 08:42 pm
i remember when Led Zeppelin's Mothership compilation CD was released. i had never heard such a jacked up,Compressed and bright sounding cd in my life  :duh:
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: jackman on 20 Feb 2012, 08:50 pm
I think the actual word is "hanged".  Wanting someone to be "hung" is a completing different matter...just sayin. :thumb:
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 21 Feb 2012, 01:42 pm
I think the actual word is "hanged".  Wanting someone to be "hung" is a completing different matter...just sayin. :thumb:

Holy crap!  You're right!

I'm known to correct people on stuff like that, too, like "carefully" versus "careful", or "there's" instead of "there ARE", or words that shouldn't have an "s" at the end (anyway, toward, backward)....  Hell, my nav system says "towardS" instead of toward.  That's a gray-area one, but annoys me nonetheless.

I find that I'm correcting people less these days.  I'd normally say that I should be hung for such a mistake, but I already am :)
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 26 Feb 2012, 11:17 pm
Links to DR Database and HD Tracks added to our facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/DigitalAmpCo

Please "like" us on facebook if you haven't already....

Thanks!
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 27 Feb 2012, 06:19 pm
Check this out (on Audiogon) regarding Adele 21:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1316231238&read&keyw&zzadele+21

....and this one:
http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?gmusi&1225543481&read&keyw&zzadele+21

We listened to this Adele 21 briefly at Barry's (see other thread) with Oppo Blu-ray, VAC pre, Cherry ULTRA.  That's what started the discussion on this thread.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: georgehifi on 17 Nov 2016, 09:50 pm
1
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: georgehifi on 17 Nov 2016, 09:51 pm
1
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: georgehifi on 17 Nov 2016, 09:55 pm
1
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: georgehifi on 17 Nov 2016, 10:01 pm
I was listening to Adele 21 on a really great system yesterday (more about the system later), and the recording pretty much sucks.  What a shame!  It sounds flat and compressed!

It took me a while to get "talked into" really listening to Adele.  Finally, I caved and bought the CD after hearing the AAC from iTunes just to determine if I like any songs.  I thought it sounded like crap due to the compression, but what I heard sounds like they decoded the AAC file and wrote it to CD as-is.

Does anybody out there agree?  She really has a beautiful voice and stunning inflection.  I'm sad to say that I can't enjoy her voice in an audiophile fashion.....

 :cry:

-Tommy O

So true look at the compression website, no green at all on all here albums, all compressed and she's so good

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=adele&album= (http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=adele&album=) 

PS sorry about the 3 dud posts above, brain fart
Cheers George
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: GRACE RUBY on 28 Nov 2016, 12:32 am
Folks
The most important statement I ever heard said,, how ever intangible as a tool for change , was from the founder of "Audio Quest", about 20 years ago, I was looking at working for him and asked how he was fixed for discussing CD's with the wire buying public, he said, "Producers have almost no total control over the out come of a digital recording, and as long as its a toy to most who buy it to touch and not a statement of Hi Fidelity, whole albums will go in the trash"

I have seen entire bands disappear because the magic never got on the chilly as ice CD, the music industry needs this crap sent back to them, and wasted rock stars with zero hearing need to get out of the booth for folks with ears.

On my birthday back in the late 90's I dropped several $!00.00 on cd's at tower records DC, I took about 7 back as bad sounding defects, made them listen to them, got my money back, Bet those refund days are over.
 
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: mojave on 30 Nov 2016, 12:07 am
The Blu-ray, Adele Live at the Royal Albert Hall, has all the songs from 21 except He Won't Go. It has much better dynamic range than the CD. I used it at the Digital Amp Room at RMAF two years ago.

With just a few mouse clicks in JRiver Media Center, I can rip the tracks to FLAC (either stereo or multi-channel) and listen to the songs just like any other CD. I also get rid of the talking between songs.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: Folsom on 30 Nov 2016, 12:40 am
Try buying the LP, 21 & 25. Who ever is pressing them sucks ass at their job, total dick-bag-morons. My 25 was basically unusable (I got rid of it, but could have used it for a plate with the dish it had), and 21 has some defects I'd only expect on some well worn and perhaps abused discs.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: KCLam on 20 Jul 2017, 02:37 pm
Reviving this thread to comment on the Japanese pressing that I bought home whilst holidaying in HK. It was far superior than the European pressing, It was quieter, more dynamic and it did not have the harshness, the Japanese pressing reminded me of her live performance  whilst seated in row 10 at the Etihad stadium in Melbourne...well almost
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: Art_Chicago on 20 Jul 2017, 03:11 pm
Reviving this thread to comment on the Japanese pressing that I bought home whilst holidaying in HK. It was far superior than the European pressing, It was quieter, more dynamic and it did not have the harshness, the Japanese pressing reminded me of her live performance  whilst seated in row 10 at the Etihad stadium in Melbourne...well almost

is it available in the US? we are talking about 21, and not 25 which i could not stand...
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 20 Jul 2017, 04:04 pm
Reviving this thread to comment on the Japanese pressing that I bought home whilst holidaying in HK. It was far superior than the European pressing, It was quieter, more dynamic and it did not have the harshness, the Japanese pressing reminded me of her live performance  whilst seated in row 10 at the Etihad stadium in Melbourne...well almost
Thanks for your post.  I searched HD Tracks for Adele, since I'm primarily interested in digital content.  They have only ONE TRACK from Adele (Skyfall)!  I'll buy it just to check the quality.  It's 96/24 in AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, or WAV format.
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: AmpDesigner333 on 7 Apr 2019, 09:29 pm
Link to DR database for Adele 21:
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Adele&album=21
Title: Re: What a shame --- Adele recording engineer should be hung by his......
Post by: RDavidson on 8 Apr 2019, 12:23 am
Yeah, I thought it was pretty well known that her recordings were horrendously processed. It's unfortunate you found this out after the fact, especially as she is a great vocal talent.