[elcaptain88]

Hmmm - so many fall into this category, but these instantly come to mind (all are cd's):

Devo - "Freedom of Choice"
Talking Heads - "'77 through Remain in Light"

[Digi-G]

I recently picked up the Rolling Stones Hot Rocks, SACD version.  I was stunned at how bad most of the recordings sound (and I gained a new appreciation for George Martin's recordings of the Beatles from the same era).  The Stones CD (the earlier stuff) just seemed to have no life, no dynamics, and sounded fairly compressed.

Here's one that falls into a gray area.  I had John Lennon's Mind Games on standard CD (not the remastered version) and always thought it sounded terrible (it did).  I got the MFSL version of the CD and it's much, MUCH better sounding.  So, not sure if that qualifies as a bad recording or just a bad CD mastering of the original.  The original CD had low/medium levels of distortion, with grating highs and vocals, and bass was totally MIA.

[SWG255]

The most disappointing bad CD I have is The Who "Quadraphenia". The original vinyl wasn't great, but the CD I have from the mid-80's is just about unlistenable, except that I love the music and don't have a TT anymore.

BTW, there's help for the Talking heads' discs mentioned earlier, i just heard the remastered "77" and compared it to the original, and the remastered disc is a HUGE improvement, so if you like those early Talking heads recordings, look for the remastered versions.

This shows that often a poor or mediocre seeming recording can be resurected by a good remastering job, especially if the original mix or master tapes can be found as the basis of the new recording.

[orthobiz]

Some music is so important, so vital that it doesn't matter if the recording is bad, just gotta have it. So, when Talking Heads 77 regular CD sounds ratty, it doesn't matter 'cause you just gotta have it. Sometimes this is tainted by the memory of how good the music was when I got into it and I am appalled with how bad the sound is on re-listening!

Some recordings are so good that you realize you've been listening to garbage up until that point. So when the new Talking Heads 77 reissue came out I was absolutely floored with how great it was (just like posted above). A recent listen to Procol Harum LP Broken Barricades: I couldn't believe how well recorded and how well preserved my college album was!

For me, I have great difficulty dissecting the sound free from the music. I am unlikely to listen to an album repeatedly simply because the sound is fantastic. In college, I bought Thelma Houston's I Got The Music In Me. Or was it that Dave Grusin album? Sure, sounded good, but who wanted to listen to it repeatedly? After all, I'm not selling audio equipment...

One great disappointment since I got the Linn spinning again was a bootleg (probably the only one I own) of Elvis Costello doing Third Rate Romance/Low Rent Rendevous, among others. I remember liking that record in the late 70's but it is totally, absolutely UNLISTENABLE! What was I thinking?????

Enough random thoughts...

biz

[Folsom]

Really?  Maybe Zach's voice is just really -that bad-

The bass lines are nice, but I find the vocals and highs incredibly fatiguing to listen to.  Perhaps I was confusing his edgy and nasal voice with poor recording.  "his voice can't possibly sound that bad naturally"

I never found his voice to be a high point of Rage. He seems like the kind of lean in and lean out singer. I would be willing to bet he never stood directly infront of a microphone singing ever.... There is definatly no pick up or let off that is very audible. However his voice sounds harmonically decent, on the aspect of recordings quality. Harsh voice? I would say yes he actually can be pretty loud and in your face, but I never found it to be enough to make me turn it off.

How do you listen to Rage? I am under the impression the CD's are piles of crap so unless you are SBing or Foobar2000ing you probably will not gather a natural sense of his voice, just the loud.

Regardless I would call them a good garage band on the sound of things. They are pretty talented insturment players, which shows on self title and Evil Empire. The insturments sound good, even if they tend to sound a bit short. If you listen to Battle of Los Angeles where they went all out and destroyed every aspect of musical quality to the album...

I find aside from the drums, which are usually not amazing, the band to treat their powered guitars as such. Basically they play them like electrical insturments and are not big on giving unique sounds to them. They still produce some great riffs and what not.

They certainly lack some dynamics but the two albums I have the insturments are still very prevelant with clarity.

[markC]

My vote for a terrible recording is anything by Diana Krall.  Sure its stands up and says, "hey notice me" but it is really a pathetic overabundance of close mic'ing that leads to a syrupy artificial sound.

I'll take GBV anyday.

Have to disagree here. Sure, some of her stuff is ovemiked and a little bass heavy, but overall the quality of the recording is decent IMO. Instrument placement within the sound stage is believeable in most pressings. Put them against most rock/pop recordings and I find DK much more listenable. Then again, you do have to interpret what the artist/engineer was after. A good refrence comes to mind in The Cure's Staring at the Sea. It sounds thin and as if it were recorded in someone's garage. But, it has a realistic "garage type" sound to it. Similar to when I sit in @ a jam session of my friends band. Night and day from D.K. but still good stuff!

[roymail]

Can someone explain in simple terms what "over compression" sounds like?  The reason I'm asking is that no one has made reference to the main reason that some recordings sound bad to me.  If someone will explain what an overly compressed recording actually sounds like, I'll give my opinion about bad recordings.

This is one of the biggest trade offs I know of in audio.  Hi rez systems are very revealing of recording flaws.

-- Roy

[Rocket]

Hi,

Swg255 wrote:

The most disappointing bad CD I have is The Who "Quadraphenia". The original vinyl wasn't great, but the CD I have from the mid-80's is just about unlistenable, except that I love the music and don't have a TT anymore.

The newer 'Who' cd's have been remastered and sound quite good imo.  I have Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who's Next and Quadrophenia and considering how old they are they sound quite good.  I bougth the 'Who by Numbers' and consider it quite poorly recorded and don't think it was remastered at all.

Regards

Rod

[Rocket]

Hi,

Swg255 wrote:
The most disappointing bad CD I have is The Who "Quadraphenia". The original vinyl wasn't great, but the CD I have from the mid-80's is just about unlistenable, except that I love the music and don't have a TT anymore.

The newer 'Who' cd's have been remastered and sound quite good imo.  I have Tommy, Live at Leeds, Who's Next and Quadrophenia and considering how old they are they sound quite good.  I bougth the 'Who by Numbers' and consider it quite poorly recorded and don't think it was remastered at all.

Regards

Rod

[yakimicki]

i have so many opinions on this topic.. but i'll keep it to a minimum.

compression.. If you'd like to hear what this sounds like, download Audacity (the free version of soundforge).  Throw some music in to it then add a bunch of compression.  Compression is basically the idea of reducing the dynamics of the audio, i.e., forcing any thing that bursts louder than a set level down to more closely resemble the volume of the other components (instruments).  5:1 compression would mean that anything that is 5db louder than the level that is selected as top reference would be reduced to just 1db over the reference level.  It is supposed to improve percieved quality but really it just kind of mushes everything together and can make it sound louder.  I think that any smashing pumpkins recording could demonstrate excessive amounts of compression for you.  The strokes vocals demonstrate extreme compression.  Most everything has lots of compression on it any more.  If you look at the graphic representation of a song on audio software (like audacity) you can  see what compression does.  An uncompressed song has a lot of peaks and valleys.  A compressed song has the same peaks and valleys, but they are more like speed bumps than mountains.  Compression=less dynamic range...less distance between the loud and quiet parts that make up the sound of an instrument, voice, etc.
Compression is a no no if you are recording for vinyl.  My old bands first recording for vinyl has insane amounts of compression which sounds bad on vinyl.  A good portion of engineers in studios these days came around to late to know what it takes to make something that'll sound good on vinyl.  They don't things like, don't put a guitar lead panned to one channel, towards the end (read: inside near the label of the record) because there is much less distance per second to fit all of your music into.  Not only do things like that cause degraded quality, but in extreme cases like this, the needle can't stay in the track and actually skips from the lead.  We liked to joke that it was our lead guitar player's ripping lead that the needle couldn't handle, in reality it was how it was recorded and where it was laid on the disc that the needle couldn't handle.

Bad recording.  In my opinion a 'bad recording' is a recording in which the  engineer failed at creating the sound that he, the producer or band was shooting for.  Others here will consider anything that adds any coloration to the original recording as 'bad'.  I suppose if you are talking about classical, jazz, or a live recording, then yes a 'good' recording means simply ' a recording that is an accurate reproduction of the live performance'.  In many styles of music though the recording can be part of the music.  You could look at this like debating whether an acoustic guitar sound is 'good' whereas a telecaster through an overdriven classic fender pro reverb is 'bad'.  
Too me the bad recordings are also the one's where the engineer failed to create a good balance of levels between instruments, or even between drums, and vocals.  The levels can be technically 'wrong' when compared to the live sound, but must sound good together.  Nothing should be 'lost in the mix'.  Also, improperly EQ'ing any of the mics can make for a bad recording.  

Some of my favorite 'bad' recording practices, when implemented in a specific style of punk rock music is the effect of too much reverb on group  vocals.  Another would be the too high levels (and reverb) on guitar leads on recordings by the swedish 'Viking Rock' band Ultima Thule or the american 'Oi!' band the Templars.  They sound completely out of place but  that is what makes them sound so good.  These same techniques applied to, say, the clarinet in the 3rd movement of of Borodin's Quartet no2 might be a bit disconcerting and would probably constitute a bad recording.

If you hire a painter to copy the mona lisa and it comes out looking like a velvet elvis, thats bad.  But if you were shooting for a velvet elvis in the first place, then the painter had done a good job.  No matter how much people spend on expensive glasses and windex, they can't make either of the velvet elvis' above look like the mona lisa.  Which one you would hang on your wall is just a matter of personal choice.

So i guess this long answer boils down to.. there are absolutely bad recordings out there and there are absolutely many many recording which people could debate over whether its bad or good.

[jasonc]

Red Hot Chili Peppers- Californication

[roymail]

yakimicki,

Thanks for the detailed explanation regarding "compression" on recordings and what it "sounds like."  I really enjoy well recorded music especially on a revealing system using single driver speakers with or without some help from a supertweeter like the Druids.  What really drives me nuts is distortion around vocals on certain recordings.  Makes no difference whether it's a male or female vocal...  it will be apparent at some point on every track.  Mostly it occurs in the midrange.  Thankfully, this is not the norm but it effects enough CDs to be annoying.  I know the recording engineer can hear it on playback or at least should be able to hear it.  I use to think it was overmodulation resulting in distortion at certain frequencies.  I know it's the source CD since I can play the same CD on 3 different good quality systems and hear it on all of them.  My system, which is very revealing, allows good recordings to sound amazing.  But, feed it a bad recording, and it's sounds so bad I just have to stop listening.  Sometimes clarity, detail and a black background can be a curse.  But, most of the time, it's the only way to hear all that's happening on the CD as the recording engineer intended.  And, when that happens, you know what they mean when they use the term "musical."  Oh well, enough of that.  Just my two cents!

-- Roy

[mmakshak]

I have a Cream "Disraeli Gears" lp and a Byrd's "Greatest Hits" lp that are both poor recordings.  I think the Cream album is a one-off.  The Byrds, I'm not sure of(I have a second lp to eventually compare it with).

[andrewsouthern]

i gotta say, I think that Californication is interesting to the ear. i know most people hate the guitar tone, but that is what the guy's fingers sound like. it's a quick, fast, California punk sound with loads of treble. I hear it as a (not subtle) attempt at mixing the record like the theme of the lyrics and the band.

On the flip side, I think this same sort of mixing strategy was employed for the Strokes first record and it was awful. Sounded like it was recorded through a wet paper bag.

Popular as all hell, both of these, so go figure.

Sonically, I have recently been most impressed with:
Elliot Smith - From A Basement On The Hill
Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Secret Laboratory
Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues

Sure, these aren't 'Tuck & Patty' type audiophile recordings, but they sound great on the whole.

[BradJudy]

As noted, 'compression' (in the sense of reducing the dynamic range) is a big culprit for most audiophiles.  

I find myself disappointed with albums with high noise levels.  I have a couple of vocal works (one Sarah Brightman album and one Charlotte Church album, IIRC) that just have a high noise level that ruins the enjoyment for me.

While overall the album is excellent and well recorded, you can hear what I think is the mic clipping on 'Hurt' on Johnny Cash's 'The Man Comes Around' album.  I can't think of other albums with this problem off of the top of my head, but I'm sure they are out there.

As mentioned, there are lots of albums out there with bad mixing choices where particular vocals or instruments either excessively dominate or are lost.

[Bwanagreg]

One of the most infamousley bad recordings has got to be Tony Williams Lifetime's "Emergency". My god it's bad. The vu meters must have been maxed out throughout the session. I think the latest remastering tried to clean it up a bit, but the original vinyl is truly nasty.

I've always been diasppointed by Perter Gabrial's "So". It sounds very processed and digital. The 80's era digital recordings in general sounded artificial, but this one is realy, um, so.  

[Kim S.]

Peter Gabriel's "So" was the first CD I ever bought.  When I bought my first CD player I had limited funds so along with it I bought only 2 CD's.  "So" and something classical I cannot remember.  Over the next 3 months I  developed a true hatred for the CD thru overplay.  The first notes would make me cringe.  I still have the CD in my collection but I don't have the slightest urge to play it, ever.

I agree that the early CD's did not sound very good.  My untrained ear realized that even after all the hype of the time.

[JohninCR]

I have to agree with Chad's sister's teacher.  Can you imagine what very well recorded Led Zeppelin would be like?  

As I understand it newer stuff is highly compressed so it plays louder overall, making it better heard in general, and it is simply a marketing ploy.

[nathanm]

Peter Gabriel's "So" was the first CD I ever bought.  When I bought my first CD player I had limited funds so along with it I bought only 2 CD's.  "So" and something classical I cannot remember...

I listened to it a lot myself (cassette) back in the day and for nostalgia's sake now I've downloaded it (a 128k MP3 no less - blasphemy!) and it sounds excellent.  I'd have to disagree with bwanagreg here.  I think it has an extremely polished, controlled sound with a really rich, bassy warmth.  Clearly done by pros who knew what they were going for.  I suppose one could say it's very dry and forward sounding.  The thumpy, tactile bass here reminds me of Fleetwood Mac's s\t album in that regard.  In no way could I quantify it as objectively poor.

Somehow in audiophiledom, (and regrettably, even in my own mind) the talent, experience, performance and technical know how that makes for a great sound like this gets all the credit stolen by the storage medium. Whenever I hear that faint tape hiss I think, "Hell yeah man, analog ruled!" But that can't be the whole story.  Still, it seems I don't hear this fat brown tone on many modern records.  Hmmm.  But hey, this thread is supposed to be about recording incomptence so onto Led Zeppelin...

It appears that the recordings really are distorted in many cases and it isn't a re-mastering thing at all. Still, I am in denial and don't want to accept it.  Comparing different releases showed the crushed, fuzzy drum hits appear in all of them.  Ack.  Now that's incompetence.  I figure the rock 'n rollers want total control of their art, they want the sheer power of their live sound to be experienced by the listener, but it just doesn't work by recording too hot.  Some amount of crunch on certain things can be satisfying, but a drum should crack, not fizzle.  Seems like the higher the frequency of the distortion the more annoying it is.