Quote:
Originally Posted by wilsonmac
To be more specific... the use of peak limiting (I'm sure many on this thread are bored by this stuff  ). The "limitations" of vinyl are what require it to have a unique mastering. In my experience that lends to a much more dynamic experience. This is of course not always the case, but in the last 5 years it has been more common. The music purchased in HD (24/96) and CD (16/44.1) are often the same mastering while the vinyl has been done separately. I'll have both to compare soon, and I'll let you know what I hear.
Out of the Cradle is one of the greatest mastering of any rock/pop CD I own. Good example of how squashed things have become since 1992. |
Follow-up: I ran a level-analysis tool on the WAV files ripped from the CD, and they are indeed super-squashed, almost as bad as the worst Metallica mastering I've ever heard. Even "Dancing" only has a dynamic range of 11 dB, but is just level-adjusted down about 6 dB to make it "quiet".
Most sane mastering nowadays targets avg. RMS at around -16 to -14 dB.
Maybe LB really just likes the sound of highly compressed tracks?
