The Reason Why Older Records Sound Better

[Redacted]

Early CD releases often sounded thin/harsh because some of them used the same "master tape" th

Indeed. Mastering to suit the medium varies and was not good in the early days. Still not in some cases, but it's not necessarily the medium itself. The stereo master, whether tape or digital usually gets reworked for EQ and compression to suit, but not always too well! In any case nearly every modern LP is digitized at point of cutting even if it's from tape as the engineer needs to 'look ahead' to change groove spacing on the disk to minimise bleed through with loud passages, I'm told.

Early digital recording and mixing was a long-winded pain; I recall Yello (who do good recordings) saying "Never again" after doing their first digital recording of "You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess" in 1983. That changed as the kit got better and people gained different skills.

I think different music suits different recording techniques - if it's an orchestra, it's probably best done with all in a big room at once. For electronic instrumental, probably best done one track at a time. For bands with guitars, drums etc, it depends what they are comfortable with. Look at videos of it being done, starting say, with the Beatles in the studio, and then at the YouTube professional recording engineers (not the bedroom bodgers). The process varies - not sure there's a right or wrong way.

 

[Tell]

I saw that clip quite a while back so I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remeber he had a point of analog production being "better" because more was at stake when stuff where more costly and took longer to do, but then in the other hand analog is because of this limited and can't do some of the things that digital can do.
So yeah analog and digital has their pros and cons, but at the end of the day I personally very much prefer modern electronic music over old school analog stuff

 

[Jim Taylor]

Some details about analog recording from 1984, by an authority on the subject. Might explain some "differences".

Keith O. Johnson: Reference Recordings | Stereophile.com

Keith Johnson is the man responsible for the records issued by Reference Recordings, from Professor Johnson's Astounding Sound Show through Tafelmusik—not to mention upcoming releases of Your Friendly Neighborhood Big Band and Respighi's Church Windows.

www.stereophile.com

“Prof” Keith O. Johnson | Reference Recordings®

Short Bio Keith O. Johnson is one of the founding partners of Reference Recordings. For 46 years, he has served as its Technical Director, recording and mastering engineer. First with producer and RR founder Tam Henderson, and recently with other outstanding producers, Johnson has recorded and...

referencerecordings.com

 

[Redacted]

I saw that clip quite a while back so I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remeber he had a point of analog production being "better" because more was at stake when stuff where more costly and took longer to do, but then in the other hand analog is because of this limited and can't do some of the things that digital can do.
So yeah analog and digital has their pros and cons, but at the end of the day I personally very much prefer modern electronic music over old school analog stuff

I've cancelled sending you a packet of Rice Krispies that you could have put in a bowl and bashed your into, for that proper vinyl experience, as I think it would be a waste.

 

[voodooless]

dupe:

The Reason Why Older Records Sound Better

AI summary: "Older music often sounds better not mainly because of analog tape, but because the whole process forced better performances. Studio time was expensive, musicians had to play together in real time, and engineers had far less ability to “fix it later.” That meant stronger singers...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I am an ignoramus, but curious. Am I right in thinking that some early digital recordings sounded thin/harsh, primarily due to the limitations of the early digital recording gear

No. By the time CD became available, professional ADCs and storage were already exceeding human hearing.

Dither is a thing that did enable improvements.

 

[Chr1]

OK. Thanks. I think that I got this idea from a documentary I watched years ago about Sound City studios.
Various people were deriding the quality of the early digital sound. Can't remember who.
(But I guess this begs the question of whether they actually knew what they were talking about!)

Sound City (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Redacted]

Ok, but the quality of what part of the process? Original multitrack recording, mixing, mastering, or final medium?
I wouldn't take too much from anecdotal stuff - I have a ton of recordings, now all in digital form and some are awful, but many were also awful when I had them the 1st time round before anything was digital.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

OK. Thanks. I think that I got this idea from a documentary I watched years ago about Sound City studios.
Various people were deriding the quality of the early digital sound. Can't remember who.
(But I guess this begs the question of whether they actually knew what they were talking about!)

Sound City (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

See my post #16

By the 1980s high-speed professional (expensive) analogue tape recording for music could be very accurate if it wasn't pushed too hard. Despite this, digital recording was better: 1) flatter frequency; 2) better extreme bass; 3) less noise.

But you could NOT "push" digital recording; you had to avoid overload at all costs. This was really different from analogue tape where pushing it created a very popular "limiter/compressor" sound effect used by all popular music producers. Pushing analogue tape adds richness, distortion and character that's simply not in the actual sound from the microphone/DI-box. I can spot pushed analogue tape in every 70s and 80s rock band recording.

So in the early digital recording days, some musicians and producers struggled with this clean and accurate recording. They thought it lacked something...

 

[Mr. Swordfish]

But you could NOT "push" digital recording; you had to avoid overload at all costs. This was really different from analogue tape where pushing it created a very popular "limiter/compressor" sound effect used by all popular music producers. Pushing analogue tape adds richness, distortion and character that's simply not in the actual sound from the microphone/DI-box. I can spot pushed analogue tape in every 70s and 80s rock band recording.

So in the early digital recording days, some musicians and producers struggled with this clean and accurate recording. They thought it lacked something...

While there is no 17th bit to give additional headroom, every digital recording device I've ever used has some kind of limiting to prevent catastrophic results if the signal overloads the buffer. Of course, it's not the smooth, fat, analog tape saturation that has a certain sound to it.

At one point, it became popular to keep an analog multitrack recorder around to record drums, hitting the tape hard and getting that tape saturation compression that everyone came to know and love. The analog tracks were then copied over to the digital tape machine for mixing. I think now there are digital emulations of tape saturation that can be applied, but I don't know how they compare to the "real thing". Sort of like the "plate reverb" setting on the digital reverb.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

While there is no 17th bit to give additional headroom, every digital recording device I've ever used has some kind of limiting to prevent catastrophic results if the signal overloads the buffer

The earliest generation of professional studio ADCs tended to be just that: ADCs without limiters. There were warning lights and lots of (re)training.

It was immediately obvious that they did a superior job (compared to professional high speed analogue tape) of capturing what was really happening. But they couldn't be used as an FX the same way analogue tape could be. And there was a huge amount of "pushing" tape into the red in pop and rock music.

I recall something Steven Wilson wrote about remixing Yes multitracks that Eddie Offord had really heavily pushed all the tracks. The resulting distortion is obviously baked in and unrepairable. But on the other hand it is all part of the sound of the 1970s.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

I'll take Old Dudes Prefer The Way Things Were When They Were Young for 500, Alex

 

[DSJR]

Early CD releases often sounded thin/harsh

Not sure these original CD discs sound so bad these days with modern more neutral/honest 'sounding' playback rigs...

Certainly in the early 80s UK audio scene, 'we' routinely sold vinyl pickups with downtilted response, slightly 'assertive' sounding amps with odd order distortion and speakers with 'all over the place' balance which shrieked with neutral vinyl and digital sources fed them (I remember being aghast how shrill and 'bright' [to me at the time] the well reviewed technics 205mkIII pickup sounded*, yet now realising my favourite MM (Rega R100 with a 6dB all-but straight line tilt from bass to top) was actually the device in error (I still have one and it 'sounds' beefy and a little dull in tone as its descendant Sumiko Pearl does)...

Reviewer Martin Colloms had to stand uncomfortably on two opposing stools here, seemingly acknowledging the tech superiority of this cartridge but also subjectively liking the warm, lush and heavily restrained tones of the Koetsu Red MC model of the time, which measured and tracked less well and cost multiples of the Technics, but this latter market was growing and I feel now, becoming important for this reviewer...

 

[Redacted]

Not sure these original CD discs sound so bad these days with modern more neutral/honest 'sounding' playback rigs...

Anyone who looks on Discogs (I buy used CDs there) can see that many albums have dozens or even hundreds of releases, many of which have been remastered, and sometimes remixed. People may be surprised at the differences between some of the CDs they bought in the 80's & 90's, and newer releases of the same.

I'm a bit nerdy, and I check the DR numbers of CDs and even bit-compare them on FB2K, and against FLAC downloads. There are differences not just in the numbers but also in the sound - CD releases are not static things.

 

[Chr1]

Early CD releases often sounded thin/harsh because some of them used the same "master tape" that was used to produce vinyl records. The vinyl production process goes through a half-dozen or more analog generations, each of which lose some high frequency; mastering engineers would boost the treble to compensate for this, but when sent straight to CD is was too bright.
the same
The first commercially available digital recordings were released in the early 70s, a decade or so prior to the introduction of the CD in1982. I recall listening to some of them (often pressed onto red vinyl to distinguish them from ordinary records) but don't recall that they sounded any different than conventional records. But I don't know that I would have noticed at the time. Maybe somebody else can shed light on that.

As for the video, there's something to be said for old school recording methods where all the musicians were in the same room at the same time playing together, instead of a bunch of overdubs by people who have never actually met. But it was very expensive compared to what people do today, and orthogonal to whether the recording was done via analog tape, direct to disc, or digital.

If indeed the treble was boosted for vinyl and then the same master was then used for CD, this definitely would explain the bad sound of some early CDs.
What I don't understand however, is why this would be done? Or even considered. Surely it would be understood that the sound would be overly bright.
Very strange indeed.

 

[Redacted]

If indeed the treble was boosted for vinyl and the same master was then used for CD, this definitely would explain the bad sound of some early CDs.
What I don't understand however, is why this would be done? Or even considered. Surely it would be understood that the sound would be odd. Very strange indeed.

Doesn't work like that. The RIAA is not baked in on the masters used to make a CD. If a CD somehow had RIAA EQ, you'd notice. It would be un-listenable.

 

[Mart68]

What are these bad sounding early CDs? Anytime this comes up I ask for someone to name a specific title. So far no-one ever has.

There's not as much bass on older recordings that's true, we didn't get serious bass until CD became mainstream and they no longer had to consider the limitations of vinyl playback when recording.

There's so many myths surrounding early CDs, and early CD players never seen an iota of evidence that either had any issues whatsoever.

 

[Chr1]

Personally I am not praising vinyl. I am only quoting what was said in the earlier post.

 

[MatrixS2000]

If indeed the treble was boosted for vinyl and then the same master was then used for CD, this definitely would explain the bad sound of some early CDs.

Some early CDs had pre-emphasis added as an optional noise reduction technique. This had to be reversed on playback. A flag was used to inform the player that de-emphasis was needed. If a player ignores that flag, the disc would sound bright, thin and/or hissy. If you find a CD that sound like this, pre-emphasis added and no de-emphasis on playback is probably the root cause.

 

[Redacted]

Some early CDs had pre-emphasis added as an optional noise reduction technique. This had to be reversed on playback. A flag was used to inform the player that de-emphasis was needed. If a player ignores that flag, the disc would sound bright, thin and/or hissy. If you find a CD that sound like this, pre-emphasis added and no de-emphasis on playback is probably the root cause.

Yes - I have only one in my collection. Weirdly a lot of modern CD players no longer support the pre-emphasis flag!
I don't think that's why some early CDs aren't great - it's more about not doing good remastering to suit the medium but I've honestly had no big problem with my early CD's and for a long time I had both the vinyl and the CD back then, and the EQ on the vinyl versions of some records was terrible too! (all vinyl now sold, thank goodness!)