If Mr.Shirley re-mastered AMOLAD so its like FF...

[Twarkle]

I posted this in anoher Thread - but I would really like TWARKLE's response seeing that he appears to have a great understanding of this:


A little off topic.. but pertaining to the leak..

Is there (will there be) a noticeanble difference in the sound quality of this leak as compared to the CD istself.. Im sure this has been asked before, but I dont have time to surf all past topics/pages for info.. I also know that there are a host of variables that need to be known to give a concise answer..

That said, what are the determining factors of leak sound quality (as it pertains to TFF leak) and can a general concluion be drawn to said sound quality..

Thanks in advance to anyone taking time to respond to this.. CHEERS.

I'll try to answer and hopefully won't start a huge battle.  Mp3's ripped at a high quality (320 CBR, V0) will not bear out a huge difference, if one at all to most listeners, and much of it is dependent on how revealing your gear is.  Some of that is also dependent on the codec that was used to do the conversion as well.  The MP3's of TFF are ripped at 192 so you have lost a good deal of dynamic range and frequencies due to the compression, though again how that ends up sounding to you is largely dictated by what you are listening through and what you like to hear sonically.  The CD will sound better simply because it has more range and no resolution removed.  The problem is what does the word better mean to the listener?  Some people hear a difference, some feel a difference, some know there is something different but can't pinpoint it, and some don't hear any difference.

So in the end the answer is really this, will you hear a difference?  I don't know.  Should you?  Well you shouldn't feel bad if you don't.  Is there a difference?  Yes there is a quantifiable and measurable difference but that doesn't mean it's going to be blatantly obvious.  As an analogy, there is a difference between 720P, 1080i, and 1080p on HDTV's but I can't see any difference at all, no matter what people say.  I know what the difference is, and I know it's real but I just don't see it, and therefore don't care about it.  However when it comes to music I do hear a difference.

 

[Rivet_Head]

Twarkle - Excellent post as usual.. Thanks for confirming what I have read on some tech sites (Crutchfield, etc...) I do tend to hear subtle differences in sound quality after ripping CD's, etc.. You are right, inn these cases, "beauty is in the eye of the behoder"...

... Just another reason Im looking forward to purchasing the CD on Tuesday, Aug. 17 here in Ohio... evem though I listened to the mp3@192KPBS version..

Cheers.

 

[Twarkle]

One thing that doesn't get pointed out enough is that much of the hate of MP3's people have come from back when mp3's first took off.  The compression rates were lousy and the methods and codecs were not as good either.  There were a ton of  files back then where you could hear the compression instantly, and if you put them on a decent sound system, or even in your car they were unlistenable.  There has been a lot of carry over form people who refuse to understand that mp3's don't sound like that anymore.

I know plenty of people who claim they can hear the difference between lossless and mp3, I have never seen anyone prove it consistently in real life, and when they get fooled they always have an excuse.  Do a Google search for what happened when they took a bunch of audiophiles and connected speaker with wire clothes hangers instead of "high-end" speaker cable.  None of them could tell the difference, but now of course any audiophile site in world will tell you it was an unfair experiment.

I don't claim to always be able to hear a difference, and will admit there are plenty of times when I can't tell you which sample is high end mp3, and which is lossless.  

Edit: Could someone please explain why my post ended up saying "BECAUSE I"M TOO FUCKING LAZY TO SPELL CHECK RIGHT NOW"?  I obviously didn't put that in, and thought I had spell checked everything.

 

[Deleted member 7164]

I'm not an audiophile but i have an excellent ear. Eg. i can (and i do) listen to over-pre-amped equalization on my headphones just because it will be damn loud and even more distorted, for the sake of some clipping. I like that. But when i listen on my stereo, i want sound to be "clean". I have an 100euro class Philips mini stereo with good speaker position and it's driven via professional cables from professional grade sound card.

And i can clearly hear the difference between high-quality lossy MP3 and lossless FLAC.

 

[Rivet_Head]

Ha Ha.. Was the spell check thing aimed at me? I am working while I am posting, so I am typing fast in between calls... and no, I am not working at McDonalds, and I do have an education beyond the 3rd Grade

 

[LooseCannon]

Ha Ha.. Was the spell check thing aimed at me? I am working while I am posting, so I am typing fast in between calls... and no, I am not working at McDonalds, and I do have an education beyond the 3rd Grade

Ahaha, I know your feeling right there, I do much the same! Hence why my posts during the day tend to be short bursts and not long discussions.

 

[Deleted member 7164]

Back to original topic, i like AMOLAD production a lot more than TFF. Basically, on TFF i can hardly understand what Bruce is singing sometimes, while other times (when there's more space for him) it's perfect - eg. the Coming Home chorus. Adrian's guitar sound is awful in a downmix. It just doesn't break through on solos.

With quality of production, this one is between DoD and AMOLAD. DoD had some serious issues with mastering, also, it's louder and clips more easier than any other Maiden record.

BNW is far more superior in my ears than any 00's album. The decision for drums aside - guitars are more spacey, and the whole record has a certain "warmth" to it. Drums basically sound better than anything i've ever heard. It's at the time of BNW that casual Maiden listeners started actually hearing what kind of a beast McBrain really is.

 

[Rivet_Head]

Loose,

Thanks Bro, its nice to hear the similarity...... I am fortunate that I have a job that affords me even this amount of freedom during the day..  I am in tech sales (NOT AUDIO - Obviously with regards to last posts!!!) in the printing industry so I field calls/make calls on days that I can work from my home office.. Later,


Twarkle,

How does my grammar look????

 

[Twarkle]

Ha Ha.. Was the spell check thing aimed at me? I am working while I am posting, so I am typing fast in between calls... and no, I am not working at McDonalds, and I do have an education beyond the 3rd Grade

No it wasn't aimed at anyone, I was talking about my post.  That message appeared in the middle of my post after I posted it.  I have no clue why it was there.  I can't figure out how it got there.  I edited it out but it was weird.  I thought maybe it automatically comes up if you spell the same word wrong too many times in a post?  Or that a mod had put it in as a way of pointing out that I was spelling poorly.  It thinks I spelled lossless wrong since it's not in it's database.  But that sentence appeared just like that, capitalized and everything right in the middle of my post.  

 

[Rivet_Head]

No problem - even if you did post, there is no offense taken - I thought was all just in good Fun.. Therefore, please ignore my last post.. Im back to work so - have a good day

---

Also, thanks again for the insight.. Now, Ill get out of the way so everyone can get back on topic.

 

[Twarkle]

If you do a search for "lazy", and "spellcheck" you'll find other posts by people where the same thing happened, like this post here http://forum.maidenfans.com/http://forum.maidenfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=206795#p206795

 

[Bananaman_In_Shorts]

One of the things i've noticed, which isn't bad, is that Shirley's recordings sound current, where Birch's sound timeless.

Here I have to disagree. Except for Brave New World Kevin Shirley's productions with Maiden sound more timeless than Martin Birch's productions in my opinion. This is not a bad thing either way though. I mean just listen to Somewhere In Time for example, especially in the 1998 remaster, the drums sound very 80's. Or listen to No Prayer For The Dying and Fear Of The Dark, they have more of a "dirty" or "raw" 90's production.

A Matter Of Life And Death and The Final Frontier sound very flat in the production with very clean sounding snare drums etc. Dance Of Death is a bit overcompressed but that's it. Brave New World on the other hand sounds a bit dated, on that one I can agree.

Anyways, it's all personal preferences but, I think it's unfair to call Shirleys productions dated.

 

[chaosapiant]

Here I have to disagree. Except for Brave New World Kevin Shirley's productions with Maiden sound more timeless than Martin Birch's productions in my opinion. This is not a bad thing either way though. I mean just listen to Somewhere In Time for example, especially in the 1998 remaster, the drums sound very 80's. Or listen to No Prayer For The Dying and Fear Of The Dark, they have more of a "dirty" or "raw" 90's production.

A Matter Of Life And Death and The Final Frontier sound very flat in the production with very clean sounding snare drums etc. Dance Of Death is a bit overcompressed but that's it. Brave New World on the other hand sounds a bit dated, on that one I can agree.

Anyways, it's all personal preferences but, I think it's unfair to call Shirleys productions dated.

Where-as I agree with you completely, I also share a different opinion.  The 80's albums have a lot of space and reverb, particulary that latter ones.  It seems more to me that that just "are" as opposed to having someone record them.  The new recordings "feel" like recordings.  That's completely subjective though, and hard for me to pin down to any particular reason.  Regardless of production, Maiden's music is itself timeless, so it doesn't matter so much.  But my fave production is still SSOASS; it's so warm, vibrant, and feels like it "happened" as opposed to being recorded. 

 

[Twarkle]

Where-as I agree with you completely, I also share a different opinion.  The 80's albums have a lot of space and reverb, particulary that latter ones.  It seems more to me that that just "are" as opposed to having someone record them.  The new recordings "feel" like recordings.  That's completely subjective though, and hard for me to pin down to any particular reason.  Regardless of production, Maiden's music is itself timeless, so it doesn't matter so much.  But my fave production is still SSOASS; it's so warm, vibrant, and feels like it "happened" as opposed to being recorded.  

+1 to pretty much everything in that post.

I love the production on Bruce's vocals so far on TFF as well.

Something that gets overlooked in the production of modern Maiden is the effect of 3 guitarists.  It changes the dynamic completely from a production standpoint.  Just by default things become more dense.  That's not a complaint, but obviously adding a 3rd guitar to things requires a different approach to the production and I think it cuts down on some of the space that Chaospoint referenced (assuming we are using the word the same way).

 

[Forostar]

But my fave production is still SSOASS; it's so warm, vibrant, and feels like it "happened" as opposed to being recorded.  

Small point of criticism on one of my top 3 Maiden albums:
I like the atmosphere of this record, and the musical content of course. But I think the drums sound a bit light and the guitars also. Weak is a more negative word, I rather use "light" or slightly "too soft".

 

[chaosapiant]

Small point of criticism on one of my top 3 Maiden albums:
I like the atmosphere of this record, and the musical content of course. But I think the drums sound a bit light and the guitars also. Weak is a more negative word, I rather use "light" or slightly "too soft".

I can agree with that, as I think the drum sound was much more powerful on the preceding album.  You can't even really hear the kick drum on SSOASS.  But man, them guitars sound godly!

 

[Forostar]

On SSOASS the drums seem to float (kinda apart) above the rest of the music, in the audio spectrum, when you use headphones. On SIT the drums seem to be a more integral part of the music, blending with the bass, and indeed sound more powerful, and I also like the drum sound better (if it is another kit, if not, then I like the tones better).

 

[Cornfed Hick]

If you do a search for "lazy", and "spellcheck" you'll find other posts by people where the same thing happened, like this post here http://forum.maidenfans.com/http://forum.maidenfans.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=206795#p206795

Don't sweat it.  I think that's an auto-replace macro on the website.  You must have made a common typo that someone automatically programmed to swap out with that message.  There are other such macros -- try typing Tom Cruise's call-sign from Top Gun.  Instead of M-a-v-e-r-i-c-k, it will automatically substitute another phrase, "He Who Must Not Be Named," in honor of the former owner of the Iron Maiden Commentary who shared that call-sign.   

Also, don't mind Foro, he's a well-known yet (mostly) beloved grouch on this forum. 

The discussions about the audio quality of the production and/or mastering reminded me of oenophiles discussing wine.  But instead of phrases like "musty" and "subtle hint of oak," people use words like "warmth" and "better separation."  Not meant to be a criticism or to suggest people are being snobs -- for me, audiophile and oenophile are not pejoratives -- but just pointing out that it is inherently difficult to describe differences in sound using English, just as it is inherently difficult to describe differences in the taste of wines, as there simply is not a large enough vocabulary to do so.  For example, the word that comes to my mind when listening to AMOLAD is "muddy," but that is an imperfect description, and may mean something different to other people than what I mean.  Plus, some people hear things differently, some people have different quality audio equipment, etc.  But presumably all of us can tell the difference between the sound of AMOLAD and, say, Brave New World, for example.  It's difficult to describe the difference clearly, but one can certainly notice a difference.  So, even though the albums share the same producer and creative minds, they sound different.  Similarly, Powerslave sounds much different than Piece of Mind, even though, again, it's the same lineup and Martin Birch produced them both, roughly a year apart.  And, I  can definitely tell the difference between my original 1988 CD of SOASS and my 2002 remastered version.  In sum, production matters, mastering matters, and some records sound better to me than others.  Yet as long as I don't hear the crackle of clipping, it's all good in my book. 

 

[LooseCannon]

And if you abbreviate Maverick to M-a-v, you get Mav.

 

[Ranko]

Back to original topic, i like AMOLAD production a lot more than TFF. Basically, on TFF i can hardly understand what Bruce is singing sometimes, while other times (when there's more space for him) it's perfect - eg. the Coming Home chorus. Adrian's guitar sound is awful in a downmix. It just doesn't break through on solos.

With quality of production, this one is between DoD and AMOLAD. DoD had some serious issues with mastering, also, it's louder and clips more easier than any other Maiden record.

BNW is far more superior in my ears than any 00's album. The decision for drums aside - guitars are more spacey, and the whole record has a certain "warmth" to it. Drums basically sound better than anything i've ever heard. It's at the time of BNW that casual Maiden listeners started actually hearing what kind of a beast McBrain really is.

I agree with you completely, Zare. BNW is still (to me) by far the best (warmest) sounding album from the Shirley era, DOD is a disaster (I would call its sound "dull"). From the few listens of TFF, I can say that I don't like its sound because it's somehow too much in-your-face, especially Bruce's vocals that seem too loud.

Twarkle - you got the "too lazy to spellcheck" because you wrote t-e-h instead of "the". The macro changes it. It also changes c-u-n-t or p-u-s-s-y to "great musician". That's what seemed odd to me in someone's post about Sharon Osbourne being a great musician.