DualDiscs Suck

That's right. Regardless of what Sony has to say about how awesome it is to have music on one side and multimedia content on the other ("Now one disc has it all!"), you heard the truth from the H-Man:

DualDiscs suck.

I ignored the obvious problem, that having two sides of data makes the disc more delicate, and bought one - Judas Priest's Angel of Retribution. First disappointment: the so-called "Enhanced Stereo" track that is included on the DVD side is just barely that. The technical specifications are 48KHz/16-bit, whereas Redbook Audio (regular CDs) are 42/16. Big difference, right? Not. Believe me, you'd need a really great system to notice, so you can forget the average person with their craptastic home theater-in-a-box hearing it (although they'd probably say they can, just because Sony tells them it's better). Yeah, some of the DualDiscs have actual high resolution audio, like the Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral disc (it's a bona fide DVD-A on the flip side), but this is not the norm. Most have this absurd Enhanced Stereo crap.

DualDiscs suck.

Furthermore, the DualDisc doesn't adhere to the Compact Disc standard because it's too thick, so it may not even play on your equipment. My DualDisc would only play for one out of every ten attempts in my PC. Applause to Sony for knowingly manufacturing an item that won't work on a decent percentage of the public's players. This is almost as bad as copy protection on CDs.

DualDiscs suck.

When a Remaster Is Not Just a Remaster

In my previous post I discussed the negatives of CD remasters. Even more devilish, however, are remasters that are also remixes. A remaster is usually done from a final mix - all tracks have been finalized into one track, and the compression and limiting is done on that final track. In a remix, however, the artist goes back to the original vocal or instrument tracks and attempts to "improve" them. Sometimes the volume of certain instruments will be raised or lowered. Sometimes an effect, such as reverb, is added or subtracted. Sometimes vocals or instruments are removed, substituted, or re-recorded. The end result is something that is akin to the Star Wars Special Editions - it appears to be the same as the original to the uneducated, but is in fact not the same product at all.

The first disc that my friends and I discovered that this was done to was Ozzy Osbourne's second solo album, Diary of a Madman. A friend of mine bought the latest release of this disc, thinking it was a mere remaster, expecting to get better sound quality. But after a few listens he came to the conclusion that something wasn't quite right. On this disc, the drums and bass were lame!

Scrutinizing the disc booklet revealed that the bass and drums were no longer performed by the original musicans, bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake. They were, in fact, recently re-recorded by former Suicidal Tendencies bassist Robert Trujillo (now with Metallica), and former Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin. Furthermore, certain aspects of the original album, such as guitarist Rhandy Rhodes's guitar leads, are more prominent, and now have reverb added. What the hell were they thinking?

Research shows that Daisley and Kerslake were busy suing Ozzy for songwriting royalties they were never paid for. In response, Ozzy and Sharon decided to remove them from the latest version of Diary and Ozzy's smash hit Blizzard of Ozz. Way to destroy your best two records, Ozzy. Incidentally, the lawsuit against Ozzy was dismissed, so the two original musicians are now screwed two-fold: not enough compensation for writing some of the most popular metal songs in existence (like "Crazy Train"), and no longer playing on two watershed recordings to boot. The original versions of these CDs are no longer manufactured. Disgraceful.

Two other artists that have performed this surgery on select titles in their back catalog are the metal bands Megadeth and Iced Earth. Look hard for the orginal versions of their albums in used record stores and Ebay, metal fans, because in the new versions, Greedo shoots first. So always check the packaging stickers and CD cases carefully for the magical word remix, then avoid.

Louder Is Always Better, Right?

Record companies these days have a whole bag of tricks these days to try to get us to buy the same album multiple times. One of the most popular is the remastering of old CDs.

In theory, this is a good idea. Many old CDs were created with less than great technology. If the analog-to-digital converters used were of poor quality, then you're simply not getting a great sounding CD. Enter the remastering process, which gives us better sound on all the old favorites. Um, yeah. Sometimes.

The biggest problem is that this is turning into a win/lose situation. Yes, you are getting a better sounding CD on a lot of levels. Unfortunately, most engineers are also making the overall volume of the disc much louder. Louder is better, right?

Well, no. EVERYONE PAYS MORE ATTENTION WHEN SOMETHING IS LOUDER, and that's undoubtedly the main reason this is done. But a loud master tends to decrease the dynamic range (everything ends up being the same volume), make the high end brittle, make bass sound like mush, and well, generally make everything sound like ass. There's simply a whole lot less definition to the music because all the instruments are trying to occupy the same space.

Most new albums are also being made in this way. Prime offenders are Rush's Vapor Trails, Iron Maiden's Dance of Death, and U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. It simply amazes me that bands that once cared so much about the sound of their music are happy with what's on these discs. It's a lumpy, midrange-y mass that hangs in the air and becomes tiresome to listen to when played at louder volumes. Geddy Lee and Adam Clayton's bass guitars actually distort during certain songs. Hell, I can barely hear Steve Harris's popping and slapping (his trademark) on DoD. There might actually be good music in there, but the presentation is such teh suck that it's hard to be sure.

The solution? Not much to be done about brand new recordings. But with remasters of old ones? Just say no unless a) you get to hear it before buying, or b) there are bonus features, such as unreleased songs, that outweigh the lousy sound.

First Post - Band Chat Is Back

That's right. To all those who may care, Band Chat is back.

Band Chat was a web site I had in the 90s where I discussed various bands that I liked. I also kept a discography of those bands plus tiny sound clips of various songs (this was in the pre-mega bandwidth and mp3 days, so they were very tiny, and very poor quality). The most interesting section, however, was the "Drivel of the Month", where I would discuss a band I truly despised and invite email responses from the public, which I would post (this was before the big forum explosion). I got some great hate mail.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and it eventually withered away, until...

The rebirth - in the form of this blog. I chose the name Band Chat for the history, but I will expand beyond that. Music is more than just the bands themselves. Besides, I'm beyond opinionated when it comes to music, so why limit myself to just talk about bands? Share and enjoy!