Coldplay needs to hire someone new to master their forthcoming releases. It started with X&Y and has now perpetuated on Viva La Vida and Prospekt's March. They should do away with this loud, compressed nonsense and return to the warm and organic mastering style of Parachutes and AROBTTH. On the new album, I can practically hear pixelation in Chris's voice, even playing straight from the CD or a lossless rip.

 

Their past few releases have sounded horrible, almost painful to the ear. Anyone else agree?

I actually think the later realeases sound warmer and smoother, whereas the older ones (while still great) sound a little more raw and live-sounding. Either way is good for me though.

^^Agreed. I prefer X&Y/VLV to the AROBTH/P days in terms of sound.

 

However I do notice some distortion in some of their recent songs, such as LITii at certain points.

 

there are others, but I can't remember.

I agree. Parachutes and AROBTTH have a very good mastering. X&Y is just good, VLV/PM is damn shitty.

 

I have 24/96 vinyl rips of AROBTTH, X&Y and VLV. Both in AROBTTH and X&Y, the useful information goes all the way up to 48kHz. In VLV, there is a strond cutoff around 22kHz, the limit of a CD. VLV vinyl copies were mastered from a CD :(

Just to be a bitch: The sampling frequency of 48kHz means that they get all the information between 0 and 24kHz. This is because you need a sampling freq that is twice the bandwith of the signal to be able to recreate it lossless back to an analog signal. This also implies that you have an infinite number of steps to represent the amplitude, which is not the case. That is where the loss comes in, as quantization error (noise). There is also a matter of coding/compression that makes those "pixelations" you speak of.

 

The ear cannot percieve much above 20kHz, so there is practically nothing to gain by having a higher sampling frequency than 48kHz

1: For people under 18yo, there is a minimal difference. Minimal, but real.

2: Maybe you can't hear, but you can feel, and that creates an unique experience.

3: I just said that to show that they were stupid enough to make the master cut of VLV vinyl discs from a CD source, which is limited to 44.1 kHz, so it can hold all the info between 0 and 22050 Hz. The master cut of the other albums were from the master tapes.

No, I think they sound great :)

It's true, theire new mastering realy sucks.

Even the song Viva La Vida sounds so 'soft'.

It should be darker and heavier.

And the bassdrum well.. it could have been deeper.

 

Now it's I use to rulleee the world.

But when he says I use to.. you already know there is something coming.

 

If hes slowed it down and very deep.

And then the bassdrum starting at left going slowly to the right.. no-one knew it was comming.

If the strings where dark and heavy and then Chris started with I use to.

And the bassdrum as they are playing in a deep cave.. It have been alot better..

 

To bad I can't make it the way I said above.

I need the master tracks for it..

 

I can try to record them .. but can't sing.. so if anyone know an instrument-less I use to rule the world.. PM.. ;)