Mastering Audio Issues # 9 is an example from what I consider one of the best albums ever recorded.
"Slow Train Coming" by Bob Dylan.
The track is the single from that album and the last single of Bob's to chart. It is beautifully written, arranged, recorded, mixed, and mastered.
Just for fun, I took the original version and brought it up 5 dB, just to compete with the modern junk out there. And like I did in Issue # 1, I show that it can be done without ruining it. I still prefer the old version with maximum dynamic range.
But it seems that whoever is out there remastering things, seems to not care about retaining the original quality, or they don't know how. The listening portion is cut short because of the record company...I had no control of that. If you don't have the album, I think you should get it.
John Lennon criticized it. In response to "Gotta Serve Somebody", he wrote and recorded the song "Serve Yourself," which was a parody that mocked the injection of religion into Dylan's songwriting. In his diary, Lennon said of Dylan's song, "The backing was mediocre by Jerry Wexler, the singing was really pathetic, and the words were just embarrassing." Lennon was wrong on every count.
I mention this because in the music business there is a great deal of hype and stupidity in the name of celebrity.
Just because someone sold a bunch of records, does not mean that they have a clue about anything at all, including records. Autotune has saved the reputations of thousands of artists, and if it had been around in the 60s, even Lennon could have sung in tune.
So we will end our quick tour of the seventies, omitting a thousand great songs and great recordings, and move on to the eighties, where music and quality took a turn downward.
"Slow Train Coming" by Bob Dylan.
The track is the single from that album and the last single of Bob's to chart. It is beautifully written, arranged, recorded, mixed, and mastered.
Just for fun, I took the original version and brought it up 5 dB, just to compete with the modern junk out there. And like I did in Issue # 1, I show that it can be done without ruining it. I still prefer the old version with maximum dynamic range.
But it seems that whoever is out there remastering things, seems to not care about retaining the original quality, or they don't know how. The listening portion is cut short because of the record company...I had no control of that. If you don't have the album, I think you should get it.
John Lennon criticized it. In response to "Gotta Serve Somebody", he wrote and recorded the song "Serve Yourself," which was a parody that mocked the injection of religion into Dylan's songwriting. In his diary, Lennon said of Dylan's song, "The backing was mediocre by Jerry Wexler, the singing was really pathetic, and the words were just embarrassing." Lennon was wrong on every count.
I mention this because in the music business there is a great deal of hype and stupidity in the name of celebrity.
Just because someone sold a bunch of records, does not mean that they have a clue about anything at all, including records. Autotune has saved the reputations of thousands of artists, and if it had been around in the 60s, even Lennon could have sung in tune.
So we will end our quick tour of the seventies, omitting a thousand great songs and great recordings, and move on to the eighties, where music and quality took a turn downward.
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