DIR EN GREY - GAUZE+ (LP)

[vessmier]

Guess they should’ve updated their Photoshop… content aware fill would’ve done a better job

[zeus]

@rsm_rain

So mastering engineers would be facing a bit of a paradigm where the further into the timeline of one LP’s side you get, the less room for low frequencies you have to work with, otherwise the needle will knock into bits of earlier audio.

Cage is smack in the middle of side B, so it can’t be this. I think they learned this lesson from Uroboros

[ghost]

@rsm_rain

So mastering engineers would be facing a bit of a paradigm where the further into the timeline of one LP’s side you get, the less room for low frequencies you have to work with, otherwise the needle will knock into bits of earlier audio.

Yes, as @zeus pointed out, this is not the case this time around. Audio never changes quality on a LP like a flip of a switch. It’s a gradual thing as you get closer to the middle. The side “Cage” is on is also only around 15-16 minutes which means the last track usually won’t suffer too much.

Adjusting the mix for vinyl use is also usually an all or nothing process. You wouldn’t hear it happening mid song so abruptly.

Based on the way it happens here, my guess would be there is some kind of defect on the final plates. I’m no expert on the process by any means, but there are numerous things that can affect the quality of plates during their production. Even something like debris being present and not getting cleaned properly. If this was stamped into the plates, then it would make sense I think why many people reported the same defect on their copies in the same spot.

It does sound similar to when you play a record with some huge piece of dust on it or when your needle has something on it. When the needle goes over that part its essentially a bad connection with the groove hence producing a worse sound. Cleaning the needle or record with allow the connection to be solid again and restore the sound. But if the plates stamped something straight into the grooves, we essentially have phantom dust that will replicate the bad connection every time.

@rsm_rain

I’ve heard it explained that vinyls sound better not necessarily bc the medium is any better (in fact it’s quite worse) but bc only the best of the best engineers would be working with it, bc of all the compensating to real-world analog physical difficulties like these.

This is both true and false. Nearly everything is recorded digital these days so you don’t offen get a true analog experience with modern records. However, even digital music can be mixed properly for the vinyl medium and provide a different listening experience. There are also still plenty of releases where you can tell all they did was stamp a digital master into the record so it literally sounds worse with heavy compression and flat dynamics. I usually hear this issue with low effort pop releases.

I know bass is also a tricky thing to mix for on vinyl, but I’ve heard some pretty insane conversions with releases like DAMN by Kendrick Lamar and Oil of Every Pearl’s Un-Insides by Sophie. The bass on those 2 records are unreal.

You can also get albums that sound worse with a repress too. Those Slipknot vinyl reissues that hit the market like 2 years ago sound worse than their original releases. They’re more compressed and less dynamic and an overall softer experience. It wouldn’t surprise me here if they took a digital or CD rip of some kind, tweaked them a bit and then pressed those onto a record. The sound difference is truly night and day. Just because something previously got a vinyl release doesn’t mean they will reuse the same plates (obviously because of aging, storage, etc.) so a reissue is also a gamble depending on how it was tackled.

At the end of the day, it’a all about getting the music to a skilled engineer who can translate an album onto the vinyl medium. This and proper vinyl production are key to a quality end product.