Blah Blah Cafe, the Jean-Michel Jarre forum

[shadow]

Now with the release of the Essentials and Rarities just a couple of weeks behind us, I (and apparently I'm not the only one...) noticed that the volume on both the disc's is relatively high. Now this isn't a problem as long as the peaks in the track don't reach the the limit of 0dB, and none of the peaks in the tracks are cutoff in order for the rest of the track's volume to become louder. And I expected Jarre to have a keen eye for this type of remastering, especially considering the contant bragging about HD and 24-Bit recordings he is doing the last couple of years...

Yet the remastered tracks on the Essentials disc (I don't have any un-remastered reference for the Rarities disc, exept the unofficial badly recorded Rarities disc's) have been pumped volume wise untill the absolute max, and some of the peaks have noticeably passed the 0dB limit and have simply been cut off the entire track. And then I'm not yet talking about the new Equalize job that was done... Now I have to say that I am rather (read extremely) displeased with the mastering (not selection), and dissapointed by Jarre for letting something like this get released, especially whenever he starts annoying people when bragging about his high quality stuff...

Now I'm really what other people (no and not you Kanta ) are thinking about the new mastering that was done (and most likely will be done for futher releases). As I am afraid that the new remasters that will be done in the futher will end up having the same issue's as this release has...

Also here are some images that clearly display my biggest problem with the net remasters (both the volume aswell as the Spectral Frequency)...

Ethnicolor to show the difference between the original releases before 1997, and the 1997 remasters.


Equinoxe Part 5 (1997 Remaster VS 2011 Remaster):


Magnetic Fields Part 1/Les Chants Magnetiques Part I (1997 Remaster VS 2011 Remaster):


Quatriéme Rendez-Vous/Fourth Rendez-Vous (1997 Remaster VS 2011 Remaster):

[Kanta]

Hmm, interesting.

[Analog-Umph]

It's a disaster.

You just don't do that type of thing to your own music, esp considering that we are talking about Jarre here.

He's committed the worst sin in music mastering that you could.
It's like how George Lucas went completely nuts with everything digital and completely forgot the other thousand things that make a movie good.

There is nothing worse than someone who follows the crowd, in any way, small or large.

But I'm over it, sold the latest release already, enjoying my older releases.

[Robi]

I don't care of this "problem" as such......

[qube]

The smaller the average speaker gets the more music gets compressed and distorted.

[Velodynamic]

The smaller the average speaker gets the more music gets compressed and distorted.

The irony of this is that music will sound worse even in small computer monitor speakers aswell.
Although the ones who suffers the most are those with large speakers, expensive hi-end equipments in order to deliver the best possible sound qualities.
Fooled again.

[Dr_Jones]

It's just sad to see how big corporations view music as a disposable product nowadays.