⭐ Official Review [Album]: "OFFERING"/"TICKET TO RIDE" (SP-4205)
- Thread starter Chris May
- Start date
Vinylalbumcovers
Ah am so steel een luv weeth yoo
Yep - a budget line imprint of A&M. I have a TICKET TO RIDE on Rebound, a FOOL ON THE HILL from Sergio Mendes on Rebound, and a Burt Bacharach REACH OUT on that label. They all sound exactly like their regular A&M counterpart.
Interestingly, "Ticket..." is the only one I ever saw on Rebound. The others remained on A&M proper, it seems.
Ed
Cuyler
Bright colored pinwheels go 'round in my head.
If you know, what is the dynamic range on this? I recently ripped my Remastered Classics CD and it's soooo loud. Hoping that, if I buy this pressing, it's not so loud.
Vinylalbumcovers
Ah am so steel een luv weeth yoo
The Remastered Classic CDs have been compressed a bit. You can tell at the breakdown of “Close to You” after the second b-section when the band goes out. The pumping is obvious. The Audio Master + series CDs and original albums don’t do this.
Ed
Cuyler
Bright colored pinwheels go 'round in my head.
I'm definitely curious now. Most of my collection is the "Remastered Classics" version, but I'm curious to hear more of the 80s CD pressings.
Cuyler, I appreciate your diligence in your shootout of waveforms for the Carpenters albums you have in your collection. It took a good deal of work to illustrate them here.
For the benefit of the less-technical among the membership, I feel that it should be pointed out that one of those red lines, indicating a peak that's trying to stretch beyond "digital 0" is a really fleeting, momentary part of a record, and in most cases when a peak like that is played, it passes by in microseconds and it'll go essentially unnoticed by many. These things happen in degrees, and virtually no-one will notice those single red lines shown here as being distorted or peak limited. If you actually are sensitive to these minor peaks, then I think I feel sorry for you, given the amount of "loudness wars" that have gone on in the music industry.
As an example of something really bad, I'll point you toward the 2012 A&M 50th Anniversary set of discs. I was shocked when I heard how loud and uncomfortable it was. Here's the waveform for The Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" from the first of the three discs. It is patently ridiculous, and you can see that this is WAY more egregious than those minor Carpenters peaks.
See what I mean? That track is exceedingly hard to listen to.
For the benefit of the less-technical among the membership, I feel that it should be pointed out that one of those red lines, indicating a peak that's trying to stretch beyond "digital 0" is a really fleeting, momentary part of a record, and in most cases when a peak like that is played, it passes by in microseconds and it'll go essentially unnoticed by many. These things happen in degrees, and virtually no-one will notice those single red lines shown here as being distorted or peak limited. If you actually are sensitive to these minor peaks, then I think I feel sorry for you, given the amount of "loudness wars" that have gone on in the music industry.
As an example of something really bad, I'll point you toward the 2012 A&M 50th Anniversary set of discs. I was shocked when I heard how loud and uncomfortable it was. Here's the waveform for The Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" from the first of the three discs. It is patently ridiculous, and you can see that this is WAY more egregious than those minor Carpenters peaks.
See what I mean? That track is exceedingly hard to listen to.
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Rick-An Ordinary Fool
Well-Known Member
Wow that’s bad!!
I have a mono 45 of Love Will Keep Us Together and it’s very loud, when I first played it I said man that’s loud but I bet it got listeners attention over the radio.
I have a mono 45 of Love Will Keep Us Together and it’s very loud, when I first played it I said man that’s loud but I bet it got listeners attention over the radio.
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
How on earth did something that bad not cause any audible distortion on the record if the peaks are so severe?
Well, there IS audible distortion in the form of the thing sounding so ridiculously limited that there is no life left in the recording. I noticed it right away as I played the disc, and while other tracks on the set are really loud, this one might have been the worst. That A&M 50 is no audiophile prize, that's for sure. It was obviously a half-hearted effort in both mastering and track selection.
Cuyler
Bright colored pinwheels go 'round in my head.
My heart aches!As an example of something really bad, I'll point you toward the 2012 A&M 50th Anniversary set of discs. I was shocked when I heard how loud and uncomfortable it was. Here's the waveform for The Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together" from the first of the three discs. It is patently ridiculous, and you can see that this is WAY more egregious than those minor Carpenters peaks.
See what I mean? That track is exceedingly hard to listen to.
I should note that, I think more recently, the industry has tried to hide peak limiting by taking an audio like this one, then turning the volume down a couple dB so the red lines go away. But if you use a program like Audacity to turn the volume back up so that the peaks touch 0 dB, you get multiple red lines that show exactly where the audio was clipped. Examples include the Carpenters' "Solitaire" from Gold and Herb Alpert's "Rise" (the song) from Qobuz.
Ironically, and this is great news for Herb Alpert fans, the version of "Diamonds" on Qobuz, which is a later song that you would expect more peak limiting from, only has one peak when you normalize the audio to 0 dB. That's how it should ideally be—one peak. For non-audiophiles, the difference between hundreds/thousands of peaks and one peak is usually the difference between having drums fade into the track (above) and drums that really pop (like Diamonds on Qobuz).
Cuyler
Bright colored pinwheels go 'round in my head.
This is "Solitaire" (single mix, from Gold) after normalizing to 0 dB. You can see that this mountain has many peaks at the exact same altitude. That's why, although this mix is the "single mix," it doesn't sound anywhere near as dynamic as the 45.
I think this is one of the many big reasons why folks who lived through the vinyl era think more recent music sounds atrocious. I have a hard time listening to music mastered this way, even if it is a well-written, well-performed piece by a talented artist like the Carpenters (or Captain and Tennille—again, that waveform looks atrocious).
tomswift2002
Well-Known Member
You also have to remember that the analog era allowed for distortion to sound good for effects, and analog went up to +10db. Even now, a lot of guitarists that want that fuzzy distortion guitar sound will record the guitar to analog first in order to get the distortion before making a digital copy that lowers the sound below 0db.
This is "Solitaire" (single mix, from Gold) after normalizing to 0 dB. You can see that this mountain has many peaks at the exact same altitude. That's why, although this mix is the "single mix," it doesn't sound anywhere near as dynamic as the 45.
I think this is one of the many big reasons why folks who lived through the vinyl era think more recent music sounds atrocious. I have a hard time listening to music mastered this way, even if it is a well-written, well-performed piece by a talented artist like the Carpenters (or Captain and Tennille—again, that waveform looks atrocious).
Also a lot of LIVE recordings would often go above 0db in the analog era, since the engineers would be trying to pick up the vocals and instruments over the fan noise, and now in the digital era, those tracks are either heavily compressed to get the sound under 0db and not clipping or the dynamic range is affected by the sound flat lining at 0db. I’ve got the 45 of “New York City Rhythm (Alive)” and when I play the “Essential Barry amanilow CD, the song is very compressed.
Vinylalbumcovers
Ah am so steel een luv weeth yoo
Top: U.S. Remastered Classics CD
Bottom: AM+ Series CD (CD 4205/DX 835)
Visibly and audibly much better dynamic range on the AM+ Series CD.
Verdict: AM+ Series CD
Yeah, while there are just a few spots of distortion, there shouldn't be any. It's just not necessary. Carpenters' audience doesn't care about loud. If we want it louder, we'll turn up our equipment. Most people would have been content to do this had the industry not decided to do harm to recordings by digitally compressing them.
I'm with you totally. AM+ is always the way to go. I'm glad I kept all of mine.
Ed
Cuyler
Bright colored pinwheels go 'round in my head.
The only exceptions to my AM+ rule are:
- Later AM+ issues of A Song for You, which contain remixes for over half of the songs (some have referred to it as the MFSL-ized version, which is also a shame since MFSL is also supposed to be relatively flat transfers of the master tapes!)
- Christmas Portrait (Special Edition), which sounds beautiful, but it is not a faithful reissue of the original LP with regard to the track listing.
- The Singles: 1969-1973, which has always had the 1985 remix of "Yesterday Once More" on all of the copies I've purchased.
- A Kind of Hush, Now & Then, and Carpenters, which also contain remixed tracks--I have not verified if there are any rare, early, early AM+ pressings of these CDs without the remixes, but from what I've read on the forums, there is no such thing.
Does anyone know why Richard never did a remix of “Someday”? We know he really loves the song but had some technical issues at the finish that I thought he would be adamant about cleaning up when he was doing so many others. It’s one of the three great ballads on Offering (not including the first TTR) and the only one that didn’t get a fresh remix.
He should absolutely consider going back to it on another RPO album or some other future remixing session. The original mix is pretty muddy and it’s too great a song to not be polished up.
He should absolutely consider going back to it on another RPO album or some other future remixing session. The original mix is pretty muddy and it’s too great a song to not be polished up.
tomswift2002
Well-Known Member
In both “From The Top” & “The Essential Collection”, Richard mentions that Karen was suffering from a cold when they recorded ‘Someday’ for “Offering”, and they wanted to re-record the song eventually (since her voice was not able to stretch the way Karen wanted it too) which, unfortunately they never got done, except as part of the “Music, Music, Music” Medley that appears on both FTT & TEC.
But really, “Offering” needs to get a remix for the whole album, since it’s so distorted, and even when you listen to the late-70’s UK Pink version, you can really hear how rough from a technical point the mixes are compared to WOJB & CTY.
There are earlier versions with "Yesterday Once More" in its proper original single mix. I have one.
That’s correct. The Canadian release has always had the ‘85 master on there. And incidentally, when UMG put out the Coke bottle vinyl in 2020, the first thing I said after receiving mine was “I’ll bet that remix is on there!”
Sure enough…
^ Yep.That’s correct. The Canadian release has always had the ‘85 master on there. And incidentally, when UMG put out the Coke bottle vinyl in 2020, the first thing I said after receiving mine was “I’ll bet that remix is on there!”
Sure enough…
Oh yeah I know about her cold but I still thought he would have used some technical trickery to make it all sound closer to how they wanted it to, vocally and technically. He still can I just wondered why if her “cold” sound kept him from going back.
