Bob Ludwig claims to be a vocal opponent of the Loudness War, for those wondering.
Nirvana
Pay To Play (DGC Rarities, Vol. 1 Version)Â
Another track ruined on the Deluxe Edition. Sorry for the lower-than-ideal kpbs rate, still sounds better than the version on the Nevermind demaster. Now at 320kpbs.
Here’s a 320kb version of Pay To Play. As always, love the blog.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1P0JIRAA
There is a distinction between a reasonable criticism and petulant rant.
I don’t even like Nirvana and I’ve enjoyed your recent posts about the re-release.
Bob Ludwig accomplished nothing in his response; there are tactful ways to respond to you and he chose to respond in a pretty unprofessional manner.
Thanks, I replaced my version with this one!
i agree with tim there. i’ve never been a nirvana fan. in fact, i only really like 3 songs total from all the songs that they have released. but, i really enjoyed your series of posts about the loudness war as it has pretty much showed me firsthand something i’d only heard in passing. but bob ludwig’s comment…
oh man, was that pissing off to the Nth degree.
Bob Ludwig’s opinion obviously changes according to the size of his bank account.
Likewise not a Nirvana fan but enjoyed the posts about loudness. Bob’s response can be read lots of ways. Possible to be either sod ya or I did what I was told. Whichever, not a clever response.
I actually like Nirvana, but not enough to consider buying the various DGC/Universal Nevermind reissues (I’ve never purchased anything beyond the 3 studio albums).
In this case, I’ll give Ludwig a pass because he’s Bob Ludwig, and he mastered probably a third of my favorite albums.
And who knows how many he’ll ruin for a paycheck?
I realize Bob is essentially in the employ of the band/label, and he has to cater to their wishes. However, I find it ironic that this is the same Bob Ludwig who convinced Axl Rose to release “Chinese Democracy” sans excessive limiting, as Bob himself tells the tale:
http://www.gatewaymastering.com/gateway_LoudnessWars.asp
He should have been as equally convincing with Nirvana.
The use of limiting (bringing all the highs and lows of a recording closer to equal levels, so everything is the same volume) as a tool for making louder releases should, like any other studio trick, be used sparingly. Think of it as a spice — too much spoils it. At least the engineers at Abbey Road realized this when they remastered the Beatles’ output a few years back — the new catalog was done very tastefully, with very little clipping and lots of dynamic range, and sounds great! And too bad Paul McCartney didn’t realize this when he had “Memory Almost Full” mastered. It’s one of his better solo releases, but sounds ridiculous with everything jacked up to the same level. It almost sounds like he’s got asthma!
There is a really good website for people interested in finding out more about the “loudness wars” here:
http://turnmeup.org/
You can also look up your favorite albums to check the dynamic range levels:
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/
Here’s Nirvana:
http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?search_artist=nirvana&search_album=
Scary thing is, there’s a lot of albums that are more compressed than the “Nevermind” reissue! Yes, “Raw Power” is at the top of the list.
I often wondered why Oasis’ “Morning Glory” album sounded so sluggish (though the songs were good). And I thought the Red Hot Chili Peppers were boring because Rick Rubin made them that way. Yep, both bands use craploads of limiting (the new RHCP album is high on the list of excessively loud albums)! Excessive limiting may make a song pop on the radio, which is usually the point (and radio stations use even MORE compression on their end, adding to the mess), but it can be very painful and exhausting to listen to over a period of time. Believe me, I actually suffered through Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” (one of the most notorious offenders) and lived to tell the scary tale.
Limiting and compression have been around for decades. Phil Spector used it a lot on his records, in the era of AM radio, but analog compression is much more tolerable (they were mastered for vinyl after all). Over-excessive digital limiting (like the type used on CDs) is just plain awful.
Bob Ludwig HAS mastered some great albums and I am not immune to the fact he does this for a living and gets paid by artists and producers to do what they say.
However, his name will forever be associated with this travesty. FOREVER. All his past championing for dynamic range is now history.
Ludwig is no lightweight to be pushed around, he could easily have taken more control over this or told his masters to fuck off. Be he chose to cash a check instead. That is indeed sad. Like watching Michelangelo draw Sunday morning funnies for beer money.
It’s well known in audiophile circles that Ludwig is a sheep and just does what his clients tell him to do. Guns & Roses gets a nice, audiophile mastering while Nirvana gets brickwalled garbage? It doesn’t matter. Ludwig seems pretty satisfied either way, as long as he gets a fat paycheck.
Hey you! Bob Ludwig!, go fuck yourself you fuck you.
Very disappointing.
The Nevermind remaster CD is truly woeful.
Admittedly i’ve heard worse but even so it is terrible.
Offtopic bit – but In regards to the Nevermind 20th re-release they’ve made so many balls up with it i don’t know where to start .
But will – What happened to Verse Chorus Verse , Sappy – the Sound City recordings? Why were they not on this re-release deluxe thingy ?
Utterly bizarre.
Everybody off the bandwagon. The free ride for Boobs is over.
Right: You’re Bob Ludwig and you work for about 2 dozen conglomerates across the globe and you’re going to tell this one and that one to get screwed if they don’t do stuff Your way. You’re going to really shove it down their throats because damnit, You Know Best and it’s Your Damn shop. That’s how we do things, all of us, right? Phhaw! And of course the record company execs, being as flexible and forward-thinking as we know them to be, aren’t going to take that response and say, “Right! Well, Cheerio Bob, we’re off to work with Ted Jensen because he did such Great things for Metallica…” And then, you, Bob Ludwig, end up Not producing Dylan, Springsteen and Ferry. You end up running sound at local weddings, in Portland, Maine, because you believe in being True To Yourself. Riiiight.
You Do all sound like a bunch of high-minded individuals.
Okay Okay. So put this stinking Nirvana recording in a hole. I will pile so much Other Excellent Ludwig work on top of it we’ll have a diamond in a Month. Fuck Ludwig? Fuck his income? Who’s YOUR idea of a good mastering engineer? Great: Watch closely because Some Day, s/he will be put in this position, too: We want it Louder, Billie-Bob. Make it Much Louder. Would you prefer that your hero hang up his ears that day, and go push a broom?
What are you, Twelve?
The Literate person’s take on the Ludwig’s tweet, above, indicates, Quite Clearly, that A) he does not take credit for the work and B) he does not throw his clients under the bus. This is how professional adults conduct business.
Please note: I’m not for a moment defending the Recording. I’m defending the business owner (who in this instance is also an employee in the process). If you want to harm someone in this process, direct your knee-jerk venom at the artist and label, not the employees who did as ordered. And by the way, did any of Them respond to this discussion? Where exactly are They?
I will respond to the points you made in both your comments.
You’re Bob Ludwig and you work for about 2 dozen conglomerates across the globe and you’re going to tell this one and that one to get screwed if they don’t do stuff Your way. You’re going to really shove it down their throats because damnit, You Know Best and it’s Your Damn shop. That’s how we do things, all of us, right? Phhaw! And of course the record company execs, being as flexible and forward-thinking as we know them to be, aren’t going to take that response and say, “Right! Well, Cheerio Bob, we’re off to work with Ted Jensen because he did such Great things for Metallica…†And then, you, Bob Ludwig, end up Not producing Dylan, Springsteen and Ferry. You end up running sound at local weddings, in Portland, Maine, because you believe in being True To Yourself. Riiiight.
If you’re going to be a vocal opponent of something you should not participate in it at the same time. Bob Ludwig is a very influential person in the music industry, with the wealth to back it up. Unless he’s made very poor life decisions, he doesn’t need to tak every job offered to him. As a professional freelance writer who DOES need money, I have turned down lucrative gigs that I feel are against my own moral code.
Okay Okay. So put this stinking Nirvana recording in a hole. I will pile so much Other Excellent Ludwig work on top of it we’ll have a diamond in a Month. Fuck Ludwig? Fuck his income? Who’s YOUR idea of a good mastering engineer? Great: Watch closely because Some Day, s/he will be put in this position, too: We want it Louder, Billie-Bob. Make it Much Louder. Would you prefer that your hero hang up his ears that day, and go push a broom?
The fact that you have so much excellent work by Ludwig just proves even more what a hack he was for taking this gig and not caring about the final result. Steve Hoffman seems to be doing just fine for himself as an audio engineer, and he says no on a regular basis.
The Literate person’s take on the Ludwig’s tweet, above, indicates, Quite Clearly, that A) he does not take credit for the work and B) he does not throw his clients under the bus.
He’s credited for the work on the album, so by definition I think that means he’s taken credit for the work.
and now we’re on your other comment:
If Bob Ludwig made the Decisions which resulted in the recording quality you-all have identified, I’ll be extremely surprised. Did his fingers do the work? I guess. Perhaps. Was it his Choice, because he thought it was the best result? Of course not. Not on your life. You only have to listen to any of about a million other recordings he’s worked on over the last 40+ years to understand that he doesn’t create crap.
As I said, he’s credited with it. So it’s safe to assume that he did it. If not, then that’s even worse, taking credit for a job that he didn’t do. He has done great work on records, which makes his lazy “my clients first” attitude here all the more upsetting.
I’ve recorded enough things in enough places and in enough ways to know that the 3rd waveform you show here is suspect. I could record an Environments album containing only bird calls and babbling brooks and make it look over-driven like that, if I had the recording levels set improperly. That sample IS clipping, by definition. In order to prove your point to me, technically, I’d have to see the flattened, sawed-off peaks Within the borders of the timeline, not pressed up against the top & bottom borders of the timeline. The LP you are discussing may be recorded too hot or over-driven, but we can’t tell that because the recording You Made of it, Surely is. This is not saying that you’re wrong, or that I don’t believe you. It’s saying that the recording as displayed is not technically accurate nor sufficient to prove your point.
I’m not sure I follow you here. The third waveform is from the CD, not the LP. I’m not ripping it loud (I don’t even know if that’s possible), But hey, here you go, here’s a picture of Aneurysm, from the CD, made slightly quieter:
http://www.lostturntable.com/clipping.jpg
Clipping abound.
Furthermore, even if it didn’t have clipping, it is still significantly louder than the original release, thanks to the compression it has been subjected to.
Would be nice if the mastering was more sympathetic but this would be have been driven by the label and the band….
Even if Bob Ludwig had told them to fuck off they would have just gone to another studio and done the job there.
First let me say that I really like this site, I look forward to reading more of it (when Big Brother ain’t watching), and I appreciate you letting me speak.
If you read the Gateway website, in reference to Chinese Democracy, you’ll note that Bob presented the clients with 3 versions of the mix; His preferred, un-boosted/un-compressed version, and two variations of compression. What could possibly make you guys imagine he did not attempt the same thing with Nirvana?
As a freelancer you know that jobs don’t always turn out to be what you think. Or wish. (Or Hope!) Your premise supposes that Bob Ludwig was approached like this:
“Hi Bob. Love your work baby. Listen: We’re going to be producing a really compressed, high volume Nirvana album … Yeah I know you’re not really doing that kind of work right now but we really think we could make it worth your while. Can we do lunch?”
I’ll bet you my next paycheck it didn’t go down like that. He didn’t Take a job like that, it Turned Into a job like that. Chinese Democracy could have turned into that, but it didn’t, because whoever was making the call was bright enough to recognize the better choice. By the time this particular project morphed from re-mastering a work of art into desecrating it, it was too late for Ludwig to just bow out. Someone at his level, with the relationships involved and the money involved doesn’t just throw a girlish hissy fit and storm out. At that point it became a matter of client management, not art.
As I learned all too well in My freelance career (editing), and as you should know from your work, if you bow of something mid project, you can Nevermind seeing that customer, ever again, ha ha.
Plus it’s really important to remember that in the world of Gateway Mastering, client management is almost as big a deal as the music itself. You don’t piss on your customers when they all know each other and there’s only a couple dozen of them in the world. You might skip (or skimp)on one job, or insult one customer, and get away with it, but if you get a rep for being difficult, or uncaring, the trail to your door will get pretty freakin Weedy, pretty fast.
You mention Steve Hoffman. All I can say is if he bows out mid-project, as you-all are suggesting Ludwig should have done, he won’t be in business for long. He just won’t. Doesn’t matter how good he is or how nice, there’s too much time & money involved for a Label to dick around with that sort of thing, and too many other engineers in the world. He may pick and choose, but that’s not what happened here in my opinion.
Several folks have mentioned money here, and they are right to do so, but they’re not doing a good job of Following the Money. The issue here is not the artist (Ludwig) commissioned to do the work. The issue is the Clients — the record company and to some extent the musicians involved — who are so other-worldly Stoopid as to hire Bob Ludwig to master an album and then Tell Him How to Do it. If anybody got raped here it’s Ludwig, because plainly all these ass-clown record execs wanted was his name on the label. Think: They could pay any bonehead to over-drive the mix, and everyone knows Bob isn’t going to do it on his own. So they got the trendy high volume mix they wanted, a nice trip to Maine, perhaps, and the world’s top Mastering facility on the credits. Check, check and check.
They leave. Bob waves goodbye, closes the door and says to his staff, “Oh boy. Make sure we’re busy next time Those guys call. Let’s be mastering High School Musical. Hell, let’s be doing porn or local furniture spots next time They call. If we keep working for those dumb bastards we’ll be out of business in 2 years….”
Yeah. As I think this through I think Bob Ludwig is the wounded party here, right along with the consumers who bought this stinker. I think the Label’s silence says it all. They don’t want to admit it, and they don’t dare accuse Ludwig either, but it’s their fault. They are the ones who walked out the door, apparently satisfied with the product — they are the ones who signed off and paid.
Thanks. I’ve said my piece and I appreciate your time & thoughtful responses above. Be seeing you again here & keep up the great work.
Thanks for the kind words, but I think you give Bob way too much of the benefit of the doubt.
They should have got Bruce Dickinson to do i.
I’ve got In Utero 20th Super Deluxe… and I’ll tell you this Mr. Bob Ludwig: go fuck yourself, you’re a schmuck