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is it just me, new Steely Dan cd's too brite snare

I've had this debate on a Steely Dan webpage

several of the latest dan albums
Two Against Nature and Everything Must Go
and the new Donald Fagen album
seem to be recorded beautifully, all the nuances, close mixed horns, incredibly lush mix

everything perfect except for the snare drum which is way up in the mix and headache inducing

it isn't my sytem and it's worse on Two Against Nature
especially the title track and West of Hollywood
it's so bad I have to listen in the next room

EMG recorded in analog is a little less bright
and Don's new spectacular Morph the Cat (MtC) has some hot snare in the mix

the last two albums feature Keith Carlock who is an incredible drummer, but Don has him in tight snare timekeeping with little room for fills on most of MtC

has Fagen lost his upper frequency end of his hearing?
is he mixing things hot for jumpy mid fi reproduction?
or am I hallucinating?
128x128audiotomb
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onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,137 posts
 
As far as modern pop/rock recordings go, "Morph the Cat", "Everything Must Go" and "Two Against Nature" are real good sounding, but compared to "Nightfly" or even "11 Tracks of Whack" they pale. If you download a track from "Morph" into a waveform editing program you'll see that in order to get the high overall level they heavily compressed and/or limited the signal. I don't know exactly how or what signal processor they used, but the effect is to sharply round off the signal peaks, especially the snare drum hits. It's not the gross distortion you get from going over digital full signal, but it is noticeable.

Regardless of the sound, "Morph the Cat" is a marvelous album. It makes me want to go the an airport and have my luggage checked.
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
don't get me wrong, I love the sound except the hot snare at times

even Roger Nichols had some cd issues with mastering

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2000_02.html
audphile1's avatar
audphile1
4,169 posts
 
On Two Against Nature the snare drum is forward and very thin sounding. Has almost no timbre. Sounds like a cheap drum. Rest of the recording mix is fine.

As a side note, I bought two of my favorite Steely Dan albums "Aja" and "Gaucho" remastered and they sound brither than the originals. By brighter I mean more digital souding. I guess that's normal since this isn't the first time I bought remasters that sound like this.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
all the remastered steely dan recordings are brighter, but they are still great. the snare on morph could be an 'on purpose' effect......rock music isn't confined to convention.
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