Quote from: bitewerksMTB on September 09, 2013, 09:54:40 PM
What records pressed at GZ sound like "garbage"? List a bunch of them so there's a chance I own it & can give it another listen.
I don't think I've ever heard a record I'd describe as "poor" in sound quality. I remember the debut Guitar Wolf LP sounding like shit & it wasn't suppose to, I think? The presser fucked it all up was the story I remember hearing.
It's hard to believe so many labels & bands around the world are idiots allowing GZ to press such poor recordings and only a "few people" recognize how bad everything sounds.
To be candid, I am one of those people who prefers to not buy anything pressed at GZ. A handful of years ago, I started noticing similar sound qualities in everything that came out of there. It was around the time when Pirates Press exploded. Sort of like how Unisound or Morrisound (Florida?) or Metropolis (Chicago mastering joint, now known as Prairie Cat) had a signature sound to nearly everything they did. If you liked that signature, or didn't take note of it, then no harm in it. I never had a problem with Morrisound like some did, but I didn't care for Metropolis. We are talking about human hearing and craftsmanship. It makes perfect sense that they'd leave a mark on their work. And then with Direct Metal Mastering, it has an effect on the music, and nobody is going to really deny that. It was a selling point for the technology. DMM wasn't intended to be the same as lacquers. Personally, I never liked DMM. It has a shallow, digital feel to it (compressed dynamics is how I'd describe it), which is somewhat funny since it preceded digital by many years. So if you have a technology that has a digitalness to it, and then you combine it with a digital remaster and all-digital technology in the studio, the potential is you have a
really digital sounding result. I won't go into the misfortune of MP3s working their way into sourcing and the triple digital threat.
Off track there. I don't care for DMM mastering. At the time I made a conscious decision to no longer buy GZ pressed records, most of them were DMM. It was part of their package deals, so many people used them.
As for bands and labels knowing, or not knowing, better...well, there are a lot of people who don't know the terms lossy vs lossless (not to mention the many people who declare they cannot tell the difference). They don't know the difference between 16bit and 24bit. They don't know the difference between lacquers and DMM. They have access to great technology, but out of lack of interest or the complexity of the technology, they don't understand it (or think it will do the work for them, so they don't need to know). I've run into bands selling demos on cassette and download, and they can't even tell me if the cassettes were made with MP3s or wav files. They don't even know what their own masters are. "this is what the studio gave us, and we didn't ask." There's a lot of loose play with music technology by both bands and labels. They readily admit it, too. Their understanding is so weak and uninformed that they don't even know how terrible it sounds that they don't know basic answers about what they do.
So, to answer your question about what do I own from GZ that sounds terrible. I believe the last GZ pressed records I bought were Paintbox - Relicts and Paintbox - Trips. The sad thing about these is the label is VERY concerned with sound quality, often having things cut and recut more than once until it is done right (most labels do not go to that expense). They are in the know and make sound quality and honoring the integrity of the original recording top priorities. They put a lot of effort, time, and money into these things, only to have GZ screw them up. And now that you have me thinking about them, they had a dirty feel to the vinyl. Lots of non-fill-like noise in the grooves. I'll have to dig around and see what other examples I can give you. Like I said, I all but stopped buying GZ records a handful of years ago now, so I don't have a giant collection of them. If they've since improved, shame on me.
