Brittany Howard "Jaime" distortion

[guy]

Hi folks,

I have also posted this on Pink fish, but want to get a range of opinion:

I bought the CD of this album and can't make up my mind about the distortion that I am hearing on most tracks - If it were vinyl, I would be continually checking the stylus for fluff!

Any others had similar experience?
Is it production clipping/phasing for effect?
Is it poor transfer/just my copy?

Finally, has anyone bought/listened to the vinyl version - same distortions or OK?

Guy.

[AJSki2fly]

Hi folks,

I have also posted this on Pink fish, but want to get a range of opinion:

I bought the CD of this album and can't make up my mind about the distortion that I am hearing on most tracks - If it were vinyl, I would be continually checking the stylus for fluff!

Any others had similar experience?
Is it production clipping/phasing for effect?
Is it poor transfer/just my copy?

Finally, has anyone bought/listened to the vinyl version - same distortions or OK?

Guy.

Hi, just had a quick listen to 10-30 secs of all the track on Audirvana on my system, so the digital feed should be the same a CD SQ, whether it is the same mix as put on CD is another matter. Anyway initially I thought musically/production/mix it sounded quite good, then as I progressed through the tracks I got that in your face wall of sound experience from a mix done to listen to on earphones or MP3, basically its all too loud with limited dynamic variety. At the start of "Short and Sweet" you can hear either tape hiss or electronic noise which presumably is as a result of the mixing, and the is repeated on "13th Century Metal". "Baby"sounds to me in parts to be distorting as if it is clipping, in fact I think this may be the case on several of the tracks.

So in answer to you question, I think it is badly recorded/engineered. If you can have a listen on a good streaming site and see if it is the same/similar to the CD.

[guy]

Hi, just had a quick listen to 10-30 secs of all the track on Audirvana on my system, so the digital feed should be the same a CD SQ, whether it is the same mix as put on CD is another matter. Anyway initially I thought musically/production/mix it sounded quite good, then as I progressed through the tracks I got that in your face wall of sound experience from a mix done to listen to on earphones or MP3, basically its all too loud with limited dynamic variety. At the start of "Short and Sweet" you can hear either tape hiss or electronic noise which presumably is as a result of the mixing, and the is repeated on "13th Century Metal". "Baby"sounds to me in parts to be distorting as if it is clipping, in fact I think this may be the case on several of the tracks.

So in answer to you question, I think it is badly recorded/engineered. If you can have a listen on a good streaming site and see if it is the same/similar to the CD.

Thanks for your efforts - you are right about tape hiss/noise and it being limited dynamically, I guess that it is a victim of "loudness wars" and mixed for MP3/headphones.
Great shame as I had seen her on Joules Holland and been really impressed.

[Pigmy Pony]

Yeah, I too saw her on Jools Holland, thought she was the best act of the whole series. Also I had bought Alabama Shakes "Sound and Colour" album a few years ago and like that too. On the strength of this I bought the Brittany Howard album on vinyl. Even at low volume it sounds like my speakers are being driven to distortion. Very disappointing, it could have been so good :(