Syntrillium Backup Forums :: View topic - Help needed: correcting EQ on badly-mastered vinyl

Bruce Bartlett · Location: Canada

I was wondering if I could get a bit of advice from some of the more experienced audio folk in these parts. I'm presently restoring two LPs, both from Canadian pressing plants that were notorious for messing with the EQ. Of all the albums I've done in the past, these two simply sound the most "wrong" -- but the problems sound to me like they're in the midrange. I simply don't have the experience or equipment to really tackle this... necessity dictates that I do everything in headphones, which is probably the worst environment for any sort of EQ work. So, I've posted 2 60-second snippets of these tracks, at 192kbps MP3 (ugh), in the hopes that someone can guide me along here. I should also mention that I'm using a Shure V15VxMR as a cartridge, which I'm told has the flattest frequency response one can get outside of the high-end realm.

Example 1:
http://home.primus.ca/~bruce.bartlett/disco/bernier.mp3
This one sounds to me like it's completely lacking in midrange, but CE's frequency analysis seems to tell me otherwise. I suspect the mastering engineer was trying to save his sanity by notching out the vocal, which is absolutely dreadful. This one was pressed by London Canada, who normally are notorious for removing all the bass from any record.

Example 2:
http://home.primus.ca/~bruce.bartlett/disco/teecees.mp3
This one sounds like it's got a nasty peak somewhere in the lower-mids. The entire album has this same sonic quality to it, as well as heaps of dropouts and other things indicative of a crappy running master. It was mastered and pressed by Quality Records -- quite the misnomer there! While it's possible that this was simply the way it was mixed, I suspect otherwise. For, despite being credited to the "Tee Cees", this is actually Trevor Rabin and the production seems much better than this pressing would indicate.

Any comments or suggestions would be most appreciated. BTW, I'm not doing these for any sort of commercial release, just my own enjoyment.

beetle · Location: USA

Bruce,

I listened to the first example and I say, leave it the way it is. As long as the vocalist's voice sounds natural, it sounds fine to me. I don't know if you have heard the track anywhere else, but it may actually be the way the recording is, and this is one the pressing plant didn't screw with. Sure, the music's dull, but the vocal is dead on. Besides, I like slightly odd-sounding records.

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

I'm sure that a lot of this 70's disco music was recorded under very dubious circumstances - somewhere in central Europe by somebody with an eye to a quick killing... (as in make a lot of money out of poor unsuspecting punters, only this one doesn't seem to have been much of an Audiophile...)

But FWIW, my take on these two clips is to leave the second one alone - it doesn't sound good, but the overall levels with frequency follow the -6dB curve quite well, which is probably quite a good compromise on this sort of material.

But the first clip sounds dull in comparison, and if you want to get it back to where I think it should be (and no, this doesn't wreck the vocal sound), then you need to apply a gentle boost from the parametric EQ - set the high shelf cutoff frequency to about 10k and apply boost - probably about 12dB. This may seem to be a lot, but this is the final figure, and the effective boost across the band with the energy in is far lower. OTOH, if your actual file (not the mp3) has significantly more HF in it, you may want to use a single section to give you a smooth boost up to about 8dB at 10k and then roll it off. I ran it through Ozone's EQ like this, and it sounds more like what I would have expected from this sort of track.

No, it did not get me up and bopping!

MusicConductor · Location: USA

Bruce, I'm sure it's no surprise to you that we'd all have slightly different reads on this. Here's my 2 cents, and that's all it's worth.

1 - Bernier. I see what you mean about "notching" the vocal, and it's not just the vocal that's missing some upper mids. Sorry Steve, I can't agree with you on this one. I did try the parametric setting you suggested, and feel that the extra sibilance is uncomfortably strong and the strings sound like they're playing with mutes on. Some extra brilliance at a higher frequency and tamer boost would suit me fine, but that's not the main thing to my ear. It seems like there is a notch missing especially between 2.5K and 3K, and a lesser amount to each side. Try realtime preview in CEP's graphic eq, 20 bands, and see what grabs your ear when you move those sliders around. The kickdrum and bass are not very rich; it's a matter of personal taste if you'd want to add about 3dB at 40 Hz.

2 - Teecees. Really the mids don't seem to be the problem here, but rather the lack of spectrum where we're accustomed to hearing it. I always like a bass line voiced in the tenor range! (That's sarcasm, folks, just so there's no doubt.) The electric bass also has a lot of overtone energy in the 200-400 Hz range, a sound that I'm not alone in avoiding. So there's not much bottom, and all that lower mid mush from what should be showing up at a lower range. Also, I find the hi hat sound to be peaky -- it sounds pushed between 11-13K and is wimpy above and below it. Bad EQ job, probably just on that track!

Take me to task if you think I deserve it.

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

Trouble is (and I'm not saying that anybody's right or wrong here) that if you boost the 2.5 - 3.0kHz band in the first clip, you can hear more of that dreadful voice, and it doesn't fix the overall sound. The only version that I tried that sounded marginally better (and it didn't fix the vocal either) I did with Ozone, and hardly touched the EQ at all...

And of course, with everybody listening on different systems, some of which may be more 'sympathetic' to this sort of sound than others, etc, etc, then we're bound to disagree to an extent - except that everybody thinks that something about the clips sounds bad!

So yes, I respect everybody else's take on it, but I still think that ultimately, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place with this one.

Bruce Bartlett · Location: Canada

MusicConductor · Location: USA

Bruce Bartlett · Location: Canada