Time's A Funny Thing

[QUINNY]

Thanks to this site I've actually started collecting disco music again. I'm busy getting hold of CDs that contain favourites, whenever I see them.
In the main I have been very pleased with both the quality and quantity of the music available, but time's a funny thing.
I swear that many of the tracks just don't sound the same. I'm not talking CD vs. Vinyl, although maybe the pops, clicks and rumble did add a certain something. Many of the tracks appear to be 'stripped down' and not as 'dense' as I remember them. One thing is for sure, I don't have the pleasure of hearing them on a megawatt sound system, but even so, I can't believe how sparce some of the tracks sound. It's almost as if the original was recorded on 24 tracks and the CDs have 8 track demo versions. What's really ambiguous is that most of the records that were huge club and radio hits actually hit a better groove because the production wasn't overdone. Sometimes it's just bass, drums, keyboards X 2, guitar X 2, vocals, et voila! what a mean groove.
What has become obvious to me, is that many of the engineers and producers really knew their stuff and despite what some others have written, nearly all have been mastered for CD incredibly well. The stereo width is sometimes overdone and sound quality does vary between tracks, but that's to be expected. My biggest disappointment has been the Disco Connection (French) compilation which is waaaayyy too toppy and sounds rather harsh on my Sennheiser HD 580 precision headphones.
Anyone else experienced this, and does this mean that we wouldn't have gone for some of the records had CD been around at the time?

[BrunoRepublic]

I have had your experience when I was buying what was then the current club tracks in the early 90s. They sounded soooo different at home, with the volume at a normal level, and without the noise of 200 other people around. Just as you say, like hearing a demo vs the finished product. Off the top of my head, the best example I can think of would be the Frank De Wulf remix of The Shamen's "Love, Sex, Intelligence". I heard this at a club and it blew me away. I bought it, took it home, and it simply blew instead. :x

I think one other thing that makes a big difference is the thick "wall of sound" effect that DJ cartridges give -- lots of oomph, but no detail.... however, I think this works to an advantage at high volume.

The last time I was at a club, they were mixing with MP3s. OUCH! Man, was the high-end ever nasty sounding. This place wasn't at half the volume that the clubs I went to in my heyday were, but my ears were practically bleeding by the end of the night.

[QUINNY]

Graham: Maybe it is the shear volume, vinyl and the carts used. I do believe that there is a certain amount of 'black art' to sound, despite digital perfection.

Here's something you may find interesting.
I had the chance of equalising the room that I DJ'd at once. It made such a HUGE difference to the clarity and intensity of the records. Although it was a 3K system, once EQ'd it was still comfortable on the middle of the dance floor at full tilt! It was an absolute joy to hear the records' every detail and feel them too. Trouble was, the venue was an old cinema and pretty soon walls started to show signs of stress, so I had to tame it somewhat, but EQing the room, at least moderately professionally using a spectrum analyser, did make such a difference to the usual sound installer's idea of what was right. The biggest difference was in the microphone levels that we could get. Where once, feedback would create havoc, now we could take it up as far as we needed and moreover, even the mumblers could be understood.