michael jackson "wanna be startin"

Nick2341 wrote: Roscoe wrote: A frustrating situation. If only they hadn't applied so much digital compression to boost the levels on the King Of Pop CD. But virtually all the MJ reissues and comps have used a similar mastering style, with the exception of the Thriller SACD. I don't think much multiband compression was used in this case, but all of the songs clip (except for disc 3 in the UK set). For some songs, the distortion isn't noticeable, but others it's bad. I think WBSS is one where it's not so bad even though it is pretty loud.

Yes, it's not distortion or clipping that's the problem...they just squashed the dynamic range to boost the volume. It's just too loud.

As an aside, I ended up reverting back to my old needledrop of the 45 for WBSS. The King of Pop CD is too loud as noted, and there are too many small differences to stitch together the 45 version from the 12 Inch Mixes CD.

Maybe with the renewed interest in MJ's music there may be a market for a "Complete Singles Collection" release, utilizing all the true 45 versions from the master tapes. If such a collection were mastered well, I would definitely buy it.