this is probably a dumb question, but I've always wondered why some albums have this high pitched tone in the background. I bought a Weirdo's album a while ago, and it had this almost unbearable tone. Is this due to bad mastering, bad compression, or what?

i'm probably wrong, but the only thing i can think of would be the carrier signal (which has to do with bias i'm pretty sure). it would have to have been recorded to tape in some sort of incorrect manner ... cause you shouldn't be able to hear it.

phildotidiot wrote:i'm probably wrong, but the only thing i can think of would be the carrier signal (which has to do with bias i'm pretty sure). it would have to have been recorded to tape in some sort of incorrect manner ... cause you shouldn't be able to hear it.

Well, it was a recording from a late 70's/early 80's punk band, so it could have been that, right? Haphazard recording pratices, maybe? I have had several albums where this was an issue, almost rendering them unlistenable to me because of the infernal tone. To me, it sounds like when your ears are ringing after a loud show. Maybe it's just me?

Have you check on other Stereos?

yeah... i'm not exactly sure how that would be done. i think maybe if you biased the tape machine wrong and then recorded at a high speed and played back slow or something? it seems to me like it would be pretty hard to do... so that's why i'm not so sure about it. one of the experts around here should clarify!!

Vince Clortho wrote:

phildotidiot wrote:i'm probably wrong, but the only thing i can think of would be the carrier signal (which has to do with bias i'm pretty sure). it would have to have been recorded to tape in some sort of incorrect manner ... cause you shouldn't be able to hear it.

Well, it was a recording from a late 70's/early 80's punk band, so it could have been that, right? Haphazard recording pratices, maybe? I have had several albums where this was an issue, almost rendering them unlistenable to me because of the infernal tone. To me, it sounds like when your ears are ringing after a loud show. Maybe it's just me?

I've heard something like this when burning ref cds at silly high speeds like 48x. And I know of two bands who had a hack "mastering engineer" burn their master for duplication at 52x and their entire runs of cds had that weird high "whirrrrrrrrrrr" thing throughout the entire disc.