FALKEN said:
No offense to Glen here, we usually agree on stuff, but I am freaking tired of hearing this line. you CAN get your tracks up at -12 RMS recording at home without it "falling apart". anybody who tells you otherwise is full of it. I do *not* mean to say, however, that if you master at home it will sound good. I'm just saying that the line "it can't be done" just isn't true
Well, I guess it all depends on one's definition of "sounding good". Maybe my use of the phrase "falling apart" sounded a bit strong, but I guess that again has a subjestive definition.
Yes, a home recordist can get their stuff up to -12dBRMS in the mastering stage. There is nothing hard about that. But in my experience, as to whether that is going to sound anything even close to what a commercial CD will sound like at -12 is a whole 'nother story; a story based upon the quality of the tracking. And in most amateur or prosumer situations, the tracking is going to be of a quality where it sounds much more like a commercial CD - in actual sonic quality, not in sheer volume - at lower RMSs.
I am of the school that once the engineer hits that trade-off point where they start sacrificing sonic quality for volume, that's where they should stop "pushing" it. I also believe that if there is only a 10 or 12dB dynamic range between the peak and the RMS volume, unless you are working with all synth, MIDI, or headbanger sounds, that more often than not there are too many important dynamics being lost - unless the squashing has been done with utmost care with the right gear.
Others are of the school that it's OK to push a little past that trade-off point because if you don't have the volume, you don't have a commerical-quality recording.
Or it may be that the artist and engineer are just not as picky as I. I have handed mixes back to clients that I thought sounded pretty sh_tty and was rather apologetic for them...until they listened to them and creamed in their jeans over the quality of the mix I handed them. It has also gone the other way, too, of course
.
But for my ears and tastes, it's extremely rare that I have come across recordings made anywhere other than a decent commerical studio room by a tracker who actually knew how to use his gear and didn't just throw a dozen cheap plugins at every track they laid, that was able to stand up to much more than -15 before they just start rapidly decreasing in quality. I'm not saying it has to the the Sony facilities or Paisley Park, but it's got to be at least a project studio where more care has gone into the tracking phase than most home recordists can.
Anyway, I just feel that it's both setting unrealistic expectations and incorret priorities to tell a rookie that they can expect to get -10 or even -12dBRMS consistantly
and still sound good unless or until they concentrate on the quality aspect of it first. There is WAAAY too much of an emphasis in the minds of most rookies coming into this board on volume, and they need to understand that volume in final masters is earned in the tracking stage.
G.