Modern mastering sounds great ! ! !

[regebro]

The thing is of course that it might very well work, and sound fine. Most pop/rock music today itsn't particularily dynamic.

It's just that sometimes it doesn't work. One case in point is a song by Placebo, I don't remember which one. It starts with this tense guitarlick, and just when you want and expect that big *WHAM*, jus get a "fjutt" because the limiting kicks in and just lowers the volume. It's just comes off as pathetic.

 

[Dethska]

Well other then the ridiculous amounts of compression put on these songs, another problem is radio stations are fighting their competition for 'loudest station' and are compressing all they're music over air (to keep volume changes to a minimum and -more likely- to out perform their competition radio stations.)
When public are scanning across the waves apparantly they're more likely to sit and listen to a louder station!

IMHO
Scott Mellish

There is competition in radio-land? Around here, all the stations play the same music so everybody gets the same listeners. And same advertisers. I can listen to three different stations and here the same 10 songs on all of them.

Isn't Clear Channel the greatest

 

[Jblount]

Clear channels goal is to plunder the worlds listeneing audience, making a new world media conglomerate. The future holds that musical diversity will be demolished, soon we will all be listening to one radio station. Then the announcers will tell us when we are to sleep, get up, use the bathroom, what job to go to. It will be like 1984, only it will be in 2014. George was not so crazy. The executives at clear channel will rule the world, their dominance will make them like kings of the earth, and the tyrany will reign over us mere mortals for ever and for eternity.

 

[mixsit]

... another problem is radio stations are fighting their competition for 'loudest station' and are compressing all they're music over air (to keep volume changes to a minimum and -more likely- to out perform their competition radio stations.)...

I want the music to be about the musician and the emotion, dynamics to me are as important as the music itself!
IMHO
Scott Mellish

And apparently it's spread like a disease. I had a chance to hear a local =CABLE= radio service. Guess what. It was just as squashed! And you have youngins' asking 'how can we get our music to sound "punchy"(???!!!) like it's on the radio'.
It's like 'wer're on crack and glue, and now we think that's the normal state of...
Oops. Never mind.

 

[sjoko2]

The MEs don't like it any more than audiophiles do -- it's label pressure that drives those insane decisions...... if an ME wants to stay in business, they have no choice, otherwise the label will take it down the street to someone who will do it.

I've had 3 projects returned to me in recent months, with comments that it needed to be louder (from major labels, not the artists themselves).
In all three cases we already made it pretty high volume, as we're very aware what the market "needs" today.
Adding the extra, definately went very much to the costs of overall audio quality, and of cause dynamics went out of the window.
On all the above the masters were re-done, and were returned with the request to ommit credits.

 

[davechurchill]

http://www.tvsoundregulator.com/

 

[DaveDrummer]

I hate messing with dynamics

 

[Strange Leaf]

And when the music is completely even in level, our music is being listened to in 0 bit.

 

[Giganova]

I am not sure if y'all just exagerate. After all, what you say only applies for pop/rock music, which, ehhhhr, has never been very artistic & creative anyway. There's a lot of great stuff out there where loss of dynamics for the sake of maximizing loudness is not a topic at all. Think about Norah Jones, jazz & classical music. Even many electronic music genres follow other rules. *duck*

 

[Fishmed]

A band I have done work for recently went to another studio to record their CD. The guy had ProTools and and was an accomplished local musician (I guess that qualifies him to be an engineer). Anyway, The final product was released and it pumps so bad on songs that it is hard for me to listen to many of them. I never knew you could get a tremelo effect with a compressor. I know I should not jump to blame the guy, it could have been the band's doing, but he should have had some sense of what was going on.

 

[Scott Mellish]

I am not sure if y'all just exagerate. After all, what you say only applies for pop/rock music, which, ehhhhr, has never been very artistic & creative anyway.

Yeah, Pop and Rock are the biggest culprits of this,but you'll notice that it is very much in RnB, Hiphop Rap etc.

I dont wanna start a heated argument, but saying that Pop and Rock has NEVER been very creative anyway is a load of crap. Sure there is alot of middle of the road manufactured trash, especially today, but there are Tons of Pop and Rock artists who were very creative, and this still exists today...

And I'll now apologise for adding this comment to this thread.
Scott

 

[mallcore pop]

Ditto, Scott.

Giggie, honey, BULLSHIT!



Mallcore POP/ROCK

 

[dobro]

"I think that is part of the problem, now that you can see the wave in a digital editor, everyone gets paid by how much their sound wave resembles a 2x4...."

LOL

Look, all this just goes to show that the future of excellence in mixing lies in HOME recording. Wanna hear a mix done right? Homers do it sincerely. Homers aren't in anybody's pocket. The mistakes they make are all their own, not somebody else's.

 

[webstop]

Like they say: if the level indicator is still moving, mastering is not finished yet....

 

[DaveDrummer]

It's not like theres any good new music anyway

 

[chessrock]

http://www.tvsoundregulator.com/

Hey, 34 bucks.


That's cheaper than hooking up a Behringer Composer.