T
TheDewd
New member
Hey guys, I've noticing somthing interesting.
Year 2004 was IMHO the last year where big shot mastering guys (Marino, Jensen, Meller, Weinberg, etc) didn't radically change the EQ of tracks to make them louder and preserved the original mixdown EQ.
Now it seems the tendency is to cut anything lower than 80Hz, to cut around 200-300 Hz and to boost around the high mid region 3k to 6k. This distributes the signal energy in such a way that they can crank it to -7 dBRMS without sounding like a square wave. Furthermore, it gives the impression of greater dynamics because there is less residual limiter/compressor mud in the low mids.
My gripe with this, is that I can't be sure that my mix and its EQ balance will be preserved through mastering stage. In my mind, mastering alway was meant to make subtle EQ/phase corrections, not drastic ones like most popular records today.
On a further note, it also seems that they squash the mixes so hard, that the drums seem to get lost as hell whereas the guitars tend to be more upfront.
Anyways, it still sounds better than when they squashed it without changing the EQ because there is much less audible clipping going on.
The louder things get, the further we are from what the mix engineer wanted and that's a shame because to me, mixing is an art and you can only distort the picture the artist has painted with all this sick compression.
Food for thought,
Dewd
Year 2004 was IMHO the last year where big shot mastering guys (Marino, Jensen, Meller, Weinberg, etc) didn't radically change the EQ of tracks to make them louder and preserved the original mixdown EQ.
Now it seems the tendency is to cut anything lower than 80Hz, to cut around 200-300 Hz and to boost around the high mid region 3k to 6k. This distributes the signal energy in such a way that they can crank it to -7 dBRMS without sounding like a square wave. Furthermore, it gives the impression of greater dynamics because there is less residual limiter/compressor mud in the low mids.
My gripe with this, is that I can't be sure that my mix and its EQ balance will be preserved through mastering stage. In my mind, mastering alway was meant to make subtle EQ/phase corrections, not drastic ones like most popular records today.
On a further note, it also seems that they squash the mixes so hard, that the drums seem to get lost as hell whereas the guitars tend to be more upfront.
Anyways, it still sounds better than when they squashed it without changing the EQ because there is much less audible clipping going on.
The louder things get, the further we are from what the mix engineer wanted and that's a shame because to me, mixing is an art and you can only distort the picture the artist has painted with all this sick compression.
Food for thought,
Dewd