[LAU] Questions from an audiophile to some engineers

[Joe Hartley]

On Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:24:53 -0600 (MDT)
"Bearcat M. Sandor" <HomeTheater at feline-soul.com> wrote:
> >
> > Blame the labels and the mastering methods that they insist upon.
> > There's a great article by Rip Rowan using Rush's Vapor Trails as
> > an example here:
> >    http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C
>
> Well, Rush is imfamous for bad mastering aren't they?  It's a shame. You'd
> think they'd want to get a good drum sound what with Niel Pert and all.
> 
> When you speak of "mastering methods" what specificly are you referring
> too? I could not get that article to load, so i apologise if the answer is
> contained within it.

Here's a link to the Google cache of the article:
  http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:RbOJj6KLsO8J:www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/8A133F52D0FD71AB86256C2E005DAF1C+mastering+rush+audio&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Basically, mastering is an audio manipulation process that's done after the
final mix is delivered.  Done correctly, it enhances the final mix by
applying equalization and compression.  (There's plenty more at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastering )

What has been happening more and more often, though, is that the labels
want to optimize the music for play on the radio, and thus want to minimize
any dynamics in the music for fear that you'll lose interest and change the
station during a quieter passage.  Thus they have the mastering engineer
compress the hell out of the music, making it all universally loud and thus
"good".  (They seem to forget that 95% of all radio stations then add another
layer of far too much compression, making it sound even worse.)  I found
a good article on this at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Rush does indeed seem to be famous for bad mastering, but in all fairness,
I do not know how much sway they have with their label.

-- 
======================================================================
       Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh at brainiac.com
Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa