[LAU] LV2, DSSI and the future of plugins

[Ricardus Vincente]

On Mon, 2011-01-17 at 14:11 -0800, Ken Restivo wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 10:31:41PM +0100, fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 03:38:48PM +0100, J?rn Nettingsmeier wrote:
> > 
> > > don't forget the most important aspect of mastering: a second pair
> > > of ears, in a very good listening room.
> > 
> > Correct.
> > 
> > > take that out of the equation, and all that's left of mastering is
> > > some parametric eq and (if you must) multiband compression.
> > 
> > And I wonder why these shouldn't be done when mixing instead.
> > 
> > In the 'old days' EQ and compression was required to adapt a
> > mix to the limits of the distribution medium (vinyl in most 
> > cases). No such problem exists today. Why on earth should you
> > re-EQ a mix ? If the mixing engineer did a good job (by carefully
> > EQ-ing individual tracks), what chance do you have to improve this
> > by acting on the mixed signal ? If he didn't, the way to correct
> > for this is to redo the mix. Same for compression, it's much more
> > effective and less intrusive when done on single tracks. 
> > 
> 
> For the record, I hate mastering and compressed loudness-war mixes. I
> enjoy making use of the dynamic range of 16-bit (or more) audio. And,
> I also put the mastering (multiband compression, really) stuff in the
> chain while mixing, one of the wonderful things about JACK. It's just
> an insert on the master bus in Ardour for me, and my exported mixes
> are mastered.
> 
> However, today's popular music must contend with limitations of the
> listener's equipment, just as it did in the days of turntables and
> six-peices-of-particle-board-and-an-8-inch-speaker turntable/stereo
> combinations. The limitations are different and so therefore are the
> solutions and workarounds.
> 
> Today, people listen to music on iPods and truly wretched laptop
> speakers in noisy environments. And everything else they listen to is
> compressed out the wazoo. So when my lightly-compressed mixes come up
> on shuffle, they are inaudible, not just in comparison to other
> professionally-mastered mixes, but against the background noise
> they're competing with.
> 
> So, next time around, I'm putting my mixes thorugh NAMA and squashing
> the holy hell out of them, until they sound like whatever the major
> labels are pooting out these days. 

 Unfortunately most mix engineers suck.  That's why you need a real
mastering engineer to fix your mixes.  Taking the tracks back to a guy
with tin ears isn't going to help.

 Most people making records today are inexperienced and doing it at
home.

 Having said that, when a world class mix engineer does a mix, the
mastering engineer doesn't have to do much, as someone pointed out.  But
unless someone like Dave Reitzas or Ed Cherney is mixing your tracks,
take it to a qualified mastering house.  Even those guys take their
mixes to guys like Bob Ludwig.  Running your mix through a Farichild 670
isn't going to hurt it.  :-)

 Ricardus...