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Originally Posted by dobyblue
You should have a listen to Ludwig's mastering job on Chinese Democracy. Not only are the songs actually very good (unless Axl's voice is insurmountable to you) but the dynamics are 100% intact and there's no clipping.
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I tried, I really did. But Chinese Democracy was the Everyday of the GNR catalogue. Axl doesn't have the vocal quality he once did. The songs may have been good, but I couldn't get through it. It just wasn't GNR.
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Ludwig has a great article on it right on his site. Not only did he do it right, but the band actually picked the version with no dynamic compression of the three masters he sent to them…so they had good ears too. http://www.gatewaymastering.com/gate...udnessWars.asp
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Bob Ludwig and Bob Katz are THE men when it comes to mastering.
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I believe that a small amount of clipping is preferable to compression and this is what happened with UTTAD...but with nearly all tracks on Crash there is too much clipping.
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That's sort of been the battle with digital mixing. A lot of people are mixing with their eyes instead of their ears. Visible clipping doesn't equate audible clipping, and audible is the only part that matters. Some programs have clip indicators that go off from -3dB to clipping. You just have to know you're program. Audacity is closer to the -3dB light up, which isn't accurate. Crash does have some clipping that is audible, but it's not detrimental. In Drive and Too Much it actually compliments. The way it clips, though, I can tell it was in the mastering.
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I disagree that part of the mastering engineer's job has to be volume
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It absolutely is. The mastering engineer has to get all of the tracks for an album to be of equal volume and sonic quality.
Briefly, a mastering engineer has four main areas they should focus on: volume (through compression), track order and pacing of the album, time spreads between songs, creating a continuity of sonic quality between the songs (through EQ, mostly). Often the artist and producer will have an idea of how they want the album to flow, but occasionally they need help getting it right. Sometimes they're too close to the songs or have a vision that doesn't quite work. Katz tells a story where an artist he mastered wanted his album to be in halves - the first about love and the second about hate. Theoretically okay, little hackneyed, but you should attempt the client's requests first. He played the halved album for the artist and the artist could not be disuaded that it didn't work. It was a disaster. Most listeners didn't get the theming, the album felt really unbalanced, as most of the love songs were ballad-like in nature and the hate was pretty rockin' non-stop without a breather. Even his fanbase was turned off by it. Mastering is an art form that most people can't appreciate, like producing, because they don't know what it does and therefore have no respect for it. I applaud you few who even know who Ludwig, Jensen, and Katz are.
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The volume is the consumer's job and in most cases that volume control is huge!
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Just like driving safely is expected of drivers on the road and we all know how well that goes. I'm not talking volume in loudness, I'm talking volume in terms of within the project, and then there has to be [like it or not] volume-adjustment on the end-result. It's the way it is now. I miss dynamics, but unfortunately they went bye bye over forty years ago everywhere except classical, jazz, and old bluesmen that know better. That's it. Everybody has Spinal Tap syndrome anymore. 11.
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I'm being facetious of course, but you know what I mean. I am sure I will love the production on Crash when I finally get to hear it without Jensen's touch...because Crash is TOO loud and the dynamics do suffer so the production and the mastering are completely related to each other.
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They are related in the way of (since someone brought it up) a Football team. The way the offense and the defense are related. They can help or hinder the other to a degree, but they are only really related by the jerseys. Mastering is not production. If you write a report, that's production. If you have it embossed and notarized, that's mastering. There's a difference, and the ear can be trained to hear it - it just takes a looong time and access to a lot of before and after product to be able to pick it out.
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The mastering can affect the production.
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No, it affects the product.
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Granted Crash isn’t as bad as anything from Oasis, but it's not a pretty CD and the more vinyl you listen to the more you realize what you're missing when you pop in a CD like Crash. RTT might not be well produced, but it’s ever so much more pleasant to listen to on the ears.
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But it sounds very amateur, which is one reason why it's endearing, but also why they make sure to let everyone know that it's an independent release. R2T gets a little boring after awhile. Granted not for us, the core fanbase - but to the average listener. It is easier on the ears, but it doesn't grab you and keep you there unless you were already there [like you saw/heard a Trax show and it brings you back to that place, etc]. There are always exceptions to the rule, and everyone on here can be considered an exception, but to the average joe it's just another jam band record that starts with 5 minutes of just a snare. R2T is unique in that it was mostly live, so comparing it to the studio process on all but two songs is a bit eroneous. R2T should more be compared to Red Rocks or Chicago or Listener Supported, that would be more accurate.
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I don't think the blame lies solely with the person responsible for the mastering either. I have chatted with several owners of mastering studios in Toronto and they all have the same story - if they won't make it loud like "x" (insert another band's CD here) then they'll not get the job.
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No, but a lot of times it does. Sometimes the mix sucks. But the mastering engineer can bring the volume down to where it doesn't clip [unless it is already clipping in the mix], yet maintain that volume.
Don't forget, the band is often the visible face blamed for anything - like the QB of a team [unless it's Brett Favre and then it is his fault
<- Favre]. If the band's management, agent, legal, [or most often] label says it needs to be louder - it might as well come from the band. LWS is a good example if this labeling. Lillywhite was just the messenger between the label and the band, but because he was delivering the label's notes in their name, he was one of them. Ergo, he was the label to them. Even though he wasn't.
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For every song you can open up and show clipping, there’s another without it. The Stone Roses CD is absolutely spot on the money, production and mastering. No clipping, 15dB+ of dynamic range.
Of course I totally understand that the average consumer doesn't care about any of this...and that includes the majority of artists too. SO, the producers and mastering engineers that do get it should be just keeping the life of the music intact so that those of us who do care are satisfied...as those that don't are satisfied regardless!
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But in the end, you have to do what the client wants. You can always decline the job, or even use a pseudonym. You woldn't believe the amount of people that actually do that.
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Originally Posted by dobyblue
Here's an example of what Katz was talking about, this is my brother-in-law's track. The unmastered version is on top, the mastered on the bottom. I've removed the name just so that no-one gets any crap for it (like me),
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/5967/waveform.jpg
Now granted the mastered version isn't a disaster or anything and most people won't notice much of a difference, but the first one sounds more open and more like a performance to me on my system...and I'm sure I'll notice it even more once my main listening room gets treated acoustically.
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That's what you can see, but you've got to go by what you hear. Remember audacity isn't professional grade, and indicates clipping earlier than it should. It can sound like a performance, but if they are going for a studio sound and they get a live sound - they failed their objective. Here's a good example, one band I produced here in Orlando came in to do a live one hour set for a canned radio broadcast. The interview was a bit boring, but when I went to mix the songs I found that everything was isolated from the drums enough to sound very studio. They got an 11 track studio album out of one afternoon of their time, in production value it sound very close and intimate like Rickie Lee Jones
Pop Pop album [check it out, you'll love the production and mastering as well as the music]. Their album sounds intimate and laid back, but not live. There is a difference, it's subtle. Oh so subtle. But there is a difference and it drives me up a wall when I hear a studio album that sounds live when it doesn't suit the artist or the album to do so.
As a side note, this is the most I have enjoyed any discussion I have ever had on this board.