Music Mastering
Posted by: King Size on 27 May 2010
For those of you interested in the black art of music mastering, the even blacker art of compression and other sound quality related issues there is a very interesting feature interview by Steve Guttenberg with Dave Mcnair called "Music Mastering: The Art Of the transfer" in the most recent issue of ToneAudio.
Here is an excerpt:
SG: And the audiophiles, what about us?
DM: Production teams wants to make their music sound as exciting as possible. It’s not about, “How irritating will this be for the .0001 percent of audiophile listeners
in the world?” That’s not on the radar for them. That’s why so many records are too loud, too compromised; they’ll sound fine on the radio and small, limited resolution
systems.
SG: And that applies to musicians going for a more, shall we say, mature audience? Neil Young? John Fogerty?
Bob Dylan?
DM: Make no mistake about it. In their minds, they’re competing for an evershrinking group of people who actually spend some of their hard-earned money
on music. So they’re very, very aware of the competition. Buddy Miller’s record has to be as loud as Wilco’s, and Wilco is smashing the fuck out of their stuff just like
everybody else. But I think their records sound pretty good. They are doing [compression] in a way that’s a little more elegant or palatable. If the compromises are carefully done, it takes very little away from the enjoyment of the recording.
Here is an excerpt:
SG: And the audiophiles, what about us?
DM: Production teams wants to make their music sound as exciting as possible. It’s not about, “How irritating will this be for the .0001 percent of audiophile listeners
in the world?” That’s not on the radar for them. That’s why so many records are too loud, too compromised; they’ll sound fine on the radio and small, limited resolution
systems.
SG: And that applies to musicians going for a more, shall we say, mature audience? Neil Young? John Fogerty?
Bob Dylan?
DM: Make no mistake about it. In their minds, they’re competing for an evershrinking group of people who actually spend some of their hard-earned money
on music. So they’re very, very aware of the competition. Buddy Miller’s record has to be as loud as Wilco’s, and Wilco is smashing the fuck out of their stuff just like
everybody else. But I think their records sound pretty good. They are doing [compression] in a way that’s a little more elegant or palatable. If the compromises are carefully done, it takes very little away from the enjoyment of the recording.