Re: [LAU] LV2, DSSI and the future of plugins

On Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:49:20 -0800
Ken Restivo <ken@email-addr-hidden> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 05:20:15PM -0500, Ricardus Vincente wrote:
> > On Mon, 2011-01-17 at 14:11 -0800, Ken Restivo wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 10:31:41PM +0100, fons@email-addr-hidden
> > > 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.
>
> Yep. I guess that's what mastering engineers spend most of their time
> doing: fixing bad mixes.
>

curious: mix engineers suck but mastering engineers don't and they even
know how to mix better than mix engineers.

what's the reason? Maybe that mixing is being done by self taught
people while mastering no?

renato
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Received on Tue Jan 18 04:15:03 2011