bluegangsta said:

kepurplehunter said:

bluegangsta said:

The volume of the final master has little to nothing to do with who mixed it.

Yet another uninformed statment by someone who thinks they know better.

Sshhh are u an sound engineer just tell me lol

bluegangsta is correct in making the point that mixing and mastering are not the same thing at all.

And before you ask, I used to be a sound engineer.

kepurplehunter said:

bluegangsta said:

The volume of the final master has little to nothing to do with who mixed it.

Yet another uninformed statment by someone who thinks they know better.

Sshhh are u an sound engineer just tell me lol

The mixing and mastering engineers are rarely the same person, too.

The quickie engineering argument only holds up for anthology/greatest hits packages which are quick-buck works by the label that the artist rarely has a hand in. They are often not given the same amount of care for the final product because of a perceived less amount of work to do by the producer of the package, which is not going to be a 'name' or even an 'up-and-coming' level of producer. Most just asume all you need to do is match every song to a specific reference level and your done. That's why some Greatest hits are WAY better than others, like Queen's.

The quick answer is the disproprtionate ratio of engineers that were remastering the analog albums for digital release and the number of albums the labels wanted released in a digital formet, of which CDs count. It's like the ratio of lunch ladies to students, sure they are going to have a few favorite students that they pay a bit of extra attention to, but there are bound to be a majority that they don't even remember serving.

On a true album, no. quickie engineering or amateur mixing is not an answer, unless we're talking the 5.1 mix of Santana's Abraxis album ... that was just a victim of bad decisions. The number of people a full-on album has to go through before it gets released initially kills that argument through attrition alone. A reissue, unless of a seminole album like Purple Rain or Appetite For Destruction, is going to have almost zero oversight.

And yes, I currently am an audio engineer and run A/V at a large college.

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

Is low wrong, though? I thought loudness wars meant that louder is not better. I'm no audiophile but my understanding was that low was better, isn't it?

If you're listening on earbuds, computer speakers, or some other inadequate system, low is bad.

If you're shuffling songs released from different eras with different standards, you better have your finger near the volume control.

Otherwise, I'm with you, low is better, here's why:

Take the CD releases that are most complained about, say SOTT or Black Album. If I listen to one of those CDs on my system they sound GREAT! I can adjust the EQ to give them a bit more bottom where needed, crank it up and nobody around opines that it "sounds bad".

Then take a more modern release like Planet Earth that was mastered way too loud with squashed frequences & no peaks & valleys. When I listen to on of those CDs on my system I can make it sound good at best, never great. I can't fix squashed frequencies or create peaks & valleys with my EQ, I can only adjust to soften the harshest of the distorted frequencies.

Everybody can't wait for remastered releases. I only look forward to the bonus tracks they might include as I do not expect the new masters to be anything but the standard adopted by the purveyors of the loudness wars and not pleasant at all.

If anything, I would prefer everything from the last 15-20 years be remastered, they're the ones that sound bad. In my not-at-humble opinion, of course...

Check out Led Zeppelin's CD releases and compare the originals from the 80s, the remasters from the early 90s and the recent remasters from a year or so ago. Of those, I prefer the first remasters from the early 90s.

In the 80s they were basically just porting over analog masters with little or no thought to remastering. In the 90s things improved when they took advantage of the capabilities of the format. In the 21st century things went to hell with the loudness wars. Just sayin'...

Thx for clarifying.

Indeed when I had a super stereo back in France I never found anything wrong with the old albums but it's true that now that I listen to them on crappy computer speakers I find the sound lacks depth a bit, but I know it's my speakers, not the albums.

Personally I don't care much for remasters either.

kepurplehunter said:

bluegangsta said:

The volume of the final master has little to nothing to do with who mixed it.

Yet another uninformed statment by someone who thinks they know better.

Sshhh are u an sound engineer just tell me lol

Please show some humility when people who know their shit are trying to share their knowledge with you. For one thing before you doubt someone about such a simple thing, it's easy to google mixing and mastering and realize that those 2 things are totally unrelated.

parade NEEDS to be heard....too low

luvsexy4all said:

parade NEEDS to be heard....too low

You didn't read one word of this thread, did you?