[MLA] Sorry, I had to vent...

Tue Sep 19 17:55:46 CEST 2017

But on a more positive note, this conversation is happening today in a private Facebook group of British pro engineers:

"A question for the esteemed RP mastering engineer members:

When mastering a heavy rock/ metal album, do you have a ball park dBrms value that you consider suitable? (I appreciate that its case specific and depends on the song/ mix, but just a ball park.)

The reason I ask is that in the current times of sound-check services etc, I know its not advantageous to crush masters anymore. I was always of the belief that around -10dBrms on the loudest/ most dense sections was a sensible loudness while still retaining a sense of dynamics and clarity (again I know these figures are some what arbitrary as it depends on the mix etc etc). However, I have just received a master back of a record I produced & mixed, and it feels very quiet to me, and sits around -12/-13dBrms on the loudest sections.

The ME (who I have worked with a good few times over the years and have a good working relationship with) feels he doesn't want to push it much more, but its making me feel a bit nervous as I have never been involved with a heavy rock album that's been released so quiet for a digital medium.”

And, he’s getting feedback from others as well as me saying to trust his engineer :-)

> On 19 Sep 2017, at 16:26, Ian Shepherd <ian at mastering-media.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> 
> Since we’re venting (let’s get all the negativity out of the way prior to AES!) I’ve been really disappointed listening to the Foo Fighters album today. 
> 
> Despite my positive reports about the dynamics of the first single from the album, large sections of it are a squashed, distorted mess :-(
> 
> Which is a real shame, because some of it sounds pretty good, although there’s too much saturation distortion for my taste, and the drums are all flat as pancakes (which seems to be what Dave Growl likes). 
> 
> It actually has quite wide macro-dynamics, (LRA 11 !) oddly enough - but the loudest moments are really difficult for me to listen to, even with the volume down.
> 
> Discogs has the same engineer credited for mixing and mastering, I wonder if that’s accurate and/or significant...
> 
> 
> 
>> On 19 Sep 2017, at 15:00, Kevin Gross <kevin.gross at comcast.net <mailto:kevin.gross at comcast.net>> wrote:
>> 
>> Normalized platforms aren't going to be much help when those responsible don't fail squashed recordings. Normalization only helps us address the loudness war where the motivation for the loudness is to encourage higher playback levels. If the artists, AR people and Grammy-winning mixers aren't bothered by the sound of squash, we're going to keep hearing it.
>> 
>> Listeners have been hearing squash for 20 years now. That's a whole generation of listeners who expect music to sound like this regardless of where they set their volume control. They've also been doing most of their listening on the go in noisy environments or through portable systems that may not sound so good for dynamic recordings.
>> 
>> Loudness normalization, among other things, gives producers the _option_ to release competitive unsquashed recordings. Not everyone is going to exercise this option. All we can do is ensure that the option is available and make producers aware of the option.
>> 
>> We can also publicly shame producers for releasing squashed recordings, but that's a subjective and artistic argument and I don't think flinging poo like this will help further our cause and it is certainly not going to endear Bob or Bob or Ian to their clients.
>> 
>> On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 12:02 AM, Thomas Lund <thomas at lund.one <mailto:thomas at lund.one>> wrote:
>> Hi Bob,
>> 
>> Sad. The word hasn’t reached everywhere yet, and I’m afraid only more normalized platforms quickly can help the situation.
>> 
>> I was speaking recently at MPG in London where a good mastering engineer asked that I drop a song brought on USB into the normalization listening examples. The track was linear PCM directly from a client, measuring -5.6 LUFS upon arrival. It became a hit regardlessly.
>> 
>> cheers,
>> Thomas
>> 
>> 
>>> On 18 Sep 2017, at 22.40, Robert Ludwig <gatewaybob at mac.com <mailto:gatewaybob at mac.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi everyone,
>>> 
>>> I just got in a project in from one of the biggest-name Grammy winning mixers and this is what he sent the artist as a listening reference!
>>> This sounds as distorted and unconscionable as it looks!
>>> 
>>> (sorry, I feel better now after having shared).
>>> Best,
>>> Bob L.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> <Client ref.jpg>
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