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

[Kevin Gross]

I watched Sound City last week. They played some of the amazing drum tracks
that came out of that studio and Dave drooled, me too. The drums don't
sound anything like that on this new Foo record. Just having the Neve
console doesn't automatically make things sound good. Dave seems to assume
it does. This probably ties back to the discussion Eelco and I were having
about recording vs. performance and instrument and gear fetishes.

On Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 9:26 AM, 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> 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> 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> 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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