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<p>I lost a spec mix several years ago. The competition was a mix
engineer who works at a well-known mastering house in Colorado. I
was very disappointed in the quality of his mix which I got to
hear. It was louder but squished in a bad way. It had been mixed
the cheater's way, by pushing a bus compressor to the hilt. It was
acoustic folk music! The artist loved it for some reason.
Basically I cannot work that way, so I just took it in stride and
never looked back. <br>
</p>
<p>We are often using a bus compressor these days in the mix room,
but as a method of gluing. And sometimes to help give rock mixes a
bit of attitude. But the gluer is not a substitute for good ol'
fashioned fader moving.... It takes longer to do it my way, but
the sonic rewards are very high. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Many years ago I was hired to mix a song in a studio on Long
Island mixing with what I'm positive is an obviously deaf
arranger. He kept asking me to push each instrument of a string
quartet up and up and up so he could hear every single note. It
was instantly the "everything louder than everything else" game
time. No subtlety. A very frustrating day. I did what he asked but
maybe I should have just pushed everything into a compressor. For
a string quartet! Are people going deaf? <br>
</p>
<p>I've been known to use parallel compression on string sections to
help get "that sound", especially in a rock or pop mix, to fit the
strings into a dense mix, or to get that "Beatles" sound. But I
still mix with taste, as always after decades in this business. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Bob</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/10/19 9:38 AM, Bob Katz wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:91d08880-e786-8641-b71b-100dae2ba3ed@digido.com">
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<p>Doing mixes on spec is the worst kind of slave labor. You can
spend a day or more on a good sounding single mix, especially if
you don't lean on bus processing to mix it for you. :-)</p>
<p>I think that all the mixers should band together to stop this
"spec mix competition" nonsense. It can't lead anywhere good.
The A&R are loving it... they don't have to pay to get the
workers to do their work for them. And the loudest mix wins?
Shit.... I feel nauseous. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Bob K.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/9/19 1:30 PM, Robin Reumers
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:76E09C73-59A1-4C78-897B-AB275C91FF07@gmail.com">
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Hi all,
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I know I totally have no right to comment on this
within the group, but I would love to share my personal
experience with this. Last year, I got to do a spec mix for a
well known Spanish artist. It got 5 Latin Grammy nominations
and 1 Grammy nomination. 3 mixers were asked to mix 2 of the
singles on the album and then the artist / A&R / producer
picked a winner. I ended up not making it, but then I heard
the mix that won and I really wanted to understand what they
could have liked better about it.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">One thing is that his mix that he sent to the
client was about 6dBs louder (mine was around -13 LUFS). Mine
already had some bus processing on it, to make it compete, but
I didn’t want to deliver something at say -7 LUFS. Then I
heard that the way these mixes were being listened to was a
simple MP3 of each, sent via email. So the way the artist /
A&R compares these spec mixes, is typically not loudness
normalised. Which means as a mixer, if you want to be safe
that your mix gets chosen, it makes “sense" to make it louder.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I know for example with the last John Mayer album,
it was also spec mixed by multiple mixing engineers. So is it
possible that those highly paid mixers chose to make it really
loud, because it’s the safest bet? Spec mixes seem to be very
common nowadays.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Just wanted to share my 2 cents.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Best wishes,</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Robin<br class="">
<div><br class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On 9 Feb 2019, at 09:39, Robert Ludwig <<a
href="mailto:gatewaybob@mac.com" class=""
moz-do-not-send="true">gatewaybob@mac.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8" class="">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode:
space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"
class="">Hi Kevin,
<div class="">While there are exceptions, like the new
Mark Knopfler album, some albums I work on are mixed
louder than I have ever encountered, and louder than
I would have ever considered to be a good final
result. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">So it isn’t the mastering engineers
always at fault, it is many of the very <u class="">highest
paid</u> mixers like Manny Marroquin, Shawn
Everett, Tom Elmhurst etc. who think their work
should be amazingly loud.</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">They do their own pre-mastering to their
flat mixes and send those highly compressed mixes to
the client for their listening references. Their
clients don’t even get to HEAR the raw mixes which
are typically 5-10 dB less compressed than the
listening references. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">If you are used to looking at VU meters:
Our mastering rooms are calibrated so 1kHz @
-14dBFS = 0 VU on our consoles. I remember when
DATs were first being used in 1987 and mixes to DAT
used to peak around +2 to +4 VU. Today I <u
class="">routinely</u> get in listening mixes from
the mix engineers that peak at +10 or even +12VU! I
mean +14VU is <u class="">all that is possible</u>!
Distorted? Yes indeed!! I guess it is part of the
ethos of it now. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">The A&R people, the artists and
certainly the mixers expect me to at LEAST match
their listening reference level, a level I would
normally never dream of going that high..</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">I try to do what I can. I tell clients
about Spotify loudness normalization and how they
can get a feel for that by comparing flat mixes vs.
compressed mixes with Sound Check turned on in
iTunes. When we start a project there is often a key
song that they want mastered before the album comes
out and I will send them both dynamic and hot
versions and 90% of the time they pick the hot one. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">For me, 2 of my “Best Engineered” Grammy
Awards are for records that are mixed and thus
mastered <u class="">way too hot:</u> the Beck
“Morning Phase” and the Alabama Shakes album that is
just <u class="">crazy</u> loud. Those nominations
are chosen by <u class="">craft committees</u> the
Recording Academy puts together of the best mixers
and well regarded mastering engineers. I don’t
understand it!</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">Years ago when the mixers started doing
this I would only be supplied with their low level
original mixes (the ones the A&R people and the
artist have <u class="">never</u> heard!). I would
master the album to sound as good as possible and
everyone would report back how small and wimpy it
sounded… and how could someone like me even <u
class="">submit</u> something so bad? We
discovered this insane absurdity of them not
supplying the mastering engineer with the very mixes
everyone but us were listening to and USED TO! Once
I heard what they were hearing everything was fine.
So in short order our front office now asks
specifically to be supplied with the non-smashed
mixes as well as the files everyone else has been
hearing. It has been one of the most unexpected and
disappointing situations. </div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class="">All my best,</div>
<div class="">Bob Ludwig</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
</div>
<div class=""><br class="">
<div class="">
<blockquote type="cite" class="">
<div class="">On Feb 9, 2019, at 10:25 AM, Kevin
Gross <<a
href="mailto:kevin.gross@avanw.com" class=""
moz-do-not-send="true">kevin.gross@avanw.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="">I was surprised to
learn from Bob Ludwig's quotes that loudness
normalization has not been successful at
stemming the loudness war. Are others here
in agreement with this assessment?
<div class=""><br class="" clear="all">
<div class="">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr" class="">Kevin Gross -
AVA Networks</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br class="">
</div>
</div>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<pre><font class="3D""" face="3D"Courier"">
If you want good sound on your album, come to
Bob Katz 407-831-0233 DIGITAL DOMAIN MASTERING STUDIO
Author: <b>Mastering Audio</b>
<a href="https://www.digido.com/" moz-do-not-send="true">Digital Domain Website</a>
No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number
of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.</font>
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</blockquote>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<pre><font class="3D""" face="3D"Courier"">
If you want good sound on your album, come to
Bob Katz 407-831-0233 DIGITAL DOMAIN MASTERING STUDIO
Author: <b>Mastering Audio</b>
<a href="https://www.digido.com/">Digital Domain Website</a>
No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number
of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.</font>
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