Turn It UP!!
By way of self-proclaimed Lo-Fi Pop Super Star Scott Andrews - comes this short YouTube video demonstrating how music is having the life squashed out of it in the mastering process.
The process used for my Solo CD "Outre" - (available July 9th) was very old school. Record to tape, mix to tape, master from tape to CD. I specifically told the mastering engineer NOT to make "loudness" a priority at all.
Joe Gastwirt - the mastering engineer on OUTRE would have talked me out of trying to make it a loud record with this type of music - what he calls - "an awt rechud" (imagine a pleasant NY jewish accent) .
In fact - there's very little compression used in mastering on Outre at all.
This was freaky for me - I admit.
It's still a little tough for me to accept. I'm in radio. Radio is built on compression. Gobs of it. All the music that comes in has every last digital bit CRAMMED to 0db. Honestly it all sounds like shit.
It's really hard for me to UN-HEAR what too much compression & brick-wall limiting is doing to music - even heavy music. The loudness wars are over and the music listener has lost. Over mastered, over compressed music is fatiguing to listen to.
Of course - the thinking goes that if your music is on an iPod or CD changer with other louder music - no one will want to listen to your music if it isn't as loud.
The implication behind this is that everyone wants to hear music louder - and no one is able to adjust the volume level on their own so it's best to do it in mastering.
The problem with almost ALL of today's "mastered" LOUD music is that you can't turn it down.
You can't find a spot on the volume control where all the dynamics and life come back once it's been squashed to hell.
Of course everyone is going to do what they will with their music when it comes to mastering. For Outre - I chose to go in the opposite direction from the prevailing methods - some may argue too far.
Who knows - it's all a matter of taste.
Until it isn't any more. And I think that's where mastering for LOUD has gotten.