First of all - sorry it's been a bit quiet here recently. I'm busy with several new projects behind the scenes, which I'll be able to tell you more about when they're ready. However I've been posting several things elsewhere that might interest Mastering Media readers.
If you follow me on Twitter or read my Production Advice blog, you'll already know about these, but just in case, here they are.
I've written a guest post for the RecordProduction.com blog, on a familiar topic for regular readers:
(If you don't already know about RecordProduction.com, DON'T visit the main site unless you have several hours to kill. Seriously. Over 175 high-definition video interviews with top producers, interviewed by people who know exactly what they’re talking about. This is audio geek heaven !)
There are also a couple of posts from Production Advice which you may like:
and it's follow-up
Please feel free to check them out !
5 comments:
Very thoughtful post. One point for Spotify obviously! :)
Went through the article about how to sound great on the radio. I may be wrong, but I don't think someone should master keeping Radio in mind at all. It's impossible to have an album which will be under the threshold of every single radio station out there, everyone is bound to have slightly different settings. I think if people can just accept the fact that the character of their song is going to change somewhat once it hits the airwaves, and create mixes that sound great and dynamic on their own, radio or no radio, then they'll sound great on the radio as well. But that's just my opinion.
That's my point, really - maybe it wasn't clear in the post. Do what sounds best for the track, and it will sound great on the radio, if the levels are "reasonable".
Because you need to be careful - if you make things too dynamic, the broadcast limiters will be working hard in a different way, and the job they do won't be as good as decent mastering.
i was looking to see the article but couldnt find it the link goes to the homepage of recordproduction.com. Was disappointed as I noticed a few tracks I listened to on spotify seemed to be pushed a bit harder in terms of mastering and tracks sounded generally louder (and ocasionally distorted) on it compared to the tracks I had on my normal Iphone library. Whats up with that? Am I imagining this?
Hi Paul,
RecordProduction got hacked recently and the blog is partially offline - keep an eye out and it should come back !
Spotify can't make Loudness casualities sound better - but because the replay levels are evened out by ReplayGain, it removes the incentive to make things loud.
If you have "Set the same volume level for all tracks" switched OFF, then really loud stuff will actually sound worse, because there are inter-sample peaks in the decoded audio which have to be removed.
With "Set the same volume level for all tracks" ON, loud tunes are reduced in level, so this shouldn't happen - quality should be rough;y equivalent to other mp3 players.
Hope that helps,
Ian
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