Ableton Forum

funny how it mentions that lily allen album. that thing sounds like such garbage... pure limiting distortion. too bad because the production underneath sounds like it could be really good

Beatport wrote:funny how it mentions that lily allen album. that thing sounds like such garbage... pure limiting distortion. too bad because the production underneath sounds like it could be really good

yeah marks stuff is nice, i'd love to have a unmastered version.
what record companies need to understand is that loud records only have impact for about 10 listens.
take pendulums hold your colour which is very hot. listening to that album now is just boring, it has no impact.

That last Nelly Furtado record sounds especially bad with respect to loudness/limiting.

Worst I ever heard was the Chemical Bro's greatest hits, ungh that was awful.

Good to see this issue is at least getting out there in the public more. I spend a lot of time mastering other people's music, always drives me nuts when they want it louder even though it sounds worse. I've had to ruin some terrific songs because the producer couldn't be made to understand that the songs they were comparing their's too are way too squashed.

I had sat down with some of bands before and after the mastering process...
In General the master sounds worst than the mixes...the band sounds weak compared to the Singer... Sounds like he's doing karaoke on top of the band's recording...but they want to be 'heard' on the radio... and that's standard for pop/rock sound these days...LOUD...
(latest one I heard was done in a big place in NYC, by a well respected,mastering engineer for a large sum of money...won't name names)

I also found that a lot of times,tracks on compilations sound way worst than the original LP...
This is the result of (bad) mastering as well....

Comps are usually double mastered unfortunately, mastered once originally, then they master the whole comp again, lame...

this is part of why i find all the requests about how to master songs funny. leaving aside the "if you have to ask, get someone else to do it" aspect of the issue, most people's tracks would be better off without what currently passes for mastering.

Totally overused garbage.
Specially when it's done digitally (and it's all over the place, at the moment).

dj superflat wrote:this is part of why i find all the requests about how to master songs funny. leaving aside the "if you have to ask, get someone else to do it" aspect of the issue, most people's tracks would be better off without what currently passes for mastering.

could'nt have said it better

+1

yeah, this mastering issue is a wierd one,
I personally like my tracks to be mastered pretty tightly, but I dont like them super-compressed.
When I sent an album off to my mastering engineer I got the first master back and said to him "I need more limiting please" He went mad and started this rant off about how people dont understand the plight of a mastering engineer and how he refuses to ruin a perfectly good album etc etc...
I just told him thats what I was paying him for.

He reluctantly did the job.

Agreed, it's like people asking how they can use Live's plug ins to master their songs. Or when people talk about using multiband compression and another compressor, and a limiter on their tunes for mastering. Not to sound all elitist or anything, but if you ask that, you obviously don't know what mastering is. I'm sure a professional could make a tune sound better using those tools, but they're really not the right tool for the job.

Mastering your own music is the easiest thing in the world, because ideally all you need to worry about is the mixdown. If you have your mixdown sorted, all you'll need to do is add a touch of limiting (about 3dB depending) and dither to 16bit and you're set. Any other issues mean you need to go back and fix or adjust the mixdown.

There should be a rule that you can't use anything more than 1 limiter to master your songs, so people stop focusing on mastering before they truly have mixing sorted.

thesimulatedcity wrote:yeah, this mastering issue is a wierd one,
I personally like my tracks to be mastered pretty tightly, but I dont like them super-compressed.
When I sent an album off to my mastering engineer I got the first master back and said to him "I need more limiting please" He went mad and started this rant off about how people dont understand the plight of a mastering engineer and how he refuses to ruin a perfectly good album etc etc...
I just told him thats what I was paying him for.

He reluctantly did the job.

LOL, clients like you drive me crazy Luckily I only have a couple like that, the rest are more concerned with good sounding music versus loud sounding music.

Funny how many people nowadays use the term "Mastering" when they really mean "compress the shit out of..." When was the last time anyone asked what EQ they should use for mastering?

"Mastering" does not begin & end with a compressor/limiter - hell, if you're a really good mix engineer, you shouldn't need to compress the final mixes at all. That should be handled in the mixing stage anyway.

In reality, of course...different days, different studios, different whatever often makes those steps in mastering necessary. But "Mastering" is creating the final product - sequencing the material & making minor tweaks to the overall sound.

Anything really seriously wrong should be sent back to the mixer to fix - if you think "fix it in the mix" is a bad idea (it is), fixing it at the mastering stage is even worse!