case in point, we just finished listening to a "Mastered Copy" of our
freshly completed CD. I flat out said it sucked, and not to accept it. Too
much compressionand way too much gain... it lost all of it's feeling, no
dynamics when a part goes to a soft melody....arrrrgggggh, I told Eric to
just remix it again on ProTools at home, his mix still sounded better than
these guys who we just used. So disappointed right now...
Markk
You've nailed it right on the head-- long durations of highly clipped and
compressed music is very taxing. The worst part is that you can't just turn
it down to eliminate the effect; it's still terribly taxing. My
understanding is that this isn't typically the fault or the band, but more
often the record label ordering the mastering engineers to make it LOUDER
becasuse LOUDER IS BETTER!!!! <ahem> This is a fairly recent trend, which
is why your records don't hurt, and live shows don't have evil mastering
engineers.
(And no, not all mastering engineers are evil.)
I've read that Rush's latest CD (whatsitcalled-- afterburn something or
other?) falls prey to this unfortunate trend. From my own collection, I've
noticed that Madonna's "Music" is somewhat taxing. I can't recall others
off the top of my head.
When it comes to this nasty habit, I'd rather listen to grinding,
head-splitting, noise puke, ala Merzbow or Aube... at least then I know what
I'm getting into. ;)
--PBr