I totally agree with you on the compression issue. It's so easy
to do more
damage than good.
I can't tell you how many times I have rolled into a gig and
seen the sound company run the PA's mains through one of
those Beheringer Composers with the Rack cover attatchment
so no one can set the knobs... It blows the mind. I like to ask the
front of house person if he thinks the pa sounds good with that
brick wall limiting.
Howard
--- In
motm@yahoogroups.com, "Markk W. Roberts"
<motmmarkk@c...> wrote:
> 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