Mix and Master Best Practices (with Darcy Proper)

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Music heard:
Chris Lightcap - Zero Point Five from "Chris Lightcap's SuperBigmouth"
listen to Zero Point Five on Spotify

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:11

Hi everyone and welcome to Making Final at MasterDisc. I'm Scott Hull, Chief Engineer and Owner of MasterDisc, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with a colleague of mine, a mastering engineer, Darcy Proper of Proper Print Sound. Welcome, Darcy.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Thanks, Scott, and thanks for having me. Uh thanks for chatting with me today.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

My pleasure. My pleasure. This is gonna be this is gonna be fun. I've been looking forward to this. People would love to ask the question, how do I prepare my mix for mastering? What do I need to do to make it sound good, you know, if it's going to be properly mastered? Um we've kind of um seen that process fail more often than it really should, given the fact that everyone's got access to really good information. But what are you seeing? What is the one or two, you know, big um uh mistakes that you know your average mixer is doing that uh that's making it hard for you to achieve you know greatness in mastering?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I I think this is an old one. I think if you ask any mastering engineer, you'll you'll get the same answer. Um one of the things that that makes it very difficult as a mastering engineer right now is even okay, let's let's say the mixes are quite good. Um but and the mixer has even uh gone so far as to understand that there is a mastering process uh happening behind mixing. So they do whatever you know bus compression they need to pull the mix together in the way that they want it to feel and to sit, but they they haven't limited it and and all of that sort of stuff. They've left room for mastering. But then in order to get that mix approved, and believe me, I do understand the pressure to get that mix approved, um, being married to a mix engineer, um, they uh they will very often have to send some kind of a limited reference, a louder reference of the mix to all of the people involved in the project, uh very often people in the record label as well, not just the creative people in the in the project.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Let me make sure everyone understands why do they need to do that.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Uh it is because very often the people who are making the decision to approve the mixes or not, um maybe um how should I put this? They they don't fully understand the difference between a finished mix and a mastered mix. Uh so the tendency is for those people who are not aware and don't have the experience of uh recognizing that difference, um, the tendency is for them to compare the mix for approval uh with a commercially mastered and already released product that is similar, shall we say, you know, a similar genre, you know, what what they're saying, somebody wants to sound like the next pink or something, you know, so okay, let's uh let's compare this mix with the CD of Pink and uh see uh see where we land. And the biggest difference between the mix and the mastered version will probably be loudness. Um and a big difference in loudness is very difficult for the casual listener to listen through. Um, you know, really ideally things should be level matched and then you can can really get an idea how to compare them with each other. But unless something is really truly broken, the the tendency will be for the louder one to sound better. Um so mix engineers are painted a bit into a corner where they they have to do something or they're never going to get their mixes approved. And I would say the um yeah, the unfortunate thing is that some of them then really go way too far uh when they create that limited reference. And as a mastering engineer, it is nearly impossible to get an approval on a mastered version that is not as loud as the limited reference that has been sent by the mix engineer.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

So I I would, you know, so I would say for for for mix engineers, if they can work with us a little bit, and yes, we understand you have to send the limited version to for listening, but please limit it as little as possible. Please make it uh only as loud as necessary to get your mix approved.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

I know it seems from from our perspective, it seems like that should be um e easy. Um the l the listeners here must n not understand. Um because you you would you think, well, why can't they just turn the level up? Well it it it seems we've gotten so simple collectively as a as a record industry that if your record isn't as loud as the other guys' record, you you think it's defective. Think there's something wrong with it. And and mixers have literally lost the opportunity to, you know, uh have have uh lost shootouts and have have um and not gotten their mixes approved simply because they didn't put that kind of limiting on. The um but your point about uh um uh sending back a master that's lower uh level than than the one that they think they've been listening to, the the master, the mixer that they've been listening to is that's devastating. Uh both also very disheartening when you put a lot of effort into sending back something that sounds great and they and the comment to something like, well, yeah, you know, it it kind of feels pretty good, but it's 3 dB lower than the mix. Yeah. And because they in their mind they were listening to the mix, but what they were listening to was this elevated mix. I I don't know how to fix that.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I I don't know how to fix it either, except that if we all, you know, if if we can all sort of work to find that happy medium, and I do really, really understand the frustration of a mix engineer who's prepared a great mix because sometimes the actual mix that I get is really good. And then you know, the then they send it off, you know, yeah, yeah, but it's not loud enough. So then they, you know, then they limit it 3 dB, and yeah, yeah, but it's still not loud enough. And so then they go, now what the hell, and they limit it 9 dB and they send it off. And of course, then it blows the doors off the people with the approval uh decision. And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's perfect. But yeah, so that that difference between 3 dB limiting and 9 dB of limiting um has now just destroyed the the uh potential for the mastering engineer to deliver something that actually sounds like music in the end.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Well, that's it. It doesn't really sound much like music, and it it's really um i it it betrays the whole process. It uh in other words, it takes all of that uh you know, days and years, uh days and weeks and years of of effort to get that thing sounding great and really kind of throws it all away um for the sake of uh of a dynamic range that uh you know um if if you've listened this far on the podcast, I I know you kind of get it. So we're I kind of get that we're kind of uh preaching to the choir, but um communication is usually the big big factor in this. Um I've I've seen it both ways where mix engineers will accept your um comments and and make uh and make uh appropriate adjustments, and other times when uh the mixers really dig in their heels and um um and refuse to. Um for me it seems to have been uh a function of how well the mixer was paid. If someone feels like they've kind of done a discount product um and you know they got an approval from their client, but now this mastering engineer comes along and tells them that their mix isn't right. Um I've had some people really dig in their heels about it. I I I think it's a mistake because they're the uh the artist has to decide whether they're going to trust the mixer or trust the mastering engineer. And um uh uh anyway, uh personally I'm always you know trying to just find the best the best sound possible and trying to not insult anybody in the process. But have you found a similar thing?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, I mean I I really value the that dialogue um, you know, with with the artist themselves and uh and certainly with the mix engineer. Um, you know, I want them to be happy because of course, you know, they they work hard on something and then they hand it off to somebody whom they may or may not know very often. It's not the mix engineer who decides who's going to be mastering the record. And you know, their name is going on it too, so I want them to be able to be uh to be proud of it. Um, you know, and I do I do sympathize, I do really understand, you know, everybody's got schedules to keep and that kind of thing. And if you've been sort of underpaid and henpecked the entire time during the mix process, I can really understand why you're not open to any more advice after uh after you've finally gotten an approval uh uh from your client. You know, it's uh we we're we're all humans and we all have our our limits. Um, but it it it is a really wonderful thing when that dialogue can exist. Um I've had situations where um uh it's it's a slightly different situation, but I've had situations that I find very frustrating, which are somebody has asked me in advance of the mastering session to listen to their mixes and to um to give some comments. Now, this is somebody, this is a case where the the artist is the recording engineer and is the mix engineer, and you know, so he he wanted my comments and and uh wanted my perspective on it. Um and you know, it takes time to listen to something. Um, you know, it's it's not like we can listen to something while we're busy working on something else, because the stuff that we're working on is what's occupying the speakers, you know. So in order, in order for a mastering engineer to sit down and listen to something and give an evaluation on something, it it takes quite a lot of time. Um and you know, to find to find the the right comments to make and the right way to present those comments, you know, um, you know, this sucks is not a particularly constructive comment. So, you know, you need to give you more, you know, more uh productive feedback than that, uh shall we say.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Very turkey because we don't know what what that mixer was handed. Um, you know, uh how well recorded the tracks were before they started mixing.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Uh they don't know exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

It's a it's a very effective uh tool to use for this pre-mastering evaluation, and uh I I do it quite often.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

What's frustrating in this situation, and it's happened more than once, is that somebody will bother to ask my feedback and then completely ignore it. Um, you know, i in in this case uh the snare was about 60 B too loud, straight up the middle, and sitting, you know, right on top of the vocal for um it was a I think a six-song EP. And um so in it was in all six tracks. And I said, listen, you know, the the the rest of it's good. I like the songs, the you know, the the vibe is cool, but the snare is way too loud, and that's not something I can elegantly uh solve in mastering because it's right up the middle and it's you know sort of the same frequency range as the guitars and the vocals, and you know, there's you know, a db or so we can fudge somehow, but you know, when it's really six dB, there's there's not much I can do that's going to solve that problem. So the guy went to all the trouble of staying up till about four in the morning before the uh before he arrived for the for the mastering session the next day. So he arrived broken, had reprinted all of the mixes, but the one thing that he hadn't done was the one thing that I had suggested as being important. And um, you know, if you're going to uh you know, if you're gonna ask somebody to spend the time to give you an evaluation, and that evaluation was unpaid because I had the expectation that I would be working on the on the EP, um, you know, if you're if you're gonna ask them to put in the time to do it, then you know you don't have to agree with every bit of it, but uh you know, you should kind of I think keep it in mind. And if you're if you're gonna stay up till four in the morning making adjustments, maybe one of the things you should adjust is the is the thing that was recommended to you by your mastering evaluation.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Well, no, just put a limiter on it and call it good. And uh uh I'm kidding, of course. There's uh there's no uh there's no quick fix.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Um the uh No, no, and what and what happened in this circumstance is even more frustrating because he you know he had a fixed budget. It was uh, you know, and what once I agree to take on a project, once I agree on the budget, um usually the the compromises are sort of uh a flexibility in time is necessary, you know. Like if I get a a full paid session coming in, you know, that's urgent, then the the budget session has to has to be bumpable, shall we say. It has to be able to wait a coup a couple of days. Because I'm not really able to compromise on the quality of the mastering. You know, what w what what once I sit down to do it, then I have to do it. I'm just one of these I think most mastering engineers are, just one of these compulsive people where, you know, okay, I've agreed to do this, the price doesn't matter anymore. It now has to be done to the best of my ability.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

So I say the same thing. That's why I was chuckling. I just don't know how to do a cheap mastering.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

No, so you know, so the compromises have to be so somewhere, you know, if the if the if you agree to take on a project at all and it there is a bit of a compromise in the budget, then the compromise has to be, you know, somewhere else because quality is not, you know, is not really uh something that is compromisable for some of us obsessive, compulsive sort of folks. And yeah, you know, um now where was I oh so the uh the thing is uh because this was on a fixed budget, he eventually came around to the idea that, you know, yeah, the things that I could do to to affect the level of the snare relative to the vocal and everything else was were not ideal. And so one by one over the coming three months, he ended up reprinting all of his mixes, and I ended up, you know, remastering them again. But you know, so instead of sitting down and working on an EP for a few hours and and having it done, it was done, you know, sort of in one-hour increments over, you know, like three months. And um, but in the end, they all ended up being replaced because really there isn't a solution sometimes in mastering for for everything.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

That's yeah, that that's come up with me recently as well. They i it's interesting that I've had two completely opposite um problems that have that have come up and and to the point where now I have to actually think a little bit about how we word our our our our offering to do a pre-mastering evaluation. In one case, um someone sent me um I've heard you sure you've heard before, something that sounded um way more like a rough mix than a than a final mix. I mean it was this stuff was all out of the place, uh out of place. Um inappropriate inappropriate or missing effects, you know, not enough compression on tracks. Like kind of stuff that you know a good mixer would have would have never sent in a mix or even an in the first place. It was just it was kind of what I would call a you know faders up at zero kind of mix. It was where you just you open up the tracks, you move all the faders up to nominal, you know, now that that can that can work, but then you need to have a damn good recording engineer. Well, yes, yes. Usually if if the if the recording guy uh or girl uh did the did the uh mix as well, they would they would have figured that in place. But that wasn't the case here. And so their expectation was that you know I would uh be able to provide them enough input to to more or less remotely mix the project for them, which I found out is a hell of a lot harder than actually mixing the project. Um trying to guess what they're using and what tools they have and what they're listening to. We went back and forth three or four times and I and the mixes got better, and I wasn't unenthusiastic about trying to help them. Um, you know, we did um I I hadn't negotiated a a fixed price on this. It was a a per song per valuation, which was still very uh modest, but at least it put a little bit of money in the in the um in the jukebox so that we could, you know, I could keep working on it.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Live to work another day, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

But then uh then so I I so I thought, well, maybe I should change my uh my my wording a little bit so that people wouldn't have you know be expecting too much from these evaluations. And then someone else came along and sent me something that was absolutely fine, ready to be mastered. I had no commentary that I needed to make, and I went ahead and mastered the record for them, and they were so disappointed that I haven't given them comments that they could use to improve the mix to the point where they wanted the the their money back. They really kind of stumped here. You the mix was fine. I and you they like and this is the other kicker, they actually liked the mastering. Um and I think, well, this doesn't make any sense. So now I'm getting a little gun chybe, but but we'll definitely keep doing mixed evaluations and and helping people get the most out of their record of just you know, some people are a little crazy. That's often.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

I mean, you know, i if you get a mixed evaluation, it's nice if you, you know, maybe if you follow at least some of the advice. And you know, there's a difference between getting an evaluation uh, you know, and expecting the mastering engineer to sort of mix the record for you by remote control or what have you, you know. So yeah, if we could all find that happy medium, you know.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

I wanted to touch on a thing that um that I've heard a couple times from mixers, and I'm flattered when it comes up, it's just it's unfortunate that it's come to this point. Um so you know, Joe does a record, you know, and Bill mixes it and gives it back to Joe, and Joe sends it off to Mastering, and it's kind of overcooked, it's overlimited, and I say back to Joe, can you can we have a discussion with Bill um about about his mix? Is it possible? Is it a re is it an in-the-box mix? Could he just you know like back off on the bus compression a little bit? And then the first conversation with Bill is we we talk on the phone, he goes, Well, if I knew he was gonna send it to a real mastering engineer, I wouldn't have done any of that. Um because what from their perspective, what's happening is if they send the master uh the mix to the client and the client is either going to skip mastering or gonna send it off to some you know $50 track, you know, super budget, you know, uh uh mastering process, they want to try to finalize it as much as they can, kind of bulletproof it, right? And um uh it's it's really bad for the project when uh uh when it actually is going to somebody that's gonna take some care with it. So it's it comes down to the same thing, communication and understanding uh with the process really uh solves that problem. But that's not the only time that's happened where the mix engineer then uh isn't is just not given enough information to do the best job that they can do.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah, I've I've had that I I've had that s exactly that same same story happen when uh when I first moved moved to Europe, I I worked uh uh for example uh on a project for uh a mix engineer out of Berlin, and he sent me his mixes, and it was the same kind of thing. They're just heavily limited, and really nothing much that I could do with them, but I could hear that that these are good mixes. You know, you uh a good mix heavily limited is is still a good mix, you know. It just it doesn't leave you anything that that you can do with it. And it was almost word for word the same uh kind of thing when I called him and uh, you know, I said, listen, um, you know, I think these mixes are quite good, but but there's not a whole lot I can do with them uh in terms of mastering uh in the state they're in. I said, Did you happen to print versions, you know, with with less limiting? And could I uh, you know, could I possibly get those from you? And he had, in fact, uh uh printed uh printed the other versions. And uh I said, listen, you know, if you're worried, let me do one of the tracks for you, I'll send it back to you and you let me know which you're happier with. And and I sent uh I sent the version back from the less limited mix, which allowed me to do more in mastering. And he um you know, it was the same thing. He said, Yeah, he said, I'm sorry, you know, I'm um um I you know I didn't realize that they were gonna send this to a quote unquote real mastering engineer. And uh so he's he said, I've really gotten in in the habit of having after having my stuff messed up so many times and just going out in the wide world, you know, sounding disastrous, I've done everything I can to um to bulletproof stuff before it leaves my hands.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

And um and yeah, that's uh the that's sort of a sad uh statement on the on the state of mastering, I guess, you know, that uh yeah, because it it it makes everyone think that that's all mastering is is this um you know it's it's it's not just loud what we do isn't just loud and isn't just you know limiting and compressing. It's it's helping um factor in a whole lot of uh of elements. I I won't get into it too much uh because we'll be here for three days. A lot of details we could be there for another day talking about this stuff. Um but it's uh but it's very true and very important that our tools, the the trickery of mastering, the little whatever little black art that you know we we admit it is is in it simply is experience, but let's call it black art because people like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

That's it sounds cooler anyway.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah, exactly. But God forbid we should ever be a there should be an expert you know at this that actually knows what actually is better. But um the um those tricks that That we do those things that we do that make it sound like the music is jumping out of the speakers, um, can't be done if the mix is already limited. We could actually get it to the same level, um, or nearly, sometimes nearly to that same output level. And in many cases, we can make it appear that loud, but have it not be limited so much. Yeah, so it it does both it jumps out of the speakers and it's competitive, and it's I mean, I'm sure I'm sure we we we like each other's work, so I'm I'm sure you've uh uh taken a similar approach and really try to get it to be feel competitive but still retain as much of its dynamic as possible.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, and and in mastering, of course, we we have uh a lot of the tools are similar to what uh what mix engineers are using, but they we tend to have uh I dare I say we we tend to have fewer of them, of course, because we're dealing with fewer channels, but they also tend to be of a very high quality. You know, if you're gonna run somebody's entire mix through some gear, you really have to be sure that the gear that you're working with is uh is very high quality and not doing damage in the process. So, you know, we might have more elegant ways of getting loud than um you know than than what the mix engineer has at his disposal, uh particularly, you know, when when so much of their processing power and that kind of thing is being used to to create the mix itself, you know.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Um it reminded me of a a recent project where the um we came to find out after after the evaluation and kind of like the the client that uh actually was a little once I brought it to our attention that the mix was kind of flatlined and kind of uh you know overly limited and maybe a little louder than it really needed to be, and they asked me how do we fix it? Well, we have to fix the mix. Um come to find out the mix engineer had about twelve things on the mix bus.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Um including um just just uh a very subtle you know tape effect and a subtle distortion effect, and then uh one limiter to deal with the one element and another lim uh uh to deal with another element. And the uh what actually ended up happening is we attempted uh I think three different remixes were attempted, um, using you know, bypassing different elements of that chain. And it came down to it that the mix had to be delivered limited like that. The mi the the mix fell apart um in almost every case. Yeah. So it's yeah, I and it's not our role to say, you know, your mix can't be loud. It's it's but it if you're in if you're um knowing that as an artist or as a producer working with a mixer, uh you know, are you confident in them painting the frame around this thing for you? And and because it's indelible. Yeah. Um it's it's not going to be able to undo that level of changes and how much time and effort goes into a a remix or a recall um as opposed to a a mastering tweak. Um it's qu quite easy for us to you know print the masters back off with a little bit more level, a little bit more limiting, but to to go backwards to ask for less um is expensive and and and often can't be done. Like you can't undo the uh the effects of the the of the heavy bus compression.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Yeah, this is this is something that that I run across quite a lot. Um with uh I will say that it's very often with inexperienced um mix engineers. Um you know there there is a fascination with gear and plugins and that kind of stuff, and we're we're all a little bit uh subject to that, you know. I think if we if we weren't, we probably didn't become engineers in the first place, you know. And when I started, it was all about the blinking lights and the VU meters uh uh swinging back and forth and you know, and uh the faders and the whole thing. And it was there was just something really cool about that. But just because you have a tool doesn't mean that you have to use it, you know, all the time and and all of them at once. And um, you know, this is something when I'm giving um uh lectures or seminars to students, you know, about mastering, and and the question comes up how how should we prepare our mixes? What you know, what can we do to make our mixes better for mastering? And and this is a lot of it, you know, especially you're using probably quite a lot of tools in the course of of mixing on the channels themselves, and then you know, then this comes down to your stereo mix. And you know, a little bit of bus compression is uh is not a bad thing if that's what pulls the whole thing together. But if you if you find that on the on the master bus, you're doing you know a round of EQ and then hitting a limiter, and then uh another bit of EQ to make up for what happened in that limiter, and then a bit more limiting to make up for what's happened with that EQ, and then uh, you know, some kind of a tape emulator on top of that, and then a little bit of widening uh after that. You probably find if you start exploring that some of those tools are in there just to undo the detrimental effects of some of the other tools that are in there.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Yes. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, and there might be uh there might be a shorter road to get to the same, or quite possibly a better result.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

It makes it so easy to visualize that this plugin that you're using is changing only that parameter that you're focused on. But it takes a different level of discipline, and I I think all of the great mixers have this, and all of the good mastering engineers and great mastering engineers um have this uh uh uh skill is to be able to ignore for a moment the thing that's actually changing and listen to how it's affecting everything else.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Everything else that you didn't that didn't really need changing in the world.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yeah, that you didn't intend to change. It's it's so easy to ignore that. Um for me personally, I try to tap into just an emotional feeling about it. Um because I try to get past the fact that that's you know 0.75 dB at at uh 2.2 K. I try to get past, try to ignore the fact that it that I know technically what that is. I want to hear the other things that it's changing. Um I've trained a number of uh you know young mix engineers into the art of arts of mastering, and it's one of the harder things to to to um really convey is that you you need to find the simplest path to get your your results. You you might find a result that works for you with you know with 12 plugins, but if I can come in and and do something just as good or even a little better with one or two plugins, and then you start to listen to the difference between the heavily processed and the lesser processed one, you really hear the difference. If you don't take the time to compare it or don't consider that there's an alternate approach, you're you're you're satisfied with the overprocessed one.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah. Every unnecessary tool that's in the chain is adding unnecessary distance between the the artist and the listener.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

You know, it really goes all the way back to good engineering, because that's the case with a mic chain and a and a recording chain and and it it the tools have gotten so much better that you, you know, um many of them, um many of the best ones that I like to use really do very, very, very little destructive work except, you know, uh in that um uh in other words, they even turn off the DSP processing that's not being used. And so you're not running through a four-band equalizer, for instance. You're it's it's the effect of running through just one of those bands if you've if that's the only one you have turned on.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Right, right. But those small things in the in the whole length of the production chain, you know, um, yeah, re recording as you know as directly as possible from you know from the mic to the to the recorded track and getting that sound at the microphone rather than deciding you're gonna fix it with a bunch of processing afterwards and in the mix process as well. And and the same when it comes to us finally uh for mastering, you know, if why use uh five devices if uh if two will do, you know? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

The um it reminds me of um uh a number of times I'll uh we'll find out that some a project wants to use vinyl. You know, in in your case we uh we it there's a lot of decision making it happened in advance, but sometimes I'll I'll be hired to do a digital mastery and then find out later that um they they want to um repurpose the music for vinyl and are committed enough to have me do a separate version. And uh that's nice, yeah. Yeah, and but you know what happens? Almost every single time I do that I I use less EQ and less processing to come up with the analog version. So what I've come to the conclusion is that a good deal of the EQ and a good deal of the sort of you know multi-band, you know, stuff and the the level, the the make it louder kind of stuff that we do, it's all to compensate for the fact that you know we're heavily we're dynamically limiting the music to begin with. In other words, as soon as I take off the limiting and I allow my sort of brain to think about the process as being, well, what would an analog listener want to listen to? I find that you know, uh less EQ, less carving out of the lower mids, less acceleration at the top. It's like instead of making up for all the things that the limiter kind of sucked out of the music, I can just let that happen again. I mean, obviously this is this happens when there was a pretty good mix to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh, but still it's uh it it is a valid point. You know, the what this uh shows us is what we're really uh still losing, uh what we're still really sacrificing for the sake of loudness. You know, if it yeah, it would it would be or hopefully someday will be a wonderful world if we can just say, you know, it sounds really good like this, and not uh, okay, first I have to make sure that I get to this at least minimum target loudness, and then I can start adjusting to compensate for the things that I've lost, the excitement that I've lost by losing that dynamic range, uh going for that loudness. And you know, there is a difference between loudness and excitement, and a difference between, you know, something being dynamic and something uh something just being loud. And I think, as you were saying, I I think a lot of the things we we are doing with processing is trying to bring the excitement back to something that we've kind of killed the excitement for in in the pursuit of loudness. And and when you listen to it with different ears and you think, okay, loudness is is not a factor here, I can just turn the turn up my listening level, then you find that there really isn't so much that had to be done in the first place because the excitement is there already, and and we haven't had to suck the life out of it uh to make it loud.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

The very worst of all is when uh there isn't uh uh an opportunity to repurpose for for vinyl and the digital master is used to cut from now that has already been peak limited, and because of the limitation nah I'm not even gonna use the word limitation, because of the factor of characteristics of vinyl. Characteristics, the the inherent characteristics of vinyl, um it's it's not a format that uh responds well to um high average level, especially if you're trying to squeeze extra um uh music on the side. Um that entire like limited album now has to be turned down sometimes many DB so that the record will so that the music will fit on the side of a record. And now your your peak level is you know you know minus six. But your average level is minus, you know, six and a half. Yeah. Um and it it it nothing uh nothing sounds um less exciting than that. That is just it's so discouraging. And um when uh for uh for the vinyl fans that might listen, you know, the when you hear a record that seems like it's kind of constricted and constrained, it doesn't seem to be jumping out of the speakers and it and it's kind of struggling, um, even though it's kind of even though it's bright and kind of you know got pretty good bottom end, but it just doesn't feel fulfilled, uh that's probably the cause. Uh, that what was used to cut was probably the pro master prepared for digital.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Yeah, and I I find that I find that a shame also for for a lot of times for a lot of my clients for budget reasons, uh they can only afford to have something mastered once. And of course, if if digital is their primary product, then then we get into all the considerations about it being loud enough and sitting in the playlists uh with everything else and you know and and that kind of thing. And it's really hard to talk people away from that. And yeah, then when you know that that's gonna be cut to vinyl, you know that's not gonna be one of those vinyl releases that's you know that's gonna set the listening world on fire. You know, it's it's gonna be a disappointing experience on vinyl. It might already be a disappointing listening experience on on digital. Um, what I do like when I find that clients are going to be releasing on vinyl is that it very often gives me one more argument, along with the loudness normalization that's used for Spotify and and um uh streaming and you know that kind of stuff. It's one more argument for trying to talk them off the ledge a little bit and say, listen, we if if we leave this a bit more dynamic, uh we're not doing any harm for the digital release. In fact, it will sound nicer uh both on the radio and for uh streaming, but uh but it will definitely translate better to vinyl. And yeah, sometimes that's you know, having that argument available. I'm not I'm not saying it's gonna make the difference between 6 dB or or or not, but you know, a couple of dB can make a difference and and it's nice to have that uh nice to have that argument on hand uh to be able to do a nice mastering for both, you know, because the digital uh version will only sound better for for being uh in in most cases, for most styles of music, the digital version will only sound better for being less loud and more dynamic as well.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Yeah. We've never had more opportunities to get HD, you know, digital into people's hands. Um there's just is a consistent uh reluctance uh to allowing dynamics to to flow down the chain. I mean, it's not uh universal, there are people that are doing this right, and certainly uh different genres of music that can are uh allowing their music to be exposed with uh its dyn full dynamic character. But it it reminded me of a of an interaction that I had. Um was working on a on a brass player's record, a different brass player's record from a number number of years ago. And um I was uh I'm a trombonist, so I think I relate to everything as a brass record. Um, but that's just that's just me. But uh it was a friend of mine, um I actually known him uh in college, and uh he had a trombone quartet that they were doing a record for and asked me to master it, and I did a what I thought was a uh a really reasonable and very ordinary kind of uh mastering that I would typically do. And I was really kind of shocked at how how much he didn't like the results, specifically because of the compression that I'd used. And this was really before the Loudness Wars. But what I came to realize is that he is a performer, player, professional um performer, and doesn't work in a um a pro audio in environment. In other words, he's not listening to compressed music all the time, he's listening to acoustic music.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

He's hearing the real thing.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

He plays in a pit, he plays on stage, you know. Yeah, I'm sure jazz ensemble is loud, but you know, uh in the middle of a bassy tune, I mean it's it's you know, you can hear people glasses clinking in the back of the hall, yeah, you know, if somebody's uh play even in a big band record. So um I had to kind of rethink my my ears at that point. Uh what I thought was not a lot of compression to him was way too much compression. And um the more you listen to compressed music, the more you listen to MP3s, the more numb you get to the effects o of it, and the more you almost uh desire it. It's just a the cocaine of of uh of music.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Um I've had those those same comments, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Yeah, it's uh uh there's there's ways of solving it, but you really have to um pursue music uh you know that is deliberately not compressed. Um you know, live acoustic music without sound reinforcement, which is sometimes hard to find these days, um is is a great way to to do that. Um I actually found at one point a little earlier in my career that I was having trouble he hearing the detail of compression that my um that my colleagues were hearing. And I realized that I'd been listening besides playing in a band, I was listening to a lot of radio. And so I just I shot that off and said, no more I'm not we're not forever, but I'm just not gonna listen to the radio for a while. And I'm not gonna um I know I went to a live I went to a couple um acoustic uh classical performances and it it didn't take long. It really only it took less than a week to sort of train my brain. And it went back to that same test that I was trying to uh hear the compression on, and it was clearly obvious. So um it's um you know, I it really is with anything. If you just throw lots of salt on a on your food, um you're gonna become numb to salt and it's everything's gonna feel bland unless you salt it. Same thing if you were um from an Asian or an Indian uh uh background or you know, you and and that spice or that uh uh method of cooking is just gonna wear your palate out. It's really kind of similar uh to listening.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Yeah. I don't know if you've ever listened. This is a bit off topic, but I don't know if you've ever listened to FM radio in your studio.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Ooh. Only um occasionally things like voiceovers and things that were um um yeah, it's a it's it's a pretty aggressive.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

It's it's a quite uh it's a quite ear-opening experience, actually. Um so uh yeah, I I highly recommend it that uh you know just uh uh what is acceptable in your car, you know, what we're used to hearing, you know, yeah, uh uh uh at home while we're uh cooking and uh vacuuming and you know whatever else. Um when you listen to that in a studio environment, it's really um horrifying, I think. And this is you know, it's uh yeah, it's it's it's not to tear down FM radio or anything. Of course, uh you know, all of our clients want all of their stuff to be hits on on FM radio. It's a very important part of the of the industry, but because they have their own version uh of the loudness wars and you know which station sounds the best, which might be the one with the most bass or the one that's the brightest or the the you know the one that's the loudest or whatever, um, you know, they're doing their manipulation to uh to what we're delivering to them. So, you know, if we're delivering stuff that's that's pretty broken, it's very broken by the time it goes through the next uh process for broadcast. But when you when you yeah, when you listen to that in the studio environment, it's really like, oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Yeah, it's it's well it's it's somewhat necessary. I mean, back when DVD audio was being talked about, and we thought that that was going to be our save one of the saviors. Really early on, I heard uh um technical discussions about um level steering and compression results that could be uh set at the mastering engineer stage uh to allow for different playback mediums. Now I'm I'm tossing a bunch of words out, but what it actually meant was that in the mastering session we could determine what like a full-range playback would sound like, and then what a compromised like car playback might sound like, and we would, you know, actually provide what I called steerage or the automation necessary to to affect the recording in a in a constructive way so that it would, you know, so that it could be good for background music or could be good at in a hi-fi uh environment. Unfortunately, the format died um uh you know uh uh uh well before any of that stuff was achieved, but the idea still remains in my head that we really could be providing um optimized results uh for these different playback um uh uh uh environments instead of instead of selecting you know um fake F uh effects on your Dolby digital uh decoder, you know, stereo decoder at home, you know, maybe um I I always like the concept or the the description um of um nighttime uh rental uh uh no even evening playback, you know, with a f with a family uh versus uh lease buster, which you know if you play playback uh um 1812 overture with no dynamic consideration uh limits on it whatsoever, um you probably get a call from the landlord landlord. Um but but on the other setting, you know, you might not wake up the baby. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Uh well I mean, you know, uh it it is a fact also, you know, for for broadcast broadcast limiters are absolutely necessary. I mean, they just keep the you know, uh otherwise the the the one station is constantly trespassing. on the on the uh airspace of uh of the the other station and you know the fines for that uh are ridiculous so you know those uh what has to happen also for radio broadcast is necessary but as with what we uh often do in um in mastering um what is strictly necessary is i is very often a lot less than what is um uh what has become the norm. I I'm not sure that I'm saying that very clearly you know but in in mastering we we tend we don't need to make stuff as loud as as we do um but we do it because that's sort of become uh become the standard and I think in FM it's the same kind of thing you know um the those broadcast limiters can sound quite transparent and still do their job but then uh but then it doesn't serve the purpose of giving that station its particular sound and loudness and you know and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

So certainly there have been instances where a producer or artist has uh has taken the high road um you know uh as in more dynamics uh and not increasing the average level so much and I don't think there's I haven't read uh a single word of fallout about that um the the only the only comment is that uh it hasn't necessarily uh spurred a um a groundswell of um of uh of interest but I I think the vinyl um record purchase record buyer community um in general um appreciates that and uh um I know of all of the records that I've cut that have been well reviewed uh none of them were cut from um heavily limited masters it just it just doesn't happen um um it uh you know a custom process is really the only way to get somebody's ear and get them really interested in what's going on. Actually a couple of the best reviews things were you know were analog mixes uh some analog recordings and analog mixes and that's simply because um what what happens when you go to analog tape really is almost well the format was built for it. Vinyl was built for an analog tape master and so there there really weren't limitations back there because that back then um well certainly not as significant as as um as as uh some people make it seem how they're perceived now yeah yeah well darcy this has been a wonderful conversation i uh likewise yeah I appreciate you uh you're joining us on the podcast and uh wish you uh nothing but success and and uh in in your new location want to hear all about it when you when you get settled and um I'll sign off now uh you've been listening to making vinyl at MasterDisc today with Darcy Proper. My name is Scott Hull I'm the chief engineer at MasterDisc and I hope you enjoyed the podcast and uh subscribe and we'll we'll give you more we love talking about vinyl thanks again Darcy thanks a lot Scott take care everyone