@krivium: Forget dynamic range, there are more serious issues lurking. At one time people like Blumlein could make excellent recordings in one pass because musicians actually knew how to play their instruments. The whole need for this "recording industry" and its fake stereo made by panning multiple mono inputs (thus losing all phase information and ambience) came about thus. Welcome to rock 'n roll.
I thought we were talking about the grail for the perfect loudspeaker.
The task for the speaker designer is an objective one - a speaker that correctly reproduces the input signal without adding or subtracting anything to/from it.
A speaker design can objectively be measured / tested in an anechoic room, and in Toole's Spin-o-rama.
In the quest for that objectively perfect speaker, the mastering engineer isn't necessary - as the task of the mastering engineer is a subjective one, not an objective one.
If the task of the mastering engineer was an objective one, mastering engineers wouldn't have their own sound, and there would be objective tests for their results. There aren't, it's a matter of taste.
So - we need speaker designers/builders to build the perfect speaker according to scientific standards, and only *then* give it to the mastering engineer to do with it as she/he pleases.
If the mastering engineer thinks the perfect speaker doesn't sound good for them, it's either their room, setup, skills or their ears.
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I'm not agaisnt you. 😉
The fact that at one point the musicians had to switch from touring and playing everynight a set to then record an album to the inverse is something i keep on saying ( for years) as the main issue with the quality of what we listen to! 😉
To be totally honest i mostly doesn't care about the technical side of things when i listen to interesting music: the message and what the artist have to say is the point.
Of course i can ( and still) admire some technicals skills deployed by people to make great music ( i'm a fan of Massive Attack as an eg) and can even find them to be the point on some genres but... if it is hollow message it doesn't get interesting fast. (edit: i loose interest fast)
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Boom
In other words stop with the double blind bull, and give us what we want.
Like I said, do what the mastering engineers say....and get over it. How long did it take us to get here....did I do it faster than Floyde?
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Wait WHAT?
Are you okay? You've completely misunderstood what I wrote, and you're completely misrepresenting what I wrote.
Read it again please. We DON'T need mastering engineers to build the perfect speaker.
We DON'T need to listen to mastering engineers to be able to build the perfect speaker.
We know what defines a perfect speaker, we have scientific setups to test our speakers against that definition.
We don't need a pompous *** sitting next to us thinking him/her saying "it needs to be transparent" is a brilliant addition to our work.
The speaker builder builds the perfect speaker, and only when that's done, it's handed over to the pompous ***.
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Mastering Engineer - "we need speaker designers/builders to build the perfect speaker according to scientific standards"
Floyde - "A perfect loudspeaker cannot always sound good- until all mix/mastering engineers use such speakers"
Both of you are saying what I've said....Mastering engineers need the perfect speaker....some still don't agree.
Floyde "Only if we have neutral loudspeakers in the production environment and neutral loudspeakers in the home reproduction environment, will we get out of this, unfortunate circle of confusion" "Good sound is coming"
Floyde - "A perfect loudspeaker cannot always sound good- until all mix/mastering engineers use such speakers"
Both of you are saying what I've said....Mastering engineers need the perfect speaker....some still don't agree.
Floyde "Only if we have neutral loudspeakers in the production environment and neutral loudspeakers in the home reproduction environment, will we get out of this, unfortunate circle of confusion" "Good sound is coming"
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- So after we get all objectional material out of the way here comes the subjective aspects....
Oh ofcourse mastering engineers need perfect speakers.
The thing is we don't need mastering engineers to build perfect speakers.
it's a laudable desire to seek perfection but wandering the streets at night supplicating others for a solution seems wasted effort and time misspent rather than finding the answers for yourself,no?
I need to marinate on this. Some how/where the human element is still needed, and the Mastering Engineers are the best Seasoning to add to the recipe. There is some type of subjectional information that the loudspeaker designers need, and they would be wise to get it from the Mastering Engineers. I know that we said that " the perfect speaker according to scientific standards" is the objective goal. There has got to be a subjectional aspect to the design, scientific analysis can only go so far before it comes fringe theory, which is subjectional...The loudspeaker designer side should know what these topics are.
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it's subjective....not subjectional damn it...it's harder to convey complex ideas when language is misused.
this seems to be heading into the atypical subjective vs objective argument....
this seems to be heading into the atypical subjective vs objective argument....
in thinking about it some of these pic's of mastering studios they only appear to have one pair of monitors, so how do these guys expect to develop a product that should sound good on various playback media and devices when there seems to be nothing else available for that purpose?
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Hi Turk,
This comes to habits of this particular field. It could be resumed to ' as close to perfect is my monitors and because i know them ( and my room) i am able to make quality assesment with them and the correction the source signal needed'.
An other point suggested by B.Katz is that multiple loudspeakers may induce your client in 'error' as he doesn't know the difference between them.
All this can be argued upon, but this is the habit...
That said once done ( the mastering) serious engineer ask the client to listen results on his/her own equipment ( hifi, car, whatever,...) to agree on choices made. And they keep everything recallable to change things.
One of the guy i worked with had a mini hifi chain ( Consumer hifi with tiny speakers Sony or Jvc or Samsung) which always had loudness on and was set to a defined level on which he validate his work...always. He called them 'le juge de paix'.
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So there it is - you just don't like the idea of people being able to build speakers without your "mastering engineer" input.
So even if someone properly scientifically measures his design and uses that as input, you want to have the last say, overriding the measurements.
That's fine, but then you're making a speaker that is not aimed at transparency, but at your preference.
That is NOT the "perfect" speaker then, as it doesnt reproduce the input signal without adding or subtracting from it.
After all, you want the mastering engineer to add their personal preference.
There are very good plugins that can simulate cheap earbuds, car environment, radio station compression etc.
If the studio setup is good, you can simulate bad environments / equipment.
If it's bad, you can't simulate a good environment 🙂
No, its just that I feel like this template of design could be applied to anything, not just building Mastering Monitors. In order to build the best cars, you would want to include race car drivers, for example...pretty much any group who is going to be pushing your design to the limits...you want their input.
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Its even harder when people accusing others of using words word wrong, like "subjectional" and "mastering engineer" but they themselves are wrong...
Subjectional | Definition of Subjectional by Merriam-Webster
Subjection | Definition of Subjection by Merriam-Webster
So now that thats cleared up, this doesn't have to be
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