I can see a great opportunity for the marketer that will start labelling new releases "De-Mastered". 😉
Hugo
Hugo
It’s a trade off - dynamic range vs loudness. One assumes they must have concluded young folks like it loud vs dynamic. On the journeys wars dynamic range database those numbers are not dBs, in case anyone was wondering gee, those numbers don’t look too bad.
One would think - with the digital bandwidths available today - they'd just sell you the masters, along with a "sample mixdown" setting and let you fool with the levels, compressions, EQs to your hearts content from there. They probably think no one would want it, but instead, it'd have a cult following; i.e. so 'n so's "settings" of so 'n so's track being particularly spectacular.
Just give that job to the crowd - fire all the studio mastering engineers - who apparently get it so blatantly wrong anyway.
Just give that job to the crowd - fire all the studio mastering engineers - who apparently get it so blatantly wrong anyway.
Mark Waldrep at AIX Records usually makes a point that they don't use traditional mastering--just mixing down to stereo or 5.1, then off to the download service or the physical disc "glass factory".
When I first heard that, he became an instant hero.
Chris
When I first heard that, he became an instant hero.
Chris
You've now caught up with where some of us were about 2 decades ago.
I am working on some true 'demastering' software, and it has been many years of development AND learning. Most importantly, some of the 'mastering' technology used on digital consumer distributions is 'not normal' relative to conventional compressors/expanders. The basic level of 'mastering' done to CDs and other non-boutique distributions since the middle 1980's can NOT be undone by normal DAW software, not at all. You can layer filter over filter over filter along with using normal attack/release multi-band expanders/compressors, and still cannot do it reasonably accurately at all.
Here is an early article complaining about 'digital sound', yet some of the 'digital' recordingx that were complained about in the 1980's now appear to be acceptable...
https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/I...Billboard-Page-0010.pdf#search="cd mastering"
Believe me, my 'demastering'/'decoder' project has been the source of a lot of real embarassments, but the learning has gone lightyears beyond 'implementing yet another cool RMS detector' or something like that. The progress has been very slow, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. I keep promising that the 'decoder' is only a week or so away, but it seems to keep on taking more and more time. Some day, when it is ready, it will be existence proof of the difficulty of precisely 'demastering' consumer recordings. But, the good result will be the existence proof that better quality can be made available, but requires the distributors to make the decision.
Anyway, non-boutique recordings getting to the consumer are mostly not pure at all. When material is remastered, either from scratch or further processed, it only gets worse.
THE ON-GOING DIGITAL KILLING OF MUSIC MUST BE STOPPED
Thanks for all your postings here showing how deep in trouble the situation really is!
Thanks for all your postings here showing how deep in trouble the situation really is!
I do agree with your view.
But nowadays it would be easy to leave the recordings alone and implement a selectable "f... every good recording" function into any digital playback device.
Regards
Charles
Sure, since remasters started to appear some 25-30 years ago. At that time I understood that I needed to start collecting early CD releases.
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But then you'd have to do something with a whole generation or two of "mastering guys" that believe that their prime directive is to remove dynamic range from recordings in order to make them louder (which no one asked them to do).
Chris
It was also a survival tactic since the industry needed to sell more CDs. I imagine the mastering engineers were/are just following orders.
Sure some mastering guy's don't do their job very well but most of them just do what their CUSTOMERS ASK ( being the artist, label, whoever hired them).
Another point most audiophile don't get: we are in a noise polluted world. Everywhere you are there is background noise, and as such rms level of music as to be upped to stay above that annoying background noise.
Most music is now listened on earbuds, car, smartphone... and clients ASK for this to sound ok. Sadly not for the 1% who own 'pristine' loudspeakers and room.
Bummer but such is business.
I switched back to buy vinyl some 10 years ago to have access to less annoying 'masters' and use my restauration suite to clean the remaining artefacts.
I fear demastering whatever you call it will not be successful as you can't undo dynamic process ( i know because i do the dynamic process at first 🙂 ).
But each one his own...
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I think a clearer statement of a point I made above should be added to my earlier comments on demastering:
Since ~1991, most of the objectionable mastering practices for popular music genres (i.e., typically excluding classical and some jazz genres) have included multiband compression, which is very difficult to undo without having significant dynamics vs. frequency analysis capability coupled with a multiband upwards expander.
Other "dynamic processes" on music tracks produced after ~1991 that have been mentioned here (but curiously not described here in enough detail to understand what is actually occurring) are similarly affected. Good luck with those. Much more limited results are usually achieved using the techniques that I've described above.
I look instead for CDs produced earliest, preferably before the early 1990s. [I am not a consumer of 1990s "alternative rock" genre CDs in general.]
I find that there are a great deal of "reissue" CDs from the 1980s of prior released albums available only in phonograph format, and also those albums newly recorded in the 1980s that respond extremely well to the techniques I mentioned. For my personal music tastes--that's actually a majority of albums that I own in terms of popular music genres.
Albums that I own that were recorded and released after 1991 are usually selected based on a minimum album-average crest factor, typically with minimum DR Database values of 10 or 11, with notable exceptions due to instrumentation/genre (e.g., classical organ, etc.).
Chris
Since ~1991, most of the objectionable mastering practices for popular music genres (i.e., typically excluding classical and some jazz genres) have included multiband compression, which is very difficult to undo without having significant dynamics vs. frequency analysis capability coupled with a multiband upwards expander.
Other "dynamic processes" on music tracks produced after ~1991 that have been mentioned here (but curiously not described here in enough detail to understand what is actually occurring) are similarly affected. Good luck with those. Much more limited results are usually achieved using the techniques that I've described above.
I look instead for CDs produced earliest, preferably before the early 1990s. [I am not a consumer of 1990s "alternative rock" genre CDs in general.]
I find that there are a great deal of "reissue" CDs from the 1980s of prior released albums available only in phonograph format, and also those albums newly recorded in the 1980s that respond extremely well to the techniques I mentioned. For my personal music tastes--that's actually a majority of albums that I own in terms of popular music genres.
Albums that I own that were recorded and released after 1991 are usually selected based on a minimum album-average crest factor, typically with minimum DR Database values of 10 or 11, with notable exceptions due to instrumentation/genre (e.g., classical organ, etc.).
Chris
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As far as the comments about the organizational culture of the mastering of "popular music" profession, my experiences on online forums and in personal conversation with those that self-identify as being employed in that profession has been pretty uniform: they don't acknowledge that most of what they do to music tracks, e.g., "translation" and "commercialization", are not desirable from the standpoint of hi-fi music reproduction. Only one guy that I've conversed with acknowledged the damage done, and he was looking for another profession because he was tired of not being able to be proud of the audio quality of what he produced...
When any of my personal experiences with any of those guys changes, I'll let you know.
Chris
When any of my personal experiences with any of those guys changes, I'll let you know.
Chris
I recall reading the Usenet newsgroup rec.audio.pro circa 1995-2005, and they were VERY unhappy to have to do excessive compression and clipping (!) ordered by producers and marketers and even the musicians themselves. It's not hard to see why, someone driving a car with the window open (a large percentage of CD buyers, not so much for LP) doesn't want to have to turn up the volume for the quiet parts.
Perhaps what the record companies really needed to sell was separate mixes "optimized for driving and party mixes." This may have something to do with the LP renaissance, but I haven't bought a "new" LP in decades, and can't say if they have as much dynamics as previous decades, or any more dynamics than modern CDs - I'm doubtful. The "real" mixes could me marked as "HDR, for home play only" or some such. HDR photographs were all the rage for a short time. But I can imagine the labels not wanting to put out something not "suitable for all systems."
Yes, it's cheap enough to put a compressor in a cassette or CD player, but most people would never figure out what it's for.
Perhaps what the record companies really needed to sell was separate mixes "optimized for driving and party mixes." This may have something to do with the LP renaissance, but I haven't bought a "new" LP in decades, and can't say if they have as much dynamics as previous decades, or any more dynamics than modern CDs - I'm doubtful. The "real" mixes could me marked as "HDR, for home play only" or some such. HDR photographs were all the rage for a short time. But I can imagine the labels not wanting to put out something not "suitable for all systems."
Yes, it's cheap enough to put a compressor in a cassette or CD player, but most people would never figure out what it's for.
You are one of the few people that I know of, with 2nd hand or near 1st hand knowledge about a specific 'commercialization' of recordings. Back when I first started doing research for the DolbyA decoding side of my project, it started being more and more apparent that consumer recordings have a very consistent kind of processing, the same from recording to recording. Once my previous project partner announced my 'generic' decoder follow-on part of the project, the pushback against the 'uncommercialization decoder' from the industry types was enormous. Being part of the 'industry', the disagreement about developing this 'generic recording decoder' caused a permanent rift.
Once the SW demo is 100% credible, I would be very happy to offer the entire set of technology gratis (patents had been carefully avoided) for someone to make into a product. The ideal chain of processing would be thus:
Commodity CD -> decoder (base 'uncommercialize') -> demaster (using DAW stuff) -> tolerable quality.
This cr*pping on consumer recordings IS REAL and is really sad that it has been pepetrated since at least the middle 1980s. (The technique reminds very much of something that R. Dolby himself would have done.)
Unfortunately, over the years, I have let enthusiasm control my judgement when announcing improvements. Bad hearing and poor choice of headphones also helped to cause troubles. The results are getting better, probably still imperfect -- the technology is mind-bending, even for this 40+yr EE/DSP/CompSci person.
ANYONE who is interested in the technology is welcome to ask, and I'll explain as well as I can. The technology is suprisingly 'uncommon'.
Even though the decoder might not yet be perfect, the resulting sound is generally pretty good, with less hiss, less grain, more 'stable', generally better stereo image, etc. Of course, I am 1/2 deaf for 1/2 of the time, so my judgement about sound quality is admittedly poor nowadays. If only computers became powerful enough before my hearing started to fail -- it would be easier to enjoy the 'uncommercialized' versions of the recordings....
John
With all due respect Jsdyson, if you had asked at the right place ( on the internet) you would have had answers from first hand knowledge about what is done at mastering stage ( and before because it's not always mastering which is to blame...).
And as ME seems to be vilain amongst the vilain i urge anyone to read what Bob Katz have to say about loudness war and the answer he gave to counteract it:
https://www.digido.com/articles/
I suggest to read ( everything as it clearly disply each things we have to face in this kind of practice and what can be done or not! It stop fantasy about what it is in real life) essentially 'level practice' and 'loudness war' related article...
And to put things in perspective some of this article i read first in 2002...
If i can give you my pov about this as i was part of the industry and still do mastering duty from time to time: there is nothing consistent in premastering ( the part of mastering process where treatments are done), it change from tracks to tracks and from genres to genres... and there is trends at play too.
What Cask05 describe about engineer being unhappy about what they are asked to perform is true. But it's not mandatory. The real issue about heavy dynamic treatments is when they are performed on genres which doesn't require it.
Some kind of music would not exist as they are now if those heavy treatments wasn't availlable either.
The issue lie in the need for sounding louder... which is often put on mastering engineer shoulders but it's in fact related to radio as they were the first to notice ( in 50's) that the louder they played the more hooked the listener was.
Multiband compression have been told about in previous comments from Cask05: the first units weren't availlable in 90's ( it might be true for digital gear though) but it was analog gear in the 70's developped for radio: Orban Optimod it was named and you heard it if you listened to anything broadcasted from 70's to 90's....
The real issues with loudness war happened mid 90's and i suggest anyone to read this and listen to the example given to have an idea of where it started to go wrong about mastering stage (luckily it range from bossa to early neo metal... everyone can pick example to his taste!/preferences) :
https://www.digido.com/honor-roll/
I'm interested into your process and maybe you could start a thread about it? Or maybe i'll pm you. But i fear it won't work with all material especially the most recent one.
About having access to raw mixes and premastering material: i fear this is naive pov.
Let me take an analogy with a different art: do you think Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci would have let out a painting on which the viewer could have choosen the colours, level of blur he created or whatever artistic related which could have modified their own 'vision' to public?
We face the same issue here: when people spent month of works on an album it is (most of the time, not always!) the result of a vision they had.
The fact it fullfill requirements of public doesn't really matter... if it works and sell then it's fine, if not doesn't really matter if the artist is happy.
Music produced for the masses can be different. But when it doesn't sell a lot anyway, only the artist pov on his work have a meaning.
And as ME seems to be vilain amongst the vilain i urge anyone to read what Bob Katz have to say about loudness war and the answer he gave to counteract it:
https://www.digido.com/articles/
I suggest to read ( everything as it clearly disply each things we have to face in this kind of practice and what can be done or not! It stop fantasy about what it is in real life) essentially 'level practice' and 'loudness war' related article...
And to put things in perspective some of this article i read first in 2002...
If i can give you my pov about this as i was part of the industry and still do mastering duty from time to time: there is nothing consistent in premastering ( the part of mastering process where treatments are done), it change from tracks to tracks and from genres to genres... and there is trends at play too.
What Cask05 describe about engineer being unhappy about what they are asked to perform is true. But it's not mandatory. The real issue about heavy dynamic treatments is when they are performed on genres which doesn't require it.
Some kind of music would not exist as they are now if those heavy treatments wasn't availlable either.
The issue lie in the need for sounding louder... which is often put on mastering engineer shoulders but it's in fact related to radio as they were the first to notice ( in 50's) that the louder they played the more hooked the listener was.
Multiband compression have been told about in previous comments from Cask05: the first units weren't availlable in 90's ( it might be true for digital gear though) but it was analog gear in the 70's developped for radio: Orban Optimod it was named and you heard it if you listened to anything broadcasted from 70's to 90's....
The real issues with loudness war happened mid 90's and i suggest anyone to read this and listen to the example given to have an idea of where it started to go wrong about mastering stage (luckily it range from bossa to early neo metal... everyone can pick example to his taste!/preferences) :
https://www.digido.com/honor-roll/
I'm interested into your process and maybe you could start a thread about it? Or maybe i'll pm you. But i fear it won't work with all material especially the most recent one.
About having access to raw mixes and premastering material: i fear this is naive pov.
Let me take an analogy with a different art: do you think Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci would have let out a painting on which the viewer could have choosen the colours, level of blur he created or whatever artistic related which could have modified their own 'vision' to public?
We face the same issue here: when people spent month of works on an album it is (most of the time, not always!) the result of a vision they had.
The fact it fullfill requirements of public doesn't really matter... if it works and sell then it's fine, if not doesn't really matter if the artist is happy.
Music produced for the masses can be different. But when it doesn't sell a lot anyway, only the artist pov on his work have a meaning.
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Re-sorting the same list for highest DR:
These are classic Blue Note jazz records. Many in the high DR category (DR >13) are the same titles that have re-released versions in the DR <10 category. Obviously it's the remastering causing the changes, or perhaps SHM gets tapes that have been previously been dynamics compressed.
In quite a few cases, the late 1980s or 1990s CD has a higher DR rating than the ca. 2010 24-bit remaster.
These are classic Blue Note jazz records. Many in the high DR category (DR >13) are the same titles that have re-released versions in the DR <10 category. Obviously it's the remastering causing the changes, or perhaps SHM gets tapes that have been previously been dynamics compressed.
In quite a few cases, the late 1980s or 1990s CD has a higher DR rating than the ca. 2010 24-bit remaster.
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I actually do know what goes on in mastering, including some not-commonly-known things - it has been a MAJOR problem for me to keep in sync with people on terminology -- it hasn't helped others who try to communicate with me either. Also, there IS a modicum of enthusiasm that sometimes distorts my ability to communicate... Most of the fault about communications comes from MY limitations, so be patient.
Yes, there is 'mastering' in the traditional sense going on -- but this 'traditional mastering' is different than what I am speaking about. The final process used in distribution is ubiquitious, but not 100%.
The process is at the very tail end of the production, just before making the release distributed AS IS. Apparently, the loss in quality detected by some engineers in distributed copies is EXACTLY what I am speaking of. This is akin to the old 'DolbyA fog' that only a few engineers could hear, but really does/did exist. Most would dismiss it, but this is the problem with audio -- it is about perception and cursed by imperfect objective measurement -- hellish...
It would be good to PM me, and I JUST TODAY have come up with a new release, and demos can be produced easily and quickly. (Actually, the decoding just barely makes realtime because of the complexities in removing gain control modulation sidebands -- other esoteric things.)
There is one caveat -- not all recordings respond as an improvement, because there is sometimes 'artistic merit' in the commodity process.
Older recordings (e.g. Carpenters, Brasil'66, even dire straits) respond pretty well. ABBA is so-so, but you can sometimes hear actual improvement instead of 'alternative sound character'. The decoding process usually works much better on NATURAL recordings, highly mixed, processed recordings seem to give less improvement upon decoding. Almost all consumer, commodity recordings have this ANALOG process applied to them, even if digital during recording and mix and even normal mastering. It is the final step that I am trying to discuss...
Perhaps listening to the demos, however imperfect, might help my attempt to describe???
WRT another 'topic' in the forum... You are right, I agree -- this should be another topic, but I am not quite ready to open up an 'official' discussion yet. I had mistakenly started discussing the project, with TOO MUCH enthusiasm, therefore encouraging loss of interest and loss of credibility. I am open to private messages of course, and will hold back on further followups about 'the project' until it is ready to go.