Re: Explanation for 'unacceptable' waveforms in pop music: High-end masteri

Date: 13 Jun 2003 04:41:01 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.audio.pro
Size: 1,034 bytes

>> The attitude that mastering is all about compression and that mastering
>does
>> something magic is one that I am seeing around here increasingly and that
>> kind of disturbs me.
It's become and all too common stage where something really unmagical happens.
A friend brought over the new Weird Al CD to listen to (great stuff from Al,
btw). I loaded it into Wavelab 4.0 to see what they did in mastering, and it
pissed me off.
Near total square waveforms once again, and nearly everything above 10 kHz
completely cut out of the spectrum.
The dynamic peaks levelled at a constant -.1 db. I guess in engineering they
wanted to mimic the original songs recording to a "T"!
It's still worth the listen for the entertainment value, and on a few tracks I
really love whatever mic they are using for his lead vocal.
"Why'd you hafta go and make me feel so constipated?"
Also, very fun rendition of Joel's "Piano Man" set to the story of the Spider
Man movie.
Michael Angel
email-address-deleted
Angel Lofte Studio, Atlanta
CD Mastering