SH Spotlight Recording and Mastering Questions---Answered here. Any more?

That's very interesting, thanks. I watched Kevin's video and there was a lot of great info in there. I figured they had to be checkerboarding back and forth somehow.

 

Thanks! I was just thinking of that myself. Obviously, the ME would have to be very familiar with the material to do that with precision.

 

29 pages and I'm sad there isn't more. Thank you to SH and all of the pros who have generously passed on some very cool knowledge, 10 years later no less.

My question is where can I find more? I'm sure there must be tons of other threads like this. I've found a few but I'm pretty new to this forum and it's hard to wade through the firehose of daily posts to find these absolute gems of top notch audio pros getting the job done right. The sticky is a good way to float them to the top, so thanks again.

Oh, I have another question that is on topic. Has digital compression in 2017, i.e. plug-ins in DAW or other software hosts, improved to the point where it is either acceptable or even just as good as analog compresssion? As a video producer by trade I often need to even out dialogue using some fairly low quality effects in Final Cut or Premiere, but are the professional grade plug-ins up to snuff? And what types of clues would one listen for to indicate the difference between good analog vs. bad digital compression?

 

I don't think the question on plug-ins is as simple as good analog vs bad digital. There is also bad analog and good digital. It really depends on the type of music (which in itself is somewhat subjective) and skills of the mastering engineer.

As for finding more, apart from our host, there are plenty of references throughout this thread including links to various industry pros.

One website I find informative with a lot of discussion is Ian Sheppard's "The Mastering Show". A lot of the topics such as loudness, EQ, compression, limiting, analog and digital processing etc are fairly well covered.

http://themasteringshow.com/

 

I wasn't an audiophile at the time, but my recollection too is that CDs were considered to be objects of wonder in the early-mid '80s. I was working in a record store and lots of guys came in to sell off their LP collections in order to replace them (pennies on the dollar) for CDs, which usually retailed for $14.99. This was at a time when new LPs cost $6.99 and we were offering no more than $2 credit for used LPs, and often less.

That was my first thought too... the CD players available in the early-mid '80s, particularly the lower priced models, weren't as advanced as what we have today. We've come to realize that many of those early CDs sounded better than we may have thought.

 

As a video producer myself, I usually step back and let my audio engineer add any compression as needed. Most of the time, he'll add it during VO recording (usually analog/optical)...but I always have him give a project the once-over before finalizing...that's what I pay him for...

 

I'd be interested to hear from Mr. Steve Hoffman.

 

I don't think that's the problem. I think that mindless drone music listeners bought all the loud stuff so they assume that must be better forgetting that not everything needs to be mastered for MP3 or for streaming/radio. this reminds me of the 80's where Peter Gabriel, Hugh Padgham, Steve Lillywhite and Phil Collins came up with the gated drum sound for use on Gabriel's third solo albums. The sound spread like wild fire but that doesn't mean it was used to good effect on other albums where it matched the feel of the songs (Gabriel's dark third album and Collins written-largely-about his divorce). Then folks took that sound, expanded. It, altered it and continued to make it the popular drum sound. Doesn't mean it was good everywhere it was used but, because folks bought albums with that sound when it was unique, they assumed it was and then used it at every opportunity.

 

I was one of them and you're right. I told all who were interested but most thought I didn't know what I was talking about, or that I had never heard music sound so good.

 

Once you start talking about musical content, you diminish your argument. It's better to focus on the technical aspects.

 

I suspect that they were focused more on the opportunity to work, and grow business. Certainly, there were benefits to digital technology, but we weren't quite there yet in the early 80s.

I think what sold the consumer on digital was the virtually non-existent noise floor, speed stability, and durability of the CD.

 

Perfect sound forever. My objections were started in the 70s, specifically with the Bob Till You Drop LP by Ry Cooder. People thought I was nuts for thinking it had sonic issues.

I loved the comment that the reason I didn't like it was because I'd never heard music sound that good. What the heck did I hear in the studio?

 

Dear Steve and other music makers, I have a common problem re mixing and mastering.
We all have different sounding speakers and systems, and the same for people in my band.

The person in our band who handles most of the recording uses, average at best, PC powered desktop monitors
he has excellent ears and is a great musician, but his EQ choices heard on "better" speakers ie my Rogers LS5/9 or
Quad 57s don't agree with me. SO when mastering what do people do? I remember years ago in a recording studio where
we used big, good, flattish monitors, but also used an AM radio emulator and a crappy car speaker to give us some idea of how it
sounds on different systems.

 

Hey Wayne,

Can you point to a place or two on a Phil Collins CD where that gated drum sound appears? Is that what I hear on the climax of In The Air Tonight?

 

Yes, and tons of other Phil Collins-produced songs. Remember the song "I Know There's Something Going On" by Frida? That's the gated drum sound.

Phil's producer Hugh Padgham came up with it.

 

Excellent Youtube video about the gated reverb drum phenomenon of the 80's, and again today:

Its only 8-minutes long, but informative.

Prince "Kiss,", John Mellencamp "Jack & Diane," Duran Duran "A View to a Kill," etc.

 

Well that can be subjective and we all can pick and choose which anecdotes to support our arguments. Ry Cooper notwithstanding, there were many others that had the opposite view. Robert Ludwig, Bob Clearmountain, Jim Anderson, Dire Straits, Neil Dorsfman among others claim that digital production was the first time the final product sounded exactly like what they heard in the studio. I don't think any of them are nuts either.

Of course this was the early 80s rather than the 70s but even so, the classical genre were convinced long before then. Then there is the issue that many (if not most) cutting lathes had digital delay lines by then, converting the signal to digital and back, with very few complaints, even back in the late 70s when converters were 14bits and of a more crude design. Regardless, the fact remains that it is the skill and experience of all those involved in the production chain which has the most impact whether the final product sounds good or not.

 

Yes, that's a great video. Recommended.

 

That's certainly what first got me excited.

The first CD I ever bought, in late 1984, was a Japan-for-USA CD of Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue." The first notes of the album are played by a solo acoustic bass, with quiet pauses after each phrase is played. Listening to it on CD for the first few times was remarkable - aside from some tape hiss, there was no noise floor whatsoever. My impression at the time was that the music was "floating" or "suspended" in space. It was a big improvement over what I was getting from my cheap turntable!

 

Turns out that I had a fairly good TT/cart in the early 80s, but you described it best: with CD, it sounded like the music was suspended in space, like you didn't hear the medium, just the sound of the music, and maybe a hint that you were listening to a tape. The speed was rock-solid because digital doesn't have those issues, and the noise floor was mesmerizing. Never mind that the three-dimensionality was often missing, but that was something I hadn't yet understood.

 

One other thing: back in the late 60s and 70s, it was fashionable to muffle the drums with cloth, or paper towels taped to the drum heads, which gave them a more controlled, or dry sound. That may be where the desire to gate the drums came from after it was accidentally discovered. The reverb used was the effect.

 

He was actually the recording engineer for Peter Gabriel's third album when he came up with the drum sound for Intruder. Hugh - "The whole sound really was discovered on a completely different album when Phil was in playing drums on Peter Gabriel's third album on a song called 'The Intruder'."

Classic Drum Sounds: 'In The Air Tonight' | MusicRadar

 

Steve - do you ever have issues with your ears not being in top shape - what I mean is colds or allergies, or even just fatigue? If so, how do you handle that? Does critical listening for hours on end wear out your ability to discern? Is there a general limit to working without break times, and what do you do to re-invigorate? Thank you for all you do here!