Are Mastering Engineers Responsible For Bad Mastering Demands?

Morally corrupt? I'm sorry did I miss something. Does brickwalling involve murder or something that would require morals to be corrupt? No it doesn't.

If brickwalling is so bad how come people still buy music?

Thing is YOU think it sucks. Other people don't care. It's not about morals it's about what one likes and doesn't like.

 

I wonder if any MEs are posting to this thread.

 

I'm sure there is some degree of just following orders, but that doesn't apply for guys like Tom Lord Alge. One of his quotes was "sometimes I think I've added too much compression. I fix this by adding more compression". Not all mastering engineers are responsible, but clearly there were some out there who tried to get an edge in their field by making loudness their specialty. Unfortunately, an inferiority complex arose where somehow mastering that isn't as loud is considered weaker.

 

I've bought less than ten new artist cd's/albums the last two or three years because it is so bad that I don't buy it. There are many others like me too. It's not that I'm necessarily trying to take an active stand against brickwalling, but very few new artists appeal to me when their music just sounds fake and processed, which is what a combination of brickwalling and just modern digital recording techniques result in.

 

I'm sure a lot of R&B and hip-hop artists get Bernie Grundman because they like the way he and his staff compress stuff.

 

I care about sound quality. I only listen to vinyl and needle drops. I buy audiophile reissues. I am the 5%!

 

IF I were a mastering engineer and IF I accepted a job that required me to brickwall or otherwise screw up the mastering, I would refuse to allow myself to be credited on the album. That kind of thing is bad for one's professional reputation, assuming you care about that.

 

What if, instead of Mastering Engineers we were discussing the work of Architects... imagine you hire one to create your new house... imagine that even though his work is highly praised in the architectofile communities... you really don't like the project?... What would you do?...

 

Do the job.

 

This is a tough call.

The average person, DOES NOT seem to care for what we in the forum consider horrible sound. Perhaps our tastes are quite different than the masses of people buying CDs. It may be that mastering engineers are simply making the sound that is expected, wanted, and bought by the average listener.

Im thinking many listeners simply either dont care or actually like compressed dynamics.


I will be the first to admit, on occasion its actually easier to play back compressed music in a car, on portable equipment, outside and so on. ONLY in my serious listening (( which most of the public has no cares about )) does truly dynamic music really come into play...( no pun intended )

 

Sure it would be 'okay' neither illegal nor a real tragedy, but not right and if the person has the credit to be a great mastering engineer he should try to find a better job, if his family is starving or on the brink of eviction he should do the job, but ask that his name does not appear on that product. It is easy to lose all the credit built in decades with half a dozen crappy jobs. So instead of earning money he destroys the basics for his income !

If his name is on it he guarantees a certain standard.
If a band changes it's style completely because the record CEO tells them they lose their fan base, too ... and we would be the first and hardest to criticize them !

 

At least for new projects, I think the band/artist/producer, not the mastering engineer, should receive the blame for bad mastering choices. Should not the desired sound be an important artistic decision?

 

Read "The Fountainhead".

 

Really? A mastering engineer "guarantees" a certain standard. Like a manufacturer guarantees their product right? So if I don't like the way a cd has been mastered I can go back to the engineer and ask for my money back or get him to remaster the cd until I like it? Thanks. I never knew that.

Seems to me that all those guys brickwalling cds on request keep getting jobs so maybe their reputation isn't doing that badly amongst the people who actually pay them.

I'm willing to bet that when people (if it ever happens) tire of brickwalling all those mastering engineers will still get work only this time they'll be asked to do something else.

 

Nobody guarantees anything unless you have a contract or a valid guarantee card.
Surely the name on the product promises a certain quality level/standard - think of your favorite group, a movie by a director.
A PASS or MacIntosh amp with very poor performance and bad sound. A swiss Rolex watch with a cheap quartz. Kobe steak tasting like a Hamburger from MacDonald..
Stuff like that should not happen and it usually does not !
Maybe the mass of music consumers don't care about brickwalling, but they are not the ones who read the name of the mastering engineer anyway - we do if Steve would suddenly put out a bunch of real terrible brickwalled CD's we would stop buying the albums with his name on it automatically. That is how the world works. A sport man is only as good as his last home run.
Hard to build up a rep, easy to lose a rep.
I don't see why this should be any different with a mastering engineer,. If he is proud of his skills he will refuse delivering bs.
Same situation with any master of his trade. ask someone very good at fixing cars with to do a rush job, risking that the car might fail 50 miles after it left the shop, he will refuse to do that and find another place where he can keep on working within his quality level or start working independently.
You always got a choice unless of course you are a slave or a soldier and got to follow orders. This is a blessing but can turn into a curse !

 

In this economy people do what they have to do. High end general contractors are doing garage conversions and look forward to the end of this economic contraction. High end equipment makers make price point products, too. Ethical mastering engineers try their best but many have to work and simply look forward to the end of this dynamics contraction... though I do agree that the use of an alias would be a prudent idea.

Except for a very select few ME's, these times require that mastering quality be looked at on a case by case basis and the luxury of past generalizations just don't apply in such a lean market for full dynamics. IMHO

 

A mastering engineer creates their own musical legacy. Sometimes it's just a job. Sometimes it's not. I assume their customers feel the same way.

 

id like to hear what barry diament would have to say in this thread, cause didnt the heads tell him to make cds sound not better than lps did, and to make em not using the mastertapes

 

I know of cases where the cinematographer on films saw the final video mastering and was so appalled, they tried to get their names removed. Once they got hit with the "you'll never work in this town again" threat by the producers, they backed down and let the credits go out as is.

And I've seen this happen on several huge-budgeted movies by directors whose names you'd recognize.

I think if a mastering engineer said, "OK, I'll make the album sound the way the producer and artist want, but take my name off it," the clients would be so insulted they'd yank the project and go somewhere else. If the engineer is on staff at a company, the owner of the company would be within their rights to fire them. Unfortunately, in the recording industry as in many businesses, the customer is always right, even when they're idiots with no taste.

I don't know of any mastering engineers (audio or video) who have the financial security to just walk away from a project if they feel they're being forced in an artistic direction they don't like. I once talked to a well-known mastering engineer (not on this forum), who told me of his distaste for working on rap albums during the 1990s. He really disliked the music, and couldn't stand having listen to certain projects for weeks on end. But he told me, "hey, at least they were pleasant people to deal with, they appreciated my work, and they paid on time." You gotta work.

I've only walked out of a session once, when a director was extremely abusive to me, but I think that was a case where he just liked to push people's buttons and see how far he could go. We wound up being fairly good friends, and I worked on more than a dozen different projects with him. But not an easy guy to work with.

 

I have been extremely lucky in the respect that my work for EMI has always been sent without any demands for brick walling etc.

The only problem is that I don't always get the sources that I want. I ideally like to work with fresh flat 24/96 transfers, however I sometimes have to compromise and take 16/44.1 files as they have "previously been transferred" and it saves money - particularly on budget projects. I argue against it and sometimes win, but you just have to go with the flow to get the work!

For instance. I am currently in the middle of a 3 cd set project which contains 65% new transfers at 96/24 and 35% old transfers at 16/44.1. You can argue that new transfers WILL give a better sound, but unfortunately that's not what the recording industry is interested in - currently - although I'm always hopeful of a sea change!

 

The bosses told him to make the CDs sound like the vinyl.

 

It's my second business, so yes, a ME is posting.

 

You have to stop comparing physical product like amps with intangible ones like what a mastering engineer does because you can't really compare them. But I understand what you are trying to say.

As I've said before people like Bob seem to have a pretty good reputation out there since they keep getting work. You might not like the work and think differently but many others i.e. the people asking him to do the work and keep going back to him disagree with you.

If Steve started issuing brickwalled cds then you and many others on this forum would stop buying the cds for sure but you are buying them based on knowing who Steve H is. Many others wouldn't because they really don't know who he is. But using Steve as an example isn't a good one because many of his titles like AF, etc are audiophile specific but if we just talk about regular releases then many people might not know who he is and wouldn't care as well.

I'm proud of my skills at work but many times I have to do things that I do not agree with (not illegal obviously). I state my case but if it's a no then its a no and we proceed as directed and do the best work I can and try to make it work the best I can. It's no different for a mastering engineer or anyone else for that matter.

The problem here is that we are talking about music and people take things personally and expect these people to be above what mere mortals like us have to put up with.

Having seen only a small amount of the mental case things that happen in the entertainment industry in general I can say people collecting cheques aren't free from being mere mortals either.

 

I think the approach to take would be similar to what Bob Ludwig (?) did with the last Guns & Roses album. He did the contemporary brickwalled version and then did a more dynamic reduced output version and played both to Rose.

Rose preferred the latter version.

So basically do a squashed brickwalled version and then do a dynamic version to play back to the band and just turn the volume knob up a few clicks between versions.

Whatever the band finally goes with you at least tried.

 

I'm sure you read the constant complaints on this forum and roll your eyes. We can tell these people all day that the ME just takes orders, but this crowd doesn't understand it.