22-05-2011, 01:39 PM
Interesting observations. Just in case it's not clear to all, "mastering" is what happens to the mix before it's committed to CD or vinyl. One of the jobs of the mastering engineer is to modify the recording to suite the limitations medium; arguably for CD, there's nothing or very little that needs to be done. But for vinyl, you have much less dynamic range and you have to be very careful to avoid producing levels that will overheat the cutter head or cause the needle to jump out of the groove on replay - in other words you have to limit the HF and LF energy. There are more subtle effects too, which means that you are limited with the bass end; you should put loud bass sounds in the centre of the image.
These limits are pretty rigid, but early on record companies discovered that making their records sound "louder" than the competition was advantageous; especially as a lot of reply was via jukeboxes with fixed volume settings. The Phil Spector Wall of Sound being an obvious example...
The most commonly used technique is to apply multiband compression to the final mix at the mastering stage to produce a version that is optimal for vinyl. And, as compression makes things sound louder, you can be forgiven for thinking that the vinyl version of an album has more bass or "punch" or whatever when you compare the vinyl to the CD.
In the earlier days of CD, most were produced more or less directly from the master tapes. So, lacking the processing that was done for the vinyl master, early CDs could sound slightly anaemic by comparison. Despite the fact you were hearing what was heard in the control room while the recording was originally mixed down, many preferred the "lo-fi" version that was committed to vinyl!
BTW, I've no problem with people preferring the sound of vinyl to CD; you can't argue with personal preference. But I always endeavour to explain that technically, vinyl simply isn't better than CD in any objective measure, and the reason most people prefer the sound is that they prefer the processing that's been added at the mastering stage - to overcome the shortcomings of vinyl. Ironically...
Personally, I get my kicks from knowing that I'm hearing something akin to the mix engineer. That's why I use studio monitors at home. Sometimes that's not good because monitors ruthlessly expose faults in bad recordings, but given a good production, the sound is sublime. By comparison, a lot of so-called "hi-fi" speakers present a much more "average" sound that flatters the poorer recordings while failing to do justice to the best. And I thought that "hi-fi" was meant to be about accuracy...
Having said that, we enjoy vinyl a lot, especially the kids (and their friends). There's something magic about playing old singles, despite the distortion and background noise. It's much more of an organic experience - and the kids love choosing the record, placing it on the multichanger and watching the needle drop. And of course, this tactile interaction with the hi-fi is part of the blend for those staunch pro-vinyl fans. And why not?
Back to CDs and mastering. These days, most CDs are compressed at the mastering stage to compete with other recordings. Given that 0dBFS is a fixed limit (ignoring reconstruction-filter created excursions beyond that), compression is the only way to make things sound louder. But, like any tool, compression can be used badly and it has ruined many a great recording in recent years. Just google "loudness war".
Many remastered recordings are compressed to give the illusion of a louder mix - but done well, this can be very effective. But overcook it and it's horrible. The thing is, if there are no quiet bits, how can you have loud? Google "Metallica Death Magnetic"...
Hope this hasn't strayed too far OT, but any discussion of audio quality inevitably leads to these fundamental principles.
Mark
These limits are pretty rigid, but early on record companies discovered that making their records sound "louder" than the competition was advantageous; especially as a lot of reply was via jukeboxes with fixed volume settings. The Phil Spector Wall of Sound being an obvious example...
The most commonly used technique is to apply multiband compression to the final mix at the mastering stage to produce a version that is optimal for vinyl. And, as compression makes things sound louder, you can be forgiven for thinking that the vinyl version of an album has more bass or "punch" or whatever when you compare the vinyl to the CD.
In the earlier days of CD, most were produced more or less directly from the master tapes. So, lacking the processing that was done for the vinyl master, early CDs could sound slightly anaemic by comparison. Despite the fact you were hearing what was heard in the control room while the recording was originally mixed down, many preferred the "lo-fi" version that was committed to vinyl!
BTW, I've no problem with people preferring the sound of vinyl to CD; you can't argue with personal preference. But I always endeavour to explain that technically, vinyl simply isn't better than CD in any objective measure, and the reason most people prefer the sound is that they prefer the processing that's been added at the mastering stage - to overcome the shortcomings of vinyl. Ironically...
Personally, I get my kicks from knowing that I'm hearing something akin to the mix engineer. That's why I use studio monitors at home. Sometimes that's not good because monitors ruthlessly expose faults in bad recordings, but given a good production, the sound is sublime. By comparison, a lot of so-called "hi-fi" speakers present a much more "average" sound that flatters the poorer recordings while failing to do justice to the best. And I thought that "hi-fi" was meant to be about accuracy...
Having said that, we enjoy vinyl a lot, especially the kids (and their friends). There's something magic about playing old singles, despite the distortion and background noise. It's much more of an organic experience - and the kids love choosing the record, placing it on the multichanger and watching the needle drop. And of course, this tactile interaction with the hi-fi is part of the blend for those staunch pro-vinyl fans. And why not?
Back to CDs and mastering. These days, most CDs are compressed at the mastering stage to compete with other recordings. Given that 0dBFS is a fixed limit (ignoring reconstruction-filter created excursions beyond that), compression is the only way to make things sound louder. But, like any tool, compression can be used badly and it has ruined many a great recording in recent years. Just google "loudness war".
Many remastered recordings are compressed to give the illusion of a louder mix - but done well, this can be very effective. But overcook it and it's horrible. The thing is, if there are no quiet bits, how can you have loud? Google "Metallica Death Magnetic"...
Hope this hasn't strayed too far OT, but any discussion of audio quality inevitably leads to these fundamental principles.
Mark
