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Author Topic: Are you scared?  (Read 8874 times)

chrisj

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #45 on: March 15, 2005, 10:44:45 AM »

I'm given to understand iPods are a well-designed bit of electronics- didn't Bob Katz say his iPod with Sennheisers is one of his best monitoring systems? I know iTunes (though I had to ditch it because it was buggy for me) sounded better than other mp3 decoding software, possibly because they did something clever like decode to 32 bit and dither. There are always ways to do these things more 'right' and Apple apparently has some good people working on it.

I also remember somebody playing an AIFF test tone over an iPod on the mastering board and commenting that the D/A was particularly low in sidebands. Sure, it'll continue to sound good with good-sounding material.

Fibes

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #46 on: March 15, 2005, 11:58:04 AM »

Interesting, MEs always make me giggle.

Forgive me, I'm asking us to forget the issues of level, reproduction systems, radio, attention span, genre and all that other stuff y'all ME types have been kicking around, oh, and ethics too.

Kill me for what I'm about to say, it's vaccuous at best, insightless at worst but something everyone has to deal with when putting trends, sicknesses, breast size and ego into context: The environment.
At the shop we have an old book called "The Tuning of the World" and it discusses sound, it's effects on society and some of the history behind how civilization was glued together by sound. How in  earlier days the Church bell and Town crier were the loudest things one would hear. Today, given our whirring, buzzing, beeping, humming society we are constantly bombarded by sound, so much so that the town crier wouldn't be heard a half a block away in most instances, hell they've even got cable access for that crap now. So if there is a bake sale, you better hope aunt Betty tells you about it 'cause the church bell and the crier are now merely part of our environmental noise floor.

Where am i going with this?

Y'all know already, I'm just here to remind you that to ignore the surrounding environment whether societal, droning or pornographic is ignoring the foundation of any sort of rhetoric/polemic.

Now that I've got that off my chest I'll disappear again under my plate.



"I like my shit! I like it loud! I got the box that can rock the crowd!"---Lyrics from a tune Brad will be squashing in less than 2 weeks.
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Fibes
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bobkatz

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #47 on: March 15, 2005, 08:24:23 PM »

Crispin HT wrote on Tue, 15 March 2005 10:23




Frighteningly enough, I wonder if iPods will still sound OK, if music starts to have real dynamic...




I can speak for that. Ipods are pretty darn tolerant of dynamics in most environments, except perhaps roller skating on a busy city street. I have no problems hearing music with "reasonably wide dynamics" in the gym even with a couple of TV's playing the news and just using the little white in ear phones, which do not have that much isolation.

I don't think the Ipod will be the obstacle.
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Level

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #48 on: March 15, 2005, 08:27:49 PM »

The I-pod is only true to what is inserted within it.

I have not tried web based purchased tracks as of yet. I do wonder if they are ripping them well, who is doing it, who is getting paid to do it and etc...etccc!!!

What a money train.

10's of Millions of tracks purchased within I-tunes and Napster legal is gaining on that, according to the accounting base.

My G-d...

We missed it friends.

I wonder if Ipod rippers (Within the scope of that) are reciveing album credits??? LOL

What a closed society.

Who is in that???

I was never approached Bob..were you?
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bblackwood

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #49 on: March 16, 2005, 08:42:18 AM »

Fibes wrote on Tue, 15 March 2005 10:58

Y'all know already, I'm just here to remind you that to ignore the surrounding environment whether societal, droning or pornographic is ignoring the foundation of any sort of rhetoric/polemic.

Is the world that much louder than it was 10 years ago? I'm listening to Live's 'Secret Samadhi' (mastered by Ted jensen in 1997) and it sounds awesome...

Quote:

"I like my shit! I like it loud! I got the box that can rock the crowd!"---Lyrics from a tune Brad will be squashing in less than 2 weeks.

I'm not sure if I'm feeling is giddy or nauseous...

hehe
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Brad Blackwood
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lucey

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #50 on: March 16, 2005, 12:07:34 PM »

Fibes wrote on Tue, 15 March 2005 11:58

 So if there is a bake sale, you better hope aunt Betty tells you about it 'cause the church bell and the crier are now merely part of our environmental noise floor.

Where am i going with this?

Y'all know already, I'm just here to remind you that to ignore the surrounding environment whether societal, droning or pornographic is ignoring the foundation of any sort of rhetoric/polemic.



I agree with you ... but it's is all the MORE reason for some punch in the music.   If it's a wall of sound in a world of noise ... the ear tunes it out.



More dynamics plus a little tiny turn of the volume knob = Impact!
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Brian Lucey
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bobkatz

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #51 on: March 17, 2005, 06:05:32 PM »

lucey wrote on Wed, 16 March 2005 12:07




More dynamics plus a little tiny turn of the volume knob = Impact!



Here here! Or should I say, "hear hear".

I mastered a hard rock piece today that I was about to send out to the client when I decided I really needed to pull back on the level almost 2 dB. When listening at an unmatched loudness the hotter mastered version sounded initially impressive to the ear, but not for long. Also, as soon as I turned up the source, the source was clearer and more impacting in certain important respects. And that is the origin of the loudness race, the fact that initially a loud playback sounds "better". After a while of course, the fatigue and the lack of clarity of transients become obvious, but if the master is 6 dB louder than the mix, it can easily impress the uneducated.

The other contributing factor is that there is no standard "level".

I oce heard Bob Ludwig once give a demo of a before/after mastering comparison in a lecture and I could hear that the mastered version was more "closed in" and less impacting, but because it was played about 3 dB louder, it impressed virtually the whole audience. We all succumb to this problem, and it is a problem that's hard to explain to our clients. I patiently explained in about 15 minutes time to a client that she had to adjust her volume control in her car when comparing the three reference tracks that I sent that I had called "better"  "loud" and "louder". I could have cheated and turned down the "loud" before I laid it down on the CD, but that brings up a different can of worms to explain to A&R.

BK
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There are two kinds of fools,
One says-this is old and therefore good.
The other says-this is new and therefore better."

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of
electrons were terribly inconvenienced.

bblackwood

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #52 on: March 17, 2005, 09:27:18 PM »

I check the source vs. mastered output in mono to insure the levels are as close as possible. For some reason, checking in mono seems to better help me match the levels...
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Brad Blackwood
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lucey

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #53 on: March 18, 2005, 11:04:34 AM »

bblackwood wrote on Thu, 17 March 2005 21:27

I check the source vs. mastered output in mono to insure the levels are as close as possible. For some reason, checking in mono seems to better help me match the levels...


I did this yesterday for the first time ... comparing 2 mastered versions in mono ... worked well on many levels.


BK, was that Ludwig thing recent?  I'd think he'd be more honest than to trick people that way ?
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Brian Lucey
Magic Garden Mastering

"the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the ecology" - unknown

bobkatz

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Re: Are you scared?
« Reply #54 on: March 18, 2005, 11:14:01 AM »

lucey wrote on Fri, 18 March 2005 11:04



BK, was that Ludwig thing recent?  I'd think he'd be more honest than to trick people that way ?



No, no. I was not claiming dishonesty in any way. I suspect he was just being incomplete in his explanation to the crowd at the time; it was probably not an intentional trick. And who knows, when the two are level matched, maybe the mastered version would have sounded leisurely better, though I had suspected not in my listening seat. This was a long ago demonstration, maybe 8 years.
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There are two kinds of fools,
One says-this is old and therefore good.
The other says-this is new and therefore better."

No trees were killed in the sending of this message. However a large number of
electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
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