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[Ronny]

AlanS wrote on Sat, 27 August 2005 10:16

Ronny wrote on Sat, 27 August 2005 00:17 so what ya gonna do. I'll tell ya what they did on the 2005 Grammy Nominees compilation disk.  I bought it on sale at Borders to have as a ref and to see how it was done.   I have many of the artists' original CDs.  Well, it seems they left the hottest tracks exactly the same, and simply turned up the quieter tracks above full scale until the level matched and let 'em clip. I guess politically they had no choice - how you gonna tell Green Day's label you "turned their track down" for the Grammy compilation CD!!  Someone would be reading the help wanted ads real soon.

That can go two ways, Alan. What about the winner of the jazz category who's song was ruined to compete with the insane level of the GD song?

Which would you have preferred, the comp with the hot songs turned down or the comp with the dynamic songs turned up to match the degradation of the hot tunes?

[Arf! Mastering]

Everything on the comp was pop, although some had to be turned up around 2 - 3dB above full scale to match.  Actually, comapring with the original CDs, the diff in sound quality of the 'turned up' tracks wasn't that much vs the original level.

[Ronny]

AlanS wrote on Sat, 27 August 2005 11:41

Everything on the comp was pop, although some had to be turned up around 2 - 3dB above full scale to match.  Actually, comapring with the original CDs, the diff in sound quality of the 'turned up' tracks wasn't that much vs the original level.

Not sure that I understand. How does the +3dB above full scale play back without distorting. I've worked on comps where I did bring up the dynamic songs to match the perceived levels of the hot tunes, but all of the songs had the same peak level. I raised RMS on the dynamic tunes to equitize perceived levels across all songs. If I would have tried to match perceived levels by raising peak gain instead of RMS on the dynamic songs, than they would distort from being over -0dBFS. How do you peak gain a tune at +3dBFs and have it play without distortion on a cd player?

[Arf! Mastering]

It can be done because everything coming from every major label today in a mainstream genre is already clipped, so you're not really going to notice a little more.   Compared with the unclipped mixes (if they even exist) sure, you'd notice the distortion, but not when the damage has already been done.

[Ronny]

AlanS wrote on Sat, 27 August 2005 12:13

It can be done because everything coming from every major label today in a mainstream genre is already clipped, so you're not really going to notice a little more.   Compared with the unclipped mixes (if they even exist) sure, you'd notice the distortion, but not when the damage has already been done.

The major label cd's that I have max at -0dBFs.

[Arf! Mastering]

Ronny wrote on Sat, 27 August 2005 13:01

The major label cd's that I have max at -0dBFs.

Of course.  So they turn up a full scale track with a digital fader inside the DAW a few dB, clipping it internally, and then output to CD at the maximum possible sample value of 0dBFs.

[OTR-jkl]

It's called a crew cut...