Are we getting the emphasis wrong?

[Frgirard]

There are valid reasons for this, due to the fading of ancient pigments exposed to UV.

Most galleries are under financial duress and have delayed installation of properly filtered LED lights.

https://www.canada.ca/en/conservati...technical-bulletins/led-lighting-museums.html

In Marseille the "Regards de Provence" have a good natural light but this museum has been designed to be a museum.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Thanks to everyone for contributing, including (perhaps especially) those with a different point of view.

 

[DVDdoug]

I think eventually over time, mixing and mastering practice will change in terms of the trends of mixing and mastering is concerned. The main reason is that most streaming services have some form of loudness normalization having been implemented in the last 5 or so years.

I'm not holding my breath... I grew-up with vinyl and when CDs were introduced I expected artists (and producers/engineers) to take advantage of the vastly improved dynamic range. Instead the took advantage of the "vastly improved" digital compression and limiting.

Consumers/listeners seem to prefer "constant loudness". And now we've got a couple of generations of musicians who thing that's how music is supposed to sound. If dynamic music starts winning Grammys and selling millions of recordings everybody will be copying that sound, but I'm not optimistic.

...At this point I own lots of music that I enjoy so it's OK if there's nothing new that excites me.

t is? I think 99% of the stuff I listen to sounds perfectly fine... But even the much maligned remasters of classic rock albums I find sound invariably better than the older CD releases, and of course anything sounds better than vinyl ...

I generally agree. In the vinyl days most records were mediocre, often with rolled-off highs, and maybe some kind of distortion (at least in the pop/rock genres). Maybe some of it was analog compression (?) because it doesn't seem like it was just frequency response (which of course could be corrected with the treble control.) There were a few "clean sounding" records, but over time all of my records "developed" clicks and pops and it always annoyed me.

And it was something in the production process because CDs from the same old recordings had better frequency response and were overall better sounding and more consistent even if they weren't "remastered".

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

...At this point I own lots of music that I enjoy so it's OK if there's nothing new that excites me.

‘Appen.

I don’t actually mind about more modern recordings. If they have a compressed dynamic range, and that’s how they’re supposed to sound, fair enough.

I’m more worried when older LPs are re-released and sound different to the original.

If it’s just tweaks which bring extra bits out, I don’t mind. But I’m not big on something suddenly sounding completely different.

 

[levimax]

I think eventually over time, mixing and mastering practice will change in terms of the trends of mixing and mastering is concerned. The main reason is that most streaming services have some form of loudness normalization having been implemented in the last 5 or so years. It will take time for the industry to realise you can afford higher levels of dynamic range due to this, as 'competing' louder, less dynamic songs will be normalized down and will inherently sound worse because of this - that's the theory anyway.

I was hopeful that "normalization" from the streaming services would help but after reading the link below (including comments) it appears that we are doomed to ever louder and more compressed popular music as it has become a technological arms race to "stand out" egged on by the artists and the $$$ involved.

https://gearspace.com/board/masteri...treaming-lufs-spotify-youtube-why-not-do.html

 

[Anton S]

...
And, on the other hand, what’s the point in listening to your favourite music through a pair of $4,000 headphones if the mastering is shoddy.
...

Perhaps the key to enhanced audio enjoyment is to not approach the hobby as a spectator sport and take a more active role at the playback end.

Heretical ramblings

Listening to audiophile recordings from Chesky or AIX Records, among others, can be very convincing and satisfying without any sort of compensation or processing, but the selection is limited. Expecting that same level of fidelity from mainstream labels is fantasy.

 

[Jimbob54]

I'm afraid we will have to make do with getting the best out of what we are given. Boycotting is a nonsense, I want to listen to what is new and out there, not get hairshirted because the producer /mastering engineer /label /streamer effed the end product up.

 

[bluefuzz]

Why does the mix/DR sound (generally) so much better than when I listen to the same track from CD or download (same hardware)?

Soundtrack music often sounds 'thicker' than the original recordings due to massive amounts of added compression. Especially if the music is being used as background behind dialogue.

 

[HiFidFan]

I'm afraid we will have to make do with getting the best out of what we are given. Boycotting is a nonsense, I want to listen to what is new and out there, not get hairshirted because the producer /mastering engineer /label /streamer effed the end product up.

I agree, boycotting won't help. There simply aren't enough people that care.

I think the larger point is, why chase objective SINAD and/or SOTA gear for playback, when the source material is sub-par?

Poor analogy time: I have a Porsche Cayman, but stuck in traffic 80% of the time.

 

[preload]

Yes we can! We must start by standardizing the monitor loudspeakers used in those mastering studios. I recommend we standardize to the monitors used in the world renowned studios Abbey Road and Skywalker Sound - B&W 800-series.

 

[Jimbob54]

Yes we can! We must start by standardizing the monitor loudspeakers used in those mastering studios. I recommend we standardize to the monitors used in the world renowned studios Abbey Road and Skywalker Sound - B&W 800-series.

But aren't they themselves far from "neutral", whatever that means. Isn't this the unbreakable circle jerk of confusion?

 

[khrisr]

My take on this via an analogy.

There will always be Michelin star restaurants who employ skilled chefs and source the ultimate best ingredients and equipment to serve up fine food to people who care enough.

There will always be McDonalds which cannot serve up better food because they employ unskilled employees. With robot automation in theory they could one day serve up far better food than the best fine restaurants of today. But I doubt they ever will. The vast majority of people do not care about music or art or anything refined … including billionaires like Warren Buffet. All they do is work, eat, sleep and procreate. The future McDonalds will still serve up nothing more than hamburgers, fries and a drink … but they will be perfectly cooked and seasoned.

 

[thefsb]

At least now we are talking here about what we want to listen to instead of "transparent" reproduction of available masters. The conversation itself acknowledges the relevance of personal preference and subjectivity.

 

[virtua]

I was hopeful that "normalization" from the streaming services would help but after reading the link below (including comments) it appears that we are doomed to ever louder and more compressed popular music as it has become a technological arms race to "stand out" egged on by the artists and the $$$ involved.

https://gearspace.com/board/masteri...treaming-lufs-spotify-youtube-why-not-do.html

I'm not sure that I got the same impression, I'm aware that there are definitely limitations. Mainly in that different services don't use the same loudness standards, and that those standards may change over time, and that some distributors don't allow for multiple mixes for different platforms which leaves you in a situation where you need to make a compromise in mixing for both loudness and dynamics. Regardless, it's certainly better than the past where there was nothing standing between a mastering engineer and slamming the brickwall limiter as hard as they could to compete with others doing mostly the same thing. It's still early days, and I do think eventually these issues will be ironed out. I still see loudness normalization as a net positive, the fact this engineer is getting clients interested in mixing to a loudness target is proof in of itself that it is working to some extent (as opposed to just wanting it to be as loud and saturated as possible).

At the end of the day, I tend to agree with their conclusion. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and the most desirable result will be dependent on the program material, and we just need to trust the engineers to work more like this in the future.

 

[MCH]

Vieille Charité Marseille: picasso exhibition with a yellowish or semi-dark light, the Quai Branly Paris Museum in the semi-darkness, Dublin National Gallery ... three examples among many others.

Might like it or not, but normally it is not an afterthought.
https://rclighting.com/projects/musee-du-quai-branly/
Sadly, most often than not there are pigments to protect as well...

But going back to music. I don't even qualify as an audiophile, but I do think that different occasions call for different characteristics, and while for an intimate listening session you might prefer a marvelous wide dynamic range, when you run a wild party music must play loud all of the milliseconds no matter what, and I don't know you, but I often use the same music in both situations.
Someone mentioned being able to select two different masters, I buy that!

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Just to repeat, my major target here is new releases or modern recording, mixing and mastering methods.

However an artists (and associates) want something to sound us up to them.

It’s the retrospective changes which I dislike.

 

[levimax]

I'm not sure that I got the same impression, I'm aware that there are definitely limitations. Mainly in that different services don't use the same loudness standards, and that those standards may change over time, and that some distributors don't allow for multiple mixes for different platforms which leaves you in a situation where you need to make a compromise in mixing for both loudness and dynamics. Regardless, it's certainly better than the past where there was nothing standing between a mastering engineer and slamming the brickwall limiter as hard as they could to compete with others doing mostly the same thing. It's still early days, and I do think eventually these issues will be ironed out. I still see loudness normalization as a net positive, the fact this engineer is getting clients interested in mixing to a loudness target is proof in of itself that it is working to some extent (as opposed to just wanting it to be as loud and saturated as possible).

At the end of the day, I tend to agree with their conclusion. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and the most desirable result will be dependent on the program material, and we just need to trust the engineers to work more like this in the future.

It is a good thing that "normalization" by the streaming services put some limits on the worst brick walling practices but if you read down in the comments it appears the goal is still "be the loudest possible to stand out" and now they are "gaming" the normalization algorithms. The problem is these "normalization" algorithms are becoming a source of changed/ degraded sound quality themselves. I was doing some ABX of CD vs lossless streaming of some older dynamic recordings which I am fairly certain are the same mastering's and was surprised I could actually ABX some of them. As mentioned by others if new music is compressed on purpose great, but compressing older music to a modern "standard" is where I have a problem. To me these "normalization" algorithms make all music, even from different eras and different mastering styles, sound the same. If we are trying to encourage people to appreciate more dynamic mastering styles but they can't hear any difference on the streaming services I don't think we will get anywhere.

 

[CtheArgie]

I think there are a couple of points we should think about.
First, ironically, the original comment sounds like Paul McGowan and his interest in building his own recording studio and producing everything in DSD. Just sayin'...
Second, we may also have some recall bias. We "think" or remember all the good old recordings. But if we look back, there were more bad and poor recordings that fortunately we forgot about them.
It happens to me too. I was complaining about this to my son and he started to put music from "youtube" of some recent musicians, and even from there, the sound was pretty good. And the music was fantastic as well. Music I would not have searched for on my own.
There are a couple of programs about how people record their music. Apple TV has "Watch that sound" with Mark Ronson. I didn't know much about him but it describes some of the modern techniques (and the origins of some old ones!) used in recording. It made me realize even more that we have to try to "listen" what they listen in the studio. It is fascinating. There are other documentaries, including Springsteen, on how they make them. I think we will realize that there are great, good, mediocre and bad recordings now as they were in the past.
It's the same with PA systems too. Last week we heard H.E.R and the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl and the sound sucked big time. Last night, we heard the LA Phil playing Villa Lobos, Piazzolla and Tchaikovsky and the sound was magnificent. Same venue, same orchestra, but different needs. By the way, the HER sound was the worst we ever heard at that venue.

 

[Ken1951]

There are valid reasons for this, due to the fading of ancient pigments exposed to UV.

Most galleries are under financial duress and have delayed installation of properly filtered LED lights.

https://www.canada.ca/en/conservati...technical-bulletins/led-lighting-museums.html

Pardon for more Off-topic, but we were lucky enough to see the VanGogh Roses and Irises exhibit at the Met several years ago. The light was more subdued than in most of the rest of the gallery and they had a fascinating video presentation showing how much the paintings had faded over the years. It was still awe inspiring to be in the same space with these works. The first time they had been together since they were in VanGogh's studio. The wrong light is a killer for art.

Now, back to your regular scheduled program!

 

[Frgirard]

Second, we may also have some recall bias. We "think" or remember all the good old recordings. But if we look back, there were more bad and poor recordings that fortunately we forgot about them.

please avoid the We. I don't recognize myself in your words. I have a lot of first CD edition printed in the 80's