Is there a fine line between art and distasteful mastering and mixing?

[PristineSound]

Dan Auerbach, Undertow

:22 seconds in, it's intentional distortion, perhaps emulating a guitar amp? Anyway, it comes across as port chuffing or maybe my woofers is about to blow up. This type of mixing is characteristic signature of Dan Auerbach and The Black Keys. Everytime, I play any of their tracks, I have to double check my speakers to make sure nothing is broken. I just find this kind of "artistic" mixing a little too much for me.

The track is an excellent track otherwise.

Is there a fine line between art and just distasteful mixing/mastering? One topic will likely come up is the compression in today's music.

 

[DVDdoug]

Of course, different people have different tastes.

I assume it sounds exactly the way the producer (or whoever is in charge of the sound) wants it to sound. ...Or, it's your speakers.

 

[Somafunk]

I love loud, brash distortion added in through guitar pedals (usually), probably just as well due to one of my fav artists being Mogwai

 

[PristineSound]

Of course, different people have different tastes.

I assume it sounds exactly the way the producer (or whoever is in charge of the sound) wants it to sound. ...Or, it's your speakers.

I'm playing this track on the Ascend Acoustics ELX RAAL and Neumann KH-120II. . .I hope it's exactly how the artists heard it and not my speakers

 

[somebodyelse]

Is there a fine line between art and just distasteful mixing/mastering? One topic will likely come up is the compression in today's music.

Metallica's Death Magnetic was infamous for it, to the point fans petitioned for a remix or made their own from the parts released with less compression in the Guitar Hero game. They eventually released a version with less compression than the original, but more than Guitar Hero.

 

[kyuu]

I dunno about a fine line. I would say it's a line that can be placed anywhere depending on the tastes of the listener. Even heavy compression can sometimes be preferred.

One of my favorite albums, Taiko by Danger, has an effect on the first track that sounds exactly like the "pop" from an amplifier turning on/off. It was quite alarming the first time I heard it. I was briefly left wondering if something had happened to my subwoofer's amp, particularly considering it directly precedes a highly dynamic bass sound. Now that I'm used to it it doesn't bother me of course. Also there's a track on the Astro Bot soundtrack I'm really into called Tite Mites that has the pop/crackle typical of a vinyl record layered in. I don't usually listen to vinyls, but I still appreciate how it lends the track a certain feel.

Where any of that lands on the tasteful/distasteful line? No idea.

 

[PristineSound]

One of my favorite albums, Taiko by Danger, has an effect on the first track that sounds exactly like the "pop" from an amplifier turning on/off. It was quite alarming the first time I heard it. I was briefly left wondering if something had happened to my subwoofer's amp, particularly considering it directly precedes a highly dynamic bass sound.

I have to check that track out. If it's some sort of artificially added sound by the mixing engineer, then I think it may be a fine line for my taste.

 

[Oddball]

Not really so much into 2 channel or multi-channel music, but can say that HT material is a bloody mess, even if it is supposed to be mastered at certain standards.

The result is that a single default "reference" calibration is completely useless. Creating different profiles on AVP will take you to 4 for D&M (Audessey), 6 for Storm and if not mistaken 32 for Trinnov. IMO 4 or 6 is not enough so one would need to still adjust it by ear, which is so much against all the good work one does for calibration of the different profiles.

Just as a funny fact, D&M actually provides a separate bass delay adjustment for LFE as it has been known that different tracks have different delay. This is mostly for discs, but still shows how poor is the state of mixing.

 

[Beave]

I have not tried to remaster. But thank you for sharing this tool, I will have to look into it, looks very interesting.

It's spam and has been reported. Please delete your response that quotes the spam post.

 

[PristineSound]

It's spam and has been reported. Please delete your response that quotes the spam post.

Damn, this spammer took time out to really put a thoughtful post. This must have taken him at least hours to do research on the topic, assuming he doesn't have the background in the topic, and 10-20 mins to write the post.

That is a lot of time investment, this spamming campaign can't be cheap with US labor.

 

[Beave]

Damn, this spammer took time out to really put a thoughtful post. This must have taken him at least hours to do research on the topic, assuming he doesn't have the background in the topic, and 10-20 mins to write the post.

That is a lot of time investment, this spamming campaign can't be cheap with US labor.

The post was written by AI.

 

[PristineSound]

The post was written by AI.

I use ChatGPT often, and that was is very impressive. Which is why I didn't suspect it to be AI.

 

[shuppatsu]

I don’t think there is a universal line, but I have my own line.

For whatever reason, I am perfectly fine with sounds/vocals/instruments being placed just about anywhere for recordings featuring electrified or electronic sources. The final product is a sonic collage and the engineers and producers are artists as much as the musicians are.

But I expect all-acoustic recordings to sound naturalistic. I can usually abide the “40 foot piano” effect for solo or small group recordings, but other mixing and effect decisions really bother me.

A big one for me is when a self-accompanying singer’s instrument is completely removed from the vocals. Certain versions of Getz/Gilberto are particularly bad for this, because Gilberto’s guitar is recorded dry in one channel and his vocal is recorded with way too much reverb in the other channel.

Speaking of reverb, a little bit goes a long way for me. The famous Chess Records echo chamber is too much for me, even on famous audiophile recordings like “Muddy Waters, Folk Singer.” It doesn’t sound like any room (or even church) that I’ve ever been in.

Even on binaural recordings performed live with no overdubs, microphone placement can make the recording sound really weird to me. On Amber Rubarth’s solo binaural live recording of “Just Like a Woman,” Rubarth’s guitar comes from the left, her voice center-left, and the fretboard squeaks from the right. That puts the binaural head like inches away from her. It sounds a little uncanny and overly intimate.

 

[Chrispy]

I use ChatGPT often, and that was is very impressive. Which is why I didn't suspect it to be AI.

And I thought you were some AI program....

 

[dartinbout]

Not really so much into 2 channel or multi-channel music, but can say that HT material is a bloody mess, even if it is supposed to be mastered at certain standards.

The result is that a single default "reference" calibration is completely useless. Creating different profiles on AVP will take you to 4 for D&M (Audessey), 6 for Storm and if not mistaken 32 for Trinnov. IMO 4 or 6 is not enough so one would need to still adjust it by ear, which is so much against all the good work one does for calibration of the different profiles.

Just as a funny fact, D&M actually provides a separate bass delay adjustment for LFE as it has been known that different tracks have different delay. This is mostly for discs, but still shows how poor is the state of mixing.

I find that I frequently adjust the emphasis between center, L|R and surrounds for different multichannel albums, TV and movies. As my setup has seperate amps for my center, surrounds and a one pair of my 4 L/R speakers. It's a "frankensteinian" setup but it allows for easy push\pull of the theoretical middle of the mix (as it were). Shuffle is a "dog's dinner" though. Equaliziation is kind of a mess. I don't understand how anybody does a standard PEQ mix of stable listening room without movable panels. Mixing audio for MC albums, TV and movies seems to be the perview of those terminally addicted to massive doses' of Owsley's best blotter.

 

[Torin Krell]

I use ChatGPT often, and that was is very impressive. Which is why I didn't suspect it to be AI.

AI engines apparently regularly scrape info here at ASR. A full sentence from one of my posts here came up 2 days after I wrote it when I used Duck Duck Go's AI assisted search summary function.

 

[bluefuzz]

Is there a fine line between art and just distasteful mixing/mastering?

Not a Merzbow fan then?

 

[DVDdoug]

I just remembered something from The Babylon Bee:

Climate Activists Vandalize A Jackson Pollock But No One Notices.

 

[kemmler3D]

Simple answer: mixing is part of the art, and art you find distasteful is still art.

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Autotune sounds like distortion to me.