Ember Rev – How much difference SHOULD mastering make ?
It's not every day you get to make a new master of an album you've already worked on – especially not from a completely new mix !
But that's exactly what happened for me recently.
Dan from Ember Rev had never been happy with the guitar parts on their 2019 album "From The Country To The City To The Sea" and recently decided to re-record them. At the same time he used the opportunity to make some changes to the arrangements and song structures that more closely match the way the band perform them live.
The album was originally mixed by Simone Silvestri, but for this new version Simone wasn't available and Dan asked Sam Inglis from Sound On Sound to handle the re-mix. Sam took quite a different approach, which he's written about in detail for a fantastic new article in the latest issue of the magazine. He also asked me to contribute a short segment talking about the differences I heard from a mastering perspective, and the different approaches I took when mastering each version.
You can read the full article here, (or sign up here to read the whole "Replica" issue for free !) and in the video above I demonstrate how all this sounds in practise, using the song "Ultramarine" as an example. You can download and compare the files for yourself, plus many other examples, here.
How much difference does mastering really make ? And perhaps more importantly, how much difference should it make ?
Take a listen and decide for yourself !
PS. You might also like to take a listen to Ember Rev's latest album, also mixed by Sam and mastered by me, here
The Equal LUFS Illusion
I'm seeing this question all the time recently:
"I hit the LUFS target, but my mixes still sound smaller than the pros - WTF?!"
Which seems like a perfectly reasonable question, right ? LUFS measure loudness, so just match the LUFS to the appropriate target and you're good to go… why wouldn't it work ?
The level you choose to master at influences every other aspect of the way your music sounds
The final level of your master is virtually irrelevant, and music fans don’t care
These two facts are both true - even though they seem to flatly contradict each other !
I call this the ‘Loudness Paradox’, but what does it mean ? How can both of these statements be true, and what are we supposed to do with that information ?
I'm excited to announce that we've released a major update to my Dynameter plugin – Version 2 allows you to get even deeper insight into the dynamics and density of your audio with:
Powerful new analysis modes — Stereo, Mid-Side, and Multiband
The new PSR Overview bar for instant visual feedback
Fully resize-able vector graphics interface
The unique new Peak Aware functionality — easily understand if limited dynamics are due to heavy processing or just a natural property of the audio
It's always nerve-wracking releasing something new, and this was no exception !
Will people like it, will they find the new features interesting and useful, will we have missed any bugs...!
But the feedback so far has been fantastic, which is great news !
Everyone is talking about AI, especially in mastering.
And there are certainly some exciting developments and interesting new products.
But can AI really take the place of a human engineer ?
I recently had the chance to test this idea for myself, using an actual mastering project, and in the video above I show you what I found, and the conclusions I drew from it.
