Yeaaah, **** dynamics, let's limit it all to the brim.
I know limiting can be useful, but most of the time it's just destroying music.
I don't think I'd be able to be an engineer just for that reason.
I don't want anyone who doesn't know **** about sound quality to tell me how I should master my music.
It seems like an incredibly irritating thing to me.
Yamaha and NAD had some cassette decks back in the 90's that had a "CAR" setting.
When you pressed this, every bit of signal that went beneath -12dB was kept above -12dB so the sound of your engine, wind and tires wouldn't be louder than the soft passages in music.
That was a pretty good idea, quite useful too.
But the limiting hype that's going on nowadays...
They're even turning excessive limiting into some sort of 'effect'.
Listen to this:
This once was a pretty good recording. Brilliant stereo imaging, loads of detail and then they ****ed it all up by excessive limiting.
Same goes for:
As an audio engineer, you can probably tell me; Ive heard that the reason limiting is so popular nowadays, is that when a song is played louder on the radio, it sells better.
Is that true?
Anyway, I hate it. I hate excessive mastering, I hate excessive limiting.
I have this CD you'll probably know called 'Jazz at the pawnshop'.
They used two nagra recorders, an overhead mic and two mics on each side of the band. And it just sounds magical. There's so much space in that recording that you actually feel as if you're in the bar where it has been recorded. Dolby Surround my ass.
A good engineer and a set of decent stereo speakers and you're done.
|