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Old 08-01-2010, 09:03 AM   #36
camerondye
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Durham, NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tower Studio View Post
This is totally off topic but yes, clean new strings (bass and guitar) and drum heads are a must when recording. BUT some might find new strings to have too much of those harmonics, they sound brighter, which might not please everybody.

If you play metal, change your strings. If you play blues rock, don't. If you play punk, you don't even know how to tune them so... who cares?

Apples and oranges...

I think this is exactly the perfect answer to the thread actually. In the context of some music, it's supposed to be loud and some music should never ever be clipped and touch 0. Now do things need to be butchered like Death Magnetic...I don't think so but their opinion said it should and it went at least Platinum so who knows. Chinese Democracy was a beautifully recorded and mastered reasonably and it didn't sell nearly as well.

This is the great thing about music, it's up to the people making the album to make it sound like they want it to. It's a confusing and great thing. I think that mastering plays little part on sales and it comes down to good songs, writing, and performing....and unfortunately marketing. Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska is one of the worst sounding things ever, but it's the only album of his that I can listen to and enjoy all the way through and I think it's amazing. There is no perfect answer and people are going to keep mastering this way, some will lower it a little, some will keep all their dynamics, but we'll never ever know if it makes a difference and can only guess. The best thing to do is make your music sound like it sounds in your head and be happy it's out of your head and on something other people can appreciate.

Me personally, if somebody wants what's in their head brutally loud...who am I to say it's not supposed to sound that way. This is an art and the mixer isn't the main artist and I think that some of us forget that sometimes. If the musician is the painter, we are no more than the paintbrush or the canvas. If you are upfront that you won't squash the music and the artist doesn't leave, maybe you brought a little more sensibility in this world and maybe you made his music worse.

I agree with not killing dynamics, but unfortunately just about everybody who walks through my door has a different view.
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