Quote:
Originally Posted by ChristopherT
The general mastering engineer wisdom around all of these silly formats and moving targets is:
Make ONE digital master that sounds good, is not too smashed for loudness, and use it for everything.
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If I make a master that is -14 LUFS and another that is -8 LUFS integrated which is a hypothetical situation that I see suggested or inquired about often, those two masters will sound different.
Not just in loudness obviously, but the processing required to get to -8LUFS integrated will smash the dynamics, transients and percussive elements, and bring up the FX and melodic elements. It adds a certain character to the sound which can be good, or bad.
On the -14LUFS version, the transients and percussive elements will seem very loud and the FX and melodic elements will seem too quiet.
This is why I believe in one digital master that hits a sweet spot that feels good in both normalized, and non-normalized situations.
It can be done. Two loudness versions just leads to confusion and have way too many differences (aside from loudness alone) IMO.
The goal is to not go so loud that after normalization, all the harshness and artifacts from making a super loud master are exposed and the song feels dwarfed, and obvious to not go so quiet that people can't turn it loud enough their device.
In my experience, masters that are too loud are more problematic than the opposite, but artists/bands often have fear of being too quiet and deemed amateur/failure and somehow not "commercially acceptable" or some other non-sense.
The other related aspect is being asked to provide a hot "radio ready master".
The reality is that a more dynamic and conservative master is likely to survive and sound best after all the FM broadcast processing than a mix that is pushed super loud. This is best it's only being destroyed once instead of twice
All stations do their own degree of sonic processing (some more, some less), but the general concept rings true.