MQA Off-Topic Spinoff

[Abtr]

2 hours ago, Rt66indierock said:

A very interesting interview with mastering engineer Brian Lucey. He calls MQA what it is. Enjoy

...

I listened to some of his products on Tidal and checked for dynamic range here: http://dr.loudness-war.info/. He must be mastering music to win the loudness war..

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - I'll be moving the off-topic posts from the MQA Vaporware thread over here, as a way to keep that one curated. 

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, Abtr said:

I listened to some of his products on Tidal and checked for dynamic range here: http://dr.loudness-war.info/. He must be mastering music to win the loudness war..

Does that in any way invalidate what he said about MQA?

[Abtr]

17 minutes ago, mansr said:

Does that in any way invalidate what he said about MQA?

 

Probably not.. But as a mastering engineer he states: "Mastering is the bridge between what we had hoped to make and what will be judged for all time as the definitive product. With any release we are competing against the Recorded History of Music. The aim for my work is to win people over, and open them up to new music by enhancing the connection between artist and audience." At the same time, however, he creates horribly compressed music. Does this guy really know what he is talking about? I'm not inclined to think so..

[FredericV]

2 hours ago, mansr said:

Does that in any way invalidate what he said about MQA?

 

No, just another ad-hominem attack.
 

2 hours ago, Abtr said:

 

Probably not.. But as a mastering engineer he states: "Mastering is the bridge between what we had hoped to make and what will be judged for all time as the definitive product. With any release we are competing against the Recorded History of Music. The aim for my work is to win people over, and open them up to new music by enhancing the connection between artist and audience." At the same time, however, he creates horribly compressed music. Does this guy really know what he is talking about? I'm not inclined to think so..

https://theunboundedspirit.com/25-ways-to-hide-truth-the-art-of-disinformation/

Number 5

[asdf1000]

5 hours ago, mansr said:

Does that in any way invalidate what he said about MQA?

 

Two of the recent albums mentioned in that interview, that he worked on, are available in MQA on Tidal.

Shania Twain - Now

Liam Gallagher - As You Were

 

I wonder if he was involved in the MQA process?

 

That doesn't say anything bad about him if he was,  since the labels direct things (I assume). But would be interesting to know.

 

[Brian Lucey]

5 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Two of the recent albums mentioned in that interview, that he worked on, are available in MQA on Tidal.

Shania Twain - Now

Liam Gallagher - As You Were

 

I wonder if he was involved in the MQA process?

No.  the labels are doing what they want to do, as they own the material and someone in one division is making decisions for the team.

Quote

12 hours ago, Abtr said:

I listened to some of his products on Tidal and checked for dynamic range here: http://dr.loudness-war.info/. He must be mastering music to win the loudness war..

 

That doesn't say anything bad about him if he was,  since the labels direct things (I assume). But would be interesting to know.

 

These are VERY loud records, to be sure.  They are also loved by both artists, both labels ...  and both are Billboard #1s.

 

When you do 200 records a year there is no time to be an a$$hole or a snob, it's a service job and we can only make dynamic records when that is what the client wants.   Tell me, what do you do for a living?   Do you ignore your clients or do you serve them?

 

[Brian Lucey]

9 hours ago, FredericV said:

 

No, just another ad-hominem attack.
 

 

• 1.

  (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

  "vicious ad hominem attacks"
• 2.

  relating to or associated with a particular person.

   

  I would say your reply is guilty of this.   Yet I mentioned no one.  So ... ?

[mansr]

1 hour ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

• 1.

  (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.

  "vicious ad hominem attacks"
• 2.

  relating to or associated with a particular person.

   

  I would say your reply is guilty of this.   Yet I mentioned no one.  So ... ?

I'm pretty sure FredericV was defending you. The ad hominem, though not quite the right term, he refers to was from Abtr.

[Brian Lucey]

47 minutes ago, mansr said:

I'm pretty sure FredericV was defending you. The ad hominem, though not quite the right term, he refers to was from Abtr.

 

Yes of course.

 

Sorry, mastering records and replying to people without a real name is tricky !

[FredericV]

1 hour ago, mansr said:

I'm pretty sure FredericV was defending you. The ad hominem, though not quite the right term, he refers to was from Abtr.

Correct, Abtr was attacking Brian because of the compression he used during the mastering. So Abtr was reverting to ad-hominem, which is a typical way to attack opponents.
 

[Brian Lucey]

3 minutes ago, FredericV said:

Correct, Abtr was attacking Brian because of the compression he used during the mastering. So Abtr was reverting to ad-hominem, which is a typical way to attack opponents.
 

 

In actual fact, those records were not compressed by me.   I use a limiter, the compression is all in mixing.  Modern pop is very compressed, and that's ok.

 

The RMS numbers mean nothing, what matters is moving air, and moving emotions.

 

We are not doing a science project.   Numbers like sample rate or RMS mean nothing.

[Hifi Bob]

10 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

 

In actual fact, those records were not compressed by me.   I use a limiter, the compression is all in mixing.  Modern pop is very compressed, and that's ok.

 

The RMS numbers mean nothing, what matters is moving air, and moving emotions.

Plain facts, at the heart of the matter, and poetry too!
Thanks for stopping by, Brian.

[copy_of_a]

15 minutes ago, Brian Lucey said:

The RMS numbers mean nothing, what matters is moving air, and moving emotions.

 

We are not doing a science project.   Numbers like sample rate or RMS mean nothing.

?

[the_bat]

16 hours ago, Abtr said:

I listened to some of his products on Tidal and checked for dynamic range here: http://dr.loudness-war.info/. He must be mastering music to win the loudness war..

 

Hmmm.... according to that database Blonde on Blonde has only got mediocre DR while Dylan & the Dead is excellent.

 

I think there might be other criteria needed to decide whether something's good or not.

[mansr]

5 minutes ago, the_bat said:

Hmmm.... according to that database Blonde on Blonde has only got mediocre DR while Dylan & the Dead is excellent.

 

I think there might be other criteria needed to decide whether something's good or not.

Of course there are. The DR value is more useful to compare different releases of the same music. If one is DR8 and the other DR12, the latter almost always sounds much better. Anything below DR6 also tends to be annoyingly loud even if the music is good. From DR6 to DR10, what works best really depends on the style of music. Some music needs to be loud.

[firedog]

4 hours ago, Brian Lucey said:

No.  the labels are doing what they want to do, as they own the material and someone in one division is making decisions for the team.

These are VERY loud records, to be sure.  They are also loved by both artists, both labels ...  and both are Billboard #1s.

 

When you do 200 records a year there is no time to be an a$$hole or a snob, it's a service job and we can only make dynamic records when that is what the client wants.   Tell me, what do you do for a living?   Do you ignore your clients or do you serve them?

 

Brian, I understand and have heard other mastering engineers say the same.

What I am wondering is this: do clients these days even know there is a choice? Do they know what a recording that hasn't been heavily volume compressed sounds like?  

Is it possible some of them would want a recording not to be so highly compressed if given a choice? And would the labels, etc let you master popular music that way?

 

As this is an audiophile site, one of the issues many of us have is this:

We understand that an album is highly volume compressed for the mass market. Most of the listening will be on ear buds and in mobile audio environments, so that makes some sense.

But what about releases done as hi-res and sold as "audiophile" releases? Why can't these be released without all the added volume compression? They typically are listened to on quality equipment by people who are capable of, and prefer to use, a volume control. 

Why can't "audiophile" releases be released without heavy volume compression? Heavy added compression eliminates much of the subtlety that was originally recorded. 

[firedog]

25 minutes ago, the_bat said:

 

Hmmm.... according to that database Blonde on Blonde has only got mediocre DR while Dylan & the Dead is excellent.

 

I think there might be other criteria needed to decide whether something's good or not.

Don't get your point. Acc'd to the database, just about all thoseCylan  releases have an average DR ranging from 11-13. That's not untypical for rock music from the 60's, and would seem to me to be about right for music like Dylan's: it doesn't have a great dynamic range anyway. You aren't going to find "Blonde on Blonde" with a DR of 16. Not all music naturally has a high DR. 

 

Considering there are different formats involved, it's not even clear there is much of an actual difference between them (DR is relative number  and can change with the format, even if no volume compression has taken place.). 

I own several of those releases, and none of them sound volume crushed to me. 

[beetlemania]

2 hours ago, firedog said:

 

What I am wondering is this: do clients these days even know there is a choice? Do they know what a recording that hasn't been heavily volume compressed sounds like? 

 

 

Granted were a bunch of old farts around here but I wonder what proportion of modern artists are familiar with, say, "Crime of the Century"? And if so, do they like the sound?

[PeterSt]

2 hours ago, beetlemania said:

"Crime of the Century"? And if so, do they like the sound?

 

Surprise : I hope they don't.

[beetlemania]

14 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

 

Surprise : I hope they don't.

Because?

a) you don't like Crime of the Century

b) you don't like the dynamical range

c) you prefer modern compression

d) something else?

[PeterSt]

6 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

Because?

 

b)  you don't like the dynamical range

 

Now what ?

(challenge)

[beetlemania]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Now what ?

We'll have to agree to disagree

[PeterSt]

30 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Now what ?

(challenge)

 

27 minutes ago, beetlemania said:

We'll have to agree to disagree

 

Wow.

[the_bat]

6 hours ago, firedog said:

Don't get your point.

 

Just that trying to use DR as a predictor of quality is not generally helpful.

 

As mansr says it's often useful where there are multiple masters but not in isolation.

 

But you probably knew that.