4 ms·

Mastering shouldn't increase the dynamic range. It should rather preserve all meaningful dynamic range, while making the most of the medium.

notahacker 10y ago
Well if we're being strictly accurate it could mean preserve meaningful dynamic range of the master recording in a manner which ensures that it'll sound like it has a greater dynamic range when played using the new output medium than the vinyl recordings which everyone's actually used to listening to the song on. But that's rather cumbersome phrasing amounting to essentially the same thing, besides which I'm pretty sure that in practice a lot of remastering involved actively increasing dynamic range etc. relative to the original master tape because the sound engineers (i) wanted to restore dynamics and other aspects of sound quality lost during the original mastering process and (ii) thought it sounded better and would sell more CDs. I guess ultimately it depends whether it's believed that fidelity to how it sounded to the original sound engineer mixing it in the recording studio or fidelity to how it sounded to a generation growing up listening to records is the priority.
- beat 10y ago
  Actually, mastering decreases dynamic range, largely to increase apparent volume (apparent volume is RMS, not peak-to-peak. To be very vague, the RMS of 0 to -10 is -5, and the RMS of 0 to -20 is -10. The more dynamic range, the less apparent volume). The intent of the mixing engineer and mastering engineer is to make a recording that sounds good everywhere, not just on studio monitors. When I mix records (I've produced several), I check every "final" mix on cheap earbuds and in my bad car stereo. Sounding good on my very expensive Tannoy studio monitors is meaningless if it doesn't sound good in someone else's car. For that matter, most pop records are mixed on subjectively awful speakers. The most popular pro mixing speaker is the Yamaha NS-10. They sound shrill, piercing, and nasty, with a sharp eq spike right in the 2khz range where ears are most sensitive. If you can make a mix sound good on those, it should sound good anywhere! A lot of mixers also rely on Auratones, which are tiny 5" drivers, often used in mono. No lows, no highs. They're incredibly honest about levels.

notahacker 10y ago

Well if we're being strictly accurate it could mean preserve meaningful dynamic range of the master recording in a manner which ensures that it'll sound like it has a greater dynamic range when played using the new output medium than the vinyl recordings which everyone's actually used to listening to the song on. But that's rather cumbersome phrasing amounting to essentially the same thing, besides which I'm pretty sure that in practice a lot of remastering involved actively increasing dynamic range etc. relative to the original master tape because the sound engineers (i) wanted to restore dynamics and other aspects of sound quality lost during the original mastering process and (ii) thought it sounded better and would sell more CDs. I guess ultimately it depends whether it's believed that fidelity to how it sounded to the original sound engineer mixing it in the recording studio or fidelity to how it sounded to a generation growing up listening to records is the priority.

beat 10y ago
Actually, mastering decreases dynamic range, largely to increase apparent volume (apparent volume is RMS, not peak-to-peak. To be very vague, the RMS of 0 to -10 is -5, and the RMS of 0 to -20 is -10. The more dynamic range, the less apparent volume). The intent of the mixing engineer and mastering engineer is to make a recording that sounds good everywhere, not just on studio monitors. When I mix records (I've produced several), I check every "final" mix on cheap earbuds and in my bad car stereo. Sounding good on my very expensive Tannoy studio monitors is meaningless if it doesn't sound good in someone else's car. For that matter, most pop records are mixed on subjectively awful speakers. The most popular pro mixing speaker is the Yamaha NS-10. They sound shrill, piercing, and nasty, with a sharp eq spike right in the 2khz range where ears are most sensitive. If you can make a mix sound good on those, it should sound good anywhere! A lot of mixers also rely on Auratones, which are tiny 5" drivers, often used in mono. No lows, no highs. They're incredibly honest about levels.