ScottW wrote:
Without having each producer step forth and reveal their motives, we
can only speculate.
Rick Rubin has been asked about the notorious Vlado Meller, and
his answer was simple: people prefer recordings that way.
Michael Fremer: Can't you control the mastering guy? "Vlado, lay off!"
Rick Rubin: The difference is though, I wish I had examples here to
play for you. If I knew we were going to talk about this I'd go
through the library and find examples. Ultimately, if you listen on a
car sound system or in the mainstream place where most people listen
to music--cars, boomboxes sound systems you get at (chain stores), and
if you "A/B" the less compressed version to the more compressed
version, you pick the compressed version.
MF: Even in a good car stereo?
RR: Even in a good car stereo. We do shoot-outs all the time. I master
with as many as five different mastering engineers mastering the same
album and then we "A/B" them and it's interesting, Vlado wins nine out
of ten times, and he claims it's not him. He's got technology in that
room that's a 2 million dollar mastering suite that other people don't
have.
MF: "So I'm going to use it godamn it, even if it's not better!"
RR: All I'll tell you is that my whole job in life is to A/B things,
that's all I do, and for some reason, I don't know that what he's
doing is necessarily the best, but I haven't heard anything to beat it
and we try.
http://www.musicangle.com/feat.php?id=38
Andrew.