Originally Posted By: fredk
... Santana, Supernatural. Its really my only recent CD.

And looking at the full song...



We have a winner folks. Dosn't look any better zoomed in.



I must say, I am kind of dissapointed with Santana. I always though of him as a musicians musician.

I was impressed with the Dire Straits track. Once you zoom in, you can see a fair amount of dynamic range in the recording, even though it is fairly loud.

As an interesting side note, in the late 70s and early 80s when I recorded a lot of stuff tape to tape, the rule of thumb was to set the volume so that those nifty digital meters were just below red (no clipping) even though none of us knew what clipping was.

By the way Jason, I remember reading an article where the author gave an example of a Zeppelin song with the original, remastered in the 90s and remastered post 2000. You could see the progressive increase in volume and dynamic compression. The last one didn't look quite as bad as the Dixie Chicks or Santana, but it was close.


As far as Santana, that really isn't surprising. Even before mastering, or recording, Santana is known for having a VERY compressed guitar sound. If you get a chance to watch him live, even if you are not a guitar player, you can notice that regardless if he barely touches the strings or really wacks them, the volume is the same (very little dynamics).

I think I will need to put a Jeff Beck re-master through this as his playing is on the other end as being very dynamic. Not sure how much it makes it through mastering though.


Mark
Pio 94,SB3,BD30,A35,Pio 48AV.Pronto 7000 controlling all. Getting ready for 22s, 150 & QS8s.