CD Mastering - Hot CD Disease!!!

Here it is... the new millennium... and lately I've been deluged with a bunch of dats from clients who are making the same mistake all over the country. They are cutting their mixes too hot to dat (creating digital clipping) or "mastering" their mixes on their home PC using "brick wall" limiters that absolutely smash the musicality and muscle out of their sound.

Are you afflicted with HotCD Disease?!?!?

...Maybe you just love those coool "mastering" plug-ins on your new PC. Those brick-wall limiters, analog emulators, exciters, empasizers, upside-down-harmiflangers, ring-dingers etc.!

Here's the scoop. Some artists are flattening out their sound.... rendering it punchless and distorted... with no low end muscle, hard mid-highs and ringy high end. They are doing this by attempting to "pre-master" hot mixes and hot cds... perhaps so that the actual mastering won't be expensive to get a competitive volume level. But do you realize what's happening?

At mix time, the dat machine's clipping (over) light must have be flashing constantly to get this kind of level. The only reason I can imagine this happening is (1) Stevie Wonder was mixing (2) you like all that clipping, or (3) you've found that the hotter you cut your dat, the louder your own cdr copy sounds if you just transfer straight across from the dat.

What artists aren't understanding is that depending on how loud you cut your cd, you could be flattening out the punch and muscle of your mixes. Huh? The whole effect of a musical peak, like say on a kick drum, is that the waveform surges out over the over-all (rms) music. The peak sound has a cool impact that stands up from the other sounds. This is punch that comes from a wider speaker excursion caused by that bigger peak, which means the speaker is actually moving more air... therefore... more punch.

When you flatten out all these peaks by hard limiting, the speaker excursion (distance it moves) is smaller thereby reducing the punch of the music. Granted, the overall sound is louder coming off the cdr.

The average listener, however, turns their music system to a general sound level that they dig, which could be up and it could be down... depending on the cd they are listening to and the mood they're in. Most people don't get bummed out when they turn their volume knob a quarter of an inch or so... so chances are if the actual waveform on your cd contains more (rather than less) peak information, the listener will perceive your music to be punchier.

From my perspective, if you want a super hot cd, better to mix at a standard level with no overs, then let the mastering engineer send it through the roof for ya. With $50,000 worth of eq's, compressors & such in the processing chain, the chances are that you'll end up with just as much level with more punch and musical impact... and a cd that is more listenable over a longer period of time... because it will breathe more naturally than a total pedal-to-the-metal cd master. And yes, the mastering process might cost a bit more than that cool $150 SuperSmasher Plugin for your PC...

But you WILL feel the energy IN the mix. You will push it IN to the mix. It's more exciting and more magical, and it's worth it.

Gulp! Now that commercial cds are at the top of the scale, it's harder to give home recordings an edge via extra level, which used to be a pretty good way to make an impressive cd on a budget. Now that the competition is maxing out in the volume department, it will start to boil down to the quality of a mix - and the muscular components within it - that determines how "loud" the cd sounds. Word will start to get out that "apparent level" is just as important as meter level. So it will be even more up to you to do your homework, and get the mix smokin.

Hey, this is a no-rules business, and certainly everything you've done up to this point may be exactly what the doctor ordered for your project to hit the top ten - exactly as it is! A great mastering engineer will always give you what YOU want.... Ages ago some hits were cut on 1/4" 4 track machines back when 24 track was the thing.... so use your best creative judgment, have fun, and DON'T get addicted to the technology!!! Keep your music first and use top-notch talent every step of the way. Then, a mastering professional will make your music sound incredible... and your listener's enjoyment of your music will last for years.

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