Mastering Questions.

... yes but ...

... throughout that book mr. katz criticizes that lots of nowadays music's is sorta squarewave music with lil to none dynamic range which - as i understood him - is mostly due to overprocessing in the mastering process ... now, even if you dont, please, for a minute imagine you r a techno producer (... just for the sake of this discussion – we could talk bout other music styles too, but techno fits best to squarewaves imo): anyways, as a techno producer do you think its wise to follow mr. katz advice to make high dynamic range techno mixes? ... well, i can imagine mr. katz doesnt like techno ... but just the same i doubt that you techno producer gonna like your techno mix mastered by mr. katz ...

... knox, enjoy that book, its real good imo (nontheless i m questioning/criticizing), i think you got a good approach to it ...

He's talking over compression which seems to be in a decline, most techno I've heard has dynamics, it's pop that tends to cut it out.

hi el ... damn, your right - as always ... ... and i m well surprised ... and sorta confused. today i reinstalled wavelab on my pc and digged through my cd collection just to check out dynamics ... and even quite compressed techno stuff which i expected havin lil dynamics to my surprise has quite some dynamic range ... far from squarewaves as shown in katz book! ... and - dunno - but in my cd collection which is mostly electronic ish i havent found anythin really like what katz calls overcompressed - so is katz mainly referin to top of the pop ish when he s talkin bout overcompression? ... i never bought charts stuff but will now dload some just to check it out ... any classic for an overcompressed album in mind? ... anyways - thanx for your input ... i guess i misunderstood overcompression and think i just learned somethin ...

dude if katz would master my shyt I'd be in heaven.

Most hip hop in the last 3 years is probably over compressed, latest Destiny's child maybe, i never have these joints but they have little depth to them so i figure they are likley to be blocked out.

Regarding the over-compression trend, Craig Anderton said we will pay for it years from now when we listen back to these recordings and they sound crappy. He says mastering engineers remove dynamic range so the record won't "dip" when played on radio. Radio adds compression to even out the signal and to make the music grab the listener's attention as he scans through the dial. Anderton said many of today's recordings are distorted (either intentionally or unintentionally) and will not hold up well over time. Dynamic range is more natural to the human ear.

Personally, I get ear fatigue listening to much of today's stuff.

True dat.