RE: [microsound] usefulness of compressors/mastering in experimental music

[ian stewart <artsonics@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> -it is very difficult to master your own work, especially in the studio 
> where it was produced- you'll probably end up exacerbating the frequency 
> problems in your mix, by overcompensating for monitoring deficiencies. I'll 
> post more on this later,

Most composers have some more or less severe monitoring deficiencies in 
their studio, in part because of their loudspeakers, and in part because of 
their placement and room acoustics. If, say, your speakers reproduce 3 kHz 
much louder than flat monitoring, you probably systematically eq that 
frequency down in your mix, so it sounds good in your studio. If you master 
on the same monitoring, you're certainly not going to bring the 3 kHz back 
to a good level, and you may even make things worse. A good mastering 
engineer, listening on high-end flat monitoring, will hear something missing 
at 3 kHz and correct it. Mastered, the work will sound better on all systems 
except those which reproduce 3 kHz much louder than normal (but then, anyone 
who owns such a system will hear that problem on anything they play, and 
won't blame the work in question). This leads to the mastering paradox- in 
the composer's own studio, a mastered work will probably sound worse than 
unmastered! But on virtually every other system, the work will sound closer 
to how the composer heard it in his or her own studio.

There are still other benefits of mastering- in a good mastering studio, you 
can actually hear the ultrahighs and superlows properly, and these can be 
sculpted for maximum impact. Dominique argues in his article that sonic 
experimenters could take great advantage of mastering to reinforce truly 
experimental approaches to frequency design and sound design more generally, 
as the mastering engineer's training, equipment, and monitoring give him or 
her ideal tools for such work.

If, of course, sound quality is not important to a producer on conceptual 
grounds, then mastering probably isn't for them.

best,
Ian



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