Re: [ARSCLIST] Compression (was Re: [ARSCLIST] A fundamental Flaw ...)

["Richard L. Hess" <ArcLists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 07:47 AM 1/24/2005 -0600, Karl Miller wrote:

> Another frustrating example, the set of broadcast performances issued by
> the Boston Symphony...mastering done by our "friends" at EMI. Having some
> second generation copies of the broadcast masters, I was disappointed with
> the BSO issue. Listening carefully, I could hear changes in the noise
> level, suggesting the engineer had done some additional compression to the
> already compressed broadcast masters. When I finally got to the engineer,
> he responded..."people prefer it that way." From my perspective, very sad.

I had a lovely, totally uncompressed, Dolby A, 15 in/s master of an LP
released by a major church in NYC in the 1970s. I had recorded it in the
church. It got re-released on CD and the mastering engineer decided to use
a high-priced noise reduction program on it.

I emailed him and he said that his client (the record label) had standards
for noise and that my master tape was too noisy. I explained to him it was
a Dolby A tape originally (I had sent the digital files, not the reel) and
that he wasn't hearing tape noise, he was hearing the organ wind noise that
was the normal sound in the church. He said it didn't matter they had
standards, but the de-noising was reduced after my mentioning it to him.
Still more than I would have liked, but at this point tolerable.

Cheers,

Richard


Richard L. Hess                           email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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