Happy Dynamic Range Day! Some of my favorite recent masterings.

In celebration of Dynamic Range Day, I've decided that instead of bitching about bad mastering jobs, I'll list some of my favorite relatively recent mastering jobs, mastering engineers, etc. It will follow no real format.

Neil Young - Greatest Hits, mastered by Tim Mulligan. Original master tapes transferred by John Nowland, just thought I'd add him in there.

Rod Stewart - The Definitive Rod Stewart, mastered by Dave Schultz and Dan Hersch. I bought this expecting a compressed mess, and was pleasantly surprised when I actually heard it.

Venom - Black Metal (2002 remaster), I don't know who mastered it. Not a great sounding recording, but whoever remastered it did a great job. The Venom remasters are some of the only properly mastered Metal CD remasters that I know of. Totally makes me want to snatch up "Welcome To Hell" and "At War With Satan".

The Beatles remasters, mastered by Guy Massey and Steve Rooke. Only some very mild peak limiting was used on the stereo remasters, and no compression was used on the mono box set.

Franz Ferdinand - self titled debut, mastered by Steve Rooke. One of the best mastered popular CDs of the 2000s, proving that loudness doesn't improve sales, or makes a song louder on the radio. Seriously, I hear no difference in volume on the radio between "Take Me Out" and any other recent song.

Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy, mastered by Bob Ludwig. I bought this CD on the strength of the mastering alone. It's no "Appetite For Destruction", but it's pretty great compared to what passes for Hard Rock these days. One of my friends even called it GnR's "Pet Sounds".

The Clash remasters, mastered by Ray Staff and Bob Whitney, remastering supervision by Bill Price. I don't know how compressed these actually are, but I think they tend to sound good overall.

Beastie Boys - To The 5 Boroughs, mastered by Chris Athens. Seems pretty loud with all that bass thumping going on, but it's far from brickwalled.

The Essential Cheap Trick/Hall & Oates/Roy Orbison, mastered by Vic Anesini. If you see Vic Anesini's name on something, then it probably sounds good. It's a shame that he didn't do all of the "Essential" CDs, in fact the only "Essential" in my collection that wasn't mastered by him that I can recommend is...

The Essential Bruce Springsteen, mastered by Bob Ludwig. I think it sounds really good, up until you get to "The Rising". It's an interesting study in recording techniques over the years, and how the crappiness of modern recorded sound isn't always the fault of the mastering engineer. (Update, May 4, 2012: Or maybe it is. Bob Ludwig has done great work in the past, and while a lot of his recent work is nowhere near as bad as, say, Vlado Meller or Ted Jensen, I'm still not impressed with a lot of it. But Brendan O'Brien's tendency to make loud mixes still makes me think that the problem with "The Rising" is more in the mix than the mastering.)

Faith No More - Angel Dust (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab gold disc edition), mastered by Rob LoVerde. Angel Dust was one of the most compressed CDs of its time (1992), and here it gets a more dynamic mastering. I swear I've heard things in this edition that I've never noticed before, even while listening in the car!

Alice Cooper - Love It To Death/Killer/School's Out (Audio Fidelity gold CDs), mastered by Steve Hoffman.

Now on to some Louisville music.

Brigid Kaelin - Keep Your Secrets (mastered by Chris Griffin, assisted by Ben Andrews) and West 28th Street (mastered by Duane Lundy).
Eddie & The Fuck Munkys - The World's Greatest American Barroom Rock n Roll Band Vol. 1, no mastering credit.

None of the three above seem to have been mastered with loudness in mind. The more recent of Brigid Kaelin's CDs, "West 28th Street", is even quieter than the previous one.

Blade Of The Ripper - Taste The Blade, no mastering credit. I hear some of the same kind of distortion as on "Death Magnetic", but it's only mildly compressed, and severely crankable! I wish more Metal CDs were mastered like that.

Stonecutters - self titled debut and Christhammer, no mastering credits. The first Stonecutters CD is another one that I wish more Modern Metal CDs sounded like. Christhammer is more compressed, but still not bad.

The last CD I want to mention is an oldie-but-goodie, and one of the most nut-bustingest finds in my recent used CD search. It's the 1994 reissue of Slayer's "South Of Heaven", mastered by Barry Diament. I didn't get into collecting older Slayer until after the remasters in 1998 came out. Ever since I discovered the Loudness War, I've been hoping to find earlier editions, and last Thursday I found that copy of "South Of Heaven". It's by far my best sounding Slayer CD. Here are what waveforms are supposed to look like.

Live Undead

Silent Scream

Here are the same songs from the "Soundtrack To The Apocalypse" box set.

Live Undead

Silent Scream

Bleargh! So we know that the remastered versions look yucky, but how does the sound actually compare? The main difference I've noticed is that the kick drums on the original almost sound like a real kick drum was miked in a studio, as opposed to just a generic thump. The original also just seems to have more "depth".

The Dynamic Range Day Award
The Dynamic Range Day site just gave out the Dynamic Range Day Award. The nominees were:
Laura Marling – “I Speak Because I Can”
LCD Soundsystem – “This Is Happening”
The Coral – “Butterfly House”
Elbow – “Build A Rocket Boys!”
Massive Attack – “Heligoland”
Neil Young – “Le Noise”
Mumford & Sons – “Sigh No More”
Four Tet – “There Is Love In You”
Norah Jones – “…Featuring”

The winner was Elbow, with "Build A Rocket Boys!"

I think I may have to get those LCD Soundsystem and Massive Attack CDs in the near future.