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In Reply to: RE: The Robison-Dadson Equal Loudness Curves address this issue. Nt posted by viridian on June 16, 2015 at 15:55:42
at lower levels both highs and lows sound lower than they measure. I suspect, assuming a well recorded piece, that the correct balance would then be playing back at the level at the ears the mastering engineer heard at his ears as he did his job.
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You're right, but it's only a start.
To hear it as the mastering engineer intended, yes you would need to play it back at the same level. But you would also need a system with the same frequency response. And you would have to consider the mixing engineer too, because the playback level it was mixed at and the response of the mixing system surely influenced the mix. And surely the monitoring level and response of the monitoring system influenced the recording engineer's decisions too. Given there is no standard listening level or frequency response in the recording industry, and recordings are frequently put together by chain of multiple engineers working at different levels in different systems, it's no wonder why natural sounding recordings are hard to come by. It also helps explain why better recordings often come from small labels with a team of a few individuals doing everything.
One reason why there are mastering engineers is to balance/tweak the sound which the mixing engineer created, and to make the sound quality and loudness of every track "match" with the others, and to sound good/great against competitors in the marketplace.Another reason is cost. Nobody in their right mind would spend the money to do that job while sitting in a recording studio control room full of stuff, with an expensive studio on the other side of the glass. Mastering rooms are "bare bones" and specifically designed for a different specific purpose.
Lastly, there is no "one proper" level or EQ setting to hear a recording "as the mastering engineer intended". Another part of their job is to make the recording sound good in a variety of playback environments at a variety of levels.
:)
Edits: 06/17/15
I wasn't trying to debate whether an independent mastering engineer adds value to the process.
I was only trying to emphasize that there are no standards to help ensure good results when the product is being developed by multiple engineers working in different places on different systems.
If frequency response and monitor level were standardized in the music industry like they are in the film industry, then in theory the mixing engineer and mastering engineer's decisions are primarily artistic. Whereas today they can be influenced by perceived differences in loudness and frequency balance that arise due to working at different levels on systems with different frequency response.
Bob Katz and Floyd Toole have articles available online that discuss the problem and solutions in more depth.
Something of a rarity, but I know that recording engineers or other pros involved in the production of a recording sometimes do specify a *proper* volume level for listening.
Read the liner notes in some of John Marks' CD recordings sometime. He definitely does believe in a proper level for the recording at hand and he definitely specifies what that level is.
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