live performance in the age of super computing

[Louigi Verona]

http://monolake.de//interviews/supercomputing.html
http://monolake.de//interviews/hitchhiker.html

great articles by the Ableton Live co-founder.

[Louigi Verona]

Another thing he said in one of his interviews I really could relate to:

How important is mastering?  

The answer is: it depends on mastered by whom...(laughs). How much a record can improve from mastering is related not to the quality but to the character of the music. Not all music really is timbre music, not all music really is functional music. There are a certain not too small genres of music where I would even be tempted to say its not so important how it sounds, it might still be brilliant music! Of course, it can benefit from sounding good in a car or other music-hating environments in which people like to listen to music nowadays: On your mobile phone, on your computer, in your agency, at Starbucks and wherever.... But: there is music where the sound of the music might not be the crucial element.

[Sam_Zen]

Good music will not become better music with a better mastering.
But bad mastering can spoil good music, like sloppy writing like typos, bad grammar, wrong punctuation can spoil the story.

[Saga Musix]

Good music will not become better music with a better mastering.
But bad mastering can spoil good music, like sloppy writing like typos, bad grammar, wrong punctuation can spoil the story.

I do not agree at all, mastering can as well just make the whole mix better, if it is not good enough yet. And that also means that "good music" does not mean that the mastering is good (just take various MOD musics as a prove), meaning that it probably is a very nice track, but sounds like nothing, because mastering is lacking.

[AlisterFlint]

+1, Sam.

how it sounds has not much to do with the music itself. a good mastering won't adjust an offtune key, or add more variation over a main motif..

mastering has been become a key stone in music market, following the birth of music digital media (cds, then mp3..). when it was still all analogic, mastering was "flatter" than it had become later on..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cd_loudness_trend-something.gif
(The trend of increasing loudness as shown by waveform images of the same song mastered on CD four times since 1983.)

[Saga Musix]

Guys, mastering is not just about loudness. It can make a good tune sound brilliant, and it won't make a bad tune better.

[g]

it won't make a bad tune better.

No, but it can make it louder

[Sam_Zen]

there is already a thread about the loudness war.

[Louigi Verona]

Mastering is important in music the whole beauty of which lies in the way it sounds. In music where the whole point is what it is (like a melody, etc) mastering is much less important. As simple as that.

[uncloned]

Mastering is important in music the whole beauty of which lies in the way it sounds. In music where the whole point is what it is (like a melody, etc) mastering is much less important. As simple as that.

agreed