Paul’s Posts from this morning introduced me to his relatively new feature, the Ohn’s Law Podcasts. How he finds the time I don’t know but I’m glad that he does.
I just want to draw attention to these in case you don’t get the Posts and also comment on the most recent installment, which is worth a listen. Bernie Grundman is an audio mastering engineer of note, if the “Kind of Blue” vinyl remaster is anything noteworthy in your opinion. His experienced assessment of what it takes to craft good sounding records is quite revealing and, as I’ve always maintained, mastering engineers are audiophiles almost by default. If you want to know what someone who listens for a living thinks about the value of that very activity, give this one a spin end to end. Give yourself the time to listen all the way through and you’ll probably come away feeling better about the audio test equipment that you were born with.
Thanks, Paul.
Thanks! Yeah, it’s a really informative piece and Bernie explains his feelings on digital, analog, why vinyl sounds different than CD and the gyrationms he goes to to get good sound. I enjoyed his explanation of Norah Jones iconic album and the differences vetween the Cd and the vinyl he mastered.
I’ve heard a few people express how good master tapes (and I do mean, tape) sound but here is a guy who can confidently express where things go awry. I’ve also been undecided about the “multiple digital copy degradation effect” but if he confirms it, I’m in. Depressed that this happens, but in.
How many of you listen to podcasts? I suspect not too many and maybe it’s new to people. I just use my phone, earbuds, select the podcast and go for a walk. Did it this morning too. A wonderful way to absorb.
At least he’s a guy who can confidently express what he hears…not exactly what happens and why…the degradation effect he told might be one of the reasons why he misses especially information and richness in treble from digital…if he knew, there might be ways to improve the process. But this might be the major key to further digital improvement in future…seems we can expect even more quality to come at a time.
I absolutely loved listening to this interview. I wished it was much longer. I would have loved to hear about how he approached mastering some of the classics he worked on. I found the Norah Jones discussion fascinating. I’ve yet to hear the DSD, which I’m eager to, but like Grundman I’ve never heard digital sound as “natural” as analog. His emphasis is on the emotional aspect of music and that ultimately it comes back to our sensory experiences. Like a master taster/chef, there’s no substitute for this human ability. Seems that it takes the yin and yang of technical and aesthetic aptitudes to achieve greatness in this realm.
I also loved this interview! There are similar but not as good ones of most of those mastering gurus (Hoffman, Sax, Ricker etc.) who mastered both digital pure analog sourced vinyl intensively.
I think the hardest task in this digital/vinyl discussion is to differentiate what’s just avoidable altered tonality and what’s really better or worse from each concept.
Grundman at least gave an explanation to all those who still wondered why the fact that digital can quite perfectly record and playback analog/vinyl advantages (vinyl rips) does not mean it can also produce the same from digital recorded and/or produced media. It seems that the flaws and limitation of vinyl in cutting and playback processes have a counterpart in terms of differently flawed digital production processes, which are most obvious when digital is compared with pure analog processed and played back media on a suitable setup.
However, if neither the digital setup is as good as the DS nor the analog setup is on such a high level that it can really compete with digital strengths, room for interpretations and preferences is too big for meaningful comparisons.
I would like one where he was interviewed by another mastering engineer (no offense meant, Paul - it’s a great interview). For all I know that already exists on the net. For me it was a lot of, “Duh” stuff (despite the fact he’s a God in my book), though I guess that just shows how much I know about how much people understand about mastering.
I just had a conversation with my brother the other day about an album I’m mixing, who is a very smart guy, and he admitted not really understanding the difference between mixing and mastering. It frankly had not occurred to me that if you have never done it, it’s like talking to someone who writes code for a living, and you have no experience of coding. Very likely that interview wouldn’t be relevant to most PS owners.
Paul, I’m curious to know what gear you are using for your Podcasts and what software you use for editing. I’m interested in starting one of my own and it would be helpful to here what’s working well for you on the production front. Thanks.
That’s been a real merry go round for me and I am right in the middle of changing once again. But. The easiest I have found and what I would recommend for distribution is http://anchor.fm These guys make it super easy to get you podcast up and running and live. Their mobile app allows you to even record it from your phone and you can do interviews with others using this app too. Try that out.
Great Podcasts - nice bits of entertainment for the day - appreciate the thoughts and education -
minor tweak if you could - the “Intro” piece to each - is a bit louder than the meat of the podcast - makes me either turn down then turn up the podcast, or just grin and bear it - maybe if you could decrease the volume on the Intro bit…
