So Who is Bob Katz, And What Is He Saying About These Things?

This all came to a head recently in a posting to the ProAudio listserv on the Internet, by mastering engineer Bob Katz. For those of you who do not know, Bob is a well-established and highly regarded mastering engineer. Further, he is an extremely good RECORDING engineer, whose work for Chesky Records (among others) has earned him the reputation of being a recording engineer’s recording engineer (AKA “pure envy!”). He also hosts an excellent website, http://www.digido.com. I recommend him to you most highly.

Here is Bob’s ProAudio rant:

A potential client . . . had come to me for mastering months ago and was very pleased with what I did on a country-music mastering job. So I thought I would call and [push for] doing some mastering for their hit stuff. [The client] did a little song and dance about their European people wanting to do their own mastering. And another song and dance about their wanting to build a mastering studio themselves. Then I said, ‘If I can prove to you that we can do it better, then you wouldn't have to build your own mastering studio.’

Then he said, ‘You know, your ideas about overcompression and stuff, we want our songs to sound as loud as possible on the radio.’ I said, ‘They will. Do you know that processing on top of overprocessing actually ruins the sound of the music?’ He said ‘I've never done the testing...’ I said, ‘The kids will love the sound of the record I can make when it makes it on the radio. And if you feel you have to do it, make the album sound real good, but make a special single version, and squash that.’

He said, ‘Hmmm, those are interesting ideas,’ but I sensed he wasn't convinced. . . . Overcompressed sound makes me sick, nauseous to the stomach, if you want the truth. So, I have to prove to him it doesn't matter what you do when it gets to the radio, that good-sounding records sound great at home AND on the radio, and all the rest. . . . [I feel like] I'm pushing against a mountain of ignorance. . . . The sound of the CD is in jeopardy!!! Does anyone realize this... that because of today's completely-unjustified overprocessing, we made better-sounding LPs 25 years ago than the CDs we're making today?

To prove it, I put on a Simon and Garfunkel LP and a Pink Floyd LP, both 25 to 35 years old. They sound great! Moderate low level upward compression at the bottom end was done to keep the signal above the record noise. And relatively little mastering compression, probably just limiting to keep the cutter from frying... Sounded G-R-E-A-T.

Do you want to make C-R-A-P the rest of your mastering life? No? Then fight this overcompression thing, before it beats us. Current commercial pop records are so squashed they have incredible distortion and occasionally [as little as] 3 dB peak-to-average ratio. It's worse than tragic. This is a situation directly attributable to the new digital processors.... we never had to process that much in the days of analog and we never could even if we wanted to. What is needed desperately today are some ears, a lot of restraint, and a lot of education and some voices of sanity out of the wilderness. HELP!

Bob makes a strong point. The loudness mythology is firmly in place, and mis-education is still a big problem across the recording business. The idea that someone wouldn’t hire Bob because of a desire for overcompression is scary, bordering on utterly lunatic. Meanwhile, many contemporary CDs are ridiculously hot. I recently auditioned the new Gloria Estafan CD and found that its levels cruised between -3 and 0 dBFS, while a 3-year old Toni Braxton CD is equally whacked. In both cases, levels and EQ are really hard-edged, fatiguing and unpleasant. While there may be some argument that they are being mixed for Auratone-type playback venues, they still sound awful over a general array of decent loudspeakers (and keep in mind I REALLY LIKE the music in the Braxton CD! – this is not a musical issue, but more akin to listening to great recordings through a boombox). Also, it’s not a knock on the mastering engineers, either. We all have to do what we’re told, if we wish to continue working in the field. If you don’t believe me, re-read Bob’s post more carefully.

What About Cars?

Why does this happen? The reasoning goes something like this: radio broadcast is essential to record sales, and if it doesn’t sound good on the radio it won’t sell in the record stores. Meanwhile, most radio listening is done in cars. So there’s a double whammy – it’s gotta sound good on radio (which has serious limitations, particularly in the AM band) and it’s gotta sound good in cars, which have VERY limited dynamic and spectral ranges, not to mention stereo limitations.

How Does Radio Sound In Cars?

Radio in cars sounds like, well, radio. Heavily compressed, usually, with plenty of EQ thrown in. Sometimes reverb as well. Why? Because the chief engineer has a mandate from the boss to jazz up the transmitter sound both to get the level as hot as possible within the power limits imposed by the FCC, as well as to make the station’s signal sound as attractive as possible for listeners in cars, who are the primary consumers of radio.

The silver lining to this is that the radio chief engineer is the one doing all the radio preparation for us, and so, at the mastering stage, we don’t have to do it. In fact, we probably shouldn’t, because then our mixes will be double-dipped in heavy compression! Not cute! Not pretty!!

So, if we leave radio audio up to the radio guys, then we can concentrate on making our CDs more suitable for other end-user climates. Which is to say, we can concentrate on making better-sounding CDs.

How About CDs ‘n Cassettes in Cars?

Unfortunately, all the cassette and CD manufacturers have been sticking cassette decks and CD players in cars, and cars are now a primary listening venue for music, maybe THE primary listening venue.

How to deal with this? The noise floor in a car is around 70 dBA SPL, and the maximum playback level is a little over 90 dBA SPL. Some sort of compression is called for (some of my classical CDs, for instance, are simply unlistenable in the Spyder at, er, 55 mph), and compression needs to be done for such venues, with care and thoughtfulness as well as some real sensitivity to the musical issues. Further, such compression should have general consistency.

What the CD or cassette doesn’t have to be is LOUDEST! Instead of scanning the dial searching for loud and intelligible stations, the listener is going to be scanning CDs or cassettes. Anything in the audible ballpark will be fine, and the listener will simply tweak the overall level to bring it to a satisfactory level and leave it there until the CD is done, or until he/she shows down for a toll booth and gets a really strange look from the toll collector.

There’s a lot of craft to this, and the best mastering engineers do it really well (I include Bob Katz on this list – I actually first discovered his recordings over the radio in a car, while I was doing the Berklee commute, and the stuff sounded good enough there that I said to myself, “Self, you gotta pick up that CD!”). The actual dynamic signal range we need for CDs, in both cars and other venues, is about 20 dB for acoustical music and 12 dB for pop/rock. Further, we can hear music 10 dB below the noise floor, and will put up with that without complaint, for brief periods anyway. If we can fit our clients’ recordings into that range of levels, we can make recordings that will work, dynamically, in a wide range of venues.

But, the real advances here are going to come via the development of more active and high-quality car playback systems. Manufacturers have recognized that premium sound systems are BIG sales arguments, and that for many people, the car is the primary listening space. The problem is not a mastering problem, but rather a hostile and underdeveloped listening environment. I just returned from an AES Conference on Small Room and Automotive Acoustics, and the sense there was that we have a LONG way to go before we’ve tamed the car, but at the same time we have begun to work quite seriously at it.

Fun and Profit Time

So what do you with all of this?

First, you don’t hire a mastering engineer on the basis of whether or not he/she makes the loudest records. Instead, you hire the mastering engineer on the basis of his/her track record and perceived quality of work.

Second, you don’t worry about radio. Forces are at work that will take care of that for you, whether you like it or not!

Third, you work at sane levels. I recommend (and use) -14 dBFS as a nominal signal level, and I calibrate all analog gear so that level is equal to +4 dBu. I suggest you do the same. RMS (VU) levels should get as high as +3 VU, while the peaks can hit +14. If you’re confused about this, buy a pair of Dorrough mastering meters, which show both peak AND VU levels simultaneously. An education, all by themselves!!

Fourth, remember that we’re up against some fairly brutal signal processing practices in mastering. It isn’t just Bob. A couple of years back I interviewed a major mastering engineer, and he pointed out that some major-label clients often asked for so much level that he would just run the mix right up to + 3 dBFS, so they could hear the distortion. When they then complained he would back it down just until they stopped complaining. Then, he would advise them to cut a production safety master 10 dB lower, so that if and when it ever became time for a Greatest Hits compilation, they would have something in the vaults that wasn’t quite so, well, dated-sounding, distorted and downright embarrassing!

So, you might want to try it Bob’s way. My suspicion is you’ll like it a whole lot better, particularly in the long run.

Happy dynamic ranges!

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