Adding onto Paul's comment...

If I were going to have my next CD mastered by someone else, I'd ask them to make it sound like one of my fave CDs... FROM 1983. Just about every CD I've bought in the past 3 years has sounded like crap due to the fact that mastering companies are being forced at gunpoint to make CDs AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE. Part of this might be that the mixes they are being sent are already jacked up - I dunno.

I bought the new Crowded House CD and I was shocked at how bad it sounds... when compared to their last CD from about ten years ago. Their old CDs sound great... you crank them up and you can hear a lot of details. The new CD sounds terrible... it's almost like each individual instrument was equalized to sound "full" and when you put them all together and compress it, it sounds like a mess. Strike that... it sounds full at very low volumes, and at very high volumes it's harsh and nasty sounding. Most of the songs are great, though, so I suffer through it.

I wonder what would happen if you asked a mastering lab to make your CD sound like 1983? Would they laugh at you, or would they say "Thank GOD, a customer that wants their music to sound good!" Of course you'd have to send them a mix that wasn't already heavily "maximized."

I've never tried Disc Makers for mastering but I've used them for duplication and they ROCK.





Richard MacLemale
Music = http://www.richardmac.com