Intrada Soundtrack Forum

My car stereo even has a loudness function. If you want, you set the volume for a CD/radio, and, according to the speed you drive, car noises etc., the car slightly adjusts the volume up or down. It's a fine function for a car stereo.

But no music deserves to have its dynamic range compressed to diddly squat.

Here is the question that NO ONE HAS ASKED…..

Where are the there Primary Places that most folks listen to their music?

1.) In Their Car

2.) While Working at their computer through the speaker or headsets on said computer or BOOM BOX for your Digital Device while at the office or at home while doing other things

3.) On Their Digital Device their headsets while working,walking,jogging,shopping,etc…

So as far as I'm concerned you have to master the CD so the music will be able to be heard clearly in those three Environments.

Very few folks have home stereo systems and the time to set down and just LISTEN to music while doing nothing else.

As an old boss of mine once said after finishing mastering a project back in the 80's, "It's got to pass the Car Test, if it sounds good there you are good to go!"


Ford A. Thaxton

Home stereo system. If the music sounds good there, it can be adjusted to sound good anywhere. If it doesn't sound good there, nothing can be done to adjust it, it will simply have poor sound. So home stereo dynamic sound for real orchestral recordings. Everything else is just gaslight.

The loudness in scores such as Once Upon a Time and Brian Tyler's scores is something that always bothered me as well. The orchestra doesn't sound like an orchestra anymore, it sounds more like a mechanical sound, like if some instruments had been replaced by synths. It's hard for my ears to isolate a single instrument or a family of instruments and I must open the booklets of the Once Upon a Time discs each time to count all the orchestra players just to be sure this is real.

I have to specify for Ford that I listen to my music mostly on my stereo (and surround) system at HOME. I guess I'm just not the regular guy.
And I'm sad the people who "listen" to their music in cars, in the noise and heavily compressed are the ones who get all the attention from the mixers who like to brick-wall the music.

Most fortunately, I can still buy the new James Horner CD and enjoy a very detailed, refined, quiet orchestral sound... Hail to Simon Rhodes !

Mastering CDs for tinny audio systems is like mastering movies for VHS and small black and white TV screens.
And you can hear the difference even in pop music in youtube sound quality. Www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPUdiHEJ0EU