[David Maroul]

🙏 You’re the badass Dana! Loved this assessment. I wish I had your (and Kevin’s) ears and the ability to translate what I am hearing (or want to hear) into my own recordings.

If you have the opportunity it would be amazing to hear a breakdown of “The Less I Know The Better” &/or “It Might Be Time” in regards to more detailed technical application in achieving these mind-blowing Kevin Parker sounds.

I really lack the proper vocabulary but I feel like there is a kind of vacuum (dry & crisp) sounding effect combined with a pumping that draws me in sonically. Then obviously contrasted with his ambient & spacy vocals. To me, it translates physically in his grooves & etherically in the soundscape. 👽

Love your playlist and hearing about your method for recreating certain period vibes.

Many thanks brother! You rock!

[David Maroul]

For better or worse, I’ve always used the studio as another instrument to be creative with (rather than just capture performance). Actually, I think the reason I ever began recording/ engineering/ mixing etc. ( In 1980 on a Teac A3440 purchased from my Air Force Base Exchange for $799.00 on credit which was a fortune to me at the time as a 1 stripe Airman haha) was the freedom to be more creative as an artist/ producer. In turn, I am all for experimenting, (breaking rules is half the fun for me 😃) and pushing the gear (plug-ins) past their limits… just to see. You never know what amazing tricks you will learn or sounds you might stumble across. Also, some of my greatest recording moments have been accidents. Thanks Dana for this excellent quick review on limiting!

[David Maroul]

Edit… my first reply was meant to be a reply to Dana’s reply 😆 sorry.

[David Maroul]

Hey Michael, Nice track! I listened on my little Logotech computer speakers. ( I found these give me a great representation of how the majority of listeners hear a track, between earbuds and smaller speakers) Obviously these smaller speaker give little in the way of low end so I won’t reference that.

Otherwise, I agree with Dana. I would love to hear the vocals sitting in their own carved out space ( not competing so much with the instrumentation in the same EQ freq range).

This mix/production reminded of something like Scandal “The Warrior” or “Goodbye To You” from the early 80’s (I’m old) So, that might be helpful as a reference (in matching eq etc).

Overall great work. 🙌 Can’t wait to hear the final version. All the best! 😃

[David Maroul]

Thanks @smoothygroove !

[David Maroul]

I LOVED reading this! I too obsess over this kind of stuff and for better or worse craft my own tracks mixing while mastering. This is only for my own self-released projects so I am free to experiment & screw up what ever I like with no reservations or concerns about what happens further down the chain. The “slippery faders” anecdote brought me joy to hear of this being employed by You. Great inquiry by Jesse as well.

[David Maroul]

Thanks Dana, for all this great information. It’s awesome we have someone in the thick of it who can answer these types for questions first hand from personal experience. I truly appreciate you and all you contribute here. 🙏

[David Maroul]

Awesome! thanks Dana. I wasn’t aware of much of what you shared. Especially diff audio quality for the free & paid tiers and I do tend to focus on Spotify (& use the free Spotify app on my desktop since it doesn’t restrict you on skips etc. like on mobile). I too turn the normalization off (primarily because I want to hear the level that the artist actually uploaded) but I was not aware of a further diminished audio for my freeloader status 😅. Makes sense though.

I think I’ve read Tidal has high audio quality for one of their paid tiers as well.

I am going to pick up Streamliner now.

Do artists/ labels/ mastering engineers create different versions for different platforms?

I know vinyl requires its’s own master because of (low end) freq limitations on the actual physical vinyl.

Curious about the level of detail when it comes to different streaming platforms?

Thanks again, Dana!

[David Maroul]

👂👂👂

[David Maroul]

Hey Dana, great info, as always! I am about to go down a rabbit hole here (and take you with me, sorry lol).

My question is: How important is the quality of the recording you are referencing?

Spotify is a great example. I know from my own experience a noticeable (to me) difference between my final 24 bit 44.1 khz master and what I hear once it streams on Spotify.

I have read some people compare Spotify’s upload compression to a 320kbps mp3 but I don’t think this is completely accurate.

I personally notice some minor freq variations and a loss of some transients.

Obviously none of these are deal breakers but I am sure I am not the only one who finds it a bit disheartening to hear the mix you’ve worked so hard on “not” be replicated the way you want others to hear it. lol

Anyway, I guess my thought is, if I am not referencing another artist’s 24bit (or higher) master, how close, especially eq-wise, can I hope to get to what they uploaded to Spotify, (or before compressed into a mp3 format, in that case).

I think overall a general reference quality is especially useful for dynamics, mix placement etc. but Ozone, which I use has a reference feature where you can insert a reference track for Ozone to compare to. I am thinking that optimally you need access to a high quality reference for Ozone to make a proper comparison.

Am I crazy? 🤣

[David Maroul]

Not yet, I have so many UAD plug-ins now from their insane xmas holiday sale I’m still working my way through them lol. I used a lot of them on working on Jettison. Love the sound. Can’t wait to dive into these.

[David Maroul]

Here is some weird synchronicity. I literally have not seen or talked about a Teac A3440 in 20 years. Today this showed up in my social media feed… Welcome to my strange & wonderful world. Cool to be sharing some of it with you here 🙏

[David Maroul]

Wish I still had mine! That’s awesome!