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Originally Posted by RainbowStorm
Check out for instance "Sad Eyes" with Trisha Yearwood on her "Real Live Woman" album. This song is not very loud but you never think that it is not loud enough. Also check out "All Over Again" with Ronan Keating on his latest album "Bring You Home". That song is a little louder though, but shows a similar pump and stereo width.
I'll have to check those out. In general I've been pretty depressed by the masters in contemporary country coming out of Nashville. A client brought over a Brooks and Dunn CD for a reference and I nearly puked. Perhaps the Trisha Yearwood is an exception, do you nominate it for my honor roll?
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I agree that foreground, middleground and background is depth as well. I'm not sure if this is possible to achieve without panning, EQ, reverbs and delays on individual tracks in a mix, but I'm more preferring to relative loudness/width/softness right now, not so much 3D, even though that's a key thing as well. Maybe I would simply get a better loudness/width/softness/pump ratio if I would try to improve the 3D depth of the mix...
It doesn't hurt to improve the 3D depth of a mix (as long as all the proportions and balances of the instruments stay good). And since good transients help to define the depth, I'd say that loudness (reasonable) and dynamics go along with a good mix. The key to "admiring good mastering" would be to hear the original mix and see how much the mastering engineer "fixed what was broke", and did not try to fix "what wasn't broke". Mastering is the art of compromise and I get to hear a lot of excellent mixes before they were mastered, in these days of hot levels, rarely do I get the opportunity to say that I have not compromised the master too much. So if you love the Trisha Yearwood, and if I listen to it and I judge, "it's ok, but not terrific," don't feel offended, I have to speak from the perspective of an engineer who gets to hear a lot of terrific raw mixes before they are mastered.
Not to brag, but to give you some perspective, Michael Fremer recently reviewed Marley's Ghost "Spooked" album, which I mastered and gave it an "11" for sound. I think it's the first time he ever gave a CD an 11 (out of 10). It is one of the rare country-rock albums combining superb performance (this band has been together for 25 years and has some of the most precise harmony vocals on the planet), producing (Van Dyke Parks at his best and most eclectic), tracking (Daniel Protheroe at Sage Arts in their large parquet-floored recording room, and mixing (D.P. again with the Forsell-constructed custom consoles, mikes, outboard and tape machines at Sage Arts).
This is one of the rare albums where everyone wanted as "hot" an album as I could make without compromising and of course improving on any issues if I could. It was mixed to 1/2" 30 IPS analog, hmmmm, wonder if that's one of the reasons it sounds so good.
Given that perspective, I have a hard time swallowing much of what comes out of Nashville these days.