"Iain Churches" wrote in message
...
I have recently been involved in a string quartet
recording. It has been a challenging project.
Everyone was delighted with the performance
and the sound on the production master which
was sent to a CD plant in the UK for 1:1 duplication.

When a run of 500 copies is required, a glass
master normally needs to be made for replication.
The client gave permission for this to be done by
the CD plant, on the understanding that no audible
changes were to be made, as the production master
was exactly what was requiired.

I asked to be informed when the finished discs had
been received. Yesterday, I received a phone call
from a very disappointed cellist.

She said, "Every nuance of our performance has
been destroyed. We sound like the musical equivalent
of ballet dancers in jack boots!"

This morning, I had the chance to compare a
portion of the envelope from our production
master (the left-hand side of the pic) with the finished
CD (right had side)

Take a look:
It's not pretty!

http://www.kolumbus.fi/iain.churches...Comparison.png


Iain



"Brian Gaff" wrote in message
...
So what actually happened as I'm obviously not able to read the thousand
words, nor paint you as the song goes.
Brian


The artists' description of it "sounding like the musical
equivalent of ballet dancers in jack boots!" will give you
some idea, Brian.

The dynamic of the performance has been totally
destroyed by heavy compression, copious make up
gain, and then very heavy brick-wall limiting, resulting
in severe clipping - fine for heavy metal but is totally
inappropriate for a classical string quartet.

Iain