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Best mastering ever


Ormion

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Astral Projection- "Trust in trance" (1996)

Mastering by: Ben Bernefeld

 

I wrote in my review of this album that it is futile comparing this sound-wise album to any other from that entire period because the sheer clearness, sharpness and crispiness that Astral Projection had in 1996 was not matched by anybody up until... who knows??

Should be more like this:

 

not matched by anybody up until... the next month

AP and Pleidians dont stand out for their "good mastering", that's for sure. In fact, they might stand out as badly mastered, since this is quite common in our psytrance world.

Even in the eletronic music spectrum, not to mention mainstream music

 

If you question about their MIXING ability, then we can talk.

 

Anyway, to aswer the question....

 

I have never heard an (psytrance) album that even remotely match the quality in the overall production as Wizzy Noise- Sabatoge

Everything else goes at a far second place. Even the german genius Spirallianz and X-Dream are suppressed by this amazing work, imo

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X-DREAM - RADIO

ABSOLUM - WILD

TRISTAN - AUDIDROME

SYNCHRO - ELECTRIC

TOI DOI - TECHNOLOGIC

DELTA - SCIZOEFFECTIVE

 

FSOL - DEAD CITIES

THE ORB - ORBUS TERRARUM

SASHA - AIRDRAWNDAGGER

SYNAESTHESIA - DESIDERATUM

ART OF TRANCE - VOICE OF EARTH

AMON TOBIN - SUPERMODIFIED

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X-DREAM - RADIO

ABSOLUM - WILD

TRISTAN - AUDIDROME

SYNCHRO - ELECTRIC

TOI DOI - TECHNOLOGIC

DELTA - SCIZOEFFECTIVE

 

FSOL - DEAD CITIES

THE ORB - ORBUS TERRARUM

SASHA - AIRDRAWNDAGGER

SYNAESTHESIA - DESIDERATUM

ART OF TRANCE - VOICE OF EARTH

AMON TOBIN - SUPERMODIFIED

Seraph, just one fucking question. Who the fuck are you.

You just know too much, Don't you?

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Astral Projection- "Trust in trance" (1996)

Mastering by: Ben Bernefeld

 

I wrote in my review of this album that it is futile comparing this sound-wise album to any other from that entire period because the sheer clearness, sharpness and crispiness that Astral Projection had in 1996 was not matched by anybody up until... who knows??? I always thought that I somehow got my lucky fingers on some remastered, deluxe edition of "trust in trance" with an error on it, saying the album was from 1996. Only to discover there was never a remaster... How they did it, it's only a mystery!!!

 

And speaking of the Pleiadians mastering, "I.F.O." is by far my all time album, bar none, the absolute winner, the best goa trance I have ever heard, the best music I have ever heard those four italin masters put out, and I would never do something as horrible as speak against it, but people... come on- nobody ever loved this album for its mastering. Nobody. Ever. If one fact is accepted throughout the psy/goa trance community, it is that the italian geniuses had some sound trouble until they moved to a high-tech studio in Ibiza, in the year 2000. But did anybody ever complain? No. Why? Because when music "speaks" for itself as much as their music did, the last thing on your mind is the sound quality when listening to it...

Well, if the soundquality was TERRIBLE, I would not think the music "Speaks" for itself. But in General, I do agree with you here :)
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haha, yeah - that's what I wanted to say too :)

 

on topic:

 

cosmosis - intergalactic

hallucinogen in dub

oood / voice of cod latest albums

all wildthings records releases

indeed hallucinogen in dub

 

and entheogenic too, I have the feeling chill out albums are always very good mastered because it isn't that overloaded so the detail is very important and with bad mastering that would fade...

 

I think, don't know,

 

mostly all albums are good mastered, maybe 1/10 is not that good mastered or worse mastered, happens to,

but to be honest, no complains in general considering psychedelic trance releases...

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IFO? Hehe. Yeah, no. I like listening to it, but I don't enjoy having to mess with my levels.

 

I really don't enjoy crystalline mastering. It's gotta have a little bit of fuzz and personality but without having to adjust one's levels, but also a dynamic largeness. I like the early AP stuff, and maybe Dikovsky's stuff.

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bad mastering,

solution,

all my music goes through turntables, I have 2,

one for my cd players and one for the music coming from desktop,

and with the equalizers you can perfect lower down the bad mastering,

np at all,

not 100%, but it works fine over here :)

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Guest Rezwalker

Seraph, just one fucking question. Who the fuck are you.

You just know too much, Don't you?

in my country that kind of ppl named "ποζεροι" (in english posers)

 

ON topic : Astral projection-in the mix

MFG-the prophecy

Shiva shidapu-the light of shidapu

Transwave - backfire (i'm really impressed especially for this one)

 

btw we should open a thread about bad mastering...there are much much more bad mastered cd's than the good ones i think. too bad one of these cd's is from my fav project ever (Transwave) and i'm talking for the album Phototropic.

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btw we should open a thread about bad mastering...there are much much more bad mastered cd's than the good ones i think. too bad one of these cd's is from my fav project ever (Transwave) and i'm talking for the album Phototropic.

 

Agreed. The tracks there jump from very loud to very quiet and since I listen all CDs in one go this pisses me off! I hate it when I have to adjust volume level on a single CD to protect my ears... To some extent, this also goes to Helium but it's less noticeable there.

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First one that comes to mind now is: Steve Roach - Kairos

 

It seems over the years his sound and sounds have become so polished, slick, original and of high quality, that most chill/ambient artists sound cheap and simple in comparison.

It's bloody awesome, especially with headphones. So much depth and room in his sound... from the lowest to the highest frequencies, it's all very well balanced and blasts through your ears in crystal clear quality.

 

But there's of course a lot of electronic music that sounds great.

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how could you really know how good the mastering is if you haven't heard the unmastered version?

Those crispy clear albums are usually the work of really good mixing, not the final mastering :)

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The Nommos-Primal Meltdown

I don't know enough about either to tell how much it's due to good mastering and how much to good production, but there is definitely something about the sound quality on this album that is head and shoulders above most releases.

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On wikipedia I've read:

 

The process of Audio Mastering varies depending on the specific needs of the audio to be processed. Steps of the process typically include:

1. Load the recorded audio tracks into the DAW.

2. Correct any problems with the audio, such as volume level, tonal balance, or undesirable artifacts.

3. Sequence the separate songs or tracks as it will appear on the final product (for example, a CD).

4. Transfer the audio to the final master format (i.e., Redbook, CD-R, etc.).

 

Can't you do all those steps in your bedroom? On your DAW like CuBase, Reason, FL Studio etc.?

Maybe step 4 will appear harder then it looks, but you get the point.

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[/b]

AP and Pleidians dont stand out for their "good mastering", that's for sure. In fact, they might stand out as badly mastered, since this is quite common in our psytrance world.

Even in the eletronic music spectrum, not to mention mainstream music

 

If you question about their MIXING ability, then we can talk.

 

Anyway, to aswer the question....

 

I have never heard an (psytrance) album that even remotely match the quality in the overall production as Wizzy Noise- Sabatoge

Everything else goes at a far second place. Even the german genius Spirallianz and X-Dream are suppressed by this amazing work, imo

Astral Projection's mastering circa 1996-1997 stands above any other releases of that period, in terms of sound quality, clearance and sharpness. And that more or less sums it up. The others cannot compare. And the best part is, they never even tried to... There would have been no point.

Their mixing ability miserably fails when compared to the talent they displayed by delivering records as crisp and nice sounding as they did. And the way in which they precisely and immaculately cleared away all the scratching and extra noises from their samples. Wow!

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Can't you do all those steps in your bedroom? On your DAW like CuBase, Reason, FL Studio etc.?

Maybe step 4 will appear harder then it looks, but you get the point.

yes you can basically.. you could even do it undernearth a bridge on your laptop with a bottle of cheap vodka and a 1hour battery. But it would be of a better quality most likely if you are in a 100 000 000 euro studio :P

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yes you can basically.. you could even do it undernearth a bridge on your laptop with a bottle of cheap vodka and a 1hour battery. But it would be of a better quality most likely if you are in a 100 000 000 euro studio :P

Not if you have a 100 000 000 euro laptop :D
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I think this topic is a bit difficult to discuss because its damn near impossible to hear how "good" the mastering is without hearing the original unmastered tracks first. Most of the clear sound and such comes from good mixing, mastering can't clear up a bad mix, period.

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