APRS Panels Dynamics Dilemma

The APRS held the first of its events for 2008 - The Dynamics Dilemma - on March 19.
The discussion was the first in a series of events being planned by the APRS to focus on this issue over the next couple of years. The evening focused on the use of dynamics and compression in different media, including radio broadcast, TV and motion picture, and the widening variety of delivery formats for popular music including audio CD and MP3.
Panelists Alan Sallabank (staff mixer at Ascent Media) and Howard Bargroff (senior dubbing mixer at Videosonics) explained the standard practices used for mixing audio for motion picture and television, in view of existing Dolby standards. They also looked at the LEQ standards for motion picture mixing and the common problems found when porting motion picture to television.
The debate surrounding popular music delivery was discussed by mixing and mastering engineer Wes Maebe (GHQ Productions) who emphasised some of the difficulties mastering engineers face: being driven to create louder masters by record companies, and being presented with over-processed masters from the artist or producer. Independent producer Gil Limor discussed the issue of over-processing at the mixing stages, and presented a series of audio samples to illustrate the current trend of mixing for loudness rather than quality.
The panel also discussed built-in processing in broadcast delivery and consumer hi-fi and its effect on already over-processed audio, and looked at ways that the consumer hi-fi industry could take aboard either meta-data control or user-controllable dynamics delivery to enable mixing and mastering engineers to create masters for quality and not loudness.
The discussion was moderated by Dennis Weinreich of Videosonics and was attended by an active audience of 25 professionals from the audio and post industries.
(DS/JM)