Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Now gather around, and check this shit out...

So I'm at this position where I sort of know what I want my senior thesis to be about, but not exactly what it is. In the broad sense, it is about mastering, but what about mastering? My original idea was to do a study of the rising "loudness" of masters in the past 2 decades, starting with vinyl releases, comparing them to original CD remasters in the laste 80's-early 90's, and then newer remasters from recent years. I would focus on the diminishing dynamic range of today's recordings, and look at how it affects the consumer at home (or how it doesn't affect, if that's the case). I would also look at factors that led to where we are now, and if there are harmful things that occur when pushing everything to 0dBfs.

However, I'm worried that this isn't sufficient enough. I'm going to try to broaden it out to include interviews with mastering engineers from across the board and eras, firsthand experiments, random tests to see what sounds better to people (i.e. playing a classically mastered recording versus a newer one at the same volume level and see which one they find more pleasing, or musically interesting). For all these examples, I would take it upon myself to record a band, mix it, and then do various types of mastering. Then I would make a DVD of it. Or something. Until I put it in front of the Honors Council, I really don't know if this will fly. I'm hoping that because Belmont offers nothing about mastering, that they will see that this is going beyond the average student here and beyond what the program here can give me. I really think that will be a selling point. Hmmmm. Let's hope this thing works.

-ed

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Domkowski,

I cordially invited you to be my friend again. It has been a long time since we've seen or talked to one another. I miss our music musings ans file sharing ( I mean long term borrowing).
We need to do some music soon, like in May, because life is just too busy at the moment.
I'm probably going to take home my: drum machine, sax, theremin and air organ. So if you think we'll be using these in the near future let me know before Wednesday (4/12).

Hope all is well,
Samantha Christine Cecilia Dorgan III (j/k on the 3rd)

P.S. tell Tara I say, "Hi." I miss her smiling face in the caf.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Domkowski,

In my previous post I typed "invited," instead of "invite." Please disregard the typo.

Sincerely,
Sam "CC" Dorgan

P.S. Andrew Thompson is amazing and has stolen my heart and sole. I'm going to make him my hairy wonderful friend when I move to NYC.

P.P.S. If you think Nashville has nothing to do go to Bowling Green. It was awful. It made me glad I go to Belmont and not WKU. Farmland and nothing to do = obscene amounts of alcohol, smoking, fat, and ignorance.

P.P.P.S. I think I'll go by, "CC" now. I like the sound of that. CC Dorgan--it's jazzier that Sam Dorgan. No?

P.P.P.P.S. ENOUGH!!

Anonymous said...

Sounds interesting to the point of could-be-a-headache, which we all know is an aspect of anything at all related to Honors. It's true that there's no mastering education here, but I bet that will have the negative effects of 1) limiting your faculty resources and 2) getting Dr. Bob to ask you to be on staff for your first few years post-graduation, thereby fulfilling that classy Belmont slogan, "From Here To... Well, Here Still." Proponents of this philosophy include David Fish and several notable RDs. Something worth thinking about.