Here it is kids. Francesca’s “Christmas” – what a fun record. It sounds GORGEOUS if I do say so myself, and it actually gets COLDER when you play it! (It doesn’t actually get colder when you play it)
This is a must have for the Christmas time. Go get it!
If you haven’t been hip to Francesca, you can check out her Facebook Page and her Twitter Thing – I don’t know her address or license plate number, so I hope those will do.
I’m going to be looking at a lot of progress bars today – I’m rendering XD Masters (Expanded Dynamics) files for the songs that to be the radio singles for Francesca’s amazing Christmas album. Yes, I’ve mentioned the amazing Christmas album once or twice. It’s good. You’ll know when she’s blowing up the charts this fall.
For the last couple years, I’ve been doing this thing, as I’m sure other mastering dudes have, of sending specially treated versions of mastering for radio play. I call them XD Masters, and they’re cool.
We know that “radio” does stuff to the music we send out. They’ve got a tough spot. Radio audio guys have a particular challenge when it comes to dynamic processing for FM broadcast. They have to try to get songs from 1984 where there was no loudness war, no monster digital limiting, no actual concern for how loud a song was recorded to sound as good as they did then while being parked next to some seriously loudly mixed/mastered current day tunes. We can save the debate on how loud is too loud. That’s client to client – although I don’t crust (whoops. awesome typo. thanks Reid.) the life out of stuff, FYI. ANYwho. The only people who really have a say in that are the people making the music and paying me for quality louderization. (New word. All mine.)
So I’m sending out versions of the songs for radio intent with the louderizering backed off. It sounds better on the radio because their compressors aren’t re-compressing down to broadcast-happy level – essentially undoing what was done in mastering. Radio gets more dynamic, not so hot mixes, their broadcast compression doesn’t have to work so hard, thus, it sounds better.
That’s fun, right?
I just finished the Mastered for iTunes version of Francesca Battistelli’s new (and AMAZING) Christmas album. I can do it for you records too. You’re going to want this one. You’ll play it for years. I’m playing it now, and it’s 90 degrees outside.
Ok. That’s a stretch. I totally have a kitchen sink.
This week has been chock-full of different stuff.
The upcoming Francesca Battistelli Christmas record is in the can…well…the stocking, so to speak, all but the parts order. There will be a Mastered for iTunes version available, if you’re an iThing haver. Also CDs at stores, like our forefathers bought music for their CD boom boxes when they walked up hill both ways in the snow. At Christmas. See how that happened? It was an accident.
Also this week, an album for Jeff Sparkman at Trinity Church, a bit of a rocker with some acoustic niceties mixed in. Tuesday was an EP for Matt Boswell, brought by long time regular producer and engineer Jordan Critz. An album by artist Jennifer Shaw, from producer and engineer Paul Marino. A couple of songs for Don Chaffer and his wife’s band Waterdeep (awesome cover tune, by the way) one club bumper for DJ Maj, a punk rock tune from Stages and Stereos for my buddy Lee Dyess at Earthsound Recording…that song will have its own post. It’s interesting, and I want to make sure I’m not blowing anything by talking about it before they do.
Now, it’s back to finishing the Trinity Church recall mixes and getting into Lisa-Marie Fisher’s album. She’s German, doing a pop thing with a little country feel. A little work from my family’s homeland. Isn’t that fun?
Seriously. If you’ve read this far, you must be bored or avoiding something. Maybe, if you’re not doing anything, mosey over to my facebook page and give it a Like. You’ve obviously got a minute to kill on Friday afternoon.
Have a great weekend, and send me some tunes!
I’m in the midst of mastering the new Francesca Battistelli Christmas album, which is pretty fantastic, I’ve gotta say. She sounds just gorgeous, and the mixes are out of hand. I love it. We’re doing a MFiT version, so it will be silky smooth on your iDevices and whatnot.