Dear Chris,
I forwarded your email to our Chief Engineer and I've copied his reply to
you in the email below:
Thank you for your email regarding CD-83592 Dancing in the Dark.
I checked the waveform example of the piano "distortion." In my opinion,
what is seen there is the peak limiting and "soft clipping" imposed in the
CD mastering process on this particular release. The piano is not
distorted. If that was the case one would see jagged artifacts around the
piano level "peak" rather than the level simply stopping 0.10 dB from the
peak. Of course, this does not mean that such a high peak will not cause
distortion on some playback systems. That's entirely possible and is
something out of our control.
The Tierney Sutton "Dancing in the Dark" CD release is put up side-by-side
with Diana Krall and Norah Jones releases and other similar jazz vocal CDs.
Like it or not, those CDs are quite heavily compressed and limited (much
more so than the Sutton CD) and have very high apparent volumes. They also
exhibit an even more pronounced cut-off of peak levels. Since Tierney's CD
will be put in multi-disc CD players alongside these other CDs, we have to
make sure her CD stands at least a chance of being as "present" as the
competition and still maintain as much of the dynamics of my original mixes
as possible. It's a very delicate balancing act. Certainly compromises
are made, just as in any other mainstream CD that has high apparent volume
level. I know one would find much more aggregious level compression taking
place on most mainstream CDs than what you would find on "Dancing in the
Dark."
If you are interested, the DSD stereo and surround programs on the SACD
release of "Dancing in the Dark" (SA-63592) do NOT have this competitive
compression imposed on the audio. The DSD programs represent what I
recorded in the mixes from the sessions without the compromises needed on
the CD-only release. However, the CD layer of the SACD is exactly the same
as the CD-only release. To access the DSD programs, one needs the
appropriate SACD player which is available at major electronic retailers
starting at around $200 USD, although I never recommend that one gets the
"bottom-of-the-line" player.
I offer that you may trade your CD-only release of "Dancing in the Dark"
for the SACD release. Please contact Ms. Kelly to arrange this trade.
I hope you have the opportunity to hear the DSD program of this release.
That is, after all, the source I had recorded at Ms. Sutton's sessions and
the pcm CD is a derivative of that source.
Thank you again for your email and interest.
Michael Bishop
Chief Recording Engineer
Telarc International Corp.
.
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