The Guy Who Remastered Nevermind Doesn’t Care If You Think It’s Too Loud
Audiophile blog the Lost Turntable has been all over the twentieth anniversary rerelease of Nirvana’s Nevermind, calling out everyone involved for simply jacking up the volume of the record and ruining the aural dynamics that made the damn thing so interesting in the first place. Unfortunately, nobody else in the world really seems to care, probably because they all figure iPod earbuds are slowly deafening society and everything’s gonna need to be five times louder soon anyway.
The blame lays in many hands for letting Nevermind fall victim to the Loudness War (record label, surviving Nirvanas, etc), but if one person could be fingered as being solely responsible, it’s probably audio engineer Bob Ludwig. Ludwig’s Gateway Mastering handled the re-diddling of Nevermind, and why not? The guy’s won some Grammys. Bob had also, up until this point, been pretty outspoken about the Loudness War, making presentations against it at audio engineering conventions and the like. As such, it seems a bit odd he’d contribute to the menace via the album that CHANGED EVERYTHING (i.e. murdered Michael Jackson’s career).
On Wednesday, the Lost Turntable hit Bob Ludwig up on Twitter to ask him why Nevermind’s reissue is too friggin’ loud. Ludwig’s response? He got straight paid to crank it into the red.
Remember, kids: The people with the money are the only ones who count. The rest of us peons, the ones who are appreciating all this art on a day-to-day basis? We can just frig right off. #OccupyBobLudwig
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And to think this is the same mastering engineer who did an excellent job on the 95 remasters of Ozzy’s catalog,Queensryche’s Empire.
cobain would like it, as he liked the andy wallace master only to denounce it when people started complaining as he would probably do it again if he were alive
He’s clearly using political language by saying that he did what was asked of him regardless of what he thinks himself. Hes rightfully blaming the artists and producer without being nasty. Don’t shoot the messenger.
He is hired to do a job. That’s his career. He’s there to deliver the intent of the person who hires him. He isn’t the artist, he’s the engineer.
I’m calling for his resignation. He should be ashamed and ostracized from not only the music community, but society at large.
i listened to the first 40 seconds of the remastered album and i can’t find the fucking words to describe how painfully awful it truly is.