Like everybody else, I've been digitizing my music, thousands of CDs and some records, and with such a hobby, one would eventually discover that they would have enough music for reconstructing many of the as advertised on TV compilations from the 70s 80s and 90s.

Many people just rip their media onto their computer, most probably back it up in a few places, and be done with it, and have it randomly playing in DBPowerAmp or iTunes.

However living through, or should I say dispairing at how the state of music was already deteriorating around the early 00s (both musically and mastering wise), the first being labels using mp3 transcodes on CDs around 2003, one knew that things could only get worse from there. I took it upon myself to not just rip my music (losslessly of course), but to actually master every individual track, so when one of my comps is played, in most cases, it would sound like a CD that was purchased in the late 80s early 90s.

This would be from the aspect on how each track started (avoiding how some tracks have a long space at the start, and others beginning straight away), the entire album if possible would have the same volume level, and making sure they are no wild sweeping EQ fluctuations. All this being an apt point as all my comps come from thousands of different CDs and sources.

When acquiring the music to work on a particular mix, I believe in the philosophy that there is no sense in polishing a turd, so in every case, I've usually been able to find a source where a particular track hasn't been brickwalled to hell, or murdered by Noise Reduction or EQing, these THREE weapons of mass destruction are well established in the music industry today. They are a few forums on the net that discuss how awful this has become, and a few glimmers of light like Steve Hoffman and MFSL, but for the rest of the industry, it's a lost course.

What pushed me to the point of almost taking a stemetil last night was reading a thread on a music production forum. The thread starter actually noted, "I believe for one to get their music onto a streaming service that I would need to put a brickwall limiter through it". He then noted some further technical details about dynamic range known I think as LUFS. His original master was 20db, but apparently the streaming service wanted him to push it down to 4db. So not only are the labels shot, but also the frightening prospect on how new aspirants wanting to get their teeth cut are also beeing brainwashed by this "maximum volume" nonsense, I was truly mortified at such a reality.

So I guess with that in mind, even if an original top 40 track was bricked, which has been the case since 1998, I will source the original disc or release, knowing its the first release without any further post masterings (known today as loud mastering on top of loud mastering). This is absolutely rampant on the lossless streaming services.

The original late 90s / 00s track would then be mastered for my own compilation. In such a case as the damage has already been done, the only thing I would do at my end is either trim or extend the silence at the beginning or the end, for making the song intro cue point consistant with the other tracks on the CD compilation, or the other 14,000 songs in my digital collection.

Some of my techniques may sound somewhat crude or rough as I've noted them above, but they are a number of more finer operations that I've omitted for brevity, but thought I would share my thoughts on this subject from an experienced post audio producer. Only having 10% vision in one eye since birth may have also been an aid for my somewhat better hearing.

THis is a spreadsheet of all the albums Ive mastered losslessly.
https://mega.nz/file/IfYRwKQT#oV1897...64yNnCYm0NN5_E