In the translation your recent review of the Carsten Dahl album «Painting Music» (ACT) you express a general dislike of most of our album masters:

«Instead, the record was released on ACT, which I have long been rather critical of, because they compress the music in excess a lot on most recordings. And this I talked to Dahl about before they went ot he step of sending the material to Siggy Loch in the German company. And although they have also compressed something here, it is not nearly as much as some other recordings from the company, fortunately».

Since we take criticizm like this very seriously, we have forwarded this to our mastering engineer Klaus Scheuermann, one of the most respected in his profession. Here’s his reply:

«It’s amazing that this critizism is so generalized. I generally compress conservatively or not even at all. Sometimes mixes arrive already very compressed with me, then there is nothing i can do except point that out. I have just looked into the signal chain of the Carsten Dahl album, and can see that the compression in the loudest places of the record still remains below one db in comparison to the original mix.

In general, the mastering depends on the type of music. I tend to master the more «pop / rock» ACT albums a bit louder, pure piano albums more and more filigree. However, I have never compromised to increase the volume. If a record got a bit louder then it was because in my opinion it could handle that and it still sound great».

I just wanted to let you and your readers know our perspective.
Best
Michael Gottfried
Communications Manager
ACT Music+Vision GmbH+Co.KG

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