Originally posted by monty teebaum:
a friend of mine tell me, he heard about a masteringengineer from england (the guy who mastered the last robbie williams record) that he never use the stereolink-function on his prismsound-compressor . he says, the music lost liveness & the stereoinformation get distroyed in some way. he also say, that's a little bit tricky, not to lost the center, but the positive aspects are bigger than the negative.
i wonder about this, but try this now on my dbx 160sl & waves l2.
the result is interessting. o.k., the material had a lot energy in the middleposition, a correlation most of time near 1 (but a lot small sounds on the sides and many orft-recorded material), so the problem about moving middle was small. with link, the music sounds a little bit less "free", the stereoinformation get a bit lost, it sounds less sparkling. without link, the signals sounds about comming more from one of the speakers, the midposition was not so "massive", strange to explain. without link, it was possible to compress the signal a bit more without getting a liveless sound.
compressing without link was a little bit more difficult then limiting without linking, for the most songs i prefered the unlinked compressor (dbx 160sl)and for all the unlinked limiter (l2).
im a little bit confused now
p.s.: sorry for my terible english...
:D hey, nobody ever try this?

Not all together unheard of, I remember some Ozzie tunes, and a Ted Nuggent tunes where the drift was used for effect, sounded neat, but it wasn't the whole mix, I don't think you would want your center channel info,like vocals,BD,and bass moving all over the place. But you could use it on certain other sounds, with a subgroup, like piano or other, but that is mixing. So in mastering, a well balanced mix may not present problems. If it goes to air, then you got the link back in there.
Just my thoughts on it,
--Rick

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Originally posted by Brad Blackwood:
Most mastering guys would probably give you the same answer - whatever sounds best. I typically only stereo link when GR gets close to 3 db. Anything below that and you *typically* aren't doing enough reduction to hear drift. Anything above that and it might be there - really depends more on the program dynamics than anything else. And it depends greatly on your compressor. My primary box is a Crane Song STC-8M, and there is very little diff between stereo link and dual mono. The more colored the compressor and the faster your attack times, the more chance of it being audible...

ok, thank you for this answer.
the gainreduction was never more than 2,3 dB, 'cause the sound was before allready compact.
i chek the stereolink now with different units, also some digital tools, every unit react different. for my taste a lot of time it sounds better without link for small GR, so its nice to hear, that its not problem for radio & vinyl.

Any good vinyl mastering engineer will be able to use an elliptical EQ to tighten the low end if it drifts. And radio processes beyond belief anyway, so your OK on both fronts.

Originally posted by Brad Blackwood:

Any good vinyl mastering engineer will be able to use an elliptical EQ to tighten the low end if it drifts. And radio processes beyond belief anyway, so your OK on both fronts.

nice :)

you wrote, that the cranesong stc8 is your prefered masteringcompressor. can you explane me how he "sounds"?
cranesong have no distribution in switzerland, i think about to test the stc8 & the api buscompressor in germany.
afaik the stc8 have a very clever trick with the attcktime of the compressor and the amount of the limiter...how it works for mastering & for witch kind of music he fit perfect? some singlebands i used don't like "massive" msuic like hiphop too much.

Monty, I must come clean on my thoughtless and impulsive answer to your question, your adjustments are so delicate, and yet here I was talking about Ozzie, and Terrible Ted! Please forgive me! And thanks for the reality adjustment Brad. Yea, mute point when it comes to broadcasting.
--Rick