Vlado Meller

Unfortunately, I have to caution anyone who's ended up on this man's page to stay *As Far Away* from *Any* of these releases as possible.

If there's any way you can find a copy of one of these albums in any other format that he has not touched, you're highly encouraged to do so.

Meller is probably the big name in the loudness war, and functionally seems to be a huge proponent of maxing out the loudness of any CD he masters. This makes the CD sound "better" than another properly mastered CD at a given system volume to the extent that the human brain tends to pick out louder noises as sounding better.

The flip side, and something that will be blindingly obvious when one of his masterings are compared against a proper master, is that the sound becomes extremely heavily compressed under his treatment, and all the subtle dynamics of the music are lost.

If you are able to adjust the volume of your system to a level you desire, there is no reason to opt for one of Meller's discs over anyone else's. One common place to look for better masterings of these discs are those vinyls that Steve Hoffman works on, but pretty much any other version that this man has not touched will be more than worth your while.

The real tragedy of this man's work, in my opinion, is the album Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was only ever mastered by him, he did a terrible job, and as a result one of the most intellectually satisfying pop albums of the decade has been utterly destroyed in the ears of many an audio sensitive individual. We can only hope the record companies will work with those willing to clean up after this man's mess, and provide the world with decent remasterings of the more brilliant of the works he has destroyed.