Yeah, and it isn't even with the snobbery of like, "I can do
so much better." It's just super... in Indonesia, we call it
gemas, where it's like, "You were
soooo close!"
There is the rare occasion where the adjustments needed are so small and doable without too much artifacting and degradation, that I've personally taken the time to "fix" it for my own consumption. An example would be Jos Ankin and Thomas Lang's prog-rock cover of Paganini's Caprice No. 24.
This is the version they released:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MrQtvWmyj0Q8iOHsT0NCBlKzsF0TU06c/view?usp=share_link
I thought it sounded quite good, but it felt a bit mono-sounding to me. The stereo spread was pretty narrow, and it only occupied the centre of my head. So, I decided to use an S1 Imager to widen the image, and I used EQ to take out a
bit of energy around 5kHz and 300Hz, where I felt the record was slightly crowded dynamically.
This is the result:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OrRGU2UvpVHqHz3H5T8j1mqQD7Fua1AL/view?usp=share_link
Now, it's very debatable which is the "better" version. Some might say the original has a more upfront, punchy sound, while my interpretation is too relaxed for this genre of music. Some might say the relaxed master is a good complement to the
heavy metal playing. I think there's no wrong answer. All I did was tweak it to be the record I want to hear, and that's good enough for me.
That's very true. When it comes to most chart-topping pop artists, I imagine their engineers are picked for them. Whereas, hip-hop artists usually collaborate very closely with their producer, and they leave the mastering up to them too. I think the best results come from musicians that hand-select their own engineers and are with them from start to finish. But, again, nothing is guaranteed. You just gotta swing and hope you hit a home run.