Do you feel like mastering engineers over the last couple of decades have become too proactive?
I was talking to a friend the other day about negative experiences with mastering engineers (real ones, not random bedroom guy with Ozone) and we were moaning about how mastering engineers increasingly don't seem to respect the sonic vision of the pre-master mix (and the mixer, and the artist). Both of us have been putting stuff out for decades and both of us agreed that the first stuff returned from ME's is now more often than not significantly, and easily identifiably NOT faithful to the mixes.
It isn't just loudness either, it can be OTT bass emphasis in music where heavy bass isn't a key factor, or horrible additions to the top end etc.
Back in the day, I don't remember anything but subtle tweaks being something that ME's did intitially; certainly I don't think I ever was so appalled by the first pass that I immediately ditched the ME. Like, you could ask an ME to slam your mix into a limiter, but they would NEVER do that as their first pass; they'd never assume you wanted a load of subjective remedial work on a mix you were happy with.
Again, this isn't about 1 or 2 bad experiences, more a pattern over the years.
Thoughts?