brandondrury

fucking epic. Truer words have never been spoken.

Whowwah! You're gonna cop a storm for this Drury!..
Actually, I'm gonna throw my lot in with you & Dave on this one - The process you described is exactly what I went (probably still going) through.

You know, its interesting that pushing for more volume is not a recent development in recording history - it has been around for virtually the whole history of modern recorded music. Back in the 60's, the British wanted to know how they could get their records as loud & bassy as the records that were coming out of the states (particularly motown).... The idea was to get it LOUD and good...

... IMO, its still the same challenge today - get it LOUD and good.

What bothers me is that's it's harder to get some clues and techniques for what to do. It's alot more "you have to experiment" mindset. And that means you have to know the basics inside and out. (Like compression).

If you have a boomy kick, everyone can read a frequency chart or an EQ-guide and go, "ok, I can try to cut here and here, and it will be better. At least from the boomy perspective". There's a starting point, but when it comes to pushing a chorus up to -6 dB RMS it seems that some people that knows how to do it, like to keep the "secret" because it's what sets them apart from other people who just can make it loud (and not good loud). There is no "guide" that I'm aware of that can give a good starting point.

But from a "learning-the-tools-what-they-do-and-how-and-when-to-use-them"-perspective, I learned ALOT from Mike Seniors book. I feel that that helped me tremendously more than anything else I've ever read or tried by shooting in the dark, and just going for it. I was cool to hear that someone like Pensado struggled with compression too. And as Pensado pointed out, I don't mind experimenting as long as I feel I'm heading in the right direction.

What bothers me is that's it's harder to get some clues and techniques for what to do.

It's ALWAYS going to be conceptual. I can tell you the ninjas are going to attack from the right and then you are dead meat when they attack from the left. This is why it's better to teach a person how to see for themselves. It's that whole thing where teach someone to fish instead of handing them dinner.

If you have a boomy kick, everyone can read a frequency chart or an EQ-guide

I think both of those solutions are of the "hand them dinner" variety. The sweep technique is what every "real" guy I know is doing. Most of the "real" guys have no better ears than you or I.

ep the "secret" because it's what sets them apart from other people who just can make it loud (and not good loud). There is no "guide" that I'm aware of that can give a good starting point.

I'm no big boy, but I included a full chapter on this loudness business in Killer Home Recording. Once you understand the basic concepts, it's not tremendously difficult....not nearly as difficult as making the song exciting and things of that sort. The REAL craft of mixing.

While I don't keep it, I can get a song up to -4dB without any real distortion. A major clue is you can take an already mastered big boy recording and knock 2dB more off with a brickwall limiter and the mix rarely fall apart. These guys are taking extreme care to ensure their mixes pass very high tolerances in terms of the brickwall limiter.

The biggest thing is the transient to RMS ratio. It take some playing, but I don't want any extraneous peaks coming from any instrument. Some kind of limiting is applied to everything so that if there is a loud spike, it's being taken care of before it even hits the 2bus. The UAD Studer A800 on drums is excellent for knocking the tip tops off without feeling like you killed all the transients. I've certainly not perfected this technique. It's one of the things I spend the most time on when I mix, but that's another clue. On Pensado's Place, Dave Pensado says it takes him 14 hours to mix a song. If it were as simple as memorization it would take him one hour.

Another thing I've gotten big on is incremental compression. I've got an UAD 1176 or equivalent on most tracks just knocking off 1dB every once in a while. They often feed into a bus with another compressor knocking off a dB or two. It made an enormous improvement to my mixes when I realized I could go ahead and saturate most tracks with no real downside.

I don't think there is a conspiracy to keep any of this stuff a secret. The big guys (who are damn good) get work through their contacts. A guy working his way up really needs to have mixed a hit record to get noticed. Pulling a hit out of your ass is something I've not figured out.

I learned ALOT from Mike Seniors book

Awesome! I'll be picking that one up for sure!

I should have thought of the sweeping technique as an example. When I learned that, it took my EQ-skills to a higher plateu. What if there was a sweeping technique for compressors. That would be great! And it would be like shooting fish in a barrel for dinner.

What was cool about the Mike Senior book, was that he didn't add those "do this, do that, cut here, boost here", but he talks about fader (in)stability alot, and what tools you can use to fix different reasons for WHY. Basically, it's learning the tools and to listen.

I have discovered that Waves MPX does the exact same thing. I can put it on all the tracks in a project, and suddenly I have more headroom, and can push the levels higher without doing alot more. That was a cool experience! I guess it's the power of tape compression...

I know I haven't joined your league of extraordinary gentleman of the mixing arts yet Brandon, but the tip you gave in mix vol. 1 was awesome! It sent me in the right direction. Thank you!

On Pensado's Place, Dave Pensado says it takes him 14 hours to mix a song. If it were as simple as memorization it would take him one hour.

I guess every song is different, and every song has the need for the mixer to start from scratch. One thing I have learned is that I go down alot of dead ends when I mix. It's all about experience. And I don't have that yet, not on the level from this big boys at least. I heard once upon a time (was it a interview with mr. Swedien perhaps?) that after 10'000 hours mixing is easy. I'm at 4855 hours now. Maybe. Or I hope I am.

Another thing I've gotten big on is incremental compression. I've got an UAD 1176 or equivalent on most tracks just knocking off 1dB every once in a while. They often feed into a bus with another compressor knocking off a dB or two. It made an enormous improvement to my mixes when I realized I could go ahead and saturate most tracks with no real downside.

This is extremely important: I once read that compression in a mix is like coats of paint on a car - One big thick coat will crack up right away, but lots of layers will lead to a nice, glossy, deep finish - I thought that was a great analogy.

On Pensado's Place, Dave Pensado says it takes him 14 hours to mix a song.

Add to that the three hours of preparation that his assistant does on each & every mix - That was in this weeks ITL - very interesting... doesn't make me feel so retarded for taking 20hrs to mix a song.

I don't think it's a war anymore.... You're either producing a product that competes or not.

I'll never forget the first time I heard a loud CD... Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power.
I bought it the day it came out... put it on and damn near destroyed my speakers. All other metal albums instantly became wimpy.
For me, it changed the way I wanted to make music.

Hmmm. I'm on the fence on this one. It is never irrelevant if you still have major releases that sound like shit because they've been mastered too hot with comparison to their original mix. I do tend to lean toward the aural signature of the 70s sounds, but I also put my favorites into some plugins to pump them up, expand the stereo field, etc. I end up somewhere between a 70s vintage and modern mastering level, but I don't process it to the point of destroying the integrity of the original mix, IMO.

Obviously, it's highly subjective, but certain music styles will sound great mastered hot, others will sound lame. It all depends. Ultimately, I have to agree that the volume knob is at the domain of the listener, not the producer...

I don't think it's a war anymore.... You're either producing a product that competes or not.

I don't think it's a competition. It's just a standard that we have to uphold. No budget-American car company is going to make a car that drives on the left side of the road. We all just agree to drive on the right side. I wouldn't be surprised if there are challenges in designing a car that drives on the right that the engineers have to figure out, and that's what we have to do if we want to cater to the listener. If we are doing it purely for ourselves, that's another matter.

It is never irrelevant if you still have major releases that sound like shit because they've been mastered too hot with comparison to their original mix.

If you want to take a Macro-world view, maybe you aren't wrong. I thought this was way too smashed. http://forum.recordingreview.com/f8/...l-sound-40459/ On a micro scale (looking at ourselves only) there's no war. Just get the mixes up to -6dB RMS in the loudest chunks of the song and call it a day. That does take more work that -8dB and certainly more work than -12dB RMS, but that's what the kids want. I don't think it kills music when it's done right. It just has to be done right and that isn't always easy.

I think for some (sticking with the micro assessment), the war is whether they should make their mixes X loud or not. For me there is no war. There is just a standard which all consumers pretty much agree on. For me, case closed. If a band wants me to back off, great. Mixes always hold up if you back off.

I'll never forget the first time I heard a loud CD... Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power.
I bought it the day it came out... put it on and damn near destroyed my speakers. All other metal albums instantly became wimpy.
For me, it changed the way I wanted to make music.

Vulgar Display of Power was a life changer for me. I never even knew that was POSSIBLE. It's funny, here I am remembering how much I love Vulgar Display Of Power and I just wrote a big ass article about Katy Perry mixing. This music shit is so fun!

Brandon

I disagree. If people like the distortion artifacts (as it was argued) than we should give them that mix. But NOT EVERYONE likes to listen to the music like that. A good mixing/mastering engineer should be able to effectively make things loud. However, not everybody likes it like that. What is the point of squishing something into a limited dynamic range when someone wants to actively listen to something in a dedicated environment?

I have a cure:
A 'cure' for the Loudness Wars: Give us two mixes! | The Audiophiliac - CNET News

We already should have a seperate radio mix like this anyway:
" What
these radio mixes should not have is fast digital limiting and clipping. Leave the
short-term envelopes unsquashed. Let the broadcast processor do its work. The
result will be just as loud on-air as hypercompressed material, but will have far
more punch, clarity, and life. "
From http://www.orban.com/support/orban/t..._Truth_1.3.pdf

Originally Posted by fHumble fHingaz

This is extremely important: I once read that compression in a mix is like coats of paint on a car - One big thick coat will crack up right away, but lots of layers will lead to a nice, glossy, deep finish - I thought that was a great analogy.

My favorite Mexican restaurant has these great enchiladas (this is in California, where Mexican food is really good). Instead of just throwing onions on there, they layer in five different kinds of onions in correspondingly smaller amounts. It makes the flavor much more complex.

I still don't like the loudness war though. There are plenty of A list people (especially mastering engineers) that don't like the loudness war either. By overcompressing music, it can really become fatiguing to listen to, even when mixed by A list mixers. Everyone wants everything louder than everything else, but they're just making the music harder to listen to.

Photographers don't all compete to take the brightest pictures possible, and make sure that all tones in their pictures are between high-mid grey and white. Why are mix engineers essentially doing that to their mixes, on purpose?

Please explain how the remastered version of Dire Straits Money For Nothing here sounds better than the original, but without resorting to "but the client wanted it louder than Motorhead"

‪Why I Don't Buy "Remastered" CDs.‬‏ - YouTube

If people like the distortion artifacts (as it was argued) than we should give them that mix.

I think the actual word was "distressed"...which is a hair different....I think.

I'm curious where these people are that prefer a -15dB RMS to -10dB RMS mix. I'd guess it includes all 40-year olds and above because the uncompressed sound WAS the sound. I guess we could look at the top 100 songs on Itunes and analyze each of their RMS levels in the last chorus and kinda figure out a ballpark average....but I've done this enough informally to know that I haven't had one client who didn't want to be right up there with Pink and Avenged Sevenfold. Even the artsy bands want it loud.

Everyone wants everything louder than everything else

This is where it gets sketchy for me. I've never heard anyone ever tell me that they wanted to be LOUDER than anything else. Every band I've worked with wants to be in the ballpark of their favorite cds (which they consider to be excellent).

I do remember that Lars Ulrich was making a big deal about how their upcoming record (Death Magnetic) was going to be the loudest cd ever. Excluding the complete dipshits I've never encountered this desire to be louder. That may be way I don't see it as being an issue. The way the engineer talked in the video, labels aren't pushing for this either, anymore.

I have a cure:
A 'cure' for the Loudness Wars: Give us two mixes! | The Audiophiliac - CNET News

I'm curious what the average pedophile will pay for this not-so-loud mix. In my world I mix different for -10dB or -6dB as the tolerances are tighter for -6dB.

Photographers don't all compete to take the brightest pictures possible, and make sure that all tones in their pictures are between high-mid grey and white. Why are mix engineers essentially doing that to their mixes, on purpose?

I'm not sure if this a great analogy. I think brightness would comparable to amount of top end. I don't see a brightness wars going on....then again, I'm not photographer.

Please explain how the remastered version of Dire Straits Money For Nothing here sounds better than the original, but without resorting to "but the client wanted it louder than Motorhead"

That one is easy and I mentioned it above. In this case, the client (Mark Knopler) and the market (mostly 50 year olds) are cool with more dynamic range. It won't sound "cheap" to the buying public. Trying to sell Avenged Sevenfold with this density would result in a barrage of blogs around the world of consumers saying the cd sounds "amateur". A certain amount of density is required for new stuff.

Maybe my tolerances are higher. Maybe I've learned (out of necessity) to turn off my analytical brain when I'm not working, but there are extremely few recordings I've heard where the music suffers because of the loudness. I do hear many, many home recordings with a lack of density that do sound "cheap". Maybe it's just an issue of perspective.

My point was, they already should be doing a separate mix for radio (see the article for details on why, but for 1, radio stations do phase rotation which makes clipping useless for increasing loudness). With digital distribution, it out to be incredibly easy to offer that mix for download. Kill two birds with one stone.

Originally Posted by brandondrury

I'm not sure if this a great analogy. I think brightness would comparable to amount of top end. I don't see a brightness wars going on....then again, I'm not photographer.

Maybe it's not quite the same, but essentially you've got something that can be sensed (light or sound) being stored in a digital format. The way digital photographs work (assume black and white 8-bit per channel JPEG for the moment), is that black is at 0, white is at 255, and everything in between is gray. But for some reason musicians and recording engineers are on a path to making everything as loud as possible, while photographers try to make the best use of the whole spectrum.

I feel it may be somewhat counterproductive for me to debate this, as it seems everyone here has already made up their minds on the subject.

It's probably worth noting that cinema sound makes use of calibrated volumes (you can more or less count on -20dB RMS on your meter corresponding to 83dB in the theater). Motion pictures make extreme use of dynamic range, because it is available to them. When you go from whispered romantic dialog in one scene to an airplane crash in the next, you really notice it!

If films were mixed the way that modern CDs are, the romantic whispers would be almost as loud as the train. I suspect part of the problem is that most consumers have terrible sound systems (stock car stereos, iPhone earbuds, etc.). Mixing and mastering engineers are thus forced to mix for highly suboptimal environments and reach what basically amounts to a pretty serious compromise. Of course, if every band that comes in wants to be loud and they're paying you, I guess you've got to give them what they want.

I'm not sure there is a good analogy to be made between photography and mixing, loudness wise anyway. When you are making a mix you are trying to balance frequencies, a photographer would do the same thing (It is all just wavelengths). Photography has no sense of amplitude, just different frequencies.

Ummm.... brightness = amplited (in a way)
color = frequency.

For me, it is about achieving a sound. All of that compression adds up to a sound that can be very good to listen to and be quite legitimate if it is what the music demands.

I don't want to be polarized about the subject, all this way or that about compression.

Single or multiple compression changes the sound, bringing areas of of the original sound into a more up front relief that is not possible to obtain any other way, and if that is working toward the goal needed for the original sound to work, then that is great.

I'm still learning, and this video is super. Thanks!

Originally Posted by leesifer

Photography has no sense of amplitude, just different frequencies.

It does: luminance. You can control the luminance curves changing the "mix", and many people make very good use of this. It is even possible to have relative equivalents to compression and expansion with most luminance control that is built into graphics/photo software.

Awesome! I actually thought it was about the music anyway or at least from the controversy it seems so too much compression or over compression might even be what the client wants I don't care for it but hey they pay the bills. Lol

BTW, Mark Knopfler's music is fabulous the way it is. It would be counter productive for someone to compress the mess out of it. If he did something needing that kind of compression, I'm sure he would use it. Oops, I'm WAY over 40.

I am strictly a hobbiest when it comes to playing and recording music, and don't often have much to add to a particular thread, but I have learned a TON of stuff here when I have time (make time) to come here and read for a while. But perhaps I can enlighten you a bit about the origin of the loudness wars.

In my opinion, the loudness wars started in the late sixties with broadcast radio. It was certainly raging in radio by the mid 70's, when I was a morning show host on a rock FM station. It was a commony held belief that the loudest sounding station on the dial had a competive advantage, and to a certain point that was true, especially since most tuners of the day (pre digital anything) included a manual tuning knob on the right. Any station that was obviously louder than the others, and jumped out of the clutter, "came in better" to the average listener. Stereo salesmen used this perception to their advantage when auditioning speakers for a customer by playing the speakers HE wanted you to have (same retail price, but bigger markup from wholesale coast) a little louder than the other set, which made them sound fuller, and as my program director on radio used to say, "a little more exciting." (This from the same guy who ordered our engineers to alter the AC frequency to our turntables to 61HZ so that we could cram in an extra one minute of music per hour, and honestly promote that we played more music than our competitors. The slightly higher pitch was never publicly acknowledged, but was also regraded as "a little more exciting" to the listener.)

Radio station managers would tune up and down the dial and note which station sounded the loudest, and then ask their engineers to make their signal as loud or louder, hoping to equalize a competitive advantage. Keep in mind the FCC frowned heavily on overmodulation, which sounded like crap anyway. Often the station signal suffered and sounded like crap for a few weeks until the engineers got it figured out, which puzzled listeners and frustrated jocks and managers. Often, the figuring out process was simply learning how to use the controls on an Orban Optimod, a legendary broadcast compressor/limiter. (The Optimod is still produced, but is of course much refined.) They were actually quite complex for their time, and most broadcast engineers probably didn't have that much recording background to give them the familiarity with compressors and limiters needed to operate the units correctly. Eventually, stations would throw huge chunks of money at trying to get the last .5 DB of loudness without overmodulating the transmitter. That loudness advantage got into the recording business quickly, but seemed to reach a plateau until about 1987 when digital equipment started changing the game, then it started all over again. By now, most popular music radio stations all sound about the same amount of squashed to me, but when you play CD's (does anyone actually do that anymore?) or throw your tunes onto an Ipod or similar, you often will really notice a big difference in volume between albums, because thay haven't been squashed into loudness equality at the radio station transmitter. Carlos Santana's 1999 Supernatural CD was the first album I can remember that was so much louder than than the rest of my CD's that I always had to turn it down to avoid distorting my speakers, which were usually playing at max pre-distortion volume anyway.

I also used to laugh at people who would brag about their new receiver/amps +/- .01% total harmonic distortion test rating, and then spend most of their time listening to radio (even FM) which had THD figures in the teens!

I would say that amplitude is more saturation, an abundance of all frequencies. Photography has way more saturation these days, so maybe that is your photography loudness war. I'm trying to think of this from a signal processing point of view. I would say luminance-curves to increase contrast is more like giving each instrument it's own space.

OK. How about some examples of 'good' and 'bad' loudness? I'm a pessimist, so I'll submit the bad first: Remy Zero's "Save Me" - awful distortion artifacts and lack of dynamics--which is something I think the song needs. The parts that should be quiet are loud and squashed and the chorus is so distorted it's intolerable. Good example: Army of Anyone...any song. The whole album sounds fabulous and is loud as hell.

Originally Posted by leesifer

I would say that amplitude is more saturation, an abundance of all frequencies. Photography has way more saturation these days, so maybe that is your photography loudness war. I'm trying to think of this from a signal processing point of view. I would say luminance-curves to increase contrast is more like giving each instrument it's own space.

Color "channels" as they are referred to have their own amplitude or luminance level curves and adjustments available. You could somewhat consider this as multi-band.
Saturation is used to refer to color levels in such a way that a color or colors appear more saturated ie heavier in the visual sense relative to the overall black and white luminance. Making colors to "pop".
You are confusing terminologies, a dangerous thing to do.
There are also some considerable differences between audio and video/photo/graphics for attempting to draw such comparisons and have it to truly be meaningful. I personally don't believe that attempting to make analogies with video/photo/graphics is constructive in this context.

Originally Posted by Leemo

I also used to laugh at people who would brag about their new receiver/amps +/- .01% total harmonic distortion test rating, and then spend most of their time listening to radio (even FM) which had THD figures in the teens!

There were radio stations committed to quality.

These spec improvements peaked in the 80's and now it is hard to even find specs listed for an fm tuner.

Part of the craze for loudness at the radio stations had to do with signal to noise and how far away a radio station signal could be perceived as usable. A conservative station that had audio signal dipping into noise at a given distance away obviously did not have the reach of a similarly powered station where the audio was jacked up enough to overcome some of that noise.

It used to be quite an observation that pop radio stations also had their "signature" sound due largely no doubt to this use of compression, and it was remarkable at how differently some music sounded when played from a quality turntable and cartridge versus listening to the same material over a radio station.

This has evolved over time for the recording/mixing side, and the application of it in some considered uses is horrific while in others it seems quite right.

I've put some more thought into this.

If you want to sound modern, you need the "density" of modern loudness and you need to find a way to do it with that does the least amount of damage to the music. We all agree that this requires tact. Any client into modern popular music is going to think that their modern popular music sounds good.

If you want to take on a vintage aesthetic, which is what I'm calling the 1984 and earlier sound, that's fine, too. However, you are gonna have to convert over most clients and convince them that their favorite recordings sound bad. I suspect this isn't going to be easy to do. Old timers who tell me my favorite recordings suck are ignored. Telling me I'm wrong for favoring "plain" vanilla ice cream is not going to change my mind. After you convince a client that less-loud mixes are better, you also have to convince the people that will buy their music.

Brandon

Sure, I mostly agree with this last post. However, as already mentioned and cited, radios have there own compression scheme that brings up the density just as effectively, and doing your own fast limiting and clipping only makes it sound worse, without increasing the final on the air density.

In the age of the internet, selling the "radio mix" to customers who want it is not much overhead. Certainly less overhead than offering lossless files like wav. Most customers won't care and will want the loud mp3. This should still be provided. But it would be nice for them to offer the music in whatever format we want (like bandcamp does) and offer the "radio mix" as well as the regular one. No need to distribute different physical cds if they don't want to. I admit it's more of a niche market. But it's one I think they should address.

Sure, I mostly agree with this last post. However, as already mentioned and cited, radios have there own compression scheme that brings up the density just as effectively, and doing your own fast limiting and clipping only makes it sound worse, without increasing the final on the air density.

You aren't wrong about the radio. I'm just curious why radio is a factor anymore. We have a local college radio station that has a local spotlight every hour, but all my clients are aware of all radio stations sounding like shit (on all material) and have never commented on their songs sounding bad on the radio.

In the age of the internet, selling the "radio mix" to customers who want it is not much overhead. Certainly less overhead than offering lossless files like wav. Most customers won't care and will want the loud mp3. This should still be provided. But it would be nice for them to offer the music in whatever format we want (like bandcamp does) and offer the "radio mix" as well as the regular one. No need to distribute different physical cds if they don't want to. I admit it's more of a niche market. But it's one I think they should address.

I can't argue with this either, except for one small detail. I've never had the request from a band or band customer for a less-loud version. I'm all for satisfying market demand. It's just the only people who are even aware of this "Loudness War" are engineers and the few people who owned Death Magnetic and played Guitar Hero.

Brandon

Brandon, I never meant to infer that radio was a factor in how we mix and master these days (especially since so much music is sold these days without any radio exposure), only that radio was in a loudness war long before the recording industry in general. The only importance of this bit of history was that the demand for signal saturation by radio stations surely drove some of the refinements in the technology of limiting and compressing along the way.

Once you start using alternate colour spaces it starts to break down more. I really all comes down to fft for audio or visual. I'm not arguing for the analogy; I'm arguing against it.

'Loudness' is irrelevant, especially on the radio:

Loudness means NOTHING on the radio - The Proof

Dave's comments are very clever - he manages to avoid saying exactly what he does or doesn't do as regards loudness. I agree that the wars are irrelevant, but for a different reason:

The Loudness Wars Are Over

Brandon, I'm not sure about "just getting your chorus up to -6" - most stuff these days is -6 all the way through, and that's where I think it gets ridiculous.

I've never heard anyone complain that "Nevermind" is too quiet, even though Justin Bieber is twice as loud:

Justin Bieber is louder than Motorhead... wait, WHAT ?

I think we should rename them the Squashedness Wars and be done with it.

Ian

skip to 17:00 to listen to how important it is to cover the feelings of a song.
Trends come and go, who knows what recordings are gonna sound like 20 years from now.
I like the mention to the superballs, just throw um around in the studio and see how things diffuse.....

I recently heard Bush's (not the former president) "Come Down" on the radio. It sounded fantastic. So I ripped the album to check out the waveforms. What a beautiful thing to look at as opposed to the smashed masters we have today. Seriously we are smashing our music so our end user doesn't have to turn their volume knob up a notch or two. Really? Is that really what this is all about? On my Discman (yes, I still own a portable CD player) I only have my volume set to "1" with modern CDs for a comfortable listening level. That to me is appalling.

I'm sorry guys, I can't be convinced that the loudness war is a good thing for recorded music. Everything just sounds so smeared together during choruses it's pathetic. Wimpy snare and bass guitar vs. non-smashed music pre-1995.

And I don't have loudness envy like Dave Pensado says. But I will agree with him that the client is always righr no matter what we think. But it's a fucking shame they're destroying audio fidelity in the name of iPod shuffle mode/mix CD loudness.

Time to go listen to more Sixteen Stone...

@adamr316: it's kind of ironic you say that when talking about a song you heard on the radio.

If you heard it on the radio, it's been super-squished.

I just got a new CD: Passion Pit - Manners. The music is really cool, but I have to turn it way down when I'm listening to it. If it was recorded with less compression, I could turn it up and it would sound a lot better.

I understand the need to be competitive if you have clients asking you to make it louder. However, I can't help but feel that if the competition aspect was removed that everyone's mixes would end up sounding better though.

And a few hundred years ago, in the glory of the Roman empire.
A few aristocrats sat in a room and discussed how manic street preachers are getting louder and louder and how crowds flock to one who tells the story of the life of Brian just because he is louder, more alive and more colorful.
While
The Greeks, to themselves, happily, attend to business as it is just business, a small cent of profit for time of labor.

Originally Posted by m24p

@adamr316: it's kind of ironic you say that when talking about a song you heard on the radio.

If you heard it on the radio, it's been super-squished.

I realize that *on the radio* it was hypercompressed. But the reason it stuck out to me was, compared to the songs "Come Down" was sandwiched between, it sounded a lot more "alive". What I'm saying is, as you probably already know, music that isn't hypercompressed sounds much better on the radio than songs that are hypercompressed on CD/mp3. And if we have the CD it's a simple twist of the volume knob to make it as loud as modern mixes but with the benefit of dynamics. Snare drums, bass guitars and to an extent kick drums sound wimpy compared to mixes in the 1990-1994 era of music. These instruments had room to breathe, like they inherently need to, and now they don't.

http://www.orban.com/support/orban/t..._Truth_1.3.pdf - This is bathroom/lobby reading material I keep around for clients.

The best compromise is to have more than one mix. A radio version with FCC censorship and more dynamics, the vinyl version which has more dynamics (is it any wonder more vinyl was sold than CDs recently) and a CD version that is hypercompressed. With digital distribution, there is no reason to not give customers options.

Another good album/song that sounded bloody fantastic on the radio was Soundgarden's "My Wave" on their Superunknown CD. That song PEAKS at -2.7 dB! On CD, I can actually make good use of my 500-watt stereo. THERE'S some irony. We have these powerful home theatre systems, car stereos, etc. and when it comes to the modern CD we're only making use of a small fraction of their potential. On Bob Katz's K14 meter (free VST at http://code.mzuther.de/kmeter/ ) "My Wave" is right where it needs to be and "Come Down" is just tapping in to the +4 reds. Compare this to a Three Days Grace's "Pain", it's only getting an extra 5dB in the choruses vs. Come Down at the expense of audio fidelity. In "Pain" the tom drums and cymbals are buried in the mix possibly due to this dynamics squashing. If that was a creative decision it sounds like garbage but in my experience this is a side effect of hypercompression. It certainly isn't typical in early to mid-90's mixes.

Plus "Pain" has some audible digital clipping (not cool) that of course is not in "Come Down" or "My Wave".

Small anectdote. I've listened to The Darkness - One Way Ticket To Hell probably 1,000 times. I love the record. It's sound never bothered me. I just loved the songs.

Last night, I was going through some reference material on my recording setup and though I'd check out the RMS levels. It consistently hit -4dB RMS on the TT Dynamic Range meter. WOW! THAT'S REALLY LOUD!!!

The funny thing is I never bothered to notice from a sound quality standpoint. I guess I was too busy singing along.

But the reason it stuck out to me was, compared to the songs "Come Down" was sandwiched between, it sounded a lot more "alive".

I wonder how much of that is the cymbal levels. Sixteen Stone has the overheads up pretty hot if memory serves me.

In "Pain" the tom drums and cymbals are buried in the mix possibly due to this dynamics squashing.

Ha! I was on to something with this overhead level business. I could be wrong (I don't ever push mixes passed -6dB RMS), but I've never seen a correlation between cymbal level and overall loudness. There are some compromises, but cymbals don't chew up that much level.

My guess would be that 3 Days Grace mixed the record exactly how they wanted to. They had a big budget and big marketing push afterwards. I've had quite a bit of bands who wanted the cymbals WAY down. It's part of a sound of that era. I remember the second Creed album had cymbals so low they were kinda just implied. This is in stark contrast to cymbal-bashing records. Loud cymbal records are fun to me but usually are considered less polished.

It seems to me that you prefer early 90s production, wish new music sounded this way, and have have latched onto one obvious difference, loudness. That factor can't be ignored, but I think a whole lot of decisions that go into a making a 3 Days Grace record are done specifically so they DON'T sound like Superunknown. It's the same reason that guys who loved Pink Floyd didn't get Whitesnake didn't get Nirvana didn't get Korn didn't get the bland boredom we have now. You get my point.

There were some really great aspects to the early 90s production that I won't argue. However, I don't think I can go so far as to call it objectively superior. I remember one critique I heard of Sixteen Stone from an 80s guy was that it sounded like a band in the garage. He thought it sounded cheap and crappy compared to more polished 80s productions from 5 years beore. I could imagine the 3 Days Grace crowd saying the same.

I guess my point is this is subjective, and while I don't deny that loudness can make an excessive impact, comparing two totally different eras in rock music is an apples / oranges affair. You'd be better off comparing early Bush work with later Bush work although that will still reflect changes in the times that go far beyond loudness.

Even with subjectivity and cultural changes, it's really up to us as engineers/producers to decide how loud our music should be. I want to see the band that profits because they don't buy into the loudness war. In theory, based on what most people say around here, there will be a record explode because it doesn't sound squashed. For me, I think great songs are rare and I'll take one squashed or not.

Brandon

Holy crap! -4? We have a lot to learn from whoever mastered that. Sounds like a good challenge if you're wanting to improve that aspect of your mixing chops. Can you get your mix to -4 RMS and still sound as good? And keep the drums that big?

I doubt I could yet...

Originally Posted by m24p

Holy crap! -4? We have a lot to learn from whoever mastered that. Sounds like a good challenge if you're wanting to improve that aspect of your mixing chops. Can you get your mix to -4 RMS and still sound as good? And keep the drums that big?

I doubt I could yet...

In Romania we have monkeys do mixes. They not happy till they see the levels peak with-in the reds of a mixer (if it don't break the speakers it's too low fidelity).
I had to set the levels for inputs at some place....every channel was clipping, I told the chef to cut people fingers off for touching any sound equipment, their nads if they touch the compressors .
Studios here push things out that go past 0db...their kinda ignorant, and it doesn't matter if it sounds good or not.
It's a cute little monopoly of music here.

Along time ago, me and some buddies felt impressed by how we kept getting all these really loud mixes from people and went on to figuring out how to get that sound (we both found out about yamaha final master).
You could just run a compressor on your final master channel, and it'll keep things in check while you raise the level too -4 Don't brick everything at -20 dbs,( but there was a ratio for human sensitivity to dbs ) instead draw a line from -20 till 0 and make sure you have a difference of about 10 db between the two, so people can hear a difference in volume change when it happens.
For example it takes 2-3 dbs for people to notice a change in volume.

This site right hear will make it easy to figure out levels Loudness volume sound level change factor of perceived loudness formula calculate power level noise levels volume logarithm dependence three four fold loudness sound - by what factor does level decrease dependence comparison decibel levels 3 dBSPL 6
But anyways all this loudness war is comming from people that don't even know a thing about SPL.
Im pretty sure -6/4/2 db is the closest we can get to 0 db, which is equal to 1 watt of power, making it easier to work with when amplifying.
For example, having a 10,000 watt amplification is equal to 40 db of amplification. Most concerts though get louder than that because of complex mathematics. So to actually have some more rounded units of measurement definitely helps.
IE: 0db=1 watt 1db= 1.3 watts. You want to have per second a max of 20 dbs live. Is it easier to go 1X20 or 1X15.384615384615384615384615384615384615384615384 615384615384615384615384615384615.....
This whole part of the repeating decimal could affect sound.
But if your going to work with some-thing that's gonna be listened to on headphones, than you have to use a different formula
Gdb=10log(power of 10)( actually, it's to hard to write this equation on a forum, and I have never written equations on a computer in my life. So just go here ->Decibel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lets not forget the voltage part of this too.
And Ya, repeating numbers will get rounded off to the nearest thousandth or lower......

Maybe this whole loudness war is an actual battle for the analog war, considering that on an analog mp3 player (theoretically) artifacts such as poor A/D-D/A converters that couldn't keep up with the power consumption of converting dbs to watts from all levels of input for 3:40 of time wouldn't exist and everything in mathematically terms would add up and sound good. Though if the bass drum would be to soft in a mix it will still stay to soft.

I got carried away, I hope I didn't detain from my original point.

Here's a very interesting article in the latest SOS - If you've got an e-sub, you can read it; if you haven't too bad, you'll have to wait.
‘Dynamic Range’ & The Loudness War

Just curious.
Question for Brandon and those in the know.
For the RMS average on over-all mix and chorus peaks, how are you guys accurately monitoring this?
I know you can analyze a wave to find it out but how about in real time?
What plug-ins are you guys using?
I'm using Logic Pro 8 and have Cubase 4.

]I recently heard Bush's (not the former president) "Come Down" on the radio. It sounded fantastic.

So I ripped the album to check out the waveforms. What a beautiful thing to look at as opposed to the smashed masters we have today

.

So I'm not the only one who finds the waves more beautiful to look at!
There is something about the peaks being seen and not just a smash of smeared blog that captures my admiration too!

Just curious.
Question for Brandon and those in the know.
For the RMS average on over-all mix and chorus peaks, how are you guys accurately monitoring this?
I know you can analyze a wave to find it out but how about in real time?
What plug-ins are you guys using?
I'm using Logic Pro 8 and have Cubase 4.

The goofy thing about RMS is it is an average over time. It's never really stated how long that time necessarily is, however, and that's why at any given moment RMS levels can be high or low depending on the song dynamics.

Checking the RMS level of the entire song is the last thing you want to do. I make sure my choruses hit -6dB RMS (give or take), but the verses can do whatever they want. Quiet stuff should drop in level. How much is really up to you and the band but I tend to go extreme with this.

While I don't LOVE the results having to distort a mix a bit, I accept it. I rarely mind it on my favorite modern recordings. However, I can't ever get my head around a mix that doesn't vary in level. For me this is a real lack of dynamics. When a verse that should feel softer is also -6dB something is very wrong. So any level average over the entire length of the song is going to be useless because not all songs need have the same amount of quiet in them and maybe some should be fairly loud all the way through. It's a per-song kind of thing that computers aren't good at figuring out.

I use the TT Dynamic Range Meter, but here lately I've just been using the one in UAD Precision Limiter. (I was using the wrong limiter in UAD for some time and didn't realize it.)

So I'm not the only one who finds the waves more beautiful to look at!
There is something about the peaks being seen and not just a smash of smeared blog that captures my admiration too!

I'd like to think I don't judge a book by its cover.

Thanks for the info!

I'd like to think I don't judge a book by its cover

And that's probably for the best.
While I do think the transient wave is aesthetically appealing to the eye, this in no way shape or means that the
purdy wave actually sounds good. haha.

While I do love Bush, Sixteen Stone is probably not the pinnacle striving point of many engineers.
However, the fact that I still love that album IS a testament to the fact that good songs and character in the performance will always supersede a boring, flat, PRISTINE audio quality to me (and I'm assuming most)!
If it doesn't move you, it doesn't matter!