Lets talk about audio.Only nerds need apply. (1 Viewer)

[GO]

Was gonna post this in minor pleasures..but don't wanna fuck up a good chat thread by getting too specific.

I've been thinking about these things a lot,..but..and this qualifies as a minor pleasure for sure..but think about this..

All the little bits of noise etc that yer regular prosumer grade gear introduces to the signal..I think really thats a good thing to a certain extent.
Takes the edge of the digtalness I reckon.I mean..even fancy tape machines introduced hiss back in ye golden olde days.To have zero noise would be unnatural.I actually keep an eye out not to clean up my tracks TOO much these days..I clean them up..but not so much as to suck the life out of them.A bit of fuzz is good glue.

Thats my current theory anyway.

Probably horseshit.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I used to work for this "producer" (I convinced him I was a sound engineer, he convinced me he was sound and it all ended badly) and he insisted that all breath sounds be cut out of vocal tracks. Fucking stupid, people breathe. The things people do.

Sorry, a bit OT there.

 

[GO]

Thats totally not OT!!Thats as ON T as it gets.

First of all..this (I convinced him I was a sound engineer, he convinced me he was sound and it all ended badly) is the funniest thing I've read all day.

Secondly.....editing out the breath sounds is a rookie mistake..I made it on my first 30 productions.I thought I was being dead clever..but it completely destroys a vocal.Go back to my early tunes and you'll here it.Cat.
Theres a heap of audio information in those gaps between phrases..that if extricated results in an unnatural sound that the ear can't deal with at all..and consequently yer face says no.The ear,as we all know is one of the most sensitive yokes going..its hearing shit yer not even conscious of.

I understand the physics of it,but not in a way where I can really talk about it and make sense.

 

[dudley]

about 10 years ago we got a home recording mastered by Aidan Foley @ Windmill lane. Went in fairly embarrassed by a slight hum on the guitar tracks, that certainly a pro would have never let slip through. Sheepishly asked him was there anything we could do about it.
"Yeah, boost it!"
He was chuffed to hear an actual organic, untreated noise on a recording, and was delighted by it.

 

[GO]

There ya go...I was listening to the radio today for an hour....and modern pop production leaves me as cold as it sounds.Its all so squeaky clean.Probably been like that years,but as time goes on and I learn about production..its all I ever hear when I'm listening to the radio..that and the hooks obviously.

Some of what I heard was actually astonishing..in its depth of bass and twinklyness of highs.But it sounds like it was made in a factory.

Now,I would'nt have,uptil you said it Dudley,have ever dreamed of letting an earth hum get by..but sure why not?
Sometimes on the end of tunes I'll leave a smidgen of the noise from whatever ampsim I used..thats a sound that has all those characteristics you read about..warm..etc...sounds class for a lil moment in breaks.More natural.

Unmolested though,those frequencies eat up loudness in the long run though.And loud is GOD.

and! true proper loudness should be achieved at the mix level @lemonbravo; is this correct in your opinion?

Naturally,giving respect to optimum headroom levels for mastering..naturally..but the track should fucking BANG at -6dbs before it goes near a mastering room?

In fact..it should be 95% of the way there before it needs anything an ME can do.

 

[lemonbravo]

How loud you can get a mix is very largely down to the arrangement of the song, and recording/mixing.

I had a mix recently from someone finishing up their diploma at Pulse/Windmill and all I could think was, 'what are they teaching there!"
Sanitised, sterile, lifeless production. Everything quantised and pitch corrected to within an inch of it's life, everything 'perfect'.
Sounded awful.

A 50hz electrical hum, yes, you take that bad boy out, but it's also adding to the low end in the mix.

Frankly I think LOUD is a bit of a distraction from making good sounding records.

But it all change soon enough, once apple and co start putting intelligent loudness levellers in their hardware. So mixes that are brickwalled to death will sound flat and lifeless against ones that are more dynamic.
Having said that, I'm bored of the whole 'loudness wars' talk.
There was a nice blog post somewhere, some engineer saying he doesn't really want to hear a really dynamic mix where the snare and kick sounds like it could split your head in two.

Must dig it out, it was a good read.


Also, if you want to sound good on radio, send a mix peaking at -3db and no limiter for loudness, it'll sound way better once it's been through the processing that radio stations use.

 

[lemonbravo]

one the noise note, some plugin developers add noise to their signal to make them sound better, more 'analog'.

 

[magicbastarder]

All the little bits of noise etc that yer regular prosumer grade gear introduces to the signal..I think really thats a good thing to a certain extent.

sure noise is deliberately added to mobile phone calls.

 

[peter]

Saturation is usually added by an M.E can come from compression in tubes or a plugin depends on taste. I find it adds more depth to any recording. You can really pick out what is analog and what is digital. I add here in the compression stage and at the limiting stage, very slight between the 2. if something is recorded solely ITB it really brings things to life.

The loudness war is another beast, it's down to the mix. If the mix has a dynamic difference between RMS and peak of 6db, It's a little hard to place proper @ -12dbrms (Most electronic will go for 6db dynamic range). Most rock is -12. Saturation can give an illusion of volume also bringing everything forward abit in the mix.

I received a mix recently that was only 2db dynamic range before mastering, shocking stuff.

 

[ann post]

I received a mix recently that was only 2db dynamic range before mastering, shocking stuff.

holy fuck.

 

[peter]

Sent it back to mix for revision, never heard back. Think I made an enemy.

 

[Unicron]

I received a mix recently that was only 2db dynamic range before mastering, shocking stuff.

As in the loudest the track was was -xdB and the quietest was -x-2db? Or that you only that 2 db of headroom to work with?

 

[Anthony]

Sent it back to mix for revision, never heard back. Think I made an enemy.

More like they just didn't know what you were on about.

 

[ann post]

i think its quite an achievement.

anyways, sorta related to what dudley was saying, it drives me batshit crazy when people say my records are 'lo fi'. its a term that does not describe what it describes. I think a 'lo fi' record is a record that sounds nothing like reality and a 'hi fi' album is one that sounds exactly like reality. instead lo fi is a term that relates to sounding a bit scratchy, feet shuffling, chairs creaking, amps humming etc. and that is what a band actually sounds like in reality. to hide those things would decrease the fidelity of the record making something that was high fidelity a lower standard of fedelity.

so basically, my records are extremely hi-fi and are always described as lo-fi because its a cool muso term that makes no sense. get it together people.

 

[peter]

2db before the low information kicked, so it was not even set proper for low end. From what I could gather they had placed a limiter on the stereo out smashed it, used MBC to shape the mix and not EQ and turned down the masterbus. The wave form was just a solid block when attempting gain stage here for -6db.

The GY!BE album YANQUI UXO at the very start someone say rolling, what a great start to an album. Makes me smile everytime.

 

[Cormcolash]

i think its quite an achievement.

anyways, sorta related to what dudley was saying, it drives me batshit crazy when people say my records are 'lo fi'. its a term that does not describe what it describes. I think a 'lo fi' record is a record that sounds nothing like reality and a 'hi fi' album is one that sounds exactly like reality. instead lo fi is a term that relates to sounding a bit scratchy, feet shuffling, chairs creaking, amps humming etc. and that is what a band actually sounds like in reality. to hide those things would decrease the fidelity of the record making something that was high fidelity a lower standard of fedelity.

so basically, my records are extremely hi-fi and are always described as lo-fi because its a cool muso term that makes no sense. get it together people.

TELL ME ABOUT IT! Try explaining this to someone that doesn't produce music! Like "Yeah, that guitar sounds all hissy and everything because that's exactly what that guitar sounded like coming out of the amp."

Question for masterers of the universe, bear with me here:

If at mixing track has been really well balanced EQ-wise, compressed so that everything comes through clear, etc., and then is boosted using a limiter on the output to bring overall volume up (I know, crude) so that max is around -2dB and there is around 6dB dynamic range between quieter and louder parts (louder parts also have about twice as many channels contributing to the stereo mix, so the sound really fills out then), would you bother having this track mastered? Aside from perhaps a specific mastering for vinyl release or something like that?

I mean, the track is already gonna be pretty damn loud, right, and if the EQs are well-balanced already, is there any point mastering it? Maybe just to add some warmth or whatever by using specific equipment perhaps?

Whaddya think about that?

 

[peter]

Loudness is only part of what mastering is. Setting things proper when your bring up volume is different. Things can sound hollow when you just raise in limiter alone. picking out the problem freq and setting your balance if your on a less than average monitor setup. What I find mostly wrong is the balance vocals too far back, kick to far forward, boominess in the low end.

It really is that last check to have it polished for distro. I mean you kinda want to compete with whatever is already out there. A mix alone won't do that.

 

[GO]

I mean you kinda want to compete with whatever is already out there. A mix alone won't do that.

Respectfully.This is incorrect.A great mix,self finalised has the same chance of competing as an unmastered great mix.
Good mastering after all should be transparent.



I have noticed,that anything I've gotten mastered,unfortunately wasnt mixed very well to start off with.And the difference mastering made was negligible.
But in reality,mastering should be transparent,and the translatability of a mix should be present before the ME does his thing.I was formally under the impression that mastering ensures good mix translation..but that is erroneous.Its not a panacea for poor mixing.

Speaking from experience..putting a limiter on the 2buss for anything other than catching intersample peaks pretty much wrecks the sound,and the more gain reduction applied..the softer and mushier it gets.Even .5 db.

Get the mix loud without that,but still only peaking at - 6db using individual track compression and saturation and eq wizardry..and if you're not getting it mastered..sure mix it as loud as you can make it..and use soft clipping to control them pesky peaks.

Also,Its entirely plausible and doable to finalise the mix for vinyl yourself too..the information regarding the process is freely available.

 

[GO]

How loud you can get a mix is very largely down to the arrangement of the song, and recording/mixing.

I had a mix recently from someone finishing up their diploma at Pulse/Windmill and all I could think was, 'what are they teaching there!"
Sanitised, sterile, lifeless production. Everything quantised and pitch corrected to within an inch of it's life, everything 'perfect'.
Sounded awful.

A 50hz electrical hum, yes, you take that bad boy out, but it's also adding to the low end in the mix.

Frankly I think LOUD is a bit of a distraction from making good sounding records.

But it all change soon enough, once apple and co start putting intelligent loudness levellers in their hardware. So mixes that are brickwalled to death will sound flat and lifeless against ones that are more dynamic.
Having said that, I'm bored of the whole 'loudness wars' talk.
There was a nice blog post somewhere, some engineer saying he doesn't really want to hear a really dynamic mix where the snare and kick sounds like it could split your head in two.

Must dig it out, it was a good read.


Also, if you want to sound good on radio, send a mix peaking at -3db and no limiter for loudness, it'll sound way better once it's been through the processing that radio stations use.

Ahh..you want the snare splitting your skull open!

A good modern mix is gonna be loud anyway.Without being obnoxious.

 

[peter]

I tend to disagree Gaz. but that is just my opinion. Here is an example of mix raised against the master. It's dubstep mind but a good example.

The low end is tighter and more depth in the instruments. Where as the mix is a bit dull and floppy.

https://soundcloud.com/cutterheadrecords/a-b-comparison-1