quote:

Originally posted by a98 though you've probably never studied or done it professionally.

Oh I've studied it and mastered my own tracks. I've never done it professionally because being quite honest, I suck at it. The basic principles however are quite simple.

I will demonstrate how using any waveform analysis zoomed out to a ratio in excess of 1:16,384 samples will make any trance tune look like a big blue rectangle.

This is a single bar drum loop (duration = 1.855 seconds or 81,840 samples) that I simply cloned to bring the total length of the audio file to 2 minutes 57.771 seconds (or 7,839,744 samples). It is recorded at 32 bit float (uncompressed) 44,100hz.

There is no dynamic compression on any individual instruments nor is there any compression on the master bus.

Waveform fully zoomed out (ratio 1:16384 samples):


Note that you cannot make out individual transients very well because each kickdrum has a duration of between 60 and 120 ms (depending on if you add in the decay phase of the drum). Zoomed out this far, you cannot make out individual high hats.

End of waveform zoomed in ratio 1:2048 samples:


End of waveform zoomed in 1:128 samples:


Now you can begin to make out individual kick drums exposing that there is in fact massive dynamic range. It just occurs regularly during a very short time frame (less than 5ms). You can also make out the open high hats and you can tell which kick drums the snare strikes on.

Kickdrum zoomed in to show the highest dynamic range (in excess of 85dB, zoom ratio 1:1):


Note that the duration of the highlighted section representing the highest dynamic range (the biggest difference between the loudest and quietest part of the sound) is 0.003 seconds.

In dance music which has a constant metronomic kickdrum at 130bpm (as this demonstration shows will have a fullscale burst in loudness lasting between 10 and 30 milliseconds (the duration of the initial peak of the kick drum) 4 times every 1.851 seconds of playback.

Therefore if you take a trance tune with no breakdowns and a kickdrum playing throughout at this tempo with a duration of 3 minutes or greater you look at the waveform in soundforge zoomed out fully - you will get a big blue rectangle. In short, it proves nothing as I have already mentioned - this demonstration has no compression on it. I even deliberately recorded it -6dB under soundforge's clip indictor and then normalised the result to -0.3dB.

Hell, I'll upload the audio file if you want but its boring as hell. Its just a bass drum, an open hihat, a snare drum and a closed hat striking on 1/8ths.

Conclusion:

You are wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by a98 and ofcourse mastering/overlimiting can be a form of art too, unfortunetly in dance music 99% of the case the artist doesn't get to choose how the track is mastered. so if a label decides to compress it flat, it isn't nessasery what the artist wanted from the track. my point was just that overlimiting ruins the songs in my opinnion. if the mixing hasn't been done perfectly, it will make the song sound really messy. ofcourse it's something the artist/label decided to do, but that doesn't mean i have to put up with it and listen to that. too much limited/compressed track has to be really good for me to still wanna enjoy it.

I admit to not exactly liking the majority of music marketing folks that I have met in Dublin's underground music scene (I think most of them are quite honestly, a bunch of leeches) but you make it sound as if the engineer is chained to his mixing console with a marketting executive whipping his back with a square mustache and shouting 'NOT LOUD ENOUGH. WE NEED MORE POWER.'

It really doesn't work like this and if an engineer decides to mix a track a certain way, there is a very good reason for doing it. Engineer's aren't forced to do anything although they do operate on the instructions of their client, they are free to voice their concerns and its not like the average exec doesn't even know what the hell dynamic range compression is anyway. You can always push it far enough and prove that it sounds shit. But I honestly haven't heard anything approaching 'overcompression' in professionally released music. Go get a compressor and fiddle around with it. You will be surprised how far you can go.

Last edited by Derivative on Sep-17-2007 at 09:44

The article is ridiculous.

People enjoyed lo-fi recordings of music for over 100 years before digital compression came around. Good music is good music, and is enjoyed at any level regardless. It's a fallacy to assume that the enjoyment of music decreases because of the compression algorithms of mp3s. Rather, people aren't enjoying the music anymore because the music is uncreative, derivative dreck.

And if I may wager a guess, the reason for that is probably the rise of studio wizardry, techniques, and sound engineering in the last 20 years. Audio engineering has come to dominate music production so completely that it has neutered the entire songwriting process.

In much the same way Hollywood movies are now 10% scriptwriting, 10% principle production and direction, and 80% post-production and digital effects, so to in music has there been an over-reliance on software, computers, studio effects and processors to make hit music.

Topnotch music production will make a good song better. But it can never make a bad song good, no matter how much it sugarcoats it in stupid audio tricks.

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative Its even more hilarious when engineers say stupid shit like 'music used to be warmer and fuller with more tone'. All I read is setence full of onomatopaeic words which don't describe sound adequately.

I don't know what sentence that was then, because there isn't a single onomatopoeia in that quote.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishkur The article is ridiculous. People enjoyed lo-fi recordings of music for over 100 years before digital compression came around. Good music is good music, and is enjoyed at any level regardless. It's a fallacy to assume that the enjoyment of music decreases because of the compression algorithms of mp3s. Rather, people aren't enjoying the music anymore because the music is uncreative, derivative dreck.

I generally agree, in so far as this incessant bitching by audiophiles about minute sound quality is missing the point of music. You get the impression sometimes that these people are listening to music purely for the sound quality: sonic fireworks that evoke "oohs" and "ahhs".

I do think sound quality is important to an extent though, which is why I don't ever bog-standard "ear buds" to listen to music, because you miss half of what is actually there. If a track is specifically made to work through a full sound such as deep bass, if you cut that away the track doesn't work as well. But that is most probably a different issue altogether.

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When your goal is to bludgeon senses dulled by near-constant exposure to music, loudness is the way to go. That's the thing, for people in the richer countries music is everywhere and cheap, or free if you're content to listen to just MP3s from file-sharing. Most users of this site are part of the first generation of people for whom all of this seems utterly natural, who entered their middle school or high school years (those formative ones for musical taste and habits) when Napster was taking off, or even when it had died down and been replaced by other programs.

Of course, with few exceptions the pop industry has never traded in subtlety or dynamic ebb and flow. It's about giving people the aural equivalent of a bathroom stall quickie, bang bang bang and on to the next attraction. It's just that as what was once disposable becomes even more so, certain trends that always existed have come to a crescendo.

I wonder if producers who are mixing and mastering a record for an independent label do the same thing. Because if this only applies to mainstream music - I couldn't care less.

quote:

Originally posted by ibizzzaaa I wonder if producers who are mixing and mastering a record for an independent label do the same thing. Because if this only applies to mainstream music - I couldn't care less.

Nope, it's happening with a lot of dance music too.

By the way:

quote:

Is the human race evolving to become deafer? The thought suddenly occurred to me this morning that with all the constant noise citizens of big cities are exposed to, not just at nightclubs or while using our mp3 players, but at movie theatres, in the car, on the street, or at work, that we may perhaps be evolving to be deafer. All this exposure to loud noise can only convince our bodies to do what they've been doing for the better part of 4 million years - adapt. Like an arms race, as nightclubs crank the music louder and louder, the new generation stops hearing quieter sounds that their grandparents had no trouble with. As a result, the clubs crank the music even louder, in a never-ending cycle. Noise wars. At any rate, it would certainly explain why Americans speak so loudly; perhaps they are more highly evolved that the rest of us?

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quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I don't know what sentence that was then, because there isn't a single onomatopoeia in that quote.

Eugh. Wrong use of the term but you know exactly what is meant. Terms like 'warm' and 'rich' and 'fat' and 'tone' are truly meaningless descriptors because everyone has a different idea of these sound like.

Also, that 'is the human race becoming deafer?' article is bollocks. Nobody exposes themselves to levels of sound comparable to that in a nightclub on a regular basis without destroying their ears completely. You do not adapt to this destruction to any meaningful degree as damage to the ear is a function of SPL in the ear canal and you can calculate pretty accurately the time it takes before damage occurs at any given SPL. Even if you did, it would simply take a little longer to have the same effect.

Besides, it has only really been possible to reproduce music at massive amplitudes since the advent of the valve amplifier so we are talking approximately 75 years since this has even been an issue with music.

Talking about any sort of evolution or physical within a maximum 75 year period (1 to 2 generations) is simply ridiculous.

quote:

Originally posted by Ishkur And if I may wager a guess, the reason for that is probably the rise of studio wizardry, techniques, and sound engineering in the last 20 years. Audio engineering has come to dominate music production so completely that it has neutered the entire songwriting process. In much the same way Hollywood movies are now 10% scriptwriting, 10% principle production and direction, and 80% post-production and digital effects, so to in music has there been an over-reliance on software, computers, studio effects and processors to make hit music.

Hardly. Production/post production are just steps in the song writing process and they are done using a bunch of fairly standard tools that manipulate the volume, frequency and phase of the appropriate sound.

Do not fall into the trap of blaming the technology for the failure of the producer/songwriter to deliver the goods. The failure is always human.

One thing though. How on earth did you manage to figure that 80% of the film process is post production? Even in a massive CGI film, half the work is the script, screenplay, filming process, production process and editting.

You can't stick CGI into a scene if you haven't filmed it yet or staged it with actors.

Yeah, true... but let's be honest here about three things.

Thing the First!
Very few people would be able to tell the difference between CD quality music and a 320 kbps mp3. Furthermore, who says that "CD quality" gets to be the best quality it can be? It's just another logical ceiling.

Thing the Second!
This doesn't really apply to electronic music. Most of our tracks are made with electronic instruments and on PCs, the acoustics and frequencies he's talking about are usually even cut right out of trance music for most instruments to make other instruments clearer in that range.

Thing the Third!
Only 1 in 10,000 consumers (or downloaders) of mp3s will even have a pair of speakers that can accurately replicate the sound. Did you spend $1,200 on your speakers? If not, you're not even in the audio mid-range. The best, cleanest, most well engineered and produced CD Quality track means NOTHING when played in shitty iPod headphones or crap computer speakers.

quote:

Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles When your goal is to bludgeon senses dulled by near-constant exposure to music, loudness is the way to go. That's the thing, for people in the richer countries music is everywhere and cheap, or free if you're content to listen to just MP3s from file-sharing. Most users of this site are part of the first generation of people for whom all of this seems utterly natural, who entered their middle school or high school years (those formative ones for musical taste and habits) when Napster was taking off, or even when it had died down and been replaced by other programs. Of course, with few exceptions the pop industry has never traded in subtlety or dynamic ebb and flow. It's about giving people the aural equivalent of a bathroom stall quickie, bang bang bang and on to the next attraction. It's just that as what was once disposable becomes even more so, certain trends that always existed have come to a crescendo.

Yup.

It's like telling advertising firms to make simple black and white stills to advertise products, when we are all awash in the constant bombardment of flashing neon signs, digital banners, internet advertisements and logos, fast paced catch lines, etc etc

lol. i only listen to music on ipod or crappy comp speakers.. maybe i should invest a bit, i might be blown away

whats a fair price for good speakers :/ actually i got to save for a car first.. ill buy up all the luxuries next year

quote:

Originally posted by stevo_0 lol. i only listen to music on ipod or crappy comp speakers.. maybe i should invest a bit, i might be blown away whats a fair price for good speakers :/ actually i got to save for a car first.. ill buy up all the luxuries next year

Try the M-Audio BX5as to start.. relatively cheap, but it will allow you to see what I'm talking about.

I think of my audio equipment as one of the most vital necessities for a good life. Afterall, I listen to music almost constantly.

It's the same as how I wouldn't sleep on a cheap matress/pillow/etc... afterall, we spend 1/3rd of our lives sleeping.