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| quote: | Originally posted by Sean Walsh
My girlfriend was ripping an Avril Lavigne cd she bought the other week, and I was astounded to see the rips of the track. "Rectangular block" would be a very accurate way to describe it.
While I agree with most of what you've said, I don't think that comparing EDM to classical is really all that useful. When Beethoven was composing Moonlight Sonata he wasn't thinking "well this is good, but how is it gonna sound at the club?" |
I was mentioning classical music, as it's one of only the music styles were macrodynamics (as in the loudness differences between several parts of the song) still play a major role.
Believe me, if you did a good job at mixing, and mastered it well (without squashing) it will still like everything else in the clubs. 90% of the time, there's limiters in the PA installation too (which role is normally to protect speakers, but lately they're being used for the same thing as in mastering, loudness). You'll squash your mix with your mastering limiter, and that squashed mix will be flattened even more due to processing done at the club install.
Besides, there's not ONE and only club. Most clubs sound radically different. In that optic, there's not much difference with Beethoven. Don't you think he might be worried how his pieces would sound played out in a certain room? In the end, the aim is to make it sound good everywhere. And therefore, a clean piece of work is the best solution. If they want to destroy it afterwards, it's their problem. But if you deliver a heavily mutilated work, that damage can't be undone in later stages.
This is even more true for radio, where there are huge broadcast processors squashing everything down. There have been experiments done, with unmastered songs sent out to different mastering houses that were known to have radically different methods of working. There were very dynamic masters returned, and very "commercial" square waves too. The different masters were played over the radio (so passing one of those processors). It's really an humbling experience. At least the dynamic masters had still some life in it, the square waves, well... very fatiguing.
That's why I have to agree with Vizay here, skills make the difference. In sound, presets are a very bad method of working (unless you need to work quick, like in the advertisement business). Each song is unique, so needs unique settings. Sure some presets offer "instant gratification". But in my opinion, try to work from scratch. If you can work up your way to good settings, it shows that you know what you are doing. Once you are at that stage, you can use presets, as you will know why that preset will make it sound good, and speed up your workflow.
If you always use presets, you might like it already. Who says that that will be the best result you can get? Presets were made with a certain type of song (or even with a certain song) in mind. And like I said, each song is unique.
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