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Ruining music by making it TOO LOUD... in depth piece on the matter. (pg. 2)
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| Synchronicity |
| quote: | Originally posted by zenperson
Funny, i just got a lecture about this on Friday from one of my instructors, who's an industry legend. He's been around for more than thirty years, having been Chief Engineer and Studio Manager at the Village Recorder in LA and also worked on some high profile movie and TV projects... He's engineered everyone from Fleetwood Mac to Emerson Lake and Palmer..... needless to say, he's seen the development of engineering from the early 70s to the present day...
Well, he engineered an album last year for George Benson, the jazz guitarist. There was a track on that album where George did a duet with Vanessa Williams... The track was engineered very warm, with little to no compression... He played the monitor mix from the studio, with only a synth piano to back it up... Well, the record compnay ended up spending 30,000 to record strings in London to back up George and Vanessa on the track. The funny thing is, when we listened to the mastered version of the final release, ALL of the dynamics of the vocals AND the strings were virtually in-audible. The mix was absolutely flat, with no warmth... now, remember, this is a jazz album... So, the monitor mix that he played for us had George and Vanessa sounding so passionate and you could literally hear the room ambience... The mastered version made them SO loud that the meter on the console was maxed out the entire time... It was as though they were screaming into the mics....
He said that in his 30 years in the industry, the record companies have shifted to making everything as loud as possible and killing dynamics. He as an engineer didn't make the track like that... It was the final mastering, which is directed by the label. He talked about how much dynamic range a CD has, yet we only hear that top portion of it in today's recording, whereas when we were primarily using Vinyl, we were hearing every bit of that 50dB of range being utilized.
Thought that was interesting, coming from a guy who's literally seen it all... It's really kinda sad to see how music has gone... EDM really needs a lot of compression to get that cold, edgy sound, but most other genres don't need the levels of compression being used because we're not hearing good music anymore... we 're hearing so much hardware and software being used, that it's very hard to experience the subtleties in vocals and guitars and most other acoustic instruments anymore... :( |
An interesting read, what does he say about edm though? Does he think heavily compressed/limited fits the style?
I'm so jealous, I'd love to have a pro that I could one-to-one with!
One thing I will say though, it seems to be fasionable for experienced engineers to moan a lot about how todays engineering 'isn't like back in the day'. Where are the positives about what we should be focusing on to improve todays music? |
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| Synchronicity |
I thought people might find this wav(?) (I can't believe I don't know what to call this!) interesting, it's from Jonah - Shh Listen (radio).
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| richg101 |
| and i loved the sound of that tune... its been crushed to hell! |
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| KilldaDJ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Synchronicity
I thought people might find this wav(?) (I can't believe I don't know what to call this!) interesting, it's from Jonah - Shh Listen (radio).
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that looks awful |
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| Vizay |
now that's a proper brickwall master ^^
watch and learn :rolleyes: |
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| zenperson |
| quote: | Originally posted by Synchronicity
An interesting read, what does he say about edm though? Does he think heavily compressed/limited fits the style?
I'm so jealous, I'd love to have a pro that I could one-to-one with!
One thing I will say though, it seems to be fasionable for experienced engineers to moan a lot about how todays engineering 'isn't like back in the day'. Where are the positives about what we should be focusing on to improve todays music? |
I haven't asked about EDM.... But, i wouldn't say it's fashionable for engineers to look down on modern recording methods... the fact is, that vintage gear simply sounds better... There absolutely no disputing the fact that recording through an analog console to analog 2" tape just sounds better... it's warmer and captures more of the essence of whatever you're recording, because it's a direct reflection of the waveform. It's even been psychologically proven that our brains respond to analog better, because those tones and frequenices make us feel really good, whereas the louder the CDs, the more worked up we get and the less we really listen to what we're hearing.
Now, I love digital.. I love CDs..I love that mathematical perfection and that digital clarity you get from high resolution sampling, but the big complaint among engineers is that an entire generation of listeners is growing up with this supercompressed, overly loud music and they don't know what it could really sound like. They think that MP3s sound good... They don't know the potential in hearing something that's been cut to wax...
So, the concensus is that CDs ARE good... but, they're being so overly misused that we're losing our ability to discern high quality recording from crap... And this has nothng to do with the artist, although an entire discussion could be had concerning auto tune...
My teacher, that i spoke of in my previous post has changed with every major change in the recording industry since George Martin and Tom Dowd revolutionized how studio engineering is done. When that man speaks, every word he says contains nothing but the utmost humility to technoloy and what it allows us to do..... :) |
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| thoughtlessjex |
| quote: | Originally posted by zenperson
Now, I love digital.. I love CDs..I love that mathematical perfection and that digital clarity you get from high resolution sampling, but the big complaint among engineers is that an entire generation of listeners is growing up with this supercompressed, overly loud music and they don't know what it could really sound like. They think that MP3s sound good... They don't know the potential in hearing something that's been cut to wax... |
I take issue solely with the association of CDs (Or digital in general) with overcompression and clipping. While it is true that recording to analogue improves many things, you must remember that the first limiters and compressors were analogue, and it was just as possible to abuse them then as it is to abuse digital now. The fact that they didn't notwithstanding. The problem isn't digital music. The problem is simply the louder is better mentality. |
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| Blake_Jarrell |
i think dance music producers are always trying to make an overwhelmingly loud track. nothing sounds better than superloud music when your at a club on a fistfull of drugs, plain and simple. its a sensory overload. cases in point: james holden and lostep. jesus christ. brickwall anyone? with the exception of maybe burma, everything is so ing loud there is absolutely no dynamic in any of their elements. i was talking to james holden after a gig once and he told me when he mixes down he just turns everything up until its clipping and then lets the limiter take over.
but the point is: is this a bad thing? it IS club music. i would say in a more album oriented electronic world (a la ulrich schnauss or boards of canada) there is still alot of sense of dynamic. telefon tel aviv on the other hand, are brickwall guys too. "sound in a dark room" is probably my favorite song of all time, but that clap? my god its loud.
im still just getting my head around compression, sidchaining, limiting etc and dont fully understand it yet. |
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| zenperson |
| quote: | Originally posted by thoughtlessjex
I take issue solely with the association of CDs (Or digital in general) with overcompression and clipping. While it is true that recording to analogue improves many things, you must remember that the first limiters and compressors were analogue, and it was just as possible to abuse them then as it is to abuse digital now. The fact that they didn't notwithstanding. The problem isn't digital music. The problem is simply the louder is better mentality. |
Yea, that's what i said.... It all follows that a generation of people is growing up listening to poor quality music because of the record companies going against the recording engineers... I didn't say anything about digital music being the culprit. It's just that digital happens to be the medium that is being utilized with overcompression. I'm studying for a career in digital recording... It's my passion.... I love digital..i love analog too... All of the engineers i study with and work for love both too... The medium isn't the enemy, it's the RIAA.... ;) |
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| Lunar Phase 7 |
| quote: | Originally posted by thoughtlessjex
As has been mentioned, EDM tends to demand a bit more on the compression end, for the sake of the harder edge, but the compression shown in that article is too much even for dance, where the kick absolutely must be the loudest element. That really is kinda bull. |
Alex MORPH/Carl B kicks are terrible. Much as I like both artists. I feel they are just so over compressed its untrue. |
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| Emperor |
| who cares how that .wav looks? All i care ao but is how it sounds...you guys are lost.Like someone else said if you are recording a musical then dont over compress it. TECHNO got its name because it is techy...It sounds like machines kinda hehe.....it's not suppost to sound real.....hense all the weird sounds... |
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| fr0st |
| I <33 this thread, music has been ruined. But record labels will keep wanting it loud, and people will keep producing it loud. |
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