What is up with the compression lately?

Blue Bear Sound

Blue Bear Sound

New member
I've recently listened to a number of people's clips lately (here and on other forums) and all of them are completely squashed flat from overcompression.

There have been a number of excellent compression article links posted here and other sites -- there's no excuse for not knowing how to properly use compression and limiting.

It's not even subtle..... it's just plain over-the-top, squashed, peaks-completely-sucking-down-the-level, painfully obvious.

People - and you know who you are - if you don't fucking know how to use a piece of gear properly, then 99.9999% of the time, you shouldn't have it in your signal paths!!!

I think we should consider forming a coalition to license the sale and use of compressors. Force people to take training before more audio gets butchered........


yikes............... :eek:
 
True - but that wasn't my point....

I made the comment because even with great resources available such as this site, it appears people still aren't using their gear properly and I found it strange that I would hear so many examples with the issue one after another.

Point is - there is plenty of free and solid info available on how to use compressors, and yet from hearing many people's sample clips lately, no one is bothering to understand what they're putting in their signal chains.

Maybe it's time for people to brush up on their theory???
 
Last edited:
Blue Bear, you didn't say whether you were referring to compression across the stereo mix, or on indivudal parts (perhaps you meant both).

I think it's clear why people over compress the mix - it's that attempt to make it all sound "loud".

But from my own little learning curve (and I'm still down the bottom of it) I have a feeling that the temptation to over compress individual tracks comes from inadequate tracking. I'm finding that things like mic selection and placement are the hardest part to get right, and it is so tempting to over compress a badly recorded track because it makes it sound "better".

Anyway, just 02p from a beginner's perspective.
 
If a clip is overly compressed, let the person know what you think. A newbie might not realize they are over compressing, when comparing to most squashed modern music. And yeah, there is no excuse for it.


Blue Bear Sound said:
I've recently listened to a number of people's clips lately (here and on other forums) and all of them are completely squashed flat from overcompression.

There have been a number of excellent compression article links posted here and other sites -- there's no excuse for not knowing how to properly use compression and limiting.

It's not even subtle..... it's just plain over-the-top, squashed, peaks-completely-sucking-down-the-level, painfully obvious.

People - and you know who you are - if you don't fucking know how to use a piece of gear properly, then 99.9999% of the time, you shouldn't have it in your signal paths!!!

I think we should consider forming a coalition to license the sale and use of compressors. Force people to take training before more audio gets butchered........


yikes............... :eek:
Click to expand...
 
Garry Sharp said:
Blue Bear, you didn't say whether you were referring to compression across the stereo mix, or on indivudal parts (perhaps you meant both).
Click to expand...
Yup - both....

I was really just surprised to hear it one after another... on the clips I actually gave feedback on, I certainly did mention it as an issue to make them aware of it...

But I found it bizarre to hear the same problems from different people (on different forums) one after another.

Like I said above, I guess I posted this simply to remind people to read up on effective use of compressors if they don't understand it, BEFORE they put it in their signal chains.
 
Bruce -

Not just compressors, but limiters, normalizing, and just plain recording/mixing too hot.

Louder sounds better right?
 
That's what everyone gets bombarded with so that's the current sound. I hate it but flip on the radio or MTV (on the off chance that they are playing music) and bam. Compressed all to hell, flat, dynamicless music.

I'm guilty of it. I did a demo for a band and it wasn't loud enough. So I squashed it and got it louder :-/ They were happy with it then, I got paid everyone moved on. I didn't like it but it happened.

Maybe it's like gated, processed drums in the 80s. It's the curent fad and will thankfully go away. Until then... I think we need to teach the consumers that there is a volume knob to adjust the level of the music to their liking and that dynamics in music feel good.
 
I am definitely not a fan of the loudness wars, but that's not exactly what I'm referring to here....

More like the improper use of compression causing tracks to sound "sucked-up" or "sucked-in," rather than loud or fat (phat?).... basically, it's a consequence of a lack of understanding of what a comrpessor is doing to a signal.

On a 2-track mix that is overlimited, you can certainly get that same result, but I'm also hearing on people's individual tracks.
 
masteringhouse said:
Bruce -

Not just compressors, but limiters, normalizing, and just plain recording/mixing too hot.
Click to expand...
Absolutely true....... !

I guess I'm just noticing that bad compression is becoming as apparent a rookie mistake as overuse of reverb, and it really sounds exceptionally awful.
 
I understand your point totally Bruce, and one thing I really enjoy is helping spread the good word as it were. But I have to agree with Spankenstein.
I just paid for another lesson; Robert Randolph 'Unclassified'. A stunning example of state of the pro art. In clarity, mixing and volume, it's an amazing study.
And what really pisses me off is there's great music in there -completely killed. Flat. Dead. Annoyingly ever-present. I kept turning it farther down to get away from it on the very first listen.
What a f**ing shame.

spankenstein said:
That's what everyone gets bombarded with so that's the current sound. I hate it but flip on the radio or MTV (on the off chance that they are playing music) and bam. Compressed all to hell, flat, dynamicless music.

It's the current fad and will thankfully go away.
Click to expand...

What if they kept getting cds returned by customers as 'complaint; defective, unlistenable'

Wayne
 
More like the improper use of compression causing tracks to sound "sucked-up" or "sucked-in," rather than loud or fat (phat?).... basically, it's a consequence of a lack of understanding of what a comrpessor is doing to a signal.
Click to expand...

Blue Bear - I don't know which clips you've listened to so I don't want to insult anyone, hehe...but if a mix is monitored in unsatisfactory conditions, including headphones, then the engineer will most definitely be misjudging dynamics - both attack and release settings will most likely be messed up. That will for sure give you that sucked-in sound when played on a more full-range system...hehe ask me how I know.
 
I'm sure I'm guilty of over compressing as I haven't been able to afford monitors and am forced to mix with headphones...but as to your statement about people not taking the time to learn how to use compression...the people over compressing are newbies. They aren't seeking out knowledge to fix their compression errors because they don't know there is an error: 1) Because they're new/novice and 2) Because like someone else said, everything being put out right now is completely squashed.

I'd say just bring it to the attention of the individual, because they probably don't know that anything is wrong.
 
The other scarry thing is that there could be a whole crop comming up that might see that it's suposed to sound squashed to shit, like that's the 'norm'. Just like some of us older guys might have exspected drums to sound close-miced and isolated as a 'natural' state. :rolleyes:
How often has the question been; 'How can I get my mix to sound punchy(!) like on the radio?'?
Huh?!
 
EleKtriKaz said:
...the people over compressing are newbies. .
Click to expand...

Actually all you have to do is listen to any commercial release in the last 5, 10yrs to hear over compression. Not pumping like some newbies might use, but like spankenstein said "Compressed all to hell, flat, dynamicless music"
 
Its a hard thing to let off the throttle when everyone else is wide open. I have had comments that I master too quietly. Yet if you were to look at it comparison to older discs it would be about average. I was asked to master a disc I mixed because they had no money and the band leader was one of my friends boss. I did the original disc more olong the lines of Bob Ludwigs ME job on QR's Empire disc. They said it wasn't loud enough. So i gave them 4 discs and PQ sheets and said pick the one YOU want. I have no idea what went to duplication.
If everything you hear is overcompressed, limited, maximized with cheap plugins then your going to drift in that direction without thinking. One way to avoid that is to listen to discs that are on the infamous Honor Roll. Or find ref disc from old classics, not recently remastered through an L2 by Bubba.
Ive been thinking about pursuing making copies of the Orban article on what happens to your music during radio processing. Or giving a ref disc that has gone through radio processing simulator with all the associated distortion.

There is some difficulty in educating musicians about these things because they trust A&R more than the engineers. Just keep working the issue and sooner or later people will start to hear again.

SoMm
 
It fucking sucks. Everthing is above the threshold. if I hear one more "breathy" vocal I'm going to puke. Popular music sure has reached a sad state of affairs. 70's dryness, 80's gated reverb, overcompression: sweetnubs guilty as charged. Clients want it though. Usually for every well paying project I hate I'll squeeze in a few smaller lower budget quality projects to keep me sane. Time to go program the drum machine . . . .
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top