Luodness or dynamcs - what would You sacriifice?

P

Pykon

New member
Hi @ll!

Which choice You find better:

1) to sacrifice dynamics for a louder sound, comparable with commercial CD tracks

2) to save dynamics and clarity of the sound, but leaving it significantly quieter than popular songs

I'm quite happy with my modest mixes, but when I play it among other CD's, my songs are simply so quiet that I'm afraid people will skip them on average stereo systems.

Should I compress to the limit? Is the loudness more important than other sound qualities? I'm afraid for most listeners it is, but - tell me Your opinions: 1) or 2)?

peace,

mike
 
I personally would prefer an albums worth of square wave then any sort of 'music'.... !

But seriously, there will be a balence between the 2 you have to find.
 
Waffleness said:
But seriously, there will be a balence between the 2 you have to find.
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And You mean that average listener will also think this way" Or rather skip the track which is not as loud as his revious favourite recordings, so "there must be sth wrong ( = unprofefessional) with the song?
 
Pykon said:
And You mean that average listener will also think this way" Or rather skip the track which is not as loud as his revious favourite recordings, so "there must be sth wrong ( = unprofefessional) with the song?
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Well, if your talking about a "professional" recording, the thousands of pounds of software/hardware that is invested in a professional recording and mastering studio means any professional sounds shouldn't be that much lower then previous work.

If you are recording songs in your bedroom/home studio, they probably won't be the same volume without investing in similar gear. This is mainly because your can't produce professional quality recordings with an inferior signal chain. But you can try, and thats whats fun about it :)
 
In other words do I like music soft and loud or just loud?

If it's loud all the time then most people tend to get tired from it and I'm not saying of it.

Exposure to loud noise over a long period of time is damaging to your ears and there is no getting around that. That's why you see ear protection at airports. Our ears need a break to recoup or else they shut down.

Using the volume as a tool to get someones attention works real well in a song but if it's always loud then the tool switches to using silence to grab attention.

It's not an either or, it's how tastefully you can use them together.
 
Volume is irrelevant.

If people like your music, they won't mind whether it's a couple of DB quieter than a TV commercial for Sham-WOW or not.

If they don't like your music, it won't matter how loud you pump it, they still won't like it.

G.
 
I'm afraid for most listeners it is,
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The "volume war" is a pissing contest between artists and labels and *other* artists and labels. Not end users.

If end users really understood how most of the music they're listening to could sound, there'd be an uprising from the public.
 
Massive Master said:
The "volume war" is a pissing contest between artists and labels and *other* artists and labels. Not end users.

If end users really understood how most of the music they're listening to could sound, there'd be an uprising from the public.
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Absolutely....that's a fantastic point.
 
Massive Master said:
The "volume war" is a pissing contest between artists and labels and *other* artists and labels. Not end users.

If end users really understood how most of the music they're listening to could sound, there'd be an uprising from the public.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I've been thinking for years. This theory works perfectly when you listen to one particular CD. But what if a person makes a compilation of different recordings and one of them is much quieter? What's his mind gonna say? People are lazy, so if they have to turn the volume up and down just for one track of 15, they simply skip the one. Or maybe not?
 
Pykon said:
That's exactly what I've been thinking for years. This theory works perfectly when you listen to one particular CD. But what if a person makes a compilation of different recordings and one of them is much quieter? What's his mind gonna say? People are lazy, so if they have to turn the volume up and down just for one track of 15, they simply skip the one. Or maybe not?
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Say that someone does make a compilation. Say that your song is included. Say that your song is the one that is 'quieter' than all the others. So . . . how did your song get included? Because that person must have liked it. So this person who liked your song enough to include it is just going to skip it?

Personally, I don't worry too much about final volume. I have a configuration that I use for recording (input settings, monitoring levels and so on) that doesn't change much. The consequence is that the recordings end up at a reasonable level, and I can judge that level from the mix I'm getting through the monitors.

My main task, when I've completed a set of songs, is therefore just to make sure that the levels of each track are consistent with each other; loud songs are loud, soft songs are soft. Even this task, on many occasions, is not too onerous, because if there is a strong commonality about the performances (for example, they've all been recorded live with the same instruments), they tend to set their own relative levels.

I'm obsessive about contrasts, within and between songs. I like contrasts in the instrumentation, the arrangement, and the song's dynamics. I'm not keen on working hard to get these only to see them squashed out of existence.
 
Well...

Since it's gonna be my first, say, "mastering" job, and I'm inexperienced in this area, the best way to show You what I'm talking about is to drop all three songs on Soundclick and paste link here.

Then you could say if they are too quiet indeed.

That ciuld prevent them from further dynamics-killing, overcompressing destruction.

1. Fiksum Dyrdum - Nothing You Can Buy

2. Fiksum Dyrdum - Wherever

Third track is a cover song with no DPD licensing so I can't let it go online.

peace,

mike
 
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I find that when I'm driving I'll usually listen to the over compressed cd at a lower level than a more dynamic and "under-compressed" cd, the couple seconds that it takes to turn a knob is a subconscious act for most people, they like the song they turn it up they don't like the song they turn it down.
 
Yonce N Mild said:
My goal is as loud as possible without sacrificing the dynamics.
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Best answer IMO..

but then again, most of you are making rock and roll or ballads, so you are all right, in the end, a home recording being played on one of these "indie" music sites really wouldn't need to be in that pissing contest..But once you get commercial, opinions go out the door and you must succumb to the borg or not sell.

I do a lot of club music besides the regular stuff..That industry (pop, 4 on the floor, trance) depends heavily on DJ's and clubs for the music to sell..Try giving a dj a song that isn't as loud as all the other songs he plays already..u will go in the crate of s%^t that doesn't get played...Just my one cent.

I also tend to disagree with the user end not caring about the loudness war. If I had no knowledge of music and I'm comparing stuff to buy..the thing that sounds lower would sound more unprofessional, and I might tend to skip over it..Even if this doesn't happen everytime, the possibility of it happening ONE time is just too great a risk..esp, for a starving artist in an industry supposedly being ruined by technology, the internet and home recording studios.
 
deejaytrixx said:
I do a lot of club music besides the regular stuff..That industry (pop, 4 on the floor, trance) depends heavily on DJ's and clubs for the music to sell..Try giving a dj a song that isn't as loud as all the other songs he plays already..u will go in the crate of s%^t that doesn't get played...Just my one cent.
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Good point. Although I thought in general you couldn't get as loud when mastering to vinyl? Or was that not as much low end because it would make the needle jump? Or is that just an urban legend?
 
Yonce N Mild said:
Good point. Although I thought in general you couldn't get as loud when mastering to vinyl? Or was that not as much low end because it would make the needle jump? Or is that just an urban legend?
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Well, l if you are preparing for vinyl distribution you would usually (esp. for 4 on the floor type music) create a separate vinyl master and roll of some stuff lower than 35hz..But then, I've seen mastering engineers roll off some hi's for vinyl as well..Point being the analog wave and digital wave are different aural experiences, and they "sound" different in theory. So if the DJ is using vinyl (and almost none do in the club circuit anymore *see my name*) , your master should technically be as loud as the other vinyl he plays because they were essentially prepared with the same loose unwritten guideline for analog.

Whether both a CD and vinyl appear as loud (and I think that is what ppl forget in this loudness war, compression is just giving the impression that it is louder) depends on the system its being played on and the mastering job. Technically a good analog master will take up more "room" in the wave, so even with that bass cut, should appear at least as loud, if not louder, as the well done digital mastering or mixing job, that doesn't take up the same amount of "space" in the wave, but can be pushed to a theoretically higher decibel level too try to take up some of the space that analog recording and mixing does...

Either way, loudness is not just about compressing or limiting the shit out of a mix..It's about the mix itself, the complexity of the arrangement, and how it was recorded in the first place. If you take a bad mix and try to limit it to 0db, and take an excellent mix and limit it to 0db, the excellent mix will appear louder, because there is a better separation of frequencies, better instrumentation and placement and a slew of other things..So I usually take it when ppl bring up the loudness war as "ruining" music, they probably didn't have that great of a mix anyway...radio is usually a shining example of this..(even though I think there are tons of EXCELLENT mixes on the radio)...and now by trying to bring a sub par mix up to an acceptable level to match today's commercial recordings, u get a dirty distorted mess, that has stolen the little dynamic range that they were able to achieve in the bad mix.

I know that probably is a hard read, but its really the best wording that I can assign to it without going into a full 10 page thesis about that theory..Either way, just my opinion..and you know what they say about opinions :rolleyes:
 
For the first track...

Do whatever it takes to make sure this is listened to by as few people as possible.

This music makes me violent.


Why do all women have to sing like this these days? This rasping mic sound always accompanies strummed acoustic guitars and shitty girly voices.

Agh.

Must Kill...
 
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