TerraMortim
New member
well the first bit of enlightenment that I can offer... you don't hear in mathematical equations...so why mix with them?
well the first bit of enlightenment that I can offer... you don't hear in mathematical equations...so why mix with them?
TerraMortim
New member
Yeah see that's just what I'm saying. You get me. (I'm not as insane as I think, eh?)
There are some projects I do that are very very visually dynamic...some that are one big square wave when zoomed all the way out (literally just as bad as every screen shot people post in jest on here)... If one is trying to get it loudest, that's just stupid... but really... the visual presentation of a waveform matters to no one except for people on this forum...and who are we mixing for...each other? (let's hope not)
One thing I forgot to mention... going along with that mixing style thing... I get a lot of responses that are "from my experience" it sounds bad...well maybe that's because that person's mixing style doesn't naturally end up from time to time insanely loud.
TerraMortim
New member
Exactly!
In many cases we can SEE just how bad something sounds, whether we've heard it or not.
This first snap below is from a 1983 CD of ABBA’s “One of Us.”
The second shot is from a 2005 digitally remastered segment of the same song. It can clearly be seen by the graphic that the life has been sucked right out of it. We can’t compress stuff like this whether analog or digital and expect the dynamics to survive it.
Every single time someone argues against "square waveforms' they bring up the same thing... either... 70s or 80s music which would sound absolutely terrible smashed to hell, or really shitty modern music which would sound awful regardless of how it was mixed... Not every recording SHOULD be really saturated just like not every recording should be really punchy and dynamic. If everything was the same, it would suck even worse than it already does.
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Elton Bear
Unregistered Abuser
Haven't we already discussed and agreed this point though? It all depends on the style of the band, but at the moment it seems most "Radio-friendly" music is smashed to oblivion, even in styles where it shouldn't be (not saying that that is every style)...
Did that even make sense?
Did that even make sense?
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solaris1982
New member
Touche...perhaps I should rephrase the question. What does a compressor do to your sound?
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nosignal
New member
a compressor takes the audio signal and boosts the quiet parts and basically levels out the whole thing to make the sound a uniform volume. in regards to what it does to your sound, it takes all the definition away and makes things sound like a mess to me it takes away the separation of different instruments and voices in a mix.
i'll post a picture of a song off the new murder by death album i have, it came out about a month ago and its not just a square signal.
Thanks for replying everyone!
i'll post a picture of a song off the new murder by death album i have, it came out about a month ago and its not just a square signal.
Thanks for replying everyone!
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nosignal
New member
heres that murder by death song, its compressed but its definitely not a square signal.
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
I get where you're trying to come from, and don't disagree with it in principle - and lets be honest here, it's the principle that you're working from; the idea that there are no rules when it comes to subjective subjects. I get that, and I respect that.
But pancaked dynamics *do* have a certain sound to them. Anybody that's worth their salt on this board should be able to hear them with one ear tied behind their head without getting anywhere near a visual waveform editor. It most definitely has an electronically-reproduced, "pushed" sound; i.e. it sounds exactly like what it is, like someone behind the glass tried pushing the levels too far. It's not always so noticeable on the radio unless it's *really* blatant pushing. But get it home and away from the FM radio processing which tends to make everything sound the same anyway, and it jumps out at you like fingernails on a chalkboard.
The idea of this stuff just being subjective and a matter of personal taste taste is a lovely idea, and I mostly agree with it. But the fact is that in real nature there are boundaries and limits, based upon the wiring of the human being itself. Red will always be the recessive color next to blue, no matter what the fashion trends of the day may be. Certain chords when played together, will always sound dissonant, no matter what the genre of music or style of play. And sounds whose natural dynamics have been tempered on an anvil will always sound "wrong" (for lack of a better word offhand) and cause listening fatigue, no matter how "cleanly" and with what high quality hammers such tempering has been done.
Because you are not using the idea of gain structure in the digital domain. If your mixes are coming out hot, it's either because you are digitally tracking them hot by pushing your converter, or because you are pushing your digital sliders in mixing, instead of following the same unity gain path that you do in analog.
It has nothing to do with mixing visually - you already know I am so against that idea. It simply has to do with following the same gain path guides on the digital side as is done on the analog side. Just because we have converted (or are converting) to digital doesn't mean that the concept of 0VU as an averaged "sweet spot" just disappears. Keep treating unity gain as calibrated to 0VU, stay on the gain structure path, and the mixes will come out sounding good without being hot.
That tells me the same thing that this board tells every one of us every day; that most people in this racket just don't have the ears to hear the difference between a bass drum and a striped bass, and that that is the #1 problem behind most of the questions asked here.
I said it at the start and I'll repeat it here, anybody with the ears needed to be an audio engineer can hear a brick mix from a mile away. You're right, some sound better than others, there are good and bad jobs of pushing. And your also right, much depends upon the type of the music. But flattened dynamics still have a recognizable and definable "sound" regardless of whether a good or bad job is done, and regardless of the style. And anybody who listens to a brick and says they can't hear that it's a brick has underdeveloped listening skills.
And you know that I agree with that sentiment 99 times out of a hindered; it's all about the ears and not the eyes. But in this case it's quite different. A brick is the result of a process that by it's intrinsic nature does have a particular, identifiable "sound". It is a visual result of a specific process with specific aural properties.
It's like this. If you are recording and you see a flat line at -inf and your meters remain dark, that means something quite important. It means that your recording will not sound "right". The flatline at the bottom means something that translates directly to the ear as an identifiable effect; in this case silence. You could have your loudspeakers turned off and know immediately that there is something wrong, and in fact know what that something wrong would actually sound like.
It is, in fact, so predictable, that you could listen to the playback with your eyes closed and accurately guess what the visual waveform looked like, you'd know it would look like a flatline at -inf with dark meters.
It is no different with brick mixing; if you see a brick, you know it is going to sound pushed, and when you hear a pushed mix, you know pretty much what it will look like.
The problem is, because squashed dynamics are not something that occurs very often in nature - not the way silence does - it's not quite as readily identifiable as silence is, it does take a couple of extra CPU cycles in the brain. This is where the fatigue begins. So not everybody recognizes it when it's there, unless it smacks them over the head with a bag of nickels. Add to that the fact that much of the public's sense of listening is so underdeveloped that they hear loud and just equate that with good. Tens of millions of home equalizers and high-efficiency speaker systems have been sold to the unwitting public based upon that one principle.
But - and here's the punchline, the thesis behind the whole story - just because one does not consciously hear the effect doesn't mean that the effect not still is a degradation at other levels. It still fatigues (and even causes headaches) because it's still something unnatural for the brain to process, and therefore works it harder, and it still paints a vanilla coat across everything by making everything sound the same, at least in one dimension, and it still ignores the idea of engineering to get the most out of the the content rather than engineering to a formula.
Nope. Because I take a position that is trans-fashion. I don't give a shit what the fashion is, I do what sounds right for the content. I'm militant against pancaking not because I am militant for non-pancaking. I am not Republican or Democrat. I just work from first principles and do what is right for the job in front of me.Have you ever considered that maybe the militantly anti loud mix idea is ALSO quite fashionable this day and age?
And damaging a perfectly fine mix by turning it into a brick has never been what is right.
G.
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jndietz
The Way It Moves
Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden is definitely not smashed. That CD is so freaking quiet
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Beck
Guest
Ha!
I wonder why? What else is there in between? 
I work primarily in the analog realm and I mix with my ears (as God intended), so I can hear the audio butchery in more recent mastering techniques. The visual tools simply allow us to confirm the shit we could hear anyway with or without the graphs.
These mastering methods are yet another thing killing music… one more nail in the coffin.
I’m just amazed this loudness approach has gone on for so many years now. It was and is bad medicine.
WhiteStrat
Don't stare at the eye.
A bit dramatic, don't you think? You may dislike (even loathe) any technique out there, but if you think any technique--or any number of techniques--is going to kill music, you're just talking nonsense.
Music is bigger than any trend, bigger than any genre; music has survived far greater threats than the dreaded square waveform!
Could it be that you are lamenting "the death of the commercial viability of music produced in an analog fashion similar to that of the previous generation?" Maybe that's your beef, but "..yet another thing killing music?" C'mon on...
madmax25
New member
I'm sure if I did that test the unmurdered one would sound a lot better. The issue is, it will be quieter at the same volume setting. I'm not defending the pro-loudness side, just observing that the average high school garage band wants something that will be as loud as their favorite album by ___ that they're trying to sound like. I've given them the nice dynamic versions and they almost always come back complaining that it's really quiet. I smash it against a wall, give it back to them and they crap themselves.
Maybe I'm going to hell for not "fighting for the cause" enough
...
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Beck
Guest
Not nearly dramatic enough.
Ha, speak of the devil...
Like I said, I'm just amazed the loudness thing is still being employed and isn't understood, but even more amazed that anyone is still debating the incontrovertible. It is or at least should be as well understood as the effects of smoking on the human body… it’s certainly that well understood in professional circles outside of the make believe community of web forums. Music shouldn’t just “survive” it should be thriving based on the alleged advancements in recording technology. But it’s never been grimmer, sonically speaking.
Popular music sounds worse every year. We are in a post-HiFi age of incompetence. The loudness war has been settled but amateurs vastly outnumber those that know what they’re doing.
Can I offer you a drink? do you mind a lead cup, or are you up to speed on that one?
IronFlippy
Dedicated To My Member
I think you're just listening to the wrong music. There's always been a lot of bad music, but there's always been a lot of beautiful music, even in pop music. And even then, music is subjective (although a poor performance will always be a poor performance).
SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
Perhaps if they actually developed their own sound instead of just trying to clone someone else, they might actually be able to get a contract and a budget to go to a Big House and have things done properly so they *can* sound as loud as their favorite band. And maybe then the overall quality of the music scene will start improving again.
And perhaps if we as engineers actually did the second half of our jobs by actually acting as the experts we pretend to be, and explained the situation to them and actually acted as consultants and*advised them to do the right thing* before they just make a rash decision, we'd discover that everybody would be better off in the long run and the short run. They may still say, "I don't care, I want it screamin'." In that case we're no worse off than we were before; we still give 'em the pancake. It doesn't hurt to at least fulfill our obligation to the client in that regard, rather than just shut our mouths and take the money, and then come on here and complain about it.
But you'd be surprised how many, when having things explained to them, respond by saying that they just "assumed" this or "didn't realize" that, and wind up thanking us for steering them straight, or for at least educating them even if they don't change their mind. It's good for business to fulfill that obligation to the client. They will have that much more respect for us, and regardless of whether they take our advice this time or not, will be more likely to come back to us for advice - and for work - the next time.
We all want to sound like professionals, but we don't act like them. Instead of being a good general practitioner and actually managing our client's sonic health, we just play Dr. Feelgood and feed them prescription slips like potato chips for whatever they ask for without question. Then we come on here and complain about how everybody is becoming a drug addict.
G.
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WhiteStrat
Don't stare at the eye.
I agree. Popular music does sound worse every year. But if that means music is dying to you, then we have differenct definitions of music itself.
Last Wednesday night I was in my car when a great classic rock tune from about '75 came on the radio. This station is guilty of compressing the hell out of everything. Since most new music is already smashed, it becomes more noticeable on the old stuff. This song really suffered.
And by the way, that happened while I was driving to a solo cello concert (with accompanying piano) in a great little hall. No mics, no speakers. No compression or limiting. No hard drives, no tape reels.
I repeat, square waveforms and compressed pop tunes aren't going to kill music. There's room for a lot in the thing we call "music"--some good and some bad. But one funky piece isn't going to kill the whole game.
And lead cups? That was clever. Do you write your own material?
TerraMortim
New member
Haven't we already discussed and agreed this point though? It all depends on the style of the band, but at the moment it seems most "Radio-friendly" music is smashed to oblivion, even in styles where it shouldn't be (not saying that that is every style)...
Did that even make sense?
makes perfect sense, and I absolutely agree...there's just a lot of people who are one extreme or the other, can't see exceptions to rules.
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Beck
Guest
Well, to be fair I wouldn't be here talking about music if I thought it was over. So I guess It's more accurate to say I think we are in a musical dark ages. I’m sure many aspects of our culture will still be here when we get through this dumbing down thing or whatever it is... whatever history will call it (hopefully not “The good old days”).
But just to clarify, I’m talking about popular music, which currently doesn’t exist as the phenomenon it once was. As much as we love to use it as a reference, classical music accounted for no more than 3% of record sales even at the peak of the record industry’s golden days. Music will survive in many ways, even if it’s just a guy, his dog and a banjo in Appalachia, but I’m talking about recorded music, it’s quality and relevance in broader society. People are avoiding it as they would any other pain.
Yeah, I’ve been writing all my own stuff since the writer’s strike. That bad, eh?
TerraMortim
New member
Ha!
ummm.....good modern music? =D
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