middle ground

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stupidfatnugly

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so I'm chopping off alot of my peaks in wavelab trying to make it louder, you know. so that aint good and it was as loud as I wanted it before I learned about headroom.

so it's either loud and sounds bad or sounds good and quiet. where is the happy middle and how do I get it?

I know you guys have the secret ingredient. Don't tell me that you don't.
Glen has it and so does Farview.
 
Sometimes the answers are found not by asking questions of others, but by asking questions of one's self.

The secret ingredients are self-respect and the will to apply one's self.

G.
 
(I hate talking about "sheer volume" but it's so hard to get away from... One of these days, we're going to go back to making great sounding recordings and this whole 'volume war' is going to be a distant memory - a nightmare of a memory, that hopefully our children and our children's children will laugh hard at and call us stupid for ever getting involved in - But I digress)

One thing is for sure -- I can't get anywhere near "war volume" in digital as I can with a fiercely clean analog chain. Where digital is already clipping hopelessly, my analog chain is hardly even warmed up.

GRANTED: Without converters that are up to and calibrated to the task (my mastering converters are almost polar opposites from my tracking converters as far as calibration is concerned) and without something in the chain that actually adds gobs of clean gain and without input conversion that can actually take the abuse at the input, it isn't going to make much of a difference.

Not a secret - as you'll find most mastering facilities use analog chains along with certain digital processing. There's more than one reason for it. Obscene amounts of headroom is one.
 
the elaborate ways you guys say: "shut up"

OK, I'll shut up now.
 
I'm not saying anything about shutting up... I'm just putting in my -0.02dBFS. I went through a "ITB" phase and other than the much more important "missing 'that' sound" I didn't like, nor do I currently like, digital limiting. And I'm a hybrid guy -- I don't diss the dig (pronounce "didge" like "ridge"). I sometimes do a fair amount of tweaking in digital before I go out into the analog chain. But those last few dB that everyone is clamoring for is almost exclusively (at least, here) added in the analog realm. If I could find a digital process that could mimic the volume portion, I'd do it in a heartbeat, as I could establish final levels before wandering into analog.

But I can't. So I don't. And it would open a whole other can of worms with the DA.

Add to that the simple fact that the vast majority of mixes just don't have the potential to be at "war volume" no matter who the mastering engineer is, no matter how experienced he might be and no matter what gear he uses. The best ME in the world is limited by the mixes he's sent. And most mixes don't have the juice. And I don't just mean "home brew" -- Most of the ones on the shelf in the store don't for that matter. It takes amazing core sounds, captured amazingly well, mixed amazingly well, etc., etc., etc. to be able to handle the 'abuse' of the 'loudness' portion of the mastering phase. Gobs of headroom at every conceivable step, the right instrumentation, the right arrangements -- It rarely just "happens."
 
stupidfatnugly said:
the elaborate ways you guys say: "shut up"

OK, I'll shut up now.
Click to expand...
Nobody here said anything about shutting up. I just said that the ball is in your court. You asked your question, you got your answers - some very good, detailed answers - and you now know what's ahead of you and what you need to learn and to do in order to achieve your goals. The only question is if you're ready to apply yourself yet.

G.
 
thank you for the info. I was just firing off stuff and now I know that you guys would like me to do a little experimenting 1st and come to you with a bit more educated questions.

I got reamed on another thread so thanks for being polite.

MM, you've been very helpful, when I feel confident that my mix is good enough I'll send it to you to see what you can do. how much for just one 4 or 5 minute song?

G, I've been reading on your website a bout compression
 
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