SouthSIDE Glen said:
Ahhhh, that's why I like you, legion. Even if you do come an RCH away from quoting me out of context in your sig line (
), you have a head on your shoulders, ears on your head, and brains inside, and you use them all.
Man, does it sound good to hear a metallurgist who isn't all about RMS. Thank you!
G.
I understand the context of the quote in my signature, even if no one else does.
I just ommitted the bit about how it had nothing to do with audio engineering...
It wasn't long ago I knew nothing about recording music. (just over a year ago I think?)I knew how to work a guitar, an amp, and a computer. All to a fairly reasonable level I guess. And ironicly if I wasn't googling why my mixes weren't loud enough, I would have never have stumbled onto somewhere where people would be handing down knowledge for free.
(The result being that I learned what a limiter was, downloaded one, smashed the crap out of one of my tunes, and hated the sound of it.) I made some pretty fucking stupid posts when I first found this site, but eventually I learned stuff...
As far as my anti smashing-the crap-out-your-music stance goes...
See, ever since I was little I have this fixation on the guitar, and how it sounds, so I listened to music intently. I started hearing all the other sounds, and became fixated on them too. There were times when I would tell people in the room to "shut the hell up and listen to this". People talking when I'm listening to good music annoys the crap out of me. Its not background music to me. It more like reading a book. I want to concentrate....
Dynamics have always been something that fascinated me. A classical piece that would meander along quietly, and then suddenly jolt you with a loud burst. I liked Nirvana a lot in my early teens because of their use of dynamics. To have something going quietly and suddenly burst out with rage, like the calm before the storm. I'm sure had their stuff ran through a brickwall to some degree. But it was more tolerable when they weren't
completely killing the tune.
Its only been in the last few years I have noticed the way you'd have, say, a heavily distorted powerful guitar riff with the drums booming away, and suddenly it would go into the quiet calm bit. But it was like "wait, everything is still the same volume. It doesn't make any sense". It just sounded fucked up to me. Like, I can deal with the heavy bits being pummelled into my brain. Thats what they are for. But the "quiet" bits, the change in timbre I guess. They aren't meant to do that. Its sposed to be, like....exhaling, I guess, after an intense moment. A release. It just doesn't seem to happen anymore.
I don't see the point in trying to make and record all these sounds if you are just going to mush them up afterwards. I got pissed off the other day because I was listening to a CD, and I noticed forthe first time how when the tune kicked in, it almost felt like my speakers were fucked. I actually checked my whole setup to make sure something wasn't turned up stupidly loud somewhere. I'm going to notice that every time I listen to it now. I just don't see the point in it. If
everything was at a lower perceptive volume, then people wouldn't need to do it.
Anyway at the risk of writing a whole book (and hijacking the thread), I'll shut up now. I could talk about music forever....
