Over compressing/the loudness war

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The time for images of waveforms has probably passed, but here's an interesting one. This is from 'The Reincarnation Of Benjamin Breeg' from Iron Maiden's most recent album.

The clean intro is actually quiet rather than hard limited at -4dbFS or whatever and it encourages you to turn the volume up.

Then, of course, the heavy comes in and smashes you in the face. It doesn't look totally 'bricked' but it's not far off.

If this was a normal top 10 pop song, would the quiet intro be totally smashed so it was peaking even though it's soft?
 

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hardwire666 said:
Dynamics are a crucial part of a song. I don't care if it's Beethoven, or Black Flag. Over compression or limmiting is just not acceptable to me, and thats as a listener. You can tell when a track has no dynamics in it.
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There's musical dynamics and there's dynamics in the mix. The dynamics can be achieved with the arrangement just as easily (more effectively) than the mix.

hardwire666 said:
The only time it's okay to over compress any thing is if its to achieve a desired effect.

and thats my $.02
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sure. I can go with that.
 
A slightly topped off but uncompressed track with a hot snare mix will look like a brick' if the tempo's high enough.
 
mixsit said:
A slightly topped off but uncompressed track with a hot snare mix will look like a brick' if the tempo's high enough.
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good point. Pretty much every death metal band I've done a mix for ends up looking like a brick.

Also, I use a lot of synths through bit crushers and shit...so that could contribute as well.
 
If everything's loud, nothing's loud. The problem is that being 100% intense, all the time, is what most bands are going for (at least in my chosen genre of Metal). You can't mix/master-in dynamics if they're not meant to be there due to "creative" decisions by the band. Thus, if there aren't any dynamics in the first place, there aren't any to take away by mastering. I really think it's more a sign of the production style people are into and the song arrangements bands/producers are choosing, vs. any issue with mastering. Sure, you can take limiting too far and make the mixes harder to listen to, but if the band is going for a super-intense, super-in-your-face, unrelenting, incredibly loud, incredibly dense sound, you'd be doing the material a disservice by not smashing the shit out of it.

On a related note, I'll be mixing my band's full-length soon, and will be doing so with a particular focus on enhancing dynamics, as the material relies on it, and interestingly enough it will at this point set us apart from the multitude of metal bands out there putting our "riff-fest" songless records.
 
madmax25 said:
That's the one...
:o I have no excuse. It seemed too bad to be true. I'm sure if I glanced at it for a few more minutes I would have picked up on it....
Excuse me while I get back on the turnip truck:rolleyes:...
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Move over. I got caught on a 'news bit done on 'the major league switching to aluminum bats..' :rolleyes:
 
steve.h said:
If everything's loud, nothing's loud.
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Thank You! :)
steve.h said:
The problem is that being 100% intense, all the time, is what most bands are going for (at least in my chosen genre of Metal). You can't mix/master-in dynamics if they're not meant to be there due to "creative" decisions by the band. Thus, if there aren't any dynamics in the first place, there aren't any to take away by mastering.
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That's what I was referring to earlier; if all it takes to make a brick is a couple of dB of limiting or other squashing, you pretty much have a virtual brick to begin with. This is understandable, not a criticism. When the content is a wall of guitar sustain and distortion joned by Animal from the Muppets on the cymbals and a triple kick traveling at 220BPM, not only does that stuff have higher RMS levels and low crest factors to begin with, but don't have to squeeze the turnip very hard to get the last ounce of blood out of it. It's the nature of it.

While that still does not mean that the last drops of blood do need to be squeezed out, that's kind of besides the point of the loudness wars. When one has delta blues, pop, space rock, country, etc. etc., works which are nowhere near bricks when they come out of the mixing ovens, and squashes and pushes them in the same way, *then* one has...or maybe at least should have...some objections to smashing the shit out of them.

It's funny how everybody who has been around the block more than once knows there are no recipies when it comes to mic choice, EQ settings, compressor settings, etc., that is up to us to listen to the music and let it tell us what to do...except in final mastering volume levels, where it's OK to treat everything the same and squash the life out of it no matter how it protests.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Because a giant square wave NEVER sounds as good as a normal feather duster wave. It's not what it looks like that matters, you're right. But when it looks like that, it's going to sound like crap no matter how you parse the argument.

It's like saying, who cares what the lines on the seismograph look like, as long as there isn't an earthquake. Well, if the seismograph is drawing squarewaves, there's an earthquake.

Sure it is. It's like fashon, it goes in cycles. in the 80's everybody though that synth rock was both the present and future; electronics and electronic sound was here to say so you'd better get used to it. Now you listen to Flock of Seagulls or The Tubes and it sounds so incredibly dated. No, the next fashon came from Seattle, and instead of using synths and space suits and hair gel, it was about a guy who needed a shave wearing a dirty flannel shirt and playing an acoustic guitar.

Engineers are rebelling and fighting the square wave, word is getting out, and the bleeding edge producers are already starting to re-discover texture and dynamics in some of the leading edge mixes. The pendulum is starting to swing. It's s slow swing, but it's coming. In another 5-10 years we will be listening back at the square waves of the turn of the century, and they will sound just as dated as the second Tears for Fears album.

G.
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Well said!
 
steve.h said:
I wonder if anything's changed since April 2008?
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I think it has. Fans signed a petition to have Metallica remaster their latest record. I love it!!! Fans who are not neccissarily involved on the writing/producing/recording/mastering side of things realized how bad it got and asked them to fix it. So I think we're moving in the right direction.
 
steve.h said:
Agreed! I wonder if anything's changed since April 2008?
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It seems that the number of people arguing for loudness and against dynamics on this board has decreased, and those that still do don't seem quite as convinced of their belief as they once were.

That doesn't necessarily mean as much as we might like it to mean; it may mean that the loudness folks have simply gone to friendlier territory, I don't know. but it is a noticeable effect.

G.
 
jndietz said:
Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden is definitely not smashed. That CD is so freaking quiet
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good call. I dont believe any of there newer records are either. There is a lot going on in those mixes. If they were squashed I dont think you could hear all the stuff going on.


I think some types of songs can get away with it. Heavy music with one guitar part, bass, one vocal, and a drum kit. A band like Unsane comes to mind.

More dimensions in a music piece could be more likely to get over compressed.
I was dissapointed in the latest Cure album being way over squashed. The music is good but could definately use breathing room for being that type of music.
 
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