Dynamics and not squashing the shit out of your master

[Sonika]

That video was interesting, music was utter shit though!

[narcissus]

i kind of don't even care any more. it's like autotune. i used to want to outlaw that shit but now i don't really mind it that much, hell even kinda like it sometimes. i've learned to hear 'through' it. a good singer still sounds pretty good thru autotune. a bad singer still sounds bad, doesn't matter if the pitch is on. kinda the reverse of the old days, when you didn't care if a singer was a little off key as long as they brought the fire.

loudness war is kinda the same way, and what doesn't get acknowledged often is how much a hand FM radio has in it. they compress, and have compressed for many years now, the SHIT out of the signal that leaves the station. (TV is the same way) i'm sure there are number of reasons for this, one being that if you are flipping around the dial you will hear theirs loud and clear no matter what. even my local college radio station is guilty. VERY guilty, augh.... but i digress
so that is how people get used to hearing the songs. and there is something to be said for the way it
modulates the music. ask daft punk. they liked it so much they decided to emulate it. (which turned into people emulating THEM, which turned into SIDECHAIN EVERYTHING)
and like everything.. once you are used to it, nothing else is the same. the public has gotten used to it without wanting to or realizing it. it is the same way people eat fast food and junk food every day and think vegetables taste bad.
but back to the original point... to me it doesn't matter so much. if the song is terrible, overcompressing it will make it worse. if the song is really good, and the ONLY way to hear it is overcompressed, so be it. i'll probably listen to the damn thing anyway if i like it enough.

also, limiting is a quick fix, a cover up, just like autotune. now that we have so much electronically produced music everywhere, there ARE NO NUANCES of the instrument/room/musician to pick up, so instead let's crush it all together and hopefully it'll be such a mess that people won't listen too close to see if each instrument is beautiful on its own. and things are just quick and dirty like that these days. if you hate it, don't try to be in the industry.

[nowaysj]

Agree about limiting being a crutch (one I lean on heavily, like I use two crutches, I don't even walk). So how is it that you take a middle of the road synth like Massive and make it sound beautiful and strong, without just increasing volume/rms through saturation, compression, and limiting? I know in recording of actual instruments, there is a lot that can be done to enrichen (should be a word) the instrument's sound. But that is in the audio/analog world. ITB how can you take a purely digital synth and shape it into something beautiful? Not asking that rhetorically, like really how do you do it?

[NinjaEdit]

Try some EQ. I think EQ is the best thing to have on a master as well.

You could also try using some effects creatively like distortion (in parrallel), reverb, delay, chorus. Increase stereo spread by detuning and/or delaying one speaker.

If your envelope is good, you won't need compression. Of course if the synth sounds good you won't need EQ either.

[macc]

People are scared of having small penises.

Great vid here (one of my favourite Nirvana tunes ever too);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTBoMlsw ... re=related

[narcissus]

Agree about limiting being a crutch (one I lean on heavily, like I use two crutches, I don't even walk). So how is it that you take a middle of the road synth like Massive and make it sound beautiful and strong, without just increasing volume/rms through saturation, compression, and limiting? I know in recording of actual instruments, there is a lot that can be done to enrichen (should be a word) the instrument's sound. But that is in the audio/analog world. ITB how can you take a purely digital synth and shape it into something beautiful? Not asking that rhetorically, like really how do you do it?

well it really ALL comes down to style. different styles of EDM have come up with different solutions for this problem. in many house styles, sampling live instruments creatively is used. in trance, tons of layering with reverb, delay, and all manner of atmosphere on top of atmosphere is used to fill up the sound.

seriously it comes down to working creatively and expressively with what you have inside the box, and spending a lot of time with it listening very critically and comparing always with other sounds one hears in the world. it just takes a lot of time and focus, which lots of people aren't willing to do.

[nowaysj]

it just takes a lot of time and focus, which lots of people aren't willing to do.

Yeah, fuck that man, who's got the time?

[Artie_Fufkin]

John Bonham, dynamics?
Now Bill Ward, HE had dynamics

Imo, there is such a thing as too wide of a dynamic range for sounds and sometimes it's worse sounding to me than totally untransparent distorting limiting. I'd rather listen to someone play at a tight, boring volume level(steady) than someone who is all over the place(spastic bass and clean or guitar). I know you're not advocating sloppy sounding dynamics and I think we would both agree about there being a use for compression to even things out to be a bit more smooth. I'm just saying, in a roundabout way, I think there should be a balance. (Utilizing tape saturation like zeppelin )

I think a great way to get the average person to understand the loudness war would be to have car stereos be made with a simple one knob compressor(something like fruity soundgoodizer) so people can have a hands on feel for how much destruction is taking place. (I also like brickwalling stuff and then turning it down because it brings out some details that you surely wouldn't hear with the naked ear like that intimate vocal stuff 3za mentioned lol)

[NinjaEdit]

Parallel compression is a possible solution.

[_v_]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIACDC ... re=related



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4h ... re=related

[VirtualMark]

I don't understand why people don't get this. As musicians we have a few ways to express our ideas. We can change the pitch, timbre or volume of a sound over time. By limiting everything too much, we lose the ability to vary the volume.