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skimpi wrote:I dont get this, I can hear a sub perfectly fine on earphones
Attila wrote:Who cares about accurate reproduction? On earbuds its easy to hear the sub track.
See? (just messing with you guys)
Haha, anyway if you guys want to read some hilarious stalker and obsessive type stuff about SkrillexSwireMou5 and the lack of prominent sub in their music, with input from some big names in the scene check out this shitstorm: http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?t=741470
I have tons of conversations about this topic on a frequent basis with my buddy who I make tunes with. A few random things I have concluded are
1. You are only as good as your audience perceives you to be. Now this opens quite a large topic of conversation, but its applicable in the sense that if you are a dumbass kid who downloaded a record and its loud and slamming in your face, said kid is probably gonna get pumped up and think the track sounds sick. From that point forward whenever he/she is listening to a playlist with the louder pro songs and a 100% ITB track by a lesser experienced, or in some cases far more experienced (meaning the mix is actually dynamic and not brick walled) comes on that kid will instinctively turn the volume up, or feel the disappointment of the lower volume level. If you are listening to music at the loudest available volume (like your laptop) you cant turn up a quieter master. Whether you like it or not these people are drawing the connection in their head that these quieter masters are not done as well as their louder companions, and thus decide the producer is not as experienced or talented in a lot of cases.
2.Being a good producer requires you understand your demographic audience. I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head, but the amount of people who listen to music exclusively on their laptop speakers is incredibly high. So if you make a mix where half the song is inaudible on those speakers you aren't gonna win many people over. This, for me, is the most frustrating part of the whole thing because if you enjoy sound and production all you can really think in most cases is how stupid that is. Bass music+speakers that produce no bass. Right.. ok.. Moving on
3.About that thread above me referring to people getting outside engineers to mix. To me, that is common sense. I played in a rock band for a long time and made a bunch of records. Only once did the producer mix the record himself and it was the worst sounding record we made. There are tons of advantages to having an outside engineer mix a track. Having a fresh, objective ear on a tune is priceless in my opinion. If these artists have the budget for it, why not? Every other genre of music does this, so I really don't see why anyone wouldn't if they had the option. Plus a lot of times these people have access to gear that is just completely impractical to buy if you don't mix all the time as a profession. Same goes for mastering. Even more so for mastering.
Just my 2 cents. 99.9% of this revolves around personal taste, like most things in life, but I really try to keep an objective opinion about these types of things. It is always useful to try and look at things from every angle.
Attila wrote:Oh come on, even if the track's squashed to hell you can't seriously, objectively say with a straight face that Knife Party's material is poorly produced...
Nah, I only said they are bad productions. I question the value of subjectivity in today's world.
Agent 47 wrote:Next time I can think of something, I will.
Kit Fysto wrote:
2.Being a good producer requires you understand your demographic audience. I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head, but the amount of people who listen to music exclusively on their laptop speakers is incredibly high. So if you make a mix where half the song is inaudible on those speakers you aren't gonna win many people over. This, for me, is the most frustrating part of the whole thing because if you enjoy sound and production all you can really think in most cases is how stupid that is. Bass music+speakers that produce no bass. Right.. ok.. Moving on
Haha I was listening to Koan a week or so ago on my laptop when the drop to The Edge "hit". All I could think was that if someone heard it for the first time through small speakers they'd think it was the dumbest song ever.
another really frustrating aspect is how much attention we pay to a track's stereo image, only to have people assess it on a stupid iphone or ipod dock that's got both L and R speakers less than a centimeter apart.
fucking use a stereo! what happened to home stereos! I just bought a used one with really old components but they sound amazing and pack a huge amount of power. I think they don't make em like they used to, bc everyone'
s obsessed with compact, portable, or near-invisible and don't give a shit about fidelity, power, longevity, stereo width, etc
Funny bc people will spend a small fortune on dolby 10000X whatever surround systems to watch the LOTR trilogy or fucking House or something
meanwhile they won't bother plugging their mp3 player into something with even two separated speakers
If the tune is properly mixed, you can squash it to -3 RMS and it will still sound good... just with less dynamics, but every sound will still fit in the space... But if, for example, you push your sub bass volume too high in the mix (above the kick) , you'll have problems...
I like to keep my limiter on master channel squashed as hell, turned off, and turn it on ocasionally while producing. If the mix sounds fine without any audible distortion and stuff like that, I'm on the right path and I know that mastering engineer will not have so much problems while mastering my tune... IMO it's a good practice...
Swelly wrote:thanks for the links! haha, i'm just guessing these other people are listening on their laptop speakers or godforbid...beats by dre.
That's their main demographic haha. Headphone/ipod music. It's easier to appeal to a bigger sales market through the loudness war because the original dubstep and so-called 'bass music' doesn't translate well outside of systems, so the high end 'midrange cack' + extreme loudness helped for a headphones type setting which is where a lot of newcomers (who are largely still too young for clubs) get into it. But anyway I've never heard tunes like this played out live myself. I'm not one for festivals which is where the majority of the live vids seem to take place.
Well out here in Hawaii, we rarely have any worthwile EDM events, not would most people would call a "festival", but a 6 hour event. I've only been into EDM for a year, but I go and support when I can. Who doesn't love loud music? But other than that the only time I am around a decent sub is in my girl's car. Haha.
egoless wrote:If the tune is properly mixed, you can squash it to -3 RMS and it will still sound good... just with less dynamics, but every sound will still fit in the space... But if, for example, you push your sub bass volume too high in the mix (above the kick) , you'll have problems...
I like to keep my limiter on master channel squashed as hell, turned off, and turn it on ocasionally while producing. If the mix sounds fine without any audible distortion and stuff like that, I'm on the right path and I know that mastering engineer will not have so much problems while mastering my tune... IMO it's a good practice...
How do tracks get huge sub bass then if mixing it louder than the kick means there will be problems, is it all in the mastering/limiting to bring that sub back up?
skimpi wrote:How do tracks get huge sub bass then if mixing it louder than the kick means there will be problems, is it all in the mastering/limiting to bring that sub back up?
In this example it's good that the kick (in sub frequencies) is a few dB louder than the sub bass (it still sounds huge if you have good sample and eq&compress&whatever it right) ... That's the dynamics between the sub-kick and the sub-bass... If you mix your sub bass too high in the mix there are good chances that it will eat the sub-kick or whole mix when you squash it during the mastering process and will give your mastering engineer a headache... Besides making each individual sound sounding the best as possible, the gain structure is all there is when it comes to mixdowns. The dynamics between bass & kick, kick & snare, hihats vs. kick&snare, lead sound vs. snare etc etc. All of these dynamics relations make a "groove" . If you make your kick & snare & hihat & percussions peaking at the same level you'll probably have less groove than if you structure it differently in the mix. And when the ME starts ruining the dynamics you worked on for hours (:D) because of the commercial loudness standard, the good mixdown will sound good at whatever level it's squashed, but a bad mix will sound even worse...
skimpi wrote:How do tracks get huge sub bass then if mixing it louder than the kick means there will be problems, is it all in the mastering/limiting to bring that sub back up?
In this example it's good that the kick (in sub frequencies) is a few dB louder than the sub bass (it still sounds huge if you have good sample and eq&compress&whatever it right) ... That's the dynamics between the sub-kick and the sub-bass... If you mix your sub bass too high in the mix there are good chances that it will eat the sub-kick or whole mix when you squash it during the mastering process and will give your mastering engineer a headache... Besides making each individual sound sounding the best as possible, the gain structure is all there is when it comes to mixdowns. The dynamics between bass & kick, kick & snare, hihats vs. kick&snare, lead sound vs. snare etc etc. All of these dynamics relations make a "groove" . If you make your kick & snare & hihat & percussions peaking at the same level you'll probably have less groove than if you structure it differently in the mix. And when the ME starts ruining the dynamics you worked on for hours (:D) because of the commercial loudness standard, the good mixdown will sound good at whatever level it's squashed, but a bad mix will sound even worse...
ahh so you mean more as to if there is sub bass, and sub frequencies in the kick, fighting for the same space, then a loud sub will cloud the sub from the kick, and not translate well once limiting is carried out?
skimpi wrote:ahh so you mean more as to if there is sub bass, and sub frequencies in the kick, fighting for the same space, then a loud sub will cloud the sub from the kick, and not translate well once limiting is carried out?
You don't want it to happen But it's not so simple Every tone has it's frequency range, so basically if your bass tones doesn't mess with your sub-kick frequency range you could push the bass a bit harder. But it's not often... I think it's just best to do it that way. And crank your limiter on the master and see what happens, try to push the bass higher in the mix and see what it does to the kick & whole mix... If nothing happens (distortion) you probably have a dB or two more for sub-bass...
You could choose a kick without much sub bass, and or hipass your kick. Rather than dealing with side chaining etc. but maybe that's not the vibe you're looking for but it will let you crank you sub if you want, if it's a sin
A kick drum can be rolled off around 70hz or so give or take, and still have plenty of thump. The sub can lay directly under it in the 35-60hz range without sidechaining or high passing. In the case of filtering though, I'd reach for a notch filter and look on your EQ where each sound is peaking, and take out only those specific frequencies. A good EQ should have a spectrum showing the frequency activity. If yours doesn't, get one... or a decent analysis plugin, like the Blue Cat one which is free. I also like the one from PAZ. But really invest in a good EQ with built in analysis if you can.
wormcode wrote:A kick drum can be rolled off around 70hz or so give or take, and still have plenty of thump.
That should work, although I usually roll of my kicks at 50 so basically it hits almost as hard as sub-bass, and if I structure it right in the mix I usually never have problems and you have kick hitting you in the chest just as bass does
The worst thing about all this excessive limiting and compression to me is the way that reverb tails, hi-hats and any actual white noise in the mix all blur into this loud hiss that's just tiring to listen to, especially on headphones. Pretty much any Nero tune is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
Last edited by Maccaveli on Thu Sep 06, 2012 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
There's quite a few people on the right lines imo so I'm not gonna carry on talking about the same stuff. But the loudness war has been around since the 60s atleast... Mastering engineers had to compete with one another to be the loudest on jukeboxes etc. Yes you can get stuff to be loudish from your daw if you know what your doing but its not about putting on the latest mastering plugin and saying 'yea I'm getting -5rms banging out and it sounds squashed to fuck!' Its a very subtle art and any mastering engineer will tell you that loudness isn't mastering its just the final step in the chain because its what the client wants.
In terms of loudness and what's available... A. Softclipper hardware unit in 1990 could produce 3db of perceived loudness, then 6db by 2000 and 9db by 2010. Just the engineers that I've spoke to myself these are costing them in the range of £20,000 and upwards.
(just messing with you guys)
But it's not so simple 
