Loudness War

[Pedro]

Yes, I've noticed that as well. Old jazz records have a large dynamic range. Orchestral music is very dynamic as well, maybe more than jazz.

[jkevinwolfe]

Afternote on compression: Compressed music tires your ears out more quickly and causes "ear fatigue". It just doesn't give the ear time to rest. In psychological tests people start noticing compression about at 3db and ear fatigue comes into play when sounds are compressed beyond about 10 db. Unrelenting music played at a medium volume, like constant metal (where guitars are compressed by the nature of distortion) tires the ear faster than listening to very dynamic music at a louder volume.

Kevin

[Bluesberry]

interesting thread

[Geir]

It is!!!

I didn't know we had a thread on this subject so I almost started one yesterday after reading up on compression (thanks Mike, Nigel and Andy for enlightening me).

[Ferryman_1957]

If you start using some of the plug ins in DAWs it's very easy to get "addicted" to loudness because it does make a mix sound punchier, especially on poor equipment or where the individual instruments have been not that well mixed and eq'd to start with. Many of them have "loudness" mastering presets, just press that option and wow, it sounds good. But it can be overdone.

The BR 800 now has a bit of a "nuclear" option - the mastering presets don't have one maximized for loudness, but the new mastering effect parameters (Dynamics, Natural and Tone IIRC) are all about loudness. So use with care.......

Cheers,

Nigel

[Bluesberry]

The BR 800 now has a bit of a "nuclear" option - the mastering presets don't have one maximized for loudness, but the new mastering effect parameters (Dynamics, Natural and Tone IIRC) are all about loudness. So use with care.......

I have those same three parameters on my BR-1200 and so far I have left them alone.  I have tweeked them to see what they do, but when it is time for actual mastering I put them back to default setting.  I am afraid of just what you say, boosting everything until it sounds like a Nickleback song, adn you loose the ability to hear any one instrument clearly.  It becomes one big mud puddle of noise.  I find the latest Coldplay album like this.  A friend lent the CD to me, and I was turned off by the mix/mastering.  You cant hear anything distinct.  I could not pick out the bass at all for example, or guitars for that matter, one big sonic mud puddle.  Its terrible what the record buying public wants in a mix.  I contrast that with the new Wilco album that came out earlier this year, or the new Tom Petty album that just came out, crystal clear, even in rocking blues rock songs, every instrument is clear.  That new Wilco album is incredible sonically, its is a masterpeice of recording/mixing/mastering.  I love the way it sounds.

[Oldrottenhead]

the other day i watched mtv with my 15 year old daughter, it was the chart rundown, everything sounded the same, even tho the acts where all wildly different. the big thing i noticed tho was the vocals all sounded really processed, most seemed autotuned but obvously so, even deliberately so, it was as if every song was mixed by one person.

[Geir]

a sidenote:

Some of us a guilty in participating in this war with our collabs. Example

User 1 makes a backingtrack. Masters it and send it to user 2.
User 2 adds vocals. Masters it and send it to user 3.
User 3 adds lead guitar. Masters it and uploads it.

as the mastering effects have compression (some presets more than others) the result will be a heavily compressed backing track with ORH's vocals (yeah user 2 IS ORH in 9 out of 10 cases) quite heavy compressed and the lead guitar sounding ok !

Some of us have learned from such mistakes, tho we do slip from time to time, others should learn from our mistakes. I think one of the worst cases of this was the first transatlantic blues-collab. The resulting mp3 was cool, but the sound-quality was not.

[Oldrottenhead]

when collabing i try to master with mastering effects off but if i have had a drink well....

[Bluesberry]

when collabing i try to master with mastering effects off but if i have had a drink well....

on the micro or any BR for that matter, you don't have to master at all in these inbetween stages, just bounce everything down to a stereo pair, then go into utilities, track, export, select track, it exports your stereo track to a MP3 without going through any mastering phase at all.  record...Bounce...export track...mp3...send to next guy...repeat until masterpeice status is achieved...