The Goddamn Gallows › Forums › General Forum › NYT article on loudness/compression
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soulman.
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February 10, 2019 at 4:04 pm #17206
bonin in the boneyard
ParticipantOfflineRegistered On: December 15, 2018Topics: 3Replies: 1449Been thanked: 5132 timesFebruary 10, 2019 at 4:28 pm #17210soulman
ParticipantOfflineRegistered On: November 14, 2018Topics: 24Replies: 2190Been thanked: 6252 timesGot a link?
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February 10, 2019 at 5:57 pm #17234bonin in the boneyard
ParticipantOfflineRegistered On: December 15, 2018Topics: 3Replies: 1449Been thanked: 5132 timesGot a link?
Yeah, it’s in there, but it didn’t embed very well. If you click the picture you can open the article a new tab.
February 10, 2019 at 11:37 pm #17320soulman
ParticipantOfflineRegistered On: November 14, 2018Topics: 24Replies: 2190Been thanked: 6252 timesGot a link?
Yeah, it’s in there, but it didn’t embed very well. If you click the picture you can open the article a new tab.
Ah, didn’t think of that. Thanks for posting the link.
Having come through the old school ways of analog recording I get it quite well. The two guys I learned the most from are a former band mate who is also a pro recording engineer and the guy who produced albums for POCO, Manassas, Firefall, and several other national recording acts.
Mix and mastering is an art and it somewhat depends on what listening environment you’re doing it for. Mastering for AM radio listened to on the car radios of the ’60s gave way to mastering for better home and auto sound systems. Then digital created an entirely new methodology to learn and master.
But at the root of it all what the article teaches is something we should have already known or at least experienced playing live.
How long can you hold a crowd if all you play is pedal to the metal high volume high tempo rock all night long vs playing with a ton of dynamics involving both volume and tempo? Using only the first format it’s not hard at all to wear your crowd out early.
In some places maybe that’s what the venue wants, turnover. But in many places our role was both to get ’em there and keep ’em there all night long so we played a wide variety of genre and varied our volume and even song selection to fit the mood of the crowd.
IMHO music that lacks dynamics just isn’t all that musical to begin with. It’s more like tribal rhythms which is OK too if that’s what you’re into but I couldn’t take hours of listening to mono tone rap and/or hip hop without going slowly out of my mind.
Even live IME a band still has to cleverly engineer their own performance to fit the crowd that’s in front of them. Fail to do it and you’ll lose them much sooner that you’d like. Like a record buyer they’re the ones who actually control a performance.
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February 11, 2019 at 11:35 pm #17524metron
ModeratorOfflineRegistered On: November 14, 2018Topics: 2Replies: 552Been thanked: 1793 timesAs a Gen Xer, I’m just here to bitch about today’s music. 😛
Excellent article, thanks for sharing Boney. It explains what I hear for sure. Honestly though, not sure what to say about music happening these days except to complain about it. There is certainly a lot of good stuff happening but I feel like I have to wade through a sea of mediocrity to find the gems. Or rely on algorithms like Pandora and search engine preferences to tell me what I’m going to like next.
To put this in context for forum related stuff, I feel like the big picture of compression use in sound engineering is why pedal compressors actually have limited use. Just a little bit live or when rehearsing, but I don’t believe it’s something we bassists want to use during recording sessions. Keep compression in post and leave it to the people who are massaging the mix, right?
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February 12, 2019 at 3:08 pm #17706soulman
ParticipantOfflineRegistered On: November 14, 2018Topics: 24Replies: 2190Been thanked: 6252 timesTo put this in context for forum related stuff, I feel like the big picture of compression use in sound engineering is why pedal compressors actually have limited use. Just a little bit live or when rehearsing, but I don’t believe it’s something we bassists want to use during recording sessions. Keep compression in post and leave it to the people who are massaging the mix, right?
An engineer typically prefers it that way as well. I use studio grade 3 band compression for both guitar and bass when I rehearse or gig but I’ve never used it when I’ve recorded.
More often than not the bass is going straight to the board EQ’d as flat as a pancake, or the Earth ;), and it’s mixed to fit as the engineer sees fit. They have far more control of it than I do.
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