How I kill Dynamic Range (more often than not)

[CB22]

I work as an editor. I constantly have to do quick these quick one day turnarounds. For most people out there who know about sound mixing/ mastering they will hate the living sh**t outta me. For the bigger projects and if I'm under no rush, I'll really take my time with it. Maybe a little bit of eq, reverb, light mastering, etc, etc, etc as I like playing with the audio. HOWEVER I tend to do a lot of these super quick turn-arounds on these projects. What I tend to do under a rush is take the vocal track -> boost by about +7db (the signal generally tends to get a bit distorted around here) -> Then apply a brick-wall limiter set to -8db. See the wave-forms below.

Funny enough, I did this the other day and the supervisor was like, hey nice job with the vocals. I thought they recorded the audio a bit too low. I go home listen to it on my system and I could totally tell the amount of mass compression that I applied to the vocal track.

 

[shadyJ]

Compression absolutely has its place. Of course, there are instances of its overuse, but a lot of times it is badly needed, as you well know. I don't think that anyone who really knows about sound mixing/ mastering would hate the living sh**t out of you- as long as you don't overdo compression on high-fidelity music recordings!

 

[CB22]

Compression absolutely has its place. Of course, there are instances of its overuse, but a lot of times it is badly needed, as you well know. I don't think that anyone who really knows about sound mixing/ mastering would hate the living sh**t out of you- as long as you don't overdo compression on high-fidelity music recordings!

I used to work with a guy who got a degree in audio engineering and I told him about my trick above and he kind me that look of "stop being so lazy". Side note, we're recording with a zoom f4, which picks up 24-Bit/192 kHz. I'm looking to get a dac soon and export 2 mixes on the same thing. And see it I can tell a difference between 24-Bit/192 kHz and 16-Bit/44.1khz audio. Very curious to see what this hig-res audio hype is all about. + start using some of my flac files which have been sitting around for ever.

 

[shadyJ]

24 bit depth might come in handy, but 192 kHz sampling rate is going to do nothing for you except eat up hard drive space a lot faster. Even if you have a 24/192 file, you need to be sure it was originally recorded at that bit depth and sampling rate. You need to be sure from the microphone and all the way down the signal chain that it loses nothing before you can even begin to think about a comparison. Does your mic have that kind of range? Most don't.

 

[CB22]

24 bit depth might come in handy, but 192 kHz sampling rate is going to do nothing for you except eat up hard drive space a lot faster. Even if you have a 24/192 file, you need to be sure it was originally recorded at that bit depth and sampling rate. You need to be sure from the microphone and all the way down the signal chain that it loses nothing before you can even begin to think about a comparison. Does your mic have that kind of range? Most don't.

Yep, the F4 records 24/192 files. So in terms of mics we use mostly, sennheiser ew100's and have one Neumann TLM 103 for voiceovers. Not sure about the lavs but I'm sure the TLM has the range. I know each professional recording studio will have one of these.

 

[TLS Guy]

Compression absolutely has its place. Of course, there are instances of its overuse, but a lot of times it is badly needed, as you well know. I don't think that anyone who really knows about sound mixing/ mastering would hate the living sh**t out of you- as long as you don't overdo compression on high-fidelity music recordings!

That is why I have a visceral loathing for the pop music scene. I have spent so much time over the years getting life like recordings. Finally digital recording happened requiring no to only occasional compression using a little manual gain riding.

 

[shadyJ]

That is why I have a visceral loathing for the pop music scene. I have spent so much time over the years getting life like recordings. Finally digital recording happened requiring no to only occasional compression using a little manual gain riding.

I don't know why you would have a problem with pop music. Musically it is pretty much just empty-calorie candy. Given the way that it is mostly listened to, it really should be compressed (but obviously not to the point that it is hitting the full digital scale all the time). It mostly does not try to recreate a natural acoustic space. Now recordings that do recreate a real musical event ought not to be compressed, if possible, but sometimes even then some compression is a good idea, depending on the way that the music was recorded. While I don't want squashed dynamic range, I am sure some compression has saved many an otherwise fine recording.

 

[TLS Guy]

I don't know why you would have a problem with pop music. Musically it is pretty much just empty-calorie candy. Given the way that it is mostly listened to, it really should be compressed (but obviously not to the point that it is hitting the full digital scale all the time). It mostly does not try to recreate a natural acoustic space. Now recordings that do recreate a real musical event ought not to be compressed, if possible, but sometimes even then some compression is a good idea, depending on the way that the music was recorded. While I don't want squashed dynamic range, I am sure some compression has saved many an otherwise fine recording.

Perfect description Shady, "empty-calorie candy" describes it perfectly. There is centuries of beautiful music to explore that is a gourmet feast? Why gorge on empty calories?

 

[highfigh]

I don't know why you would have a problem with pop music. Musically it is pretty much just empty-calorie candy. Given the way that it is mostly listened to, it really should be compressed (but obviously not to the point that it is hitting the full digital scale all the time). It mostly does not try to recreate a natural acoustic space. Now recordings that do recreate a real musical event ought not to be compressed, if possible, but sometimes even then some compression is a good idea, depending on the way that the music was recorded. While I don't want squashed dynamic range, I am sure some compression has saved many an otherwise fine recording.

Part of his loathing may be due to the fact that most pop music is produced by people who haven't trained for years to perfect their use of phrasing, dynamics, proper intonation and using their ears to make sure they're doing something that serves the music, rather than their own stardom. Katy Perry and Adele are two examples of "singers" who often shout. Being loud is just brute force and there's no subtlety in that.

It's common for players and singers to be louder when they're in the heat of the moment, and compression can help when they get a bit too rambunctious.

 

[shadyJ]

Here is an article that does not help the case for the artistic integrity of pop music, lol.

Although I think you guys are painting pop music with an awfully broad brush. There is a lot more diversity in pop music than what you hear in the top 40. I am not a fan of Adele or Katy Perry, and there is a lot more to pop music than that. If my only exposure to pop music was what I heard on the radio, yes, I would agree with you, but even then mostly only for music made in the past 20 years. Look at all the great pop music made from the 50's to the 80's (and even some of the 90's stuff is quite good).

There is a place for pop music, its fun and catchy and not too demanding. When I am driving, I like a simple rhythm and catchy melody, and I don't want my attention divided by a demanding long-form orchestral piece. Same thing goes for other activities that I like to listen to some tunes in but not to the point of distraction. Pop not something I would want to listen to all the time, of course. And there is pop music that I do think has high artistic merit.

 

[3db]

Every music category including classical (I mean classical in the broad sense) has (had) its good artists and its bad artists. There is some absolute garbage out there in the classical musical realm that I wouldn't even play for people I dislike. The same good and bad applies to every other genres of music.

The empty calorie label for pop music is also a very bad label when broad brushed. If you listen to some of the music and lyrics written my Mark Knoffler as one of many examples, you will quickly realize that he's writing about recent events.. much like a more up to date Bob Dylan. There is meat in his lyrics and its very musical as well.

I don't like to limit myself to just one genre of music as there is way too much good music out there in all the genres. My only regret is that its literally impossible to digest and enjoy all the good music content because there is so much out there.