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Skelpolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix)
#11
From what I have learned about this genre, dynamic range is generally less important than in most genres, so I think a limiter might be necessary for "the sound." Seems like a really crunchy bottom end is what most Drum&Bass listeners are after, and a limiter is often the best way to achieve this sort of distortion.

It's very uncomfortable for me, personally, but often we have to make sacrifices to satisfy the market's expectations. I agree it sounds better without limiting, which I only use to catch stray transients that result from some sort of frequency buildup during the biggest sections that can't be tamed prior to mastering (at least with my current skillset) without what I consider an unacceptable level of sacrifice.

The artists intentions are of course paramount (unless his best interests aren't served by his intentions, although that's not the case in this situation as skelly's original mix is very suited to the genre) but I think a mix engineer is also responsible for challenging the artist's intentions to introduce objectivity and the potential for that "something special" that makes the mix unique, in a real world situation. Most artists prefer to please their market at least as much as they want to please their egos, but since this is practice, matching the artist's original intentions is definitely a good idea.
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#12
(10-03-2014, 05:06 PM)Skelpolu Wrote:
(10-03-2014, 04:05 PM)Pedaling Prince Wrote: Remember that it's the listener who controls the volume knob, not you.[...] We all have our preferred listening volume; if you limit, all that happens is the listener will tend to turn down the volume to their preferred level.
[...]
Exactly - oooor the opposite even. That is why it HAS to be done to a comfortable level at least.
Every Drum & Bass listener listens to DnB on high volume. Imagine they listen to a bunch of random Tracks, all DnB. They gotta jump up to get to the volume knob in order to hear something once a track without limiter comes on.

Not necessarily. Most music players now, both portable hardware ones and software ones, have a feature that evens out the volume of disparate material by keeping overall loudness at a preset reference level, turning up anything that's below that level and turning down anything that's above it. On iTunes and the iPhone, which I use, the feature is called "Sound Check" (though I personally don't use it; I prefer to control my own volume since I don't trust any such system not to clip waveforms during its adjustments Undecided). When one uses such a system the only difference master buss compression makes to the sound is to diminish the sound quality since the system will play everything at the same overall volume regardless; a lot of people now, having realized how wide the volume levels are on material, have this feature on by default.

Besides, if Drum & Bass artists all could be made to realize how much better their music sounds when dynamics are left intact then eventually Drum & Bass might be mixed with wider dynamics and, by extension, better sound quality. Of course, if that's going to happen, somebody has to take the leap and do it first... Wink

(10-03-2014, 05:06 PM)Skelpolu Wrote: I do agree that, on most genres, you don't need a limiter at all.
Drum & Bass, however - oh, ahahaha ... push it until it's at about 8 to a ( absolute maximum of only ) 6 DR.

Well I still maintain, type of music notwithstanding, that dynamic range in the single digits sounds unnatural and fatiguing; I have yet to find the music to disprove that conclusion (even Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell III, as much as I like many of the songs on it, is significantly harder on my ears than II or I, and all of its tracks with the exception of "Cry, Baby, Cry" all have dynamic range in the single digits).

(10-03-2014, 05:06 PM)Skelpolu Wrote: I did a "limit-less" mix of it before, uploaded it and compared it to the mix I had before, but limited - it was quite clear that the dnb-community liked the lmiited one by far more.

Yes. Unfortunately, fans of Drum & Bass have become accustomed to the "squashed" sound quality of excessive limiting. That's what I find so terribly unfortunate; many fans of the genre might simply not realize how much better the more dynamic pieces sound because they assume if the recording is quiet that something's wrong with it and don't turn up their volume to their preferred level to find out how great the sound really is.

In my early days, before I understood this dynamic myself, I didn't like Meat Loaf's original Bat Out of Hell because its sound was so much quieter than Bat Out of Hell II (III wasn't out yet; this was in the 90s Wink). But I was wrong. I've always instinctively known that wide dynamic range creates more lifelike sound but I did not realize at the time that wider dynamic range can also make a recording sound quieter overall. Once I realized this, though, I went back to Bat Out of Hell and tried turning my volume up higher than my self-imposed maximum (which was meant to discourage me from going overboard with volume Wink), and discovered that it sounded far better than I realized, and I discovered some astonishingly beautiful, and profoundly energetic, music as a result. Smile

After that, I trusted my ears totally; I turned the volume up, or down, to whatever I found comfortable with any given album even if that meant turning the volume up as far as it would go (and with certain earbuds on my iPhone that was sometimes exactly what was necessary Big Grin).

(10-03-2014, 05:06 PM)Skelpolu Wrote: But again it's all about taste.

Not entirely. Even people who don't understand the effects of dynamic range on the loudness of recorded material can usually identify "something wrong" with excessively limited material; they just don't have the technical vocabulary or understanding to be able to articulate exactly what. What it boils down to is that limited music is fatiguing on the ears, particularly when listened to on headphones or earbuds, a particularly bad thing in today's music world where so many people are listening to their music on iPods and iPhones (as I do myself when away from home).

I'm not telling you what to do; it's your work and your choice, and as you're more familiar with this genre than I am the unfortunate reality is you may be right as far as what your target audience expects. But if that is true, then Drum & Bass is a type of music that has been more a victim of the loudness war than other types.
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#13
(11-03-2014, 09:27 AM)APZX Wrote: Ask and ye shall receive! Though there is a limiter on this too, but it is set to -.2dB mainly to make sure I don't clip the digital side of things.

Actually, there's another way to do that that completely dispenses with the use of a limiter. If you mix in 24-bit you have plenty of headroom to kick around in so you can afford to keep your mixing level well below 0 dBFS. Even if your final mix comes out 6 or 7 dB below 0dBFS all you have to do at that point is normalize the whole smash and voila: perfect level! The loudest peak will hit maximum level but not clip. This is the technique I use, though I usually go through my entire mix before I mixdown and push it to the highest level I can without clipping; most of my initial mixes are, on average, -0.25 dB below 0 dBFS, then I normalize to bring them right up to the max. Wink

(11-03-2014, 09:27 AM)APZX Wrote: Most of the power in the mix was achieved through a master buss compressor though. So, I think you'll find that it just opened up a bit more rather than having any kind of crazy revelation in superior sound quality.

Well it was certainly easier on the ears. And it helped me spot a few issues I didn't hear in the compressed mix.

First, the "noise" track is way overbearing IMHO. Myself, I automated the level of that but I always kept it more or less in the background; the noise itself is fairly unpleasant and shouldn't upstage the music IMHO.

Second, the overall balance of the music mix is good but the vocals are getting buried towards the end (I originally thought this was the result of the compression but now I can hear that its endemic to the original mix); I'd bring them up a dB or two, maybe sharpen them up with some EQ.

Speaking of sharpening things up, I felt the mix as a whole was a wee bit muddy sounding. Sounds good in principle but I think some of the synth tracks particularly could benefit from a little 5-6 kHz boost to sharpen the up and bring them out a little.

However, these are minor issues indeed. This is an excellent mix overall. I particularly love what you did with the piano; that echo effect is really cool! Cool

(11-03-2014, 09:27 AM)APZX Wrote: Edit - Prince, if you want to listen to my most dynamic mix I have ever done, listen to my track From Earth to Planet Omega. (SoundCloud compression is terrible and there is a wonderful FLAC available for download) I did not do the mastering myself on it so it lost some there but definitely for the better.

"For the better." Are you sure about that?

I downloaded that FLAC as I avoid lossy compression whenever possible Rolleyes so I had to import it into Audacity to play it. I noticed that the waveform was heavily brickwalled into the maximum level at several points, particularly starting around 11 minutes in when each of those massive bass "thumps" would cause the meters to lock to a fixed level for a full second, something that should never happen with a natural waveform. Looking at the sound wave I could see its origin as dynamic material; Mr. Trewella obviously used some extremely aggressive compression and limiting here, managing to squeeze the dynamic range down to *7 dB* (were you aware of that?). Even so, it wasn't nearly as fatiguing to listen to as material with such narrow dynamic range usually is but I think that's only because the original material was so wide that it was impossible to squeeze all the life out of it. But I must admit I started to get a bit of a headache during that long loud section starting at 11 minutes...

To be honest? I loved this piece. It had a definite "Space Odyssey" feel to it, and it seriously creeped me out at the end (in a good way Big Grin). I'd love to try to do a video for this thing, if I could get the necessary funds for the effects, sets etc. that it would necessitate. However, being so familiar with your sound now having mixed three of your works, I could also hear the distortion in the sound caused by the compression. I kept longing to hear the original as it was before Mr. Trewella got ahold of it... Dodgy

I'd love to hear a FLAC of the original, if you still have it. Better still, if you still have the multitracks, I'd love to take a swing at this one myself, and would jump on it if it was posted to the site. Even in its current form, this is definitely my favorite of your work so far. Big Grin
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#14
Hey Pedaling Prince,
just to finish this off, as we shouldn't spam APZX's thread after all.
True, DNB has become a slave to the limiter. A few artists (mainly indie artists) tried to do DNB unmastered even, some succeeded a bit, some failed a lot.
The thing about DNB, as pauli has already said it, is that it needs this crunchy sound the limiter can give. The same goes especially for Dubstep - just listen to Bonfire by Knife Party.
Personally I don't listen to Dubstep so much, but ironically, Knife Party consists of two members of a DNB-Band called 'Pendulum' - and geez, the mentioned track ... just analyze the waveform, you'll see what I mean.
But exactly that makes the bass have such a distorted sound, which makes it unique - that is why I said that it's a matter of taste. Of course it does sound better with more dynamics, but the distortion that the limiter can give in these two genres are just not there anymore. I am very glad how the Bass turned out in the final mix, I think I even saturated the Bass while mixing, without limiting it already, just to give it even more crunch ahead of time.

I guess we shouild conclude that it's the market's fault that we got used to use the limiter more than ever in those two genres, but that the limiter also gives the tracks that unique distortion, after all.

Also, agreed: The mix really sounds spacey, and that was also part of my intention. Great Job, APZX. Smile
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#15
Prince,
Regarding Human Mistakes, you're right those are issues and I agree. However, the reason for those is because at the stage of final level balancing I was mixing into the limiter. When you do that kind of thing you're fighting it. So, those problems exist because of the limiter. I never said the mix sounded right without it per se.

From Earth to Planet Omega okay yes during that part it gets extremely loud. However, I did a lot of careful A/Bing at matched levels and picked what the ME did because what he did for that part was perfect. Sure the DR drops into the single digit range but the sheer amount of sound at that part is meant to sound more like a cacophony than anything else. Also please note that in several places the DR actually increased and during the full on parts he did exactly what I wanted which was push the sound. Now, mind you too that the original mix too had single digit DR in places. Anyway, I still have the original mix and the actual multitrack for it. Problem is I don't know how many people would want to mix the beast. I'll run it by Mr. Senior.
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#16
(12-03-2014, 10:19 AM)APZX Wrote: Anyway, I still have the original mix and the actual multitrack for it. Problem is I don't know how many people would want to mix the beast. I'll run it by Mr. Senior.

Bring it on!
I'm grateful for comments and suggestions. Thank you for listening!
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#17
(12-03-2014, 10:19 AM)APZX Wrote: Regarding Human Mistakes, you're right those are issues and I agree. However, the reason for those is because at the stage of final level balancing I was mixing into the limiter. When you do that kind of thing you're fighting it. So, those problems exist because of the limiter.

Which is why I feel it is profoundly unwise to do that.

I once read an article on mixing where the engineer implored aspiring engineers to stay away from level automation until they'd completed a static mix first, even if it meant they had to compromise, burying some sounds at some points, having some sounds a little too prominent in others, etc. Once you get the mix as good as you can get it as a static mix, only then do you start looking at places where you might want to automate. That way, each automation you're applying can be heard in the context of a balanced mix. If you automate before you have a good overall balance you're really only automating against what you imagine the mix is going to sound like, and what you imagine a mix will sound like does not always jibe with the way it sounds in reality; ultimately you end up reprogramming all your automation to work with what the mix is, not what you originally thought it would be.

The dynamics (pardon the pun) of mixing into a compressor are similar; it distorts your perception of what the final mix will sound like. I've made my opinion on using compressors in mastering very clear. Blush That being said, if you must use one I strongly suggest you use it only in mastering your final mix.

BTW, even before I read the aforementioned article I've always instinctively done a static mix first, and I knew why, but until I read that article I could never articulate it. Wink Most of the time, actually, I find a static mix sounds beautiful the way it is; even when I do automate it's usually only on one or two tracks to bring out something I thought sounded cool but wasn't as audible as I'd like it to be in the static mix. The only mix I've ever done where I used extensive automation was Al James' "Schoolboy Fascination;" there was just too much cool stuff going on that was totally lost on the initial static mix. The automation certainly didn't hurt the dynamic range of the piece; the final version came out at 17 dB as I recall. Big Grin

(12-03-2014, 10:19 AM)APZX Wrote: From Earth to Planet Omega okay yes during that part it gets extremely loud. However, I did a lot of careful A/Bing at matched levels and picked what the ME did because what he did for that part was perfect. Sure the DR drops into the single digit range but the sheer amount of sound at that part is meant to sound more like a cacophony than anything else. Also please note that in several places the DR actually increased and during the full on parts he did exactly what I wanted which was push the sound. Now, mind you too that the original mix too had single digit DR in places.

Well, when it comes to dynamic range in the context of mastering I'm not really referring to "in places," anyway; I'm referring to the dynamic range of the piece as a whole. There's nothing wrong with pushing the limits for limited periods of time so long as you come down off that extreme long enough to give your audience's ears a rest (by "you" here I mean artists in general, not you personally Wink). The problem is, when dynamic range of an overall project is in the single digits that means either the quiet sections weren't long enough or they simply didn't come down enough in volume in general; I suspect the latter is the problem with the "mastered" version of "From Earth to Planet Omega" here.

(12-03-2014, 10:19 AM)APZX Wrote: I still have the original mix . . .

I'd love to hear that. Wink

(12-03-2014, 10:19 AM)APZX Wrote: . . . and the actual multitrack for it.

And I've love to get my hands on that! Tongue

(12-03-2014, 10:19 AM)APZX Wrote: Problem is I don't know how many people would want to mix the beast.

My hand shoots up; I'm bouncing in my seat with excitement. "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!" Big Grin
John A. Ardelli
Pedaling Prince Pictures
http://www.youtube.com/user/PedalingPrince
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#18
Prince,
I never claimed mixing into a limiter was a good thing. In fact I even said in my first post that I did something that I really hate doing. Now, I have mixed into comps before. Typically when I do I merely push up to 2-3dB with 2:1 or 1.5:1 ratio, slow attack, and a medium to long release. Sometimes during the final chorus I will purposefully push the comp a bit though for some effect. This of course is a taste thing. Having said that I normally do not use master level compression, but it just depends on what I want the mix should sound like. Never toss a tool out just because the tool has been abused. Finally, I do almost always start with a static mix and then start adding automation and fx. Also, unless sounds have major issues with dynamic consistency I also wait to add compression.

Regarding, From Earth to Planet Omega I am just waiting to hear back from Mr. Senior .
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#19
I really like what you did with this mix. You created a lot of space and separated the tracks nicely. The one thing I noticed though is that there is a lot of top end on the kick which is a little distracting. Love the synths on the chorus.
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