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Skelpolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix)
#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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Messages In This Thread
Skelpolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by APZX - 08-03-2014, 03:51 PM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by APZX - 09-03-2014, 03:23 AM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by APZX - 09-03-2014, 01:55 PM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by Pedaling Prince - 12-03-2014, 12:37 AM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by APZX - 11-03-2014, 09:27 AM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by pauli - 11-03-2014, 11:00 PM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by APZX - 12-03-2014, 10:19 AM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by pauli - 12-03-2014, 10:47 PM
RE: Skepolu - Human Mistakes (ZX Mix) - by APZX - 13-03-2014, 01:31 PM