A Place For Us

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Hello John and JuanJose! Thank you very much for your advice!! I believe that the problem with the lack of low frequencies in my mix is because I mix in 5'' monitors without sub, so here it sounds just fine. But I really have to find a solution!! Now as far as the vocal treatment and the whole mid-highly sound in my mix, it's because I'm trying to get a more radio friendly sound that and well balanced with very clear vocals. It's all about the personal taste! Ναι JuanJose είμαι Έλληνας! Εσύ από πού κατάγεσαι;

[juanjose1967]

εγώ είμαι ισπανός, αλλά μιλάω την γλώσσα σου και έχω πολλούς φίλους εκεί στην Ελλάδα

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Χάρηκα πολύ για τη γνωριμία Χουάν! Φαίνεται ότι μιλάς τα ελληνικά καλύτερα και από εμένα! Μήπως ξέρεις και τον Alejandro Cabrera?

[20000 Hz Under The Sea]

Your mix certainly packs a punch! While I applaud how loud you were actually able to get it, you distort your mix quite often
try backing off on the limiter a little bit. While we all want our mixes loud as hell, we all can't afford the ridiculous equipment that mastering engineers have, so I'd personally rather keep the mix as loud as I can go without things starting to mush. Plus, why do someone else's hard work??

[20000 Hz Under The Sea]

Thanks for the comments
It very well just may be the guitars and organ I'm hearing. Cheers on getting it so damn loud!

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Thank you very much my friend! It's all about parallel compression

[Pedaling Prince]

While we all want our mixes loud as hell . . .

Not all of us...

Myself? I'm becoming quite infamous around here for my crusade against dynamic range compression in mastering, something I absolutely refuse to do; in my work, compressors are something to be used in the mix only, and then only gently and only on the tracks that need it. The only treatment I do to my mixes to make them "loud" is to normalize them so the loudest peak hits 0 dBFS without clipping; that way they're as loud as I can get them without sacrificing clarity and dynamics.

This is a personal artistic choice and, for my work, I don't intend to back off from that position. I concede, however, that some engineers here, such as juanjose1967, actually have a gift for making compression and limiting completely transparent, amping up the volume without sacrificing clarity. I like juan's sound, which is extremely rare for me as I generally abhor compression in mastering (I love Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell III but I'd love to get my hands on his multitracks so I can recreate the mixes without the master compression that squeezes quite a bit of a life out of them IMHO). So I am willing to concede that it can be done transparently, but even so I have yet to meet the mix that didn't sound better without that master compression bypassed.

So, as far as my recordings are concerned? You want "loud?" That's what that little knob/button/touchscreen option on your music device marked "volume" is for...

Actually, I recently heard some news that might finally spell the death knoll for this "make it loud" madness:

Apple has mandated that all iTunes Radio stations use Sound Check. Most people here probably know exactly what that is but, in brief, Sound Check automatically analyzes the overall volume of each song and aligns them so that they're all about the same volume; that way there are no wild swings in volume from one song to the next.

This "loudness war" insanity started, for the most part, because artists wanted their songs louder than their competitors' in the hope that their song would draw attention on the radio because it's louder than all the others. Well, with iTunes Radio, if you do manage to make your song louder than the others, iTunes will just turn it down to the level of the others, anyway. Dynamically compressed material, when level-matched with dynamic material, always ends up sounding washed out and wimpy because the brief transients that create that clarity and "sparkle" like the snap of drums, the pluck of a guitar string etc. get squashed out with compression. So the dynamic recording, played on an even volume playing field with the compressed one, has the decided advantage.

Apple does tend to set trends; I'm hoping this development will discourage, and eventually eliminate entirely, this obsession with making recordings "loud" that has slowly ruined the sound quality of CDs from the late 1990s on.

[pauli]

There's another trend on the legal landscape... various governing bodies are actually legislating the maximum RMS values of radio content to make the listening experience more consistent. The main purpose is so that the limited, compressed commercial breaks won't blow your eardrums out, but in practice something like this could actually cause overcompressed material to peak at lower levels than more dynamic material. That combined with the fact that everything played on the radio goes through a multiband compressor anyway....

I'm not going to tell you NOT to compress the master bus, but take it easy, because the ends aren't going to meet the means before too long, if loudness is the goal.

If I think a hard rocking song would benefit from master bus compression, I usually mix into the compressor... you get the useful gelling effect and it's much more transparent, provided the compressor and settings are fit for purpose. Some of my more dynamic mixes actually used this technique, simply automating it depending on the musical needs. To me it makes sense to do this on a mix that consists entirely of overdubs, because the compressor does what the musicians would do when playing as an ensemble.... blend, gel, and maintain consistency. This is very difficult to do when recording one track at a time, ESPECIALLY if it's just one person doing all of the recording... and when you use this technique, you'll find the need to compress individual instruments is less, and fader rides become considerably smoother.

So like I said... compression/limiting to make a mix loud is pretty silly and in a few years time will be self defeating... but compressing the master to take several tracks and reproduce the natural dynamics of an ensemble, that's a very good idea if executed properly. Dynamic range is great and very important... too important to sacrifice for the sake of loudness, but if we can compress the dynamic range without really compressing the dynamic range (?) there are some really smooth sounds to be found in that.

Just my two cents

[HbGuitar]

....yet again you've produced a mix that has grown on me....it is slightly dirty and saturated and sonically very dense...in fact having listened to another of your other mixes, I think you have a signature sound

I really loved the synth in chorus..very hypnotic...maybe the lead vocal could sit a little higher in the chorus just to accentuate the anthemic vibe.

yes you do produce loud mixes....i had to drop master volume 4db to listen comfortably in my DAW...whether you choose to compress or not is your choice....but I'm not sure if there is any real advantage in having the master level so loud.....

so compress away...it can sound amazing if done right...just maybe think about moderating the master level...Not sure what meter you work to...i use K14 and try and keep everything under 3db i.e. in the yellow and have no peaks hitting the limiter

[Andreas Tyranopoulos]

Thank you HbGuitar very much for your comment! It's fact that I always trying to get a more natural and analog sound by adding some distortion on some instruments. I think that this gives life to a mix when it's produced in a D.A.W. I wanna say sorry if I hurt your ears, I really did not want to! I'm using the P.A.Z. by Waves on the master and the logic's built in analyzer.