When is the excessive digital compression applied?

I’m hoping that a forum member who works in the industry can answer these questions.

When a band go into the studio to record an album which will eventually become a very loud CD, when is the damage done?

I assume that as excessive digital compression cannot be undone, each track on the multi-track master will NOT be compressed.

When the band listen to something that they have just recorded will this be played back with the full dynamics, or is it usual to apply excessive digital compression to the playback?

When the multi-tracks are mixed, it would be possible to apply different digital compression to each track. It has been suggested that Nick Davis did this with the recent Genesis remasters. Is this an exception, or is it now common to apply excess digital compression individually to each track of the multi-track?

When doing the mixing, and playing back the current mix, is this usually done with the excess digital compression applied as well, or is it still usual to listen to a mix with full dynamics?

If the person doing the mixing is listening to the full dynamics when doing the mix, is this what the band would hear when they come to listen to the mix, or would the band expect to hear what it would sound like compressed?

Having decided on a final mix, it would be possible to apply the excessive digital compression to the stereo result and make a master-tape of this. Alternatively the stereo-master tape could still have the full dynamics, (and the excessive digital compression be applied to the recording during the mastering process).

So is it still normal to produce a full dynamics stereo master?

Do all, or any, of the people involved with a very compressed CD ever sit down and listen, in one session, at reasonable volume, to all of the final version in its compressed form?

Of course I would like the answers to all the above questions. But what I’m really getting at is what quality of sound do the musicians, engineers, and mixers work with? Do they do most of their work listening with full dynamics, or with the compressed rubbish which is the final result?

 

I am curious about the current state engineering methodologies as well. I would think that some compression may be applied during mixing, as this was common back in the analog days. But that was a more appropriate form of compression to get the mix to gel.

My fear is that it's becoming more common to apply brickwalling during the mix, which is terrible because it cannot be undone during mastering. The mastering engineer can only apply EQ to get the best out of a brickwalled mix.

Perhaps one of the engineering professionals on the forum can chime in.

 

The old style professionals on this forum have often said that some compression is appropriate, and in particular that some analogue compression sounds good.

So in this thread lets ignore this "appropriate" compression. What I am interested in is the excessive digital compression which has created the loudness war.

And I very much agree that it would be terrible to learn that this excess compression is done in the mix as it can then never be undone (unless the multi-tracks are used).

 

I'm not in the industry, but the damage is usually done at the mastering stage. However, more and more, the massive hyper-compression is added at the mixing stage, lie with Paul McCartney's last album. The mastering engineer couldn't do much of anything about it.

 

Very true. In a way I'm quite glad that I usually record and mix outside of a computer workstation.

Even when you *do* have control of it, most clients I get, insist on Waves L1 compressing the living s**t out of everything at the mastering stage. Even after that, some come back and say "this isn't loud enough".

 

But, it's not because they use a DAW, it's because they can. You can do the same damage in analog recording.

 

Of course you can, there's no question about that. It's just that in the final stages of work, that's when the artist/producer etc. usually get a bit crazy with concentrating on the overall loudness of the product. Many I've worked with get angry and/or defensive if the final master isn't as loud as "such and such's" CD, and the overall opinions are not getting any better as time progresses, just worse.

I actually have presets on compressor/limiting plug-ins named after certain artist's that I've worked with, complete with a warning/disclaimer on each one because of how ridiculous the settings are. If I master something in a way I saw fit, They'd go somewhere else, and I'd be completely broke.

 

Hi LesPaul666,

Do the artists who demand the loud CDs sit down and listen to the whole album at a reasonable loud level?

Whilst for some a loud CD sounds good at first, I find that on a very good system, my brain will not let me keep playing a CD which is too loud at high volume for long. If I start playing it loud, I spend the rest of the CD gradually turning it down.

The other thing I find with CDs which are too loud is that try as I can, even at lower volumes, my brain will not let me sit with my eyes closed and listen. Something inside me tells me that "this is boring, do something else".

Note that the turning down effect takes time, and the "Even if I try, I can't continue to give this album my full attention" might take 40 or so minutes before I am doing something else.

So have the artists ever sat and listened to the whole album at reasonable volume on a good system and still been happy? Or is it listen to a minute or two of each track, and "make it louder", and thats it?

Cheers,
Michael

 

What the heck do they think is going to happen if the final master isn't as loud as they want it?! Is the sky gonna fall?

 

And, it's just not getting your CD as loud as the next guy, it's about getting it louder than the next guy. Talk about escalating the loudness race. pretty soon you put the CD on and there won't be any recognizable music at all, just distortion. We're almost there now.

 

Analog compression was needed during the analog days for recording the drums. I don't know, but if they have switched to digital compression there a lot of the damage is already done there.

 

The sheer ignorance of the situation is *very* depressing. I'll be the first to admit that that hours and hours of time that went into songs that sound natural and dynamic, are purposely destroyed by their own artists before they go out the door.

"All the tracks on the CD sound great, but it's still not loud enough...I put it in the car stereo, and the radio station and my Limp Bizkit disc are twice as loud"...

You'd be surprised at how many cannot actually "hear". It drives me nuts. You work so hard at the hottest mixdown levels you can get without clipping. The product is forced into the meat grinder, obliterated...and they can't hear it. Or they can, and just don't care. The tools are there, and are seriously abused. The volume level many times, is more important than the quality. It has to be some kind of psychological insecurity or something. I'm very happy that I don't have the sickness.

You see this all the time. Look at the remasters that are out there from some of the best mastering houses and engineers out there. Those guys did some incredible work in the past. It seems to me that it was the advent of DSP plug-ins is when all this bad sounding crap started to happen.

The overdriven/distorted "2 watt per channel Audiovox car stereo through blown triaxial speaker" mentality and sound is alive and well, and you don't need these to get it. They want their music to sound like that, through every playback system in which they listen.

You can spend hours comparing good and bad with people. It doesn't matter most of the time. They want what they want, and that's it. I hate it. When it's all said and done, I don't ever listen to it again. The fact is, the general public loves to have their ears fooled. :thumbsdn:

 

I thought Macca liked to record on analogue tape, anyway his hearing probably going now so he probably didn't notice.

If this whole loudness war has a if radio add compression anyway I can only imagine the effect is added to increase the sales of a follow up album, but if this has a "physiologically fatiguing" effect I can only imaging it would have the opposites effect, and the few exceptions I know of seem to have sold no problem. Look at sales of Franz Ferdinand's second album compared to the first, the super loud second album sold nothing like the more dynamic debut.

 

Do you ever show them that youtube video?

 

I try not to use compression at all during tracking, unless there is an "effect" I'm looking to get by doing so. If I do use one to control level, I make sure it's as transparent as possible. When great players are consistent, there's nothing cooler. Most of your work is done for you. The three 24 track 2" machines we had are long gone, and replaced by Alesis HD24's and a stack of blackface ADAT's and ADAT XT's, using Apogee conversion in and out.

I still mix through an all analog console. No automation(it actually has it, but I don't use it). All outboard gear are the usual staples that have been used for years. You can patch in all the compression you want, on individual tracks in a conservative fashion. You still have a beautiful *kick a** mix. So, you're original mixes are done, and everyones happy.

Listen on the mains at medium volume. Put it through the NS10's for comparison. I go back and forth between them when listening to final mixes. The format is either 1/4, 1/2" or "The Workstation", because people don't want to spend the cash on a couple of reels of tape. Either way, it's not going to matter, because the tape will be transferred to Peak or Sound Forge, anyway.

This is where is where the kiss of death comes...

 

I'd chime in here but it looks like everyone is already worked up into a frenzy blaming this or that.

 

So is it possible that this loud mastering had its origin with the advent of 5 - 100 disc changers, where a direct comparison of loudness levels was available at the push of a button? And continued on with the use of ipods where different levels are instantly apparent when going from one song to another?


I've read that in DB tests using the exact same track, most people say the louder version, even slightly louder, sounds better. And then this all got taken to ridiculous extremes? Just a thought.

 

But at the same relative volume level?

 

I really want to hear what you have to say!

Nine times out of ten the problem seems to be created at the mastering stage,
or even post-mastering. Dylan and Greg Calbi turn in a full range recording,
it gets cut to vinyl at full range, and the file gets squashed further by
unknown persons after the initial mastering just for the cd version of the release.

Witness the recent Tom Petty/Mudcrutch situation.
There's a full range cd and a squashed cd both floating around.

 

In the past, it was definitely done at mastering, but I think in the past few years the new plug-ins for protools have allowed engineers to massively compress each track of the mix while mixing in protools. That is a relatively new thing. There is nothing a mastering engineer can do when a mix shows up like that, hence the comment from Bob Ludwig about the last McCartney album.

 

I've received unmastered mixes that I am to master, and they already look like 2x4s!! Some engineers do the damage in the multitracking stage for sure!

Frank R.

 

I disagree.

Analog compression on drums was generally used not because it was needed but because the producers liked the sound they got with the compression.

Where compression was generally needed in analog days was for vocals, and IMO the same thing is still true in the digital era. Most folks don't want their vocals all over the place. It just doesn't sound like a record that way. The same thing goes for bass. It is very hard to play bass at a consistant level.

Sure you can record in digital without ever running out of headroom, but that is not the point. The point is to make a good sounding product.

 

I'd like to know your take on this as well, since your out there doing major-label stuff that is released on a bigger scale.

 

What did he slate an album he mastered, where is the quote?