SH Spotlight PART DEUX: Recording and mastering questions asked and (hopefully) answered

I would hazard a guess that even in jazz and classical music, individual instruments are compressed in the mix to varying degrees.
Vocals and and percussion/drums have too much natural dynamic range to gel properly with less dynamic instruments in a mix unless compressed.

A compressor does a much more effective job when it is only working one source, rather than the final mix.

Either way you end up with less dynamic range, but often that is what you need for a cohesive sound. This is very different to the uber-compression used with the sole intent of making the average volume ear-bleedingly LOUD used to draw attention to the track just because everyone else is doing it.

JJ

 

Well there is certainly lots of compression used in jazz recordings. Once again it is almost always used on vocals. Then again there are lots of jazz recordings which have no compression, but this is extremely rare for pop recordings.

I can't say how much compression is used for opera singers. I'd suspect that close micing of operatic vocals is not used nearly as much as on pop or jazz vocals. I only did one live operatic recording and it was actually from a stereo PA mix, but IIRC, I had 4 mics on the front of the stage and the vocalists were not that close to them. In fact the whole mic scheme was that way. I think I used a dozen mics and if I could make a crude football analogy, I used zone coverage as opposed to man to man. I used absolutely no compression of any kind. I'm just guessing but from what I've heard on record, I think this technique is more common than close micing for opera. Of course with close micing, one would have had to use many more microphones and that complicates things immensely.

Btw, as I mentioned this was a live PA mix, but the recording is surprisingly good and well balanced. Unfortunately there were all kinds of airplanes, buses, and environmental noises since this was done outdoors in Balboa Park.

 

I was thinking more about the type of recordings that someone like Cecilia Bartoli (for example) has made, where she is accompanied only by a piano or a small ensemble. You can hear the coloring that compression has on her vocals, and for that matter on the piano that accompanies her, along with the loss of dynamics.

 

I think it bares repeating that compression is not inherently evil. In fact, it is often necessary, and it often sounds GOOD. Really, it's just a tool in the studio that can be used for good or evil.

 

Exactly. Nothing wrong with using it on instruments, it's when it's abused in the mastering stage that things go poopy.

 

Oh yes. I was talking about a whole live opera with full orchestra. Solo or small ensemble would likely be treated differently. I have little doubt that if you heard compression, it was there.

 

Do the remastering crimes we commonly report have less of an effect on older recordings with less dynamic range?

I'm thinking of Bear Family's BLOWING THE FUSE series, which chronicles American R&B from 1945 to 1960. The CDs are very loud, would probably measure as badly as some of the worst CDs we complain about, and yet they don't sound nearly as bad as they should once I've adjusted the volume level.

Is this because the originals were heavily compressed to begin with and had less to damage?

 

How about no compression? I want to hear a rock or heavy metal recording done 100% compression-free. I am curious to hear how it will sound...

 

Start a band because there's probably no such thing as a compression free metal album. It would just sound puss.

 

I wouldn't do that Frank. Do you have a limiter or limiting function on your application? Try that instead. It's not as bad as compression. It's hard to explain but check your application's manual for a better explanation. If you clip the waveform you'll get bad distortion where it clips.

 

I know, but why not? There should be.

How can you know when you just said there is no such thing as a compression-free metal album? It can sound great if done right. (I think )

 

It would probably be very hard to play. I've got some overly dynamic non compressed recordings. One has to find the loudest part of the song and make sure his playback system can handle it. From that point on you can't raise the volume. The problem is that you may want to raise the volume because it is not nearly as loud as you're used to listening. But if you do and that peak comes along it can get very expensive.

I found that if I did a bit of overall peak limiting these recordings became much more playable yet still have tons of dynamic range. It's basically the same principle that we hate when it's overdone in mastering, but in this case I really did need to raise the average volume. I'm betting everybody here would agree if they could hear the before and after.

 

My understanding is that Limiting is Compression, a particularly hard line form of it, telling the signal, sorry don't go beyond this point of volume. When you raise the overall volume up, the louder peaks just start banging into this ceiling, and the disc is "louder". If I'm not mistaken, the term clipping, as it refers to CD's, is getting misused a lot on the forum. If you allow the incoming signal to go over digital's limit at 0, you get nasty digital distortion, ie. clipping. However, limiting doesn't allow anything to go over 0. It's a brick wall. However, this is it's own form of distortion. The actual waveforms look "clipped", but that's just because they're crammed at this limit, not because they are clipped in the form of going over 0. Is that right?

 

It's what I had to do on my first studio recording (amateur studio, that is). When mixing we just kept putting the volume on the amp at whatever sounded good. However, it was turned up pretty good, as it turns out, so the final CD on another system was quite low. We cranked it up via the evil digital limiter. Still, it was more dynamic than most modern CD's.

 

You shouldn't sacrifice good sound or a powerful mix just because you have an aversion (phobia?) to compression.

 

I think that might become a big problem when doing vinyl mastering. Compression-free heavy metal constitutes a whole new set of rules when cutting lacquer. The loudest peak of the program will be the maximum volume that would be cut on the lacquer, everything else would fall below that level. In other words, one kickdrum hit that peaks 4 db louder than any other signal on the tape will equate to the entire record being cut 4 db quieter, and 4 db is a very conservative estimate. I think around 8 to 10 db lower than an average LP would be more likely. This would not compliment metal which generally requires requires a big wide room sound , stereo drums, left and right guitars and heavy bass.

Still...I would love to hear someone do it. Might be a fun experiment.

 

Why not?

 

Ok, I see what you mean. I thought you meant that mastering compression-free heavy metal to vinyl would not be possible, but you are saying that it is not possible to record heavy metal without compression in the first place. Here's an idea: what if the music is instrumental and there are NO vocals...just two electric guitars, one electric bass and a drummer. Would it then be possible to record without any compression?

 

10db would not be nearly enough headroom. An uncompressed vocal especially one that is screamed would have an ungodly amount of unnatural dynamic range. Why is it unnatural?

Remember when you hear a guy scream you're generally far away. A microphone is not. Let's assume your singer keeps a constant distance from the microphone. You still have a ton of dynamic range. Now if that singer moves closer to the mic things take off exponentially. If you are listening to the singer 10' away and he moves that 6" you won't hear much difference. But imagine the singer is 6" away from your ear and then moves that 6" right to your ear and screams. It would be totally unbearable. The difference in dynamic range from a moderate voice 6" away to a scream with the mic in singer's mouth has got to be astronomical and more than digital can handle without overload. And that's assuming you could get a mic preamp and signal path that could pass it.

Ain't gonna happen.

 

Darles,

why don't YOU try it? If you listen to metal and understand the tone quality that is required, you would know why Jamie said it would just sound "puss."

Because compression and limiting are an integral part of that tone, the sound that makes metal sound like metal. The right sound is the right sound, but the rules are each a little different for various kinds of music.

This is something that every engineer has to learn, unless they only want to work in one genre. Steve is particularly good at it, because he knows his recording history, and can range easily from Nat King Cole to Metallica...

 

Can you recommend a reasonably priced software for editing out pops and tics for a novice editor like me?
Thanks,
Steven