Photo courtesy of Mike Galvin
January 11th, 2009 – If you’ve been paying attention to music news lately, or are an audiophile, you’ve most likely heard about the “loudness” wars. Record labels have always equated “loud” with good. In the course of decades of one-upmanship, songs have been compressed/limited so much, that they lack almost all dynamic range. For an example of this, check out these waveforms comparing Metallica tracks from a CD, and in the video game Guitar Hero.
If you aren’t sure what this sounds like, imagine a whisper that has the volume turned up so that it’s as loud as a yell. Now, imagine a song where everything is at a constant loudness, and doesn’t change. If you’re like me, that would grate on your nerves. Music has always been about contrast. The difference between soft and loud, low and high, soothing and intense. Turn everything to 10, and all you have is loud noise. Many people are quick to blame the mastering engineer, the last person who touches the music before it’s burned on a CD. However, the truth is that mastering engineers only make small changes. If they have to change something drastically, then the mix engineer hasn’t done their job.
The better the mix engineer, the less a mastering engineer has to do. The worse a mix engineer, the less a mastering engineer can do. These days mix engineers have record label execs breathing down their necks when they mix. They have to mix it loud. Of course, with any mainstream method, there is a counter-culture. These are the people recording in their basements, or engineers mixing side projects for indie music. Compression is used to get a sound, and tame out of control spikes in volume. This doesn’t mean that the music is quiet, just that it’s not loud all the time.
While we’re on the topic of mixing, one of my biggest pet peeves is the over-zealous use of de-essers. De-essers are devices that take the sibilance out of “s” sounds. I’m not sure if a lot of mix engineers have overly boosted treble in their monitor set ups, but they’ve taken out the “s” sound so aggressively, that artists sound like they have lisps. This is happening in almost all commercial releases I hear these days. For an extreme example, check out Jojo‘s album “The High Road” to hear what I’m talking about. The reason I bring this up is because of a Rihanna song I’ve been remixing. The heavy de-essing is not as bad as some songs I’ve heard, but it’s still present. Perhaps it is the de-essing in concert with heavy compression that exaggerates the problem, but whatever it is, I’m not sure why it’s in style right now.
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old audiophile (of which I’m neither old, or an audiophile), what is wrong with mixing today? I can take the reverb-heavy 80′s mixing more than I can take the super loud mixing of today. I’m certainly not an engineering expert, or audiophile, but I can’t be the only one who is bothered by it. Do you hear what I hear?
Another problem with this approach is that a lot of possibility in music become impossible. I remember the first time I heard the CD Music to play in the Dark from Coil, and I was constantly surprised by it – plage of weird, nearly inaudible sound, follow by big crash…
And well. Heavy compressed music are tiring, at least for me.
@Sebastien Orban : Heavily compressed music also tires me out. It’s like that one friend that talks at the top of their voice, all the time
You know it’s getting bad when even the mainstream media are complaining about over-compressed recordings… most people don’t know what it is that’s bothering them about modern records, but when the lack of dynamic range is pointed out, I think everyone can tell the difference…
@dan foley: It’s kind of like radio. Stations compress the music even further to get higher gain, and better listener attention. You can hear heavy “breathing” due to the bass energies being improperly accounted for in compression.
Hey man, is this the Jojo track you were talking about? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i6bW97QMF4
The “S”‘s seem quite prominent, I would actually de-ess more if anything.
@ Kid Klassic : Yeah, that video shows a bit of edge to the “S”. Sorry, I can’t find my Jojo CD right now to give you an exact track, but I seem to recall that there were quite a few tracks that had a “th” instead of an “s”.
@ SEAN : No worries
Probably a few mixes floatin’ around anyways. Just found your site today via a comment on audiotuts.com. Great site you’ve got here, do you have anywhere I could check out your work?(music/mixes/remixes)
-Kid
@ Kid Klassic : I’m kind of embarrassed to say it, but I’ve been blogging more than actually finishing songs. I have so many snippets but I haven’t completed anything in a while.
Here is my Indaba Page : http://www.indabamusic.com/people/sean . You can listen to a small selection of the songs I’ve written, produced, or remixed in the last 5 years.
You can also visit the Bandcamp page I set up for a soundtrack I wrote several years ago. http://seanyee.bandcamp.com/
Listening to all that stuff just now made me realize that I really need to get a move on finishing new stuff. It all sounds dated and my mixing tastes have changed drastically. Thanks for your interest though!
Does anyone have some advice about a bad mix that has the bass turned up too high? I made these songs wearing headphones ( http://www.soyourestartingaband.com/listen.php ) and turned the bass up too high. Is there a way to fix that after the fact, if you don’t have the original recording to work with? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated
@ Lisa Mac : If you only have the stereo mixdown file, you can import that into your music software and use a multi-presser. This will allow you to compress (and also reduce the overall gain) of specific frequencies. In your case that would be the bass. I wrote an article about multi-pressers here if you’d like to know more : http://www.keyofgrey.com/?p=2596