And that's why Donny, like myself is such a good engineer. I didn't go to NO recordin SKOOL. Because I flunkeded English and there weren't NO recordin SKOOL's's. Or maybe I was too stoned to notice? Yeah that's it! So without a decent education, what else could I do but become a broadcaster and/or recording engineer? I certainly didn't play guitar and French horn wasn't really popular in rock bands. Since I was ambidextrous (I can play trumpet with my right hand and French horn with my left hand) recordin & engineerin, require less training than McDonald's. So I grabbed my bag (the person and the pot) hopped in the car and never looked back. That's when I ran over that microphone. No I didn't do that. And though it should have happened... it never did. LMAO

At least I know how to spell LMAO
Mx. Remy Ann David

Haha Merry Christmas guys!

Same to you Clark... and to all my other colleagues here.

:)

-d.

School of hard knocks for me. Nothing has changed in 55 years. Learning never stops which leads me to my next question:

Do the majority of you all use compressors this much? On most tracks?

audiokid, post: 398196 wrote: . Learning never stops which leads me to my next question:

Do the majority of you all use compressors this much? On most tracks?

I use them when I need them, Chris.

Do I automatically reach for gain reduction every time on every track? No.

Maybe it was just the way I was taught, but I actually try to avoid using them whenever possible, opting instead for sculpting volume envelopes - or sometimes using fader automation - as my first option to control transients, and then after that, I will reach for a compressor - as needed.

Now... the caveat to all of that is that this is with your average, "run-of-the-mill" compressors...

In terms of actual hardware, this "average" caliber would have been models along the lines of say, the dbx 166, etc., - and today, the digital equivalent to those "average" pieces would be plugs from manufacturers like Sonitus, Waves, etc.

They are functional, they do what they are supposed to do, nothing more, nothing less - as opposed to nicer "classic" OB units - old Dbx, Teletronix, Universal Audio, etc., .... and there were times back in those days when I had access to many of those classic pieces and I would often bus a signal through these pieces - at unity gain - simply to pick up the coloration that those pieces could offer, whether the unit was engaged to "work" or not; and there were occasions where I would want to add that color without actually engaging the reduction.

Also, I've had the opportunity to work with some very nice (and pricey) plugs - most of these are the modern digital equivalent to the classic OB pieces that I mentioned above, and some of them are very nice, but that still doesn't mean that I'm going to apply them to every track just because they are available.

There were/are certainly times where I might add over-compression to gain that particular effect or texture, but by and large, I'm not automatically reaching for them just because I have them.

Whenever possible, I want those tracks to remain as open as possible, to have that breathing room, allowing the inherent dynamics of a track to do what it does.

I'd rather mix shy on the track level or 2-bus output and let a qualified M.E. work their magic, than to squash the life out of the tracks, at either track level or on the 2-bus.

For example, on the track I uploaded last week - You'll Never Know - much of the transient taming was actually done at the performance level; by me working the mic, and knowing where things might jump out, I would control them myself... backing up or moving in accordingly... and, we all know that a ribbon mic acts differently than a condenser or a dynamic, so there was another added benefit in that the RCA reacted differently to those transients than say, a 414 would have, and I was able to "think ahead" during the performance itself, controlling a lot of the gain myself, as opposed to relying on a plug or rack mount to do it for me.

I'm certainly not against using GR. Like all the other processors available, they are tools of the trade, but I don't always use them...I have to have a reason to use them, so sometimes I leave those tools in the toolbox.

;)

FWIW

-d.

Thanks for your opinion Donny. I wish we would all talk about this more over the years.

Here I go rambling. typos and all, ...

I'm surprised I'm the only one commenting on this with such conviction or obsession. Even using plug-in comps lightly I hear change in the sound so I back off on all of this as much as possible. Its almost like the sound shifts and losses just enough imaging to smear things. In numbers I don't think its a good thing. Its exactly what I hear happening with so many songs these days. Everything sounds manipulated and put into a box. And I know that sterilized sound creeps up on us. Listening back on songs I did years later has caused this obsession or thirst.

My entire goal right up to the CD is about preserving that center image and harmonics around the stereo image. Better gear does this better. So do you become more tune with it? Its not a "sound quality" obsession either.
But I don't do music consciously per-say. I let it happen without thinking about it too much. I think its what musicians do more naturally than most engineers. Once you experience playing in a well tuned band, that feeds off of each other and who can improvise, you never forget what it feels like do you? Sound is one thing but feeling it and playing in the "pocket" that's rush isn't it. "No wonder I say to myself" ... ear buds and iphones playing our music, yikes.

I'm a musician that got into recording. Using samplers for 30 years made it easy to master pro tools and get over all the hype around plug-ins fast. Its so easy to get caught up and lost in the digital marvel and loose perspective of the soul.

What do you call the harmonics that we hear when music is in tune? Is there another technical name for this? What is it that makes a great piano tuner better over one that tunes a piano perfectly boring?

I crave that feeling when a chord connects with everything around it. When you can hear many octaves resonating throughout a well tuned and well mixed song that rocks in time. When you feel that sweet spot going right to the floor. Man, I crave that. That's what my goal is all the time. I don't concern myself with what kind of music it is. I just want the energy in it. Its not easy if the music is out of tune ( in a dead way) or effected or restricted. So I struggle or focus on that. This is where my focus goes if something sounds wrong or right.

Less of everything helps everything just becomes bigger and glued, balanced and more obvious. Like timing an engine. Balancing tires for a certain speed. Like Golfing and hitting the sweet spot with a driver. Swing..... and it just sails because everything was right..........
Even a tuned drum makes all the difference getting that magic. Its the thing I'm addicted to with music.

I personally hear smear from plug-ins and definitely from plug-in compressors.
They shift or suppress that space where those transients live. Its what digital music does badly in general. Don't we want just enough movement in the music so it doesn't sound sterile? So this is what I'm saying here on this thread. There is a natural motion that sounds better when you don't try and control it to much. Too much of anything makes us boring. I love compressors at certain stages though.

In the analog era, better gear was so noticeable. You could feel the energy coming alive with high end gear and energy (voltage). Cheap analog gear killed it right away, and we knew it.
I don't think its any different with digital. Just because we don't see it, doesn't mean its not there. And because its so clean now, we don't hear the detail the same and maybe we are missing the swing of it all.
How much or what do we really loose digitized? I think more than we realize. The more we move those waves, the further we get away from that sweet spot or the soul of it. Too much salt.

This seems to be where my interest is growing. I'm not saying I'm right, just wondering if I'm not the only one hearing music like this today?

In the end, ITB or OTB is close enough if you understand this. Some of us are natural at keeping the music alive throughout a mix and others just don't get it.

Anyway, I won't go on, just shooting my opinion out there as usual and wondering how others mix.

DonnyThompson, post: 398198 wrote:
Maybe it was just the way I was taught, but I actually try to avoid using them whenever possible, opting instead for sculpting volume envelopes - or sometimes using fader automation - as my first option to control transients, and then after that, I will reach for a compressor - as needed. . . . Whenever possible, I want those tracks to remain as open as possible, to have that breathing room, allowing the inherent dynamics of a track to do what it does.

I've been trying to do more fader automation and transient editing instead of compression and limiting since starting this thread, and I'm already noticing a big difference. On the song I'm working on right now, my client noticed that the vocals were pumping and breathing and at times the harmony would almost overpower the melody. I had noticed this too of course, but I didn't want to go back and redo everything because for some reason I had bounced my working copy of the lead vocals with compression on it (I know, I'm an idiot...) and all I had to fall back on was the original, untuned vocal track. But I wanted to make sure my client was happy, and I knew deep down that the amount of pumping was unacceptable for my personal quality standards, so I took all the compression and gain reduction off the vocal tracks (which was A LOT in this case because it's a very non-dynamic song, and I basically tried to bulldoze the vocal transients with a limiter), retuned them, and automated them manually, like James and Donny were talking about. Now they are sitting much better in the mix and they've retained almost all of the original clarity. I think I'm going to be using a lot less GR and a lot more automation from now on.

DonnyThompson, post: 398198 wrote:
For example, on the track I uploaded last week - You'll Never Know - much of the transient taming was actually done at the performance level; by me working the mic, and knowing where things might jump out, I would control them myself... backing up or moving in accordingly...

The unfortunate thing about the song I'm working on right now is that my singer had really poor mic technique. When I was automating the vocals I made two additional vocal tracks- one with a boost in the low mids to compensate when he moved farther from the mic, and one with a cut in the low mids to compensate for when he got closer to the mic. Do you guys ever use methods similar to this?

When I built my first studio with my high school buddy Phil, we only had a single black face 1976, 1176 limiter. And we were tracking to an Ampex MM-1200-16 without any noise reduction. Because we only had the single limiter, we were frequently cutting tracks with the limiter to keep the signal as high above the tape noise floor as possible. This actually worked out quite well most of the time. But I also found the need for a noise gate of some sort. At the time, all that really existed was the Allison Research KEPEX-1's. So we got a couple of those. And those worked wonders.

Then I got my job at Media Sound in NYC. I got to be able to sit in on many of these sessions engineered by people like Bob Clearmountain, Michael Barbiero, Michael De Lugg, Harvey Goldstein and others. Lots of compression used? You bet, all of them did it. And not just lightly but actually fairly aggressively on a lot of things. This place was a hit factory even though it wasn't the Hit Factory LOL.

I use lots of compression. Does it change the sound? Not if you do it right it doesn't. It just makes it better, sit smoother, placeable. And that rush of background noise, the gasping breaths, pumping, easily dealt with with the KEPEX-1's. Hasn't anybody ever tried this? No? Why not? It works great. No more slicing or punching out or muting breaths. You don't need to waste that kind of time unless you're charging by the hour LOL.

I'm also certainly aware that many people are very sensitive to dynamic range process. Most are not. And what exactly does natural sound mean when the thing that we use is natural? Recordings are not natural. They are merely the best electronic representation we can bring forth but it's not natural. Nothing about it is natural. So I think natural sound is part marketing hype, part fantasy because while I love it, I really don't find anything natural about recorded sound at all. It can't be natural. Speakers don't grow out of the ground. Microphones don't hang from trees. I mean we don't travel naturally. Generally we travel on four wheels or more. To travel faster than a human or a horse is not natural. Audio will only become natural when we learn how to decode it out of our brain waves and transferred into someone else's. And until that happens, all we can do is make recordings that are fun to listen to and easy to listen to. Which includes really no natural elements unless ya recording a Symphony Orchestra, and Opera, maybe some other acoustic stuff?

When it comes to rock 'n roll nothing could be more unnatural from the truth. And that's where we get to craft our production process. So the only thing really natural, is the engineer. And even that is being eliminated these days. So how can you put the word natural into the vernacular when talking about recordings? Doesn't sound good or doesn't it sound good is really the only question. Not some technical accuracy blah blah nonsense. Since we are all artists here, you should all know this. It's art. Nothing is right, wrong natural or unnatural when it's art.

I know people hate me when I speak this way I'm not speaking this is print... OMG I'm just an ASCII hole! And should I wipe my butt naturally with the finger or should I use something unnatural like some artificial squeezed and processed wood? Because that doesn't seem like something natural to do? Natural would be using the national Canadian emblem a Maple leaf. I believe we've all used those when we've gone trail hiking and camping? Why can't you just buy a package of them at the food store? We need to stop dumping all of this carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So they should discontinue manufacturing paper products, right? Then we'll need to get back to a more natural way of cleaning our behind's.

And what about ring around the collar? Should we remove that from the microphones to make them more natural?
Mx. Remy Ann David

What do you call the harmonics that we hear when music is in tune? Is there another technical name for this?

Well, if I'm understanding you correctly, I think you may be referring to what is known as "even order" harmonics. These harmonics work with the fundamental harmonics of a note, as opposed to "odd order' harmonics which work against the fundamental.

The result is that these "even order" harmonics are more pleasing to the ear. For lack of a better description, we perceive them as sounding more "musical"...smoother and warmer than odd order, which can be "harsh" or "brittle" sounding.

This was a very basic definition, and I'll let those of our members who are more electroncally savvy than myself get into the technical details, if they so wish.

-d.

Try tuning your guitar or piano in an "Odd Order" harmonic fashion...??? It is not logical and our western instruments are in even harmonic scales. Sure some instruments need to be carefully precise to be able to even tune. However, being completely in tune means EVEN ORDER harmonic value. How many artists have said over the years that being tuned together in a relative way makes it sound more natural? I don't know? I swear though they did tune by "EAR" years ago, before all these gizmos were introduced to help us tune instruments. Perhaps tuning by "EAR" is more natural even and odd ordered, harmonically speaking? The very definition of tuning instruments and western based music is based on the even order of harmonics. That is in retrospect to the actual layout of notes in scales (12 notes). I still think that a harmony has to be laid between odd and even harmonics as to not clutter the sound spectrum. A piano perfectly tuned makes all the notes fatter but at the same time they become more sterile by that accord. Too perfect sounding has always sounded sterile to me. How many symphonies have you heard where each violin and cello player tune up to a boss tuner? They sit there and come as close as "humanly" possible, but they never rely on anything but their ears. So yes some people are perfect players, but even the symphony is probably a tad off here and there. I think that is what makes the sounds so perfect: Imperfection. Today, especially, everyone is trying to tune to a perfect note on a transistor/digital based tuner. Now is that even possible?

The amplification of any musical notes is not always the same end effect. Single ended amplifier's are better suited to garner a true even order harmonic output. Just because it's a tube amp does not necessarily mean it is utilizing even order distortions at the output. A/B push/pull amps are using both even and odd harmonics into a mush of sound. It depends on the type of music but mostly class A circuits are the real deal to getting even order harmonic distortion. However, negative feedback is what can make a class A circuit (or any type circuit) more stable. It is also what can cause it to sound too clear and sterile.

To be fair I have to say there has always been a struggle to contain even and odd order harmonics in the audio recording world. As Remy said recording is not natural at all. That is totally the case as even with tape compression it was still utilizing odd order harmonics. Nothing is holy in the artistic realm of audio recording and utilizing your ears is always more important than being in perfect tune. It is combining all these layers of frequency to create many layers of odd and even harmonics. In a monaural realm even order harmonics is the best you get, but after creating all these instruments music has changed. We are no longer in a monaural realm anymore. The digital age is based on precision and that is sucking the life out of even order harmonics. It sound artificial since the human imperfections are lost in it translations. Everything is too closely stacked together for it to sound natural.

My example of out of tune sounding piano and beautiful song is John Lennon "Real Love" practice tape... All out of whack and wobbling around but sounds real to me.

This is "Some Guy" playing "Your Song" by Elton John. Of course he is not gonna do it justice like Elton. That's not the point... The point is to listen to how sterile it sounds in comparison to Real Love. To me this is how stuff sounds today many times in the digital world. Not really sure I am making a great point here or if I am still on topic... Just listen to how the pianos are tuned...

Of course the john lennon tape is out of tune even more due to shaky tape speed, but still sounds more natural to me...

Edit: These examples are not really there to make sense of my post, so sorry for that.... I think I put them here just to show tape and digital aspects of recording in some sense. Also, that they are not perfect at all.

Another side note is that even mosfet transistors do a pretty good job mimicking a tube triode.

I like to "stage" my compression. I use lower ratios, and less gain reduction, but I might run it through 3 different types of compressors/plugins. I'll using cleaner compression like maybe VCA for the first stage or 2, and then if I want I might slam something more coloured on at the end, like an 1176. I think it's also important to run EQ's before each compressor. If get a lot of pumping, I might back of the ratio/threshold AND/OR EQ out low mids... ...BTW audiomidi.com just put Harrison Mixbus on for $40 (Harrison made the console that Michael Jackson's Thriller album was mixed on among others). I just tried it out and I can't believe it, but I think I may do my final mixing through this from now on...It's a nice option for those of us stuck ITB.

Nicely put DrGonz.
Personally, all I use is a fork and my ear, and from there it's all about intonation. I've never used a tuner and cringe when I see one. But I know others have a different and more positive experience with them. I've never wanted something with a dial tuning for me. I tried one once and I could hear right away it would become a crutch to say the least. The first thing I learned before I could play was how to tune an instrument ( Odd Order I guess you call it) and in a noisy room while on the fly. The best musicians I've worked with tune to 440 and then to each other to compensate for intonation and for colour, both for the key and their own instrument, and they know when its not working either. Something we feel, not see.

The area's I am most passionate to improve seem to be evolving around a more natural feel in a digital world. No autotune, less intrusive digital compression on transients are two big ones. I know many people feel compression in stages is where its at, but to me, I hear this process effect imaging detail in rich acoustic music which results in a smeary, loud and dead sounding production. But I do like timed pumping compression and delays in pop music. I embrace that. But then all this is subjective to what kind of music is being produced isn't it, so there really isn't a rule. We need to attach styles to process more in these discussions.

I'm sure I'm not alone on this. The big challenge is preserving the imaging while trying to get high volume. This is even more of a challenge when combining digital and acoustics together, not crushing the transients but getting the volume up enough so a mix doesn't sound like the 1940 in a digital world? Or like Frank Sinatra doing Hip Hop lol!

The fork = analog. Its all been part of a less boring and more interesting musical journey to me. Digital processing and all the plug-in's available these last 2 decade have been taking me further away from real in all directions. They are distracting us. I personally feel the more digital stuff I strap on a track, the more it sounds like a perfectly boring piano thats been tuned with a digital tuner from someone who's never experience live music from real musicians. But that's a good thing in dubstep. In fact, some styles of music sound worse OTB.
This is what I am talking about all the time when referring to hybrid, plug-in's, "Odd Order" harmonic fashion etc. A different topic but same reason. Its a fun discovery to me, I'm somewhat obsessed with it. I don't think you have to spend thousand to keep it real sounding either. We just need to be aware of why and how to get it there in a cold and sterile digital world. Every year we learn more about. There is more to this than meets the eye.

We're so caught up in volume these days and no wonder. We're trying to contain the entire world inside a box. Crazy when you think about it.

Sorry to interrupt this awesome discussion (I've been following with interest) but could I get you guys to listen to another one of my mixes? It's located on the same web page under the title ThroneOfGrace Mix4:
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://jungleheart…"]Rough Mixes | JungleHeart Productions[/]="http://jungleheart…"]Rough Mixes | JungleHeart Productions[/]

I did A LOT of fader automation and manual gain editing (I forget what the technical term for that is, hopefully you guys know what I mean) and very little gain reduction. I also tried to not be afraid of low end. I hope this sounds like an improvement to you guys. :) Let me know what you think.