Analog

[Donna]

Prometheus,

Yes, I believe you that digital will make things easier. The discussion is helpful and interesting.

John,

Well that's is, ain't it? Overcoming embarassment to ask q's.

(Hmm, what were mine? That sound of the Strawberry Field's splice is all I can hear now)

[Donna]

But I will add that the mixes have evolved; and/or there's more ways to do it. I remember first hearing J.Jam/Terry Lewis stuff and being astonished. Now it seems rather dated, however. Kinda sad.

I have one song which was done (via a friend) digitally. I wanted minimal effects on it. It's

just a guitar, bass and vox. Everytime I listen to it I'm struck at it being just what I wanted.

Natural and clear; I can hear my voice "warming up" and getting better throughout (not something I

wanted but oh well), so it recorded true, sho nuff. The perfect clean-ness which I have a horror

of, and tend to associate w/ digital, just ain't there!

You can also hear the click or strum of the strings themselves (hard to explain this...but very pleasing and seems truly true of capturing the sound of that guitar, something quite subtle and percussive about it).

And I love ananlog, too, but maybe I won't as much down the road. I cannot get the mix clear and distinct

yet the parts melding together. I blow into the high red everytime I open my mouth, too. (Compressor...

what's that?)

Edited October 7, 2005 by Donna

[Prometheus]

But I will add that the mixes have evolved; and/or there's more ways to do it. I remember first hearing J.Jam/Terry Lewis stuff and being astonished. Now it seems rather dated, however. Kinda sad.

I have one song which was done (via a friend) digitally. I wanted minimal effects on it. It's

just a guitar, bass and vox. Everytime I listen to it I'm struck at it being just what I wanted.

Natural and clear; I can hear my voice "warming up" and getting better throughout (not something I

wanted but oh well), so it recorded true, sho nuff. The perfect clean-ness which I have a horror

of, and tend to associate w/ digital, just ain't there!

You can also hear the click or strum of the strings themselves (hard to explain this...but very pleasing and seems truly true of capturing the sound of that guitar, something quite subtle and percussive about it).

And I love ananlog, too, but maybe I won't as much down the road. I cannot get the mix clear and distinct

yet the parts melding together. I blow into the high red everytime I open my mouth, too. (Compressor...

what's that?)

Compressors are the linchpin of modern mixing. They basically "squeeze" a signal at a ratio set by the user. To make the loud bits quieter and you can then set and output gain on them that normalizes the signal and makes the whole sound louder. If you do this carefully setting good thresholds depending on what you are trying to do, you can really achieve an incredible amount of extra headroom....

For example, if you want to pull an acoustic guitar track that has too many dynamic spikes on it together, then go for very low threshold of -30 to - 40dB and very low ration 1.2 or 1.3 to 1. If you want to make a vocal track louder, then go for a very high threshold, say -10 to -15dB and set a crushingly high ration of 10 to 1 or more...

And then even better, they also double as a time domain effect for beats and basslines... To make a kick drum or a sample bass beat or a bass guitar pump, you can open up the attack and close down the release to between 50 and 100 milliseconds, and then you get a very powerful punch at the bass end of the mix that gives it a real pulse through it...

You can get a lot of pretty decent plugin compressors from the net to use with Cubase or Logic or Pro Tools or whatever, or you can buy a Behringer Composer Pro for about (last time I checked) $100.00. Just about every studio I've ever worked in has a Behringer Compressor in it, because they don't colour the sound, but they are great to get Uber Punch on your basslines, and just make anything bassy sound great! You can sidechain them onto a track in a send return loop, you can plug them into an Insert point on a mixing desk, or you can simply plug a bass guitar into the back of them...

They are great for vocals too, say if you were singing a song with a quiet soft verse and a loud chorus, rather than having to ride the gain on the desk to avoid clipping, you can set the compressor up as a stone wall limiter so that any signal that just goes through the roof as it were will be attenuated. Obviously, if you want to keep some dynamics in your track, you have to use this with a bit of care and attention...

So, compressors... Get intay them! They're Good!

Edited October 7, 2005 by Prometheus

[john]

It's like watching slow paced tennis. But more fun.

Lets face it, both have their benefits. There are lots of geniuses, but one mans genius is another mans George Bush. It's subjective. Like comparing Mozart to Beethoven.

Britney. Trash? News to me...

Pop can be innovative, but it's far more likely to be formulaic. Pop tends to gradually change until an innovative subculture bridges the gap to mainstream, where upon pop gobbles up the ideas, processes it through the current pop filters and spews out a hybrid. The same is true for pop producers, or pop songs. Sure some break the rules, but not a lot.

There are many who are innovative within the pop genre. The thing is, are they innovative enough?

[Prometheus]

It's like watching slow paced tennis. But more fun.

Lets face it, both have their benefits. There are lots of geniuses, but one mans genius is another mans George Bush. It's subjective. Like comparing Mozart to Beethoven.

Britney. Trash? News to me...

Pop can be innovative, but it's far more likely to be formulaic. Pop tends to gradually change until an innovative subculture bridges the gap to mainstream, where upon pop gobbles up the ideas, processes it through the current pop filters and spews out a hybrid. The same is true for pop producers, or pop songs. Sure some break the rules, but not a lot.

There are many who are innovative within the pop genre. The thing is, are they innovative enough?

In all fairness, if the new generation of engineers are less innovative, you can hardly blame it on Pro Tools... The blame would be with the lazy engineers...

[john]

In all fairness, if the new generation of engineers are less innovative, you can hardly blame it on Pro Tools... The blame would be with the lazy engineers...

Absolutely.

[BongStuff]

It's like watching slow paced tennis. But more fun.

Lets face it, both have their benefits. There are lots of geniuses, but one mans genius is another mans George Bush. It's subjective. Like comparing Mozart to Beethoven.

John I never thought I'd hear Georges Martin and Bush in the same breath

I think there are icons of our trade that nobody can really disagree with. George Martin

is one. Shirley. ( and don't call me...etc...)

Britney. Trash? News to me...

Pop can be innovative, but it's far more likely to be formulaic. Pop tends to gradually change until an innovative subculture bridges the gap to mainstream, where upon pop gobbles up the ideas, processes it through the current pop filters and spews out a hybrid. The same is true for pop producers, or pop songs. Sure some break the rules, but not a lot.

Agreed. Pop rarely innovates!

There are many who are innovative within the pop genre. The thing is, are they innovative enough?

Well IMHO take a listen to recent Goldfrapp or Royksopp albums. Both kick Britney style

digital-production-by-numbers straight in the 'nads....

BS

[BongStuff]

Prometheus,

Yes, I believe you that digital will make things easier. The discussion is helpful and interesting.

John,

Well that's is, ain't it? Overcoming embarassment to ask q's.

(Hmm, what were mine? That sound of the Strawberry Field's splice is all I can hear now)

Yeah sorry 'bout that - it's pretty obvious once you know about it.

But as a famous producer said "the kids will never know".

BS

[Prometheus]

John I never thought I'd hear Georges Martin and Bush in the same breath

I think there are icons of our trade that nobody can really disagree with. George Martin

is one. Shirley. ( and don't call me...etc...)

Agreed. Pop rarely innovates!

Well IMHO take a listen to recent Goldfrapp or Royksopp albums. Both kick Britney style

digital-production-by-numbers straight in the 'nads....

BS

And both are pop music and very probably have been digitally edited and aboslutely certainly have been digitally mastered... To edit and mix music like Royskopp without digital facilites would be an absurd waste and gross misuse of resources and would only be done to prove a point...

Just look at the soundscapes that Curly Michael Cretu and Peter Gabrielle have accomplished with digital equipment... The limitation is in the engineer, not the digital tools...

Edited October 7, 2005 by Prometheus

[BongStuff]

And both are pop music and very probably have been digitally edited and aboslutely certainly have been digitally mastered... To edit and mix music like Royskopp without digital facilites would be an absurd waste and gross misuse of resources and would only be done to prove a point...

Well the background hiss on both albums begs me to differ!

Just look at the soundscapes that Curly Michael Cretu and Peter Gabrielle have accomplished with digital equipment... The limitation is in the engineer, not the digital tools...

Dude I totally agree. All I am saying again and again is that digital is not pushing the

engineer anymore. MC and PG aside...maybe...!

BS

[Prometheus]

Well the background hiss on both albums begs me to differ!

Dude I totally agree. All I am saying again and again is that digital is not pushing the

engineer anymore. MC and PG aside...maybe...!

BS

I have a spirit studio 24:8:1 desk, with some of the quietest preamps money can buy and I still sometimes get hiss on the tracks in Cubase, especially if an artist that likes effects pedals happens to be round here, and sometimes I leave it there because I like the feel it gives the mix... But nevertheless, the very second it passes through the 10 10's the signal, hiss and all, is nothing but a stream of 0's and 1's...

I have no doubt that Royskopp use analogue elements in their mixes, and I have no doubt that they use digital ones too... And the very fact that you buy the stuff on CD proves it... There is nothing analogue about a CD...

As it happens, at 44.1Khz or more, you are not going to hear the difference. That was established by Nyquists Theorem...

Edited October 8, 2005 by Prometheus

[Prometheus]

Dude I totally agree. All I am saying again and again is that digital is not pushing the

engineer anymore. MC and PG aside...maybe...!

BS

I've got a feeling there were every bit as many medicore engineers around in the sixties, seventies and eighties too, it's just that people don't remember them... There certainly was no shortage of utter tosh to come out of those three decades, contrary to popular belief, much of the chart music was as dismal then as it is now, it's just people remeber the good things that came out of that time...

I agree that a lot of engineers don't push the envelope any more, but that is the engineer, not the equipment. With digital, the envelope could be pushed a lot further... As a matter of fact it was only pushed in the 60's at all because of the arrival of afforadable solid state electronics...

There is one thing that is absolutely never going to change, whether you use analogue or digital devices... Some peckerwood has to use expertly and meticulously placed micophones to get a sound from its source into the machinery, and some peckerwood has to use expertly and meticulously operated dynamic and time domain processors to get the sound back out of the machinery in a listenable form, and that peckerwood is called a sound engineer...

Edited October 8, 2005 by Prometheus

[Donna]

Prometheus,

Thanks for your detailed reply with examples. I would love to have a compressor...and hopefully can get one soon.

I'm printing out this thread.

-D-

[Prometheus]

Prometheus,

Thanks for your detailed reply with examples. I would love to have a compressor...and hopefully can get one soon.

I'm printing out this thread.

-D-

No problem... One more thing before I go to my scratcher for the night. You might find http://www.studiospares.com of interest... There are some really great bargains, and you can get them to send you out a very comprehensive free catalogue!

Oh and also http://www.soundonsound.com/ has articles on anything you could ever want to know about sound recording...

Edited October 8, 2005 by Prometheus

[Prometheus]

Prometheus,

Thanks for your detailed reply with examples. I would love to have a compressor...and hopefully can get one soon.

I'm printing out this thread.

-D-

one more thing, and then I'm definitely going to sleep. Do you do any recording on Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools or whatever? I might have a decent compressor plugin that you can have a copy of...

[FinnArild]

This isn't a good discussion about compressors - have a look at this one

(warning: may lead to uncontrolled flaming)

[john]

Hey

You might find some of the Songstuff techie articles here useful http://recording.songstuff.com/articles.php.

Steve also wrote a brief flash intro to PC based recording. I'll need to hunt the link. Oh Steve.....

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

This isn't a good discussion about compressors - have a look at this one

(warning: may lead to uncontrolled flaming)

The purpose of my post was to give a few short examples of the different uses a compressor has, ie. limiting, squishing and pumping. There are no hard and fast rules, there are as many different approaches to dynamic control as there are engineers, and it takes a lot of practice to get it right...

And that JP22 on that link is an absolute rocket who doesn't even know any of the basic terminology used by professional sound engineers... Distortion is acheived by saturating an operational amplifier, which in turn leads to the peaks being chopped off, which is a kind of stone wall compression, and every professional sound engineer I've ever met still talks about tape, even if it is virtual tape...

Edited October 8, 2005 by Prometheus

[Nightwolf]

The purpose of my post was to give a few short examples of the different uses a compressor has, ie. limiting, squishing and pumping. There are no hard and fast rules, there are as many different approaches to dynamic control as there are engineers, and it takes a lot of practice to get it right...

And that JP22 on that link is an absolute rocket who doesn't even know any of the basic terminology used by professional sound engineers... Distortion is acheived by saturating an operational amplifier, which in turn leads to the peaks being chopped off, which is a kind of stone wall compression, and every professional sound engineer I've ever met still talks about tape, even if it is virtual tape...

I totally agree, but is was a funny read, don't think Donna's gonna learn much from those guys

[Donna]

Er, which guys? WHOM do I trust?

Prometheus,

Bless your heart for that offer.

I have nothing digital yet, have no idea where the jing$ will come from to get it, and know virtually nothing about any of this stuff. I just found myself here and now have impulsively enrolled in this little cyberschool as it were, to learn everything I couldn't for the past five babies or so.

Does the compressor only work with a signal being put in or recorded - not afterward, as in mixing?

I can't wait to get MP3'd! And I hope you listen to the trashy analog demo's (which I love)... If this happens to be at night after you've had a few, I can hope for a severe and thorough critique, which would give me joy eventually).