[LAU] Questions from an audiophile to some engineers

[Robin Gareus]

Bearcat M. Sandor wrote:
>> If I mixed and mastered for your system, you would love the disk but no
>> one
>> else would buy it. Problem is that the disk will be played on your or my
>> good
>> stereo system, a good or dismal boombox, a good or midling mp3 player from
>> downloads or wripping, or worst of all, the radio (but without that one,
>> it
>> may never be played at all!).
>>
>> So an engineer must try out the mix on a variety of playback systems and
>> try
>> to make it sound great on all of them. Possible?

no, but you can get close! - nowadays the Audio-industry is missing some
defacto standard like "Hi-Fi" or "THX 1138" years ago. There are various
/suggestions/ for Radio, CD and Film soundtrack masters... it's a mess.
some say it's worse.

> What I'm hearing is distortion created by the artifact of compression.
> What i'm speaking of is the cropping of the lower and uppper frequencies
> and boosting of the midrange.

some consider compression as Voodoo Magic with all it's assets and
drawbacks.. - It's just a tool just like an EQ or convolution!

> Cymbols sound aweful no matter what system you play them on when
> compression is used.

OT. personally I find a gated-reverb Snare more annoying ;-)

indeed cymbals are tricky. - related subject: good overhead-microphones
are 95% of the recording! (neglecting the drummer, cymbals and
composition of course.) -

IIRC Cymbals are very hard to synthesize. A Crash might sound ok, but a
using a sample for cool jazz-ride, or sequencing a hi-hat is just
impossible :) - Alas, most modern music is beyond such subtleties.

The song "savannah woman" (sounds like home-recorded with no complete
drum-set at hand) features beat-box cymbals (mouth made - vocals)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaser_%28album%29



> Of course, it depends on the amount of compression
> you apply,  but I just feel it's wrong to ask me to pay money for music
> that has been deliberately scewed-up.

spend your money on (unplugged) live-concerts. - most home-stereo's will
/like it/ if the sum is *slightly* compressed!

note also that tape-recordings have a "natural-compression" due to
intrinsic magnetic saturation effects, which  are not present in digital
recordings! - Dolby spend a great effort to counter Weiss-domains.

It was (/is) quite usual to overdrive analog signals for recording. and
Note that analog compression is also frequency dependent.. a reason why
it not used in (most) classical recordings...


> Given a good recording, without compression kick drums don't sound
> muffled, the decay of instruments is present and cymbols sound metallic
> and not ceramic.

right. "pop/rock/entertainment" music will always have a gate,
compressor & limiter on the kick, snare & hi-hat! - that should applies
for Jazz, or every recording where you have individual Mics for the
instruments. (the usual exceptions)

compression is an easy way to make things sound nicer. Sometimes it
alienates the sound, sometimes it's even required to counter
recording/playback effects.

Sum-compression is a completely different issue. - It's not a bad thing,
but IMHO it's bad that it became a habit. Great compositions or
performances were dynamically-raped and it un-educates listener's
dynamic sensibility. (grr.  bad inglish. you should get my point though)

I like the overdone compression of RHCP's Californication Album, it
works there..

> How could that be a bad thing on any system?  Does decay, air and body
> sound bad on a boombox or a cheep reciever? I know you may not beable to
> detect them, but that's not the same thing as bad.

#!/bin/sigh > /dev/dsp

Is anyone here into Wikipedia?  would you care to make  *gnu/Linux Wave
screenshots* for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression
similar to the ones on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
-  and adding a reference to Steve Albini's quote would not hurt either
:-p

#robin
#audiophile and engineer.