[LAU] Limiters?

Ken Restivo ken at restivo.org
Mon Jul 11 05:24:25 UTC 2011


On Sat, Jul 09, 2011 at 09:43:07PM +0000, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> Hello Julien,
> 
> >   I also agree, that overcompression is not what we need. Although, there 
> > are times, where you might want to use it as a tool for sound shaping. 
> > Not everything is classical and live sounding music. Mixture of electro 
> > and acoustic can be in need or just production of one instrument. I 
> > admit, that as a mastering tool, all I use is a limiter at present. 
> > Mostly it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
> 
> When considering music produced by people on this list it would
> be true that in almost all cases the one doing the mixing and
> the one doing the mastering is one and the same person. And this
> changes the picture.
> 
> Mastering as a separate step has two, maybe three functions or
> merits:
> 
> 1. To adapt the recording to the limits of the distribution
> medium. In the days of vinyl records that was essential. Today
> this requirement just doesn't exits.

Well, I thought that too at first, but it does actually.

The usable dynamic range of iPod earbuds on a noisy city street is pretty damn narrow, for instance. Likewise, the dynamic and frequency range of shitty laptop speakers is pretty narrow too.

I had the experience last year of trying to mix a record so that it would at least be intelligible on those distribution media. I resisted the pressure to compress the hell out of the mix, because I hate that sound, it gives me a headache. But if I were really serious about making those mixes work on those media, I'd have to have squashed them a lot more than I did.

It was kind of sad for me to walk around with those mixes on shuffle while walking down the street  or riding on BART trains, and realize that the songs we worked so hard to record were largely below the noise floor in that environment. Commercially-mastered recordings were noticeably louder and listenable, in the same environment. 

> 
> 2. To provide an extra set of ears and a second reproduction
> environment.  This won't happen if the mixing and mastering
> is done by the same person, within a short time, and using
> the same studio.
>

If what I've read and seen about comb-filtering is true, I'd guess that the mastering engineer's ROOM, dampening, and speakers are really what you're paying for as much as his or her ears or engineering knowledge or "vintage" gear.

> 3. To equalise levels and atmosphere and create dramatic effect
> when assembling an album consisting of several separate pieces.
> The is the only function that remains today, in the circumstances
> we are talking about.
> 
> So, if during mastering you are not satisfied with the sound
> why on earth would you try to adjust it using complex filtering
> and dynamics on the mixed signal ? Just fix it in the mix, where
> you have vastly more possibilities by working on separate tracks.
> Digital production techniques make it easy to do this - there
> is no need to adhere to a workflow dictated by the state of
> technology 30 years ago.


And, I suspect, some of what mastering engineers get paid to do nowadays is use various tricks to to fix broken home-studio mixes from people who didn't know what they were doing. 

-ken


More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list