8 Oct
2014
8 Oct
'14
10:15 p.m.
This isn't strictly Linux-related but I hope someone here will have some
helpful suggestions.
I regularly make classical and choral recordings in my local church. I
use a pair of omnidirectional small condenser microphones in an A-B
layout and after much trial and error, I am very happy with the sound.
However, I'm struggling a bit with dynamics processing on the recording.
Naturally, choral music has an extremely wide dynamic range. If you
normalise the infrequent loud parts to 0dB, the rest of the recording is
too quiet, and people have complained that the CDs are "too quiet"
compared to their other CDs. I know that people listen to these
recordings on their iPod or in the car and if the quiet parts are too
quiet, then they simply can't hear them.
We all know about the loudness war and I certainly don't want to
compress the crap out of these delicate and beautiful recordings. But I
think some subtle compression would help bring up the average amplitude
without clipping the loud parts. I've experimented a bit but I'm
struggling to get a "natural" sound. After compression, it sounds fine
in the quiet parts but in the louder parts it sounds "lumpy" and the
reverb sounds unnatural.
Does anyone here work with classical and choral recordings? I could use
some advice on how to add compression with a light touch to make these
recordings more practical for playback, without spoiling the natural
ambience.
Thanks,
Jonathan
8 Oct
8 Oct
11:17 p.m.
On Wed, Oct 08, 2014 at 09:15:44PM +0100, Jonathan Gazeley wrote:
However, I'm struggling a bit with dynamics
processing on the
recording. Naturally, choral music has an extremely wide dynamic
range. If you normalise the infrequent loud parts to 0dB, the rest
of the recording is too quiet, and people have complained that the
CDs are "too quiet" compared to their other CDs. I know that people
listen to these recordings on their iPod or in the car and if the
quiet parts are too quiet, then they simply can't hear them.
We all know about the loudness war and I certainly don't want to
compress the crap out of these delicate and beautiful recordings.
But I think some subtle compression would help bring up the average
amplitude without clipping the loud parts. I've experimented a bit
but I'm struggling to get a "natural" sound. After compression, it
sounds fine in the quiet parts but in the louder parts it sounds
"lumpy" and the reverb sounds unnatural.
Almost all recordings I've made during the last five years were
of contemporary or late 20th century 'classical' music, and this
can have a very wide dynamic range. They also were made for radio
broadcasting, which meant that dynamic range had to be reduced.
There are several methods, and the best approach is to make
each of them handle a few dBs, and combine them.
* If you use Ardour to record, then editing the region gain
curve is a very convenient way to reduce the dynamics in
function of the music itself (it's much easier than trying
to use automation for this). The advantage compared to using
compression is that you can anticipate level changes - as
you would when adjusting the level manually while reading
the score.
* In many cases I've used a gentle automatic compression, with
a ratio of 1.2 or so and a low threshold, so you get a very
gradual gain change over a wide range of levels. This was done
using zita-dc1, which unfortunately is not released yet.
* In most cases peaks are very short, and a peak limiter will
remove them and allow 5 dB or more extra gain without any
perceptible artefacts. The best one for this is zita-dpl1
which was designed exactly for this type of use. I've used
it on all recordings I made the last years, without exception.
Combining these, it's not at all difficult to boost your average
level by 15 dB or so (and even more if needed) in a way that will
still sound completely natural.
Ciao,
--
FA
A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)
9 Oct
9 Oct
5:55 a.m.
On 08/10/14 at 09:17pm, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
On Wed, Oct 08, 2014 at 09:15:44PM +0100, Jonathan
Gazeley wrote:
What about adding a multiband compressor at the end of the chain (eg. Jamin or
Calf )?
--
« Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus »
However, I'm struggling a bit with dynamics
processing on the
recording. Naturally, choral music has an extremely wide dynamic
range. If you normalise the infrequent loud parts to 0dB, the rest
of the recording is too quiet, and people have complained that the
CDs are "too quiet" compared to their other CDs. I know that people
listen to these recordings on their iPod or in the car and if the
quiet parts are too quiet, then they simply can't hear them.
We all know about the loudness war and I certainly don't want to
compress the crap out of these delicate and beautiful recordings.
But I think some subtle compression would help bring up the average
amplitude without clipping the loud parts. I've experimented a bit
but I'm struggling to get a "natural" sound. After compression, it
sounds fine in the quiet parts but in the louder parts it sounds
"lumpy" and the reverb sounds unnatural.
Almost all recordings I've made during the last five years were
of contemporary or late 20th century 'classical' music, and this
can have a very wide dynamic range. They also were made for radio
broadcasting, which meant that dynamic range had to be reduced.
There are several methods, and the best approach is to make
each of them handle a few dBs, and combine them.
* If you use Ardour to record, then editing the region gain
curve is a very convenient way to reduce the dynamics in
function of the music itself (it's much easier than trying
to use automation for this). The advantage compared to using
compression is that you can anticipate level changes - as
you would when adjusting the level manually while reading
the score.
* In many cases I've used a gentle automatic compression, with
a ratio of 1.2 or so and a low threshold, so you get a very
gradual gain change over a wide range of levels. This was done
using zita-dc1, which unfortunately is not released yet.
* In most cases peaks are very short, and a peak limiter will
remove them and allow 5 dB or more extra gain without any
perceptible artefacts. The best one for this is zita-dpl1
which was designed exactly for this type of use. I've used
it on all recordings I made the last years, without exception.
Combining these, it's not at all difficult to boost your average
level by 15 dB or so (and even more if needed) in a way that will
still sound completely natural.
Ciao,
--
FA
11:47 a.m.
Thanks Fons for your detailed response. Some thoughts inline...
On 08/10/14 22:17, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
There are several methods, and the best approach is to
make
each of them handle a few dBs, and combine them.
* If you use Ardour to record, then editing the region gain
curve is a very convenient way to reduce the dynamics in
function of the music itself (it's much easier than trying
to use automation for this). The advantage compared to using
compression is that you can anticipate level changes - as
you would when adjusting the level manually while reading
the score.
* In many cases I've used a gentle automatic compression, with
a ratio of 1.2 or so and a low threshold, so you get a very
gradual gain change over a wide range of levels. This was done
using zita-dc1, which unfortunately is not released yet.
This is almost the
method I've been trying so far. I think my mistake
was setting the threshold too high and then compressing too much. I
think I set the threshold to -9dB or something like that, and then
compressed 1:2 to flatten out the peaks. It sounded unnatural. I will
try your advice.
* In most cases peaks are very short, and a peak limiter will
remove them and allow 5 dB or more extra gain without any
perceptible artefacts. The best one for this is zita-dpl1
which was designed exactly for this type of use. I've used
it on all recordings I made the last years, without exception.
This sounds
helpful. I will experiment with this. It might not help
though, since in my case, the peaks are not normally too short. The
loudest parts are full choir and pipe organ, while the quietest parts
are solo voice.
Combining these, it's not at all difficult to boost your average
level by 15 dB or so (and even more if needed) in a way that will
still sound completely natural.
Good to know. That will easily be sufficient. Thanks for your advice -
I'll let you know how I get on.
Have a nice day,
Jonathan
10 Oct
10 Oct
11:55 a.m.
Quoting Jonathan Gazeley <Jonathan.Gazeley(a)bristol.ac.uk>uk>:
In that case you might need to use some gain automation to raise the
solo voice instead of squashing the choir.
It's relatively easy to do that in Ardour.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/ardour/ch044_using-automation/
- Peder
* In most
cases peaks are very short, and a peak limiter will
remove them and allow 5 dB or more extra gain without any
perceptible artefacts. The best one for this is zita-dpl1
which was designed exactly for this type of use. I've used
it on all recordings I made the last years, without exception.
This sounds
helpful. I will experiment with this. It might not help
though, since in my case, the peaks are not normally too short. The
loudest parts are full choir and pipe organ, while the quietest parts
are solo voice. 
12:22 p.m.
On Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:55:20 +0200
Peder Hedlund <peder(a)musikhuset.org> wrote:
Quoting Jonathan Gazeley
<Jonathan.Gazeley(a)bristol.ac.uk>uk>:
>> * In most cases peaks are very short, and a peak limiter will
>> remove them and allow 5 dB or more extra gain without any
>> perceptible artefacts. The best one for this is zita-dpl1
>> which was designed exactly for this type of use. I've used
>> it on all recordings I made the last years, without exception.
> This sounds helpful. I will experiment with this. It might not help
> though, since in my case, the peaks are not normally too short. The
> loudest parts are full choir and pipe organ, while the quietest
> parts are solo voice.
In that case you might need to use some gain
automation to raise the
solo voice instead of squashing the choir.
It's relatively easy to do that in Ardour.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/ardour/ch044_using-automation/
You can also use "parallel compression" to raise the level of more
quiet parts a few dB without compressing the peaks.
--
Joakim
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5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
Fons Adriaensen -
Joakim Hernberg -
Jonathan Gazeley -
Peder Hedlund -
Raffaele Morelli