3 questions making me bug eyed.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Is this why most records today sound like shit? No variation, all just LOUD LOUD LOUD. It's boring.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Is this why most records today sound like shit? No variation, all just LOUD LOUD LOUD. It's boring.

Dad?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

No, no I don't mean loud as in volume, I just mean they've been mixed/produced to sound loud, but then lose any peaks or troughs. I don't really know what I'm on about.

[butnut]

Is this why most records today sound like shit? No variation, all just LOUD LOUD LOUD. It's boring.

Yep:

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2006/07/pull_out_a_viny.html

[lazyhour]

Yep:

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2006/07/pull_out_a_viny.html

Wow, that is an extremely interesting piece.  Many thanks for the linky.

[Entropy Balsmalch]

That article's spot on about the really dreadful way many records are "remastered" - often they are not remastered at all and are treated to boost the volume and the bass and using silly phasing tricks are made to sound "more stereo" - for want of a better phrase.

Some are different though.

As a fan of Talking Heads I was delighted that the new version of Remain in Light is an incredible remasterting which seems to have been done from the ground up using the original multi-track tapes - the whole mix is different and much clearer but without losing the character of the originals.

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is the same.

In essence though, the reason why most modern music is so badly mastered is because people have neither the knowledge or the patience to use this equipment (or more often now, software plug ins) properly.

They'll bang on a couple of presets and hope for the best.

My colleague at work writes all manner of music for commercials, films and jingles and is a real old school technician of the mixing desk - hence my limited knowledge.

He will often spend a week getting all the settings on his tracks just right.

It really does take patience though - sometimes I want to tear my ears off after listening to him play the first 30 seconds of a piece of music in a continuous loop for three hours while he does +/- 0.1 on some strange processor till he's entirely happy.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Dedication's what you need if you wanna be a record maker.

[mrpants]

Here follows a probably quite unnecessary post as it has kind of been explained before. Anyway...

When a television show or an advert for tv is mixed, you use PPM meters not VU meters.  PPM meters are Peak Performance Meters which measure with a good degree of accuracy the peak of the sound.  When dubbing mixers (who mix the shows) talk about levels they do it in terms of PPMs not dBs.

PPM meters go from 1 - 7.  To keep a show or ad in it's legal limits, nothing can peak over PPM 6.

Dialogue on a tv show should be kept around PPM 5 or thereabouts with the VO between 5 and 6.  With adverts and promos the VO is pretty much kept as near to PPM 6 as possible using a brick wall limiter to stop it going over 6, but not to automatically mix the show for the mixer.

As has been said on the thread earlier, in a basic advert you would have a music bed and VO.  Although you could use a limiter to pump up the music in the quiet bits between the VO, only an very lazy mixer would do that.  Although compression and limiter technology is pretty good these days, it will still sound shit if you rely on it.  A halfway decent mixer would ride the music fader up in between the VO to keep the ad as loud as possible.

So I haven't really answered the original question, but I just wanted to clarify a few things about TV mixing.

I bet you're all asleep now...right?

[Entropy Balsmalch]

A halfway decent mixer would ride the music fader up in between the VO to keep the ad as loud as possible.

You sayt that - I say a mixer who doesn't know how to use his equipment properly would do that.

[mrpants]

The limiter is only there to stop any stray peaks to peak over PPM 6.  A mixer that relies on his limiter to do his mixing for him is very lazy indeed.

[Entropy Balsmalch]

Well it's a bit odd if you're only using your limiter to make sure the sound overall doesn't go over a peak in the final mix - that would imply your levels are all over the place before the mix and clipped to hell.

Compressors and limiters are there for more than just acting as some sort last minute safeguard ceiling limit to stop your mix coming out too loud - they're there as a vital part of the mixing process to enhance your mastering.

Why else would people spend thousands on limiters and compressors in studios?

The options available to you from the Oxford Series of VST plug-ins is just phenominal and do more than just keep the sound below a set level.

I would suggest if you're not using them to their full extent then you are the one being lazy.

I'm not talking about just sticking any old preset on and saying "Don't go louder than this...." - I'm talking about sitting down and fine tuning the settings till you've got something that doesn't just "sound shit".

[mrpants]

I'm talking about the limiter that sits across your main out.  The one you're feeding your mix to.  I use the desk compressors over the different elements and then the desk limiter on the main out.  This then gets run through a Waves L3 mutliband compressor to 'lift' the whole mix.

Of course you'd use compressors on the VO and a bit on the music, but only to help you mix.  To get the compressors to mix for you ie. to bring the music up in between the VO is plain lazy and I have no idea how you can have any proper control over the mix.  It's lazy because anyone can sit there pushing the faders up and relying on the limiter to keep everything nice and loud.  The thing is though that you can always tell when a mix has been mixed like this.

I'm genuinely curious to know what kind of things you've been using this kind of technique on...?

[The Boston Crab]

Your mum!

Edit: Actually, this stuff is really interesting to me but I understand about 30% of what you're talking about. Trying to follow this back-and-forth is like clapping after a mosquito.

[Pinball]

2) Is it misogynistic, or as it used to be called, 'sexist', to say that men are better at comedy than women?

As has already been stated, it's probably just down to practice. Males spend half their lives playing the clown for females, and that role is encouraged under a politically correct system (watch any advert, such as that twatty bloke going to PissCWorld to ask dumb questions of a white female salesperson).

Females are also, during their upbringing, encouraged to behave/conform more than is the case with males. At school: "Tsh, you're so childish!", "I'm telling on you!" etc.

That said, huge generalisations of course!!

[Entropy Balsmalch]

It's lazy because anyone can sit there pushing the faders up and relying on the limiter to keep everything nice and loud.  The thing is though that you can always tell when a mix has been mixed like this.

I'm genuinely curious to know what kind of things you've been using this kind of technique on...?

I'm talking specifically about creating the "big band of sound" style loud sounding ads which people here are talking about.

I think we've hit a missunderstanding - from your posts I'd gathered you were talking about pushing faders up and down and relying on the limiter to keep everything under control.

I was suggesting that one way to mix an ad so it's permanently just under its peak volume is to set the balance between the music and the voice, then set a low threshold at the level of the music on the limiter with a medium attack - put some gain on the output and there you have a perfectly flat mix at a very high volume.

Of course I wouldn't dream of doing that on musical tracks - but for ads - and if you want to create a US-TV style sound - it's perfect.

Riding the faders is always going to create some inacuracies as you overshoot or undershoot.

For a more complicated mix like a soundtrack or a piece of music I would never use it in such a simple way, but still it's a very versatile and much misunderstood sound tool.

Perhaps though I'm a bit spoiled with lovely and expensive processing set ups - running from our studios G5 Quad Mac with 8 external PowerCore processors to handle all our effects. The Oxford Series of processing and mastering tools are incredible too - all pre-sampling so as to be perfect to the microsecond.

As far as always being able to tell when things are mixed like that - yep you're right, but it doesn't stop the vast majority of TV and Radio ads being mixed in the same way.

[mrpants]

I do mean pushing the faders up and down and using the limiter to keep things under control.  Obviously with an ad I'd compress the shit out of everything as well and I would be leaning on the limiter a fair bit, but I'd still be riding the faders.  I don't understand how you could have any form of control otherwise.

So basically you're saying that when you mix an advert you fiddle with the settings on your limiter, sit back and let it mix itself?

[Entropy Balsmalch]

OK - I'm probably not explaining it well enough.

I create the mix I want so it all sounds good and in balance be that by riding the faders or plotting out volume curves - as for most of the work we're not using solid-state mixing desks, but either Pro-Tools (shite) or Cubase (Good) and VST plug ins.

Here's the key bit , in the mastering phase to the final medium (be it and MP3 or DAT (less so now, but still)) when making an ad I then hard-limit it with the threshold near the lowest trough of the mix and gain to make up the loss to create a wall of sound all peaking at near the upper limit - the type of seemingly over-loud sound we're sick hearing in adverts all the time now, be them on radio or telly.

It crushes the sound of all dynamic life really and would kill a real piece of music - but it creates that well known ad sound burst.

I'd just be surprised if you're riding the faders while mastering as it's such an inaccurate way of balancing out volumes.

I don't like it - but it's pretty much demanded now.

Having said that, people not really knowing how to use all this stuff means music is starting to sound worse and worse, because like I say, so many people just bang on a preset and hope for the best.

[mrpants]

Ah ha, when you're mastering the finished ad, I see now!  I thought we were talking about the actual mixing of the advert, that's why I was so confused by what you were saying.

Yes, once it's mixed I would then run it through the Waves L3 limiter we have here to basically make it as loud as possible but still within PPM 6.

I think we had our wires crossed a bit there!

It's interesting that you use Cubase, how do you import OMFs into it?  We use Nuendo over here as that give us the advantages of Cubase but with all the bits and bobs we need for post work.

[Entropy Balsmalch]

It's interesting that you use Cubase, how do you import OMFs into it?

I don't.

I'm only just learning how to use it - I trained on Pro-Tools and do most of my work on that - but for mixing and midi it's far far superior.

It's one of those things where you're left wondering why the second best system seems to be industry standard.

Ah well.

We really mostly use it for bespoke music at the moment though, and then it's my boss who drives the whole thing.

[mrpants]

Ah I see.  I started on Pro Tools but now I am evangelical about Nuendo (which is basically Cubase but with added post production bits added on).  It really is the better system and it's a shame it doesn't get the recognition it deserves.  We're ditching our Logic 3 mixing desk and getting this installed next week which integrates perfectly with Nuendo - can't wait!