Too much master buss saturation

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O1B
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07 Jun 2018

Miles Davis... had to hear Freddy Freeloader for a few minutes

...'Dynamics - and timing ... on Drum and Bass.... compared to Dutch Uncles...
...hear for yourselves...
Louder... Miles, IMO. Less ''Forced'... Miles. IMO

any meters (SPAN) will show that Miles' FF tickles the Crest Factor (DYNAMICS) better.
Recording matters... maybe, shit-can the compressors for a while... sometimes...


selig wrote:
07 Jun 2018

On to Miles Davis, of course it's more dynamic because sometimes only one very quiet instrument is playing. However, looking at only the first sax solo on "So What", you get an LU of only 3.0 for 2 full minutes of "dynamic" classic jazz from the late 50s, to which you can say the Dutch Uncles track that started this thread is more "dynamic"! [But don't believe that for a minute, believe your ears] As expected, if you take the full 9+ minute track you get an LU of 10.8 (9.0 for most of the song until the very end).

Bottom line: "Loudness Range" is not really the same thing as "Dynamic Range" or "compression".
One definition is as follows:
Definition of loudness range: Loudness Range [Measured in LU (loudness Units)] will tell you the statistical measure of loudness variation of your entire track. This long-term reading will give you an idea of the difference in volume between the verse, chorus and other sections of your track.
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... ness-range.

In other words, LU can tell you a lot, or it can tell you nothing about a track! As with any meter, use with caution and with INTENTION! ;)
Last edited by O1B on 07 Jun 2018, edited 1 time in total.

jimmyklane
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07 Jun 2018

I submit that Youlean needs to be read “backwards”....everybody here is quoting numbers that say MILES DAVIS is less dynamic in places than this hyper limited album!!! Even though I’ve not downloaded or tried it I think that sounds nuts...this is one of the reasons that I pretty much do not use any meters ever except for the analog inputs to my digital console and the inputs to my digital recorder. I simply don’t care what the meter says as much as I care what it sounds like!

I get that we’re trying to get a “scientific” or at least objective look at this, but as I suggested up above, all you need to do is look at the waveform. One that looks like a sausage is going to have been either purposely clipped (burl converters can actually sound nice when doing this, and Apogee’s EARLY [before they started using their name to sell products that were not the equal of the older stuff, but that’s another thread!]converters that had a nice soft limit function...DBX TypeIV conversion is also non-linear and had a neat compression characteristic.) or ran through some sort of L3, Elephant, Ozone, etc hard brickwall limiting that May ROUND the corners in cases where it doesn’t have to hard clip the waveform. The algorithms have gotten very advanced, and 2-3dB is pretty much free gain on your mix....but the posted album (in speaking with mastering engineers) very likely had heavy compression (perhaps in a serial-parallel chain) some brickwall limiting and possibly intentional clipping of the A/D....each stage can add 2 or 3 decibels to the output and in and of itself sound ok, but to my ears the great dynamic and punchy sound of the live band is destroyed on this recording.
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selig
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07 Jun 2018

jimmyklane wrote:
07 Jun 2018
I submit that Youlean needs to be read “backwards”....everybody here is quoting numbers that say MILES DAVIS is less dynamic in places than this hyper limited album!!! Even though I’ve not downloaded or tried it I think that sounds nuts...this is one of the reasons that I pretty much do not use any meters ever except for the analog inputs to my digital console and the inputs to my digital recorder. I simply don’t care what the meter says as much as I care what it sounds like!

I get that we’re trying to get a “scientific” or at least objective look at this, but as I suggested up above, all you need to do is look at the waveform. One that looks like a sausage is going to have been either purposely clipped (burl converters can actually sound nice when doing this, and Apogee’s EARLY [before they started using their name to sell products that were not the equal of the older stuff, but that’s another thread!]converters that had a nice soft limit function...DBX TypeIV conversion is also non-linear and had a neat compression characteristic.) or ran through some sort of L3, Elephant, Ozone, etc hard brickwall limiting that May ROUND the corners in cases where it doesn’t have to hard clip the waveform. The algorithms have gotten very advanced, and 2-3dB is pretty much free gain on your mix....but the posted album (in speaking with mastering engineers) very likely had heavy compression (perhaps in a serial-parallel chain) some brickwall limiting and possibly intentional clipping of the A/D....each stage can add 2 or 3 decibels to the output and in and of itself sound ok, but to my ears the great dynamic and punchy sound of the live band is destroyed on this recording.
Couldn't have said it better. I began this discussion by posting the waveforms, and end it by showing how meters can mislead you.

Meters have their use, but reducing music to a number has little value IMO. There are too many variables to try to condense them all into one "value", especially as concerns loudness and dynamics which are subjective.

Great subject though, needs more attention IMO - keep it going y'all!
:)
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Marco Raaphorst
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07 Jun 2018

selig wrote:
07 Jun 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
07 Jun 2018

What do you think of this:


Imo this sounds great for a live band doing such complicated stuff. Sounds better than the album which is often the case for music imo. Live it sounds more lively and I love that. It's much about imperfections which are needed for art.
since Youlean is free, thought I'd pick it up and give it a spin, and try to understand what LU really means and if it has any use for me in my work.

First…The Youlean meter gives the live version (above ) an LU value of 2.3 LU compared to 3.8 LU for the version that started this thread…So you can have a "more lively" sounding track that has less dynamic range, according to what this meter is telling you.

What I see this meter showing is more about the loudest part of the song compared to the softest part. To test this I created a Thor sequence simply alternating between soft and loud noise bursts, and got an LU of 23! Didn't sound at all "dynamic" to me because it was just noise. But man can I get an impressive LU reading!

To test further, I got an LU of 5.1 for What's Going On, but only 2.0 if you just measure the beautiful and dynamic outro on it's own! In the same way you can get well over 5-6 LU just checking the intro of Lemon and Ice, even through it doesn't sound all that dynamic. Meaning the "dynamic" outro of What's Going On is 2 LU while the less dynamic intro of Lemon and Ice is 5 LU. What do we make of this? [probably not much, it's just a number]

On to Miles Davis, of course it's more dynamic because sometimes only one very quiet instrument is playing. However, looking at only the first sax solo on "So What", you get an LU of only 3.0 for 2 full minutes of "dynamic" classic jazz from the late 50s, to which you can say the Dutch Uncles track that started this thread is more "dynamic"! [But don't believe that for a minute, believe your ears] As expected, if you take the full 9+ minute track you get an LU of 10.8 (9.0 for most of the song until the very end).

Interestingly, when a commercial came on after "So What" played, we get whopping 11.7 LU on the meters, since while the commercial was flat-lined dynamically it was lower in overall level than the Miles Davis track so the meter says "more dynamic". What do we make of this? [again, not much, meters can be "fooled" just like our ears]

Like all meter types, they each open one window into the signal, and show one thing about the signal. How useful it is, and how accurate it is, can be argued and is contextual IMO. So as always it's about using the right tool for the job so you get the results that are meaningful to you at that point in time (according to what you're looking for).

Bottom line: "Loudness Range" is not really the same thing as "Dynamic Range" or "compression".
One definition is as follows:
Definition of loudness range: Loudness Range [Measured in LU (loudness Units)] will tell you the statistical measure of loudness variation of your entire track. This long-term reading will give you an idea of the difference in volume between the verse, chorus and other sections of your track.
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-p ... ness-range

Some interesting graphics on that link, showing a totally compressed track can have a large LU value if there are a few soft parts between the "sausages". The point being, IMO, you can have a very compressed track that has a large LU, and a totally uncompressed track that has a low LU. It depends more (or at least as much) on how you arrange the long term dynamics of the music than it does how the track is recorded/mixed/mastered.

In other words, LU can tell you a lot, or it can tell you nothing about a track! As with any meter, use with caution and with INTENTION! ;)
I also think that dynamics are very subjective. Some people call something dynamic while others feel it is super compressed.

I started this thread with a question about the saturation. Never felt the track was over compressed for modern standards, only didn't understand the saturation.

In general I think the key is contrast. This is what Tchad Blake does supremely. That is why I love the Latin Playboys. Tchad uses contrast in his mix.

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selig
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07 Jun 2018

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
07 Jun 2018

I also think that dynamics are very subjective. Some people call something dynamic while others feel it is super compressed.

I started this thread with a question about the saturation. Never felt the track was over compressed for modern standards, only didn't understand the saturation.

In general I think the key is contrast. This is what Tchad Blake does supremely. That is why I love the Latin Playboys. Tchad uses contrast in his mix.
OK, sorry I got sidetracked on the whole LU thing, which was a distraction since it had nothing to do with the original discussion!

In some ways I don't think you can totally separate saturation and compression, not in all cases. Saturation compresses, and compression can cause saturation effects. Where to draw the line?
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Marco Raaphorst
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07 Jun 2018

selig wrote:
07 Jun 2018
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
07 Jun 2018

I also think that dynamics are very subjective. Some people call something dynamic while others feel it is super compressed.

I started this thread with a question about the saturation. Never felt the track was over compressed for modern standards, only didn't understand the saturation.

In general I think the key is contrast. This is what Tchad Blake does supremely. That is why I love the Latin Playboys. Tchad uses contrast in his mix.
OK, sorry I got sidetracked on the whole LU thing, which was a distraction since it had nothing to do with the original discussion!

In some ways I don't think you can totally separate saturation and compression, not in all cases. Saturation compresses, and compression can cause saturation effects. Where to draw the line?
No problem.

Proximity sounds like compression as well. Your ears start compressing or something like that.

When working with spoken word the meter than show me weird stuff, so I am always trusting my ears first, but for some things the meters are super handy. Spotify is using the same calculations to get all albums at the same level and that works really good. So long term LUFS seems to work great. BUT it doesn't work good on podcasts/audiodocs. Only on music :)

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