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Dynamic range in recordings
in DIY
Wasn't sure where to put this but this seemed to be the best spot.
I have found that I like recordings in the 13- 17 dB range. I can tolerate 10 dB. 20 dB, is fine but I find myself wanting to listen at higher volumes. There doesn't seem to be a lot of recordings with that much DR, though.
What really drives me insane is recordings with DR from 6 dB and lower. But really anything below 10 dB.
What say you?
Comments
You are a drummer, dude - of course you like the dynamics offered by them - I have had [in the past] a similar problem when trying to drum to others DAW work - they bitch about the range of hits from soft to loud because they have not played live with other musicians in a room/venue very often.
Added:
You bring up a great point though, and I have never tried to quantify it before so your inquiry has me thinking about production levels/range of my kit now that I have expanded it . . .
Funny you mention that. I tried listening to this recently and couldn't finish. The amount of compression on the vocals makes it obnoxiously flat and boring playing on my horns. Not just a youtube thing though, I've heard other stuff that is much better on there.
Yeah, you are right. They really seem to not like transients. They like to crush them. That is not realistic to me. With analog recordings maybe, but analog recordings seem to be the ones more dynamic. But, tape compresses the transients by nature, so here we go, lol!
In the red and brickwalled is the loudness war motto.
You want a dynamic recording, try Rickie Lee Jones albums. I think it was Ghost Train that had 30dB of dynamic range.
InDIYana Event Website
Will check that out.
Tape does not compress peaks by default, and with good noise reduction, you can have no compression with tape. But a lot of engineers like to push the peaks a bit above 0dB, which adds a little even order distortion (like tubes).
Well, you are kinda right. In the studio they may push it beyond 0 dB. My point is, when you go over a certain point it IS compressing the signal.
Then there's tape emulation plugins. A copy of ProTools, some Waves plugins and a laptop are sure cheaper than a 24 track Studer!
SD3 has a full Mixer/Effects rack inside of it - Need to use it:
Perhaps there are two dynamic range issues at play: first is the dynamic range of the music itself, then how it's recorded, mixed and mastered.
A live performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, seems to have a very wide range of sound, from very quiet to almost ear-splitting in the fourth movement and I've never heard that reproduced on any LP or CD recording, probably just as well or the neighbours would complain. Frankly I find the Ninth a bit of a 'racket', as Basil Fawlty would say, but the poor bloke was deaf by then.
Then you have rock tracks like The Beatles 'Helter Skelter' or 'The Who's 'Won't Get Fooled Again' which have less dynamic range but sound loud even when played at friendly volumes. I imagine those tracks are easier to work with for the engineers etc when mixing and mastering the recording?
Geoff
You cannot go louder than zero, when you try that is called clipping - not compression.
Compression is a little more complicated than that. Play around in Audacity a bit. Or run a board. Both will show you what's going on.
Loudness is not compression, not necessarily. There is a convergence between loud mastering and compression that kick-started the "loudness wars".
Finally, compression is actually a good thing - the example of the 5th above being representative of that. It allows all spectators to hear everything, not just the lucky few in the front row (who also get their ears blown out). It isn't a dirty word.
I use some level of compression on every mic. Most singers have terrible mic etiquette. One second their lips are on the mic the next second they're a foot away. A 4:1 rate on our board works pretty good and doesn't sound super compressed.
For digital, not for analog.
Saturation.
Pretty good technical discussion about it here --> https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/can-someone-explain-to-me-what-tape-saturation-or-tape-distortion-is-example.316736/
An excerpt:
. . . from here --> https://ledgernote.com/columns/mixing-mastering/what-is-tape-saturation-best-plugins/
I have read that cassette tapes can soak up about +3 dB above zero and pro RTR tapes can exceed +6 dB and still have headroom to spare. I also recall pushing the needles deep into the red/above 0 dB on my Tascam 8 channel RTR while recording drums in the past - but that was like 30 years ago now so I have forgotten a lot.
I did have two 4 channel DBX noise reduction units on the in's and out's of the tape machine and it helped control hiss very well.
But now it dawns on me that this divergence into analogue is just a distraction while JR's comments concerning NOT being able to exceed zero dB stands true of current digital recordings and my needs as well - we can only ADD the audible EFFECTS of tape compression/saturation to the digital realm but we CANNOT use it as we would analogue tape.
This is why I wound up turning off the tape emulation plug-in in SD3 and going back to compression as Wolf eluded too earlier.
Dynamic range is dynamic range. Whether you have +6 db to - 10 db on tape or 0 db to -16 db digital.
A lot of the new recordings are indeed clipping on purpose. Sounds like garbage. And they use so much compression/ limiting, that it is pumping, which also sounds like garbage.
I had a 4 track cassette with DBX NR back in the 80s that I used to record our band. It was great for back then. It was a Yamaha MT120. I would usually set it for 0 db but didn't care if it hit 3-6 db on peaks. The tape would saturate and kill any serious transients. Saturation is the same as compression. Or should I say, you can set a compressor to do the same as tape saturation but then you have to add some 2nd order distortion which 99.9% of recording engineers add to their mix these days. Mastering engineers do it too. I have used tje plugins before but I feel I don't really need them. If I really wanted the tape sound, I would just record it to one of my Nakamichi tape decks, then bounce it back to my DAW.
I just reread this and would guess that the people you are dealing with probably only have dealt with programmed drums. On the other hand, these days, even if it IS a real drummer, they use tons of compression.
Now, if you are using a lot of ghost notes, the dynamics would have to be compressed to hear them better, usually.
But, I know you play an electronic kit so maybe you can set it to where the dynamics are not, well.. so dynamic, lol!
I am working upon that exact issue, man!
Drums are the most difficult instrument to get right in the recording/mixing/mastering process.
Much like photography, we need to capture as much data/exposure as possible so we have all of the detail/dynamics available to us from the raw take/photo but then with that data we can then reshape and present it in a more refined way, post processing.
SD3 allows me to post-capture, process better than SD does and I am migrating my kit's voices to that platform.
Mixing drums for live music wasn't too bad of a process provided your drummer wasn't snorting coke or getting hammered between sets.
We usually used at least five mics if not more. Mixed it down to stereo and let her rip. Kick was mono, of course. I mixed for a digital drum set and that was a dream. seriously, save the settings and bam. Run a single cable to my board and voila. Minor changes for the venue. End of the night unplug the power and audio cable, fold up the kit, grab the chair and go home.
Anyone that has done live sound can appreciate what I just described.
I have no idea how to mic and mix in a studio setting. Friend of mine owns a large studio here in town. Maybe I'll go hang out with them one of these first Saturdays.