Compression or why this sounds crap

Dustek

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Benny Page & Uk Apachi - Nuttah Story

vs

Shy Fx & Uk Apachi - Original Nuttah


I've got some very very good speakers at home and the first track sounded atrocious. Would sound good on computer speakers and in a club with too loud music but I couldn't understand a word UK Apache was singing at times. Compression.

Compression - we've gone too far.
 

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i believe that this is more than likely limiting rather than compression. i agree that it ruins most music, but i dont mind it club tunes, as that narrow in-your-face sound is what makes a kilertrack at the end of the day.
if a tune is produced well, it should only need a bit limiting to get that big feel. so producers who cant achieve that level tend to overdo it with limiting as to get a similar sound, and it results in what Dustek was talking about.

generally i think that limiting is like cocaine. a little bit can make you feel awesome, but too much turns you to a wanker, who will be bouncing about thinking his the greatest thing to walk through the club doors..

theres a simple test to hear how sweet limiting is on a well produced tune.
Radio station have really heavy brickwall limiters to help keeping consistent levels during broadcast, and most already heavy limited club tracks played on air sound like bighard turds trying to squeeze through a pin point. but listen to a show that plays music before the 60's, funk, soul, jazz, reggae etc. all these styles where produced with huge dynamic ranges, and when played on the radio, they sound out of this world.

nice topic man, wish more producers would focus more on their mixing than compressing the shit out of poor mixdowns.
(y)
 
Benny Page is a good producer and he definitely knows what he's doing with a track.

But the current dnb paradigm is to make every track a fucking musical brick. Whacking at max all the time. Just compare that with Original Nuttah - its been boosted so that the high levels are at the db edges but its got peaks and troughs, it really moves. Like any good track from before the 'loudness wars' started. Dnb takes those wars to the extreme. Nowadays dnb is subject to exactly the same process as La Vida Loca.

i10.gif


More on that here

Dnb has lost its dynamic range and is sounding worse and worse because its just loud.
 
Benny Page is a good producer and he definitely knows what he's doing with a track.

:word:

& it's amazing how much shit u have to sift through today to get a good tune compared with 3 or 4 years ago
 
so what this article is saying is that producers shouldn't try and make their tracks louder by making the bulk of the track around 0dB, but make the very highest peaks around 0dB and keep the general level relative to that?

so its not compression ruining the music (as Dustek implies), its the misuse of it by the people mastering the tracks trying to make the track louder... which leads me to the question why are people trying to make the tunes louder?

i reckon its because as time went on people became less used to the superior quality of CDs as they became more popular, so all this clipping wasn't noticed so much.

interesting stuff to bear in mind.
 
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