Cymbals & the Loudness War

TelePaul

Are cymbals the biggest victim of heavy compression and limiting? I listened to three recent albums today - the two latest Springsteen ones and The Killers' Hot Fuss - and noticed the cymbals sounded awful trashy. Is it just me or are the cymbals the first things to degrade sonically in a brick-walled master?

jtsuited

TelePaul wrote: »

Are cymbals the biggest victim of heavy compression and limiting? I listened to three recent albums today - the two latest Springsteen ones and The Killers' Hot Fuss - and noticed the cymbals sounded awful trashy. Is it just me or are the cymbals the first things to degrade sonically in a brick-walled master?

hmm, other factors to consider here.

smashing stuff does tend to stick out a bit when listening to the cymbals. Normally because you can hear the pump on them because of their long release.

stylistically speaking, since Nirvana, more and more drummers are very fond of the aul side stick on the edge of the ride and using it like a crash. This makes a fair aul racket.

So yeah, cymbals don't fair too well, although some people like the pumped cymbal sound (to the extent that they use sidchaining the cymbals from the kick to mimic the squashed pumping sound).

Race for the Prize by the Flaming Lips would be a good example where the mega-squashed drums and heavy cymbals work really well.

ronnie Vanucci (drummer for the Killers - love his playin style) is very fond of being this type of cymbal heavy drummer (I think it's great personally).

DamagedTrax

mmm.. overheads squashed thru an 1176.. mmm :cool:

jtsuited

DamagedTrax wrote: »

mmm.. overheads squashed thru an 1176.. mmm :cool:

yeah i do it too. i know an angel somewhere loses it's wings every time.

PaulBrewer

I haven't noticed any of those albums to be particularly bad. I'm not particularly familiar with Bruce's stuff but being mixed by Bob Clearmountain would suggest it's top shelf.

What do you use to listen to them on?

It's true the Loudness War is running things to the edge but what is more likely to happen is it's your Digital to Analogue conversion and possibly your speaker set up that may not like it.

In the early days of CDs the masters never went above -.03 dB from Full Scale.

Technically there should be no need for that, i.e. you should be able to go to Full Scale (0 dBFS) but a lot of D to A converters in home hifi, car CD players etc couldn't handle FS so rather than pissing off the vast majority of their listeners they lowered the level. What you described was how that problem manifested itself ..... oh, and Clicks!

Most Masters these days will peak at 0dBFS.

woodsdenis

TelePaul wrote: »

Are cymbals the biggest victim of heavy compression and limiting? I listened to three recent albums today - the two latest Springsteen ones and The Killers' Hot Fuss - and noticed the cymbals sounded awful trashy. Is it just me or are the cymbals the first things to degrade sonically in a brick-walled master?

Your right the, the last Springsteen album produced by Brenda O Brian had that heavy limited rock sound to it. I actually quite liked it as it was sonically very different to the Seeger sessions albums that preceded it.

Helix

i was playing out one of my new tracks at a gig the other week and nearly blew my left ear clean off with an overcompressed crash... i really shouldve listened to the track loudly before brining it

PaulBrewer

woodsdenis wrote: »

Your right the, the last Springsteen album produced by Brenda O Brian had that heavy limited rock sound to it. I actually quite liked it as it was sonically very different to the Seeger sessions albums that preceded it.

Ah, and did Brendan mix it? I just presumed it was Bob. Always liked his stuff too.

DamagedTrax

Helix wrote: »

i was playing out one of my new tracks at a gig the other week and nearly blew my left ear clean off with an overcompressed crash... i really shouldve listened to the track loudly before brining it

im mixing a track for a metal band at the moment and the drummer uses two heavy bottom hats. tell you what, the hat is cutting the ears off my AND its all over the OH's :mad:

PaulBrewer

woodsdenis wrote: »

Your right the, the last Springsteen album produced by Brenda O Brian had that heavy limited rock sound to it. I actually quite liked it as it was sonically very different to the Seeger sessions albums that preceded it.

Now you mention the B.O'Brien link - did Bob Ludwig Master it?

I vaguely recall some discussion somewhere (perhaps 'Slutz) where the Mastering engineer was defending the work on the Springsteen album .....

wasn't there talk of suchlike on McCartney's last album too?

TelePaul

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Now you mention the B.O'Brien link - did Bob Ludwig Master it?

I vaguely recall some discussion somewhere (perhaps 'Slutz) where the Mastering engineer was defending the work on the Springsteen album .....

wasn't there talk of suchlike on McCartney's last album too?

Brendan's done The Rising, Magic and Working on a Dream. Liked his RATM stuff but the Bruce stuff has gotten a bit stale - by the time 'Dream' came out, you could tell where the drums were gonna kick in, where the strings would drop out, where the sax solo would be.

TelePaul

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Ah, and did Brendan mix it? I just presumed it was Bob. Always liked his stuff too.

Bob who?

TelePaul

woodsdenis wrote: »

Your right the, the last Springsteen album produced by Brenda O Brian had that heavy limited rock sound to it. I actually quite liked it as it was sonically very different to the Seeger sessions albums that preceded it.

Yep, Sessions had Jon Landau's magic all over it! Very different album musically too, so understandably sounded different. What I'm kinda 'annoyed' about is that, when compared to say, Darkness on the Edge of Town, the mastering is over-done (in my extremely limited opinion; no pun intended!).

woodsdenis

TelePaul wrote: »

Yep, Sessions had Jon Landau's magic all over it! Very different album musically too, so understandably sounded different. What I'm kinda 'annoyed' about is that, when compared to say, Darkness on the Edge of Town, the mastering is over-done (in my extremely limited opinion; no pun intended!).

I think this was a conscious decision on all those concerned. It was probably
mixed like this bearing in mind the pedigree of the producer. It certainly was a new direction for Springsteen. Back on topic though, certainly with rock music
hi freq stuff like cymbals are really a victim of heavy compression of overheads and room mics. Its part of that sound which I love, but add to that,
mastering it to be as load as possible, it compounds the issue ten fold.