crap, i missed the edit timeout. (annoying btw :-X )
i wanted to add... that imo, the radio-processing companies have nobody to blame for the "loudness wars" but themselfs, and it's not because it's impossable to have "my" sound with traditional methods. it's in my opinion because (reguardless of price) they are under engineered machines. there is balance between having to drive a Datsun Pickup at 180MPH, and coasting 30MPH in a Greyhound. But today's processors, even for the analog-emulations they are, just do not have enough power at the analog architecture level, which forces them to be driven much harder to get the texture that is desired. In fact that in and of itself is the reason some things in processors still today were made to work around, instead of solving the problem.
a unity-gain multi-band compansion "circuit" would improve if not fix all volume issues with [whatever_processor] and it would allow the texture to be controlled seperatly from the dynamics. Also, there are many ways to psyco/neuro-acoustically compensate for the things a radio processor does, which allows for even more seperation of texture design from dynamics. When you start using compansion to alter the way other processes in the chain work (like putting bass enhance between a compressor & expander) you can really push the analog-emulation to new heights of consistency while not touching the volume.
after you have a unity-gain compander setup, there's a bunch of "fixes" that can go right out the window, like window-gating (or compression gating at all for that matter). a few db of multiband unity-gain compansion and a few psycoacoustic tricks will get you more texture than 12db into a multi-window gated multiband comp/limiter (especially a clean-sounding one). so it's just retarded that "they" are doing what they are, especially now that changing the architecture in thier "bricks" is a free lunch, no parts to buy, no signal/noise considerations (which btw compansion is actually less noisey), etc.
</rant>
btw, on average the human auditory system can only relate how loud something is to something else for 7 seconds. after 7 seconds volume is just perception.
i wanted to add... that imo, the radio-processing companies have nobody to blame for the "loudness wars" but themselfs, and it's not because it's impossable to have "my" sound with traditional methods. it's in my opinion because (reguardless of price) they are under engineered machines. there is balance between having to drive a Datsun Pickup at 180MPH, and coasting 30MPH in a Greyhound. But today's processors, even for the analog-emulations they are, just do not have enough power at the analog architecture level, which forces them to be driven much harder to get the texture that is desired. In fact that in and of itself is the reason some things in processors still today were made to work around, instead of solving the problem.
a unity-gain multi-band compansion "circuit" would improve if not fix all volume issues with [whatever_processor] and it would allow the texture to be controlled seperatly from the dynamics. Also, there are many ways to psyco/neuro-acoustically compensate for the things a radio processor does, which allows for even more seperation of texture design from dynamics. When you start using compansion to alter the way other processes in the chain work (like putting bass enhance between a compressor & expander) you can really push the analog-emulation to new heights of consistency while not touching the volume.
after you have a unity-gain compander setup, there's a bunch of "fixes" that can go right out the window, like window-gating (or compression gating at all for that matter). a few db of multiband unity-gain compansion and a few psycoacoustic tricks will get you more texture than 12db into a multi-window gated multiband comp/limiter (especially a clean-sounding one). so it's just retarded that "they" are doing what they are, especially now that changing the architecture in thier "bricks" is a free lunch, no parts to buy, no signal/noise considerations (which btw compansion is actually less noisey), etc.
</rant>
btw, on average the human auditory system can only relate how loud something is to something else for 7 seconds. after 7 seconds volume is just perception.
