Why is modern music( like house ) more insensitive to intensive processing?

[fugazi]

I'm just curious, trying to figure out why modern music like house, Rnb can be mistreated much more with processing then "normal" muzak like rock or pop. especially clipping has less impact on the noticable distortion with modern music types.

Help me out here pse.

Regards,

Evert

 

[robgrayson]

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but the wave form of most music that has come out in the past few years is already close to a square wave. It is already "clipped" straight off the CD.

 

[Robert Bass]

Yep... Pretty much every CD released today, is like this. It's simply bad mastering, in my book.

R

 

[radiosaur]

Ditto all that. It's already processed...or over processed depending on your tastes.

As an aside, one of the most compressed Top 40 songs of all time is Abba's Dancing Queen. The Raspberries' Go All The Way is a close 2nd.

 

[Robert Bass]

Ditto all that. It's already processed...or over processed depending on your tastes.

As an aside, one of the most compressed Top 40 songs of all time is Abba's Dancing Queen. The Raspberries' Go All The Way is a close 2nd.

I wouldn't consider those examples as "over-compressed". I actually like how they both sound.

The thing to remember is, that was the 1970's, a time when mastering received the due diligence it deserves. Those recordings still preserve dynamic range, and the compression that was used, sounds more like it was used as an effect.

In today’s reality, mastering has become slam and clip to death, killing dynamic range. If you want a true example of how bad it has gotten, Green Day’s album “Warning” is one of the best examples I can think of.

We’ve gone from an era where compression was used as an art form, to compression that is used to make everything loud.

R

 

[FFoti1]

Ditto all that. It's already processed...or over processed depending on your tastes.

As an aside, one of the most compressed Top 40 songs of all time is Abba's Dancing Queen. The Raspberries' Go All The Way is a close 2nd.

I wouldn't consider those examples as "over-compressed". I actually like how they both sound.

The thing to remember is, that was the 1970's, a time when mastering received the due diligence it deserves. Those recordings still preserve dynamic range, and the compression that was used, sounds more like it was used as an effect.

In today’s reality, mastering has become slam and clip to death, killing dynamic range. If you want a true example of how bad it has gotten, Green Day’s album “Warning” is one of the best examples I can think of.

We’ve gone from an era where compression was used as an art form, to compression that is used to make everything loud.

R

To the main question about house music: It appears to me that this type of content naturally masks some of the processing induced artifacts. Some of it is in the music itself.

I would say that all of those old Raspberries records were produced with a wideband compressor that was setup quite aggressively. Being that those guys are from my hometown, I've listened to those records/CDs quite a bit. Actually, I thought that ABBA was less processed than the Raspberries.

The practice has moved from heavy depth-of-compression to heavy clipping, and this has created the ills that people are hearing today.

-Frank Foti

 

[radiosaur]

Robert, I like the way both of those records sound as well. Some folks just might be more audio purists.

And Frank, I always thought the Raspberries had some sort of multiband thing going on that record, especially on the drums, rather than the whole thing being compressed. It sounds very overdubbed, and you can certainly hear the gain coming up after the first three guitar riffs. Whichever, it most certainly was agressive.

Dancing Queen makes the meters stand still.

 

[Robert Bass]

Dancing Queen makes the meters stand still.

Not over here. But we use less multiband compression in the airchain, than most.

R

 

[fugazi]

Appart from the studio mastering processing used, I merely had an idea that music with analog instruments is far more sensitive to heavy processing then synthetic music ( rock included ). I think it has something to do with the natural decay of instruments. I'm not shure.
Where the natural "distortion masking" behaviour of house music comes from, i have no clue, but i'm quitte interrested.
Competitive processed house music in most cases still has some issues with vocals even if the rest sounds quite nice.

Regards,

Evert

 

[radiosaur]

Appart from the studio mastering processing used, I merely had an idea that music with analog instruments is far more sensitive to heavy processing then synthetic music ( rock included ). I think it has something to do with the natural decay of instruments. I'm not shure.
Where the natural "distortion masking" behaviour of house music comes from, i have no clue, but i'm quitte interrested.
Competitive processed house music in most cases still has some issues with vocals even if the rest sounds quite nice.

Regards,

Evert

I would agree with that. I found it was much easier to process country, which tends to be more 'analog' with acoustic guitars and such, than rock or dance. The rise and decays times of synths and electronic instruments are quite different and would affect the processors differently. That's why all of us 80's engineers had a huge wake up call when the source material started coming off CD's.

 

[gtomas]

I'm just curious, trying to figure out why modern music like house, Rnb can be mistreated much more with processing then "normal" muzak like rock or pop. especially clipping has less impact on the noticable distortion with modern music types.

I believe it's because house music has lots of "drive" (lot's of low and high end), consistent spectral balance and a constant RMS level. The drive helps mask distortion and other negative processing effects, such as poor multiband AGC. Poor AGCs rarely have a problem with lots of level and drive, their inabilities show when audio is dynamically challenging. House music is also very spectrally balanced and rhythmic, often without significant dynamic changes, which produces a more/less constant RMS levels. With gating, the AGC control voltage (signal) is pretty much constant and doesn't move much (this happens in practically all bands). So things are pretty much static throughout the song as far as multiband AGC is concerned, and you can't notice any problems as there isn't much happening! Most of the work is done by the limiters, but since the audio is pretty much constant, they might be doing a few dB of fast GR "dancing" on the peaks which is not a problem.

The moments that are revealing are the very beginning on the song when the processor "adjusts" to the song and any pauses that might be in the song, rhythm (bass) wise. The latter can show how processor handles bass transients, but only if the bass AGC/limiter has had time to release down. If it's stuck gated, it will be "prepared" for the bass transient and just continue where it got freezed. Only if it release all the way down you'll be able to hear how it handles deep slams or other low end transients there might be on the song. If there's a "ramp" to the rhythm, no go, this is also something that is favorable to the processor as it gently rises the GR.

Most of the time, only at the beginning of the song is the processor required to do significant changes, when it adjusts to the spectral balance of the song. That period is critical, after that things are pretty much constant. What I don't like hearing in these moments is a deeper bass on the first few cycles and than shallower later, as the AGC in the bass band increases GR. A good processor (for me) is clever enough to keep the bass depth (volume if you will) constantly deep from the first beat, onwards. Which is kind of contradictory to the need to control bass level and therefore not easy to do (and sound good on other material), but some processors manage better to keep that naturalness and not get in a way of music, than others.


Regards,
Goran Tomas

 

[fugazi]

Yep, i must subscribe to this opinion Goran. My 8200 has some problems with the first bass clap running into the bassclipper section each time the bassline starts. In the later versions of the optimod this seems quite solved with a (i may assume) lookahead or something like this. Omnia's don't have this artifact as i may recollect ( correct me if i'm wrong ).

But if you would simply clip the audio material, without agc, compression or limiting, i would still find house or modern dance music less acousticly distorted then when i apply the same amount of clipping to an analog production like pink floyd's "shine on you crazy diamond"

What will mask this clipping in the house/modern dance track?

regards,

Evert

 

[wgliradio]

I would say that all of those old Raspberries records were produced with a wideband compressor that was setup quite aggressively. Being that those guys are from my hometown, I've listened to those records/CDs quite a bit. Actually, I thought that ABBA was less processed than the Raspberries.

-Frank Foti

Much less. The Raspberries are a Sta-Level on stun. "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna Be With You". For early we-ran-out-of-headroom-in-the-analog-device clipping, "Go Now" by the Moody Blues is about as nasty as it gets.

Then there's the different types of loud processing used on Motown mono mixes and some of the Four Seasons mono mixes that are to die for compared to their stereo counterparts. Too bad the only place for the Four Seasons recordings are the original mono LP's and 45's... and you have to be lucky because some plants were pressing fold downs of the stereo mix.

 

[Oldbones]

The Raspberries are a Sta-Level on stun. "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna Be With You". For early we-ran-out-of-headroom-in-the-analog-device clipping, "Go Now" by the Moody Blues is about as nasty as it gets.

What about the Dave Clark 5? You get more meter movement with a 1kHz tone than you do from "Any Way You Want It".

 

[Lee_Sackett]

Then there's the different types of loud processing used on Motown mono mixes and some of the Four Seasons mono mixes that are to die for compared to their stereo counterparts. Too bad the only place for the Four Seasons recordings are the original mono LP's and 45's... and you have to be lucky because some plants were pressing fold downs of the stereo mix.

Motown only used parallel compression, if any, when mixing, and no compression or limiting when cutting the lacquers, which BTW, was done at half speed.

 

[amfmsw]

You're all correct in your observances. I think the Rasberies and Badfinger stuff was heavily compressed specifically for AM radio listening, much the same as Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound. The difference was Phil used audio layers, not so much compression. When listening to hard to find Stereo versions of his hits and Christmas LP, the vocals are seperated and enjoy full range, needle pinning dynamic range.

It was a loudness war. My vote goes to the Rasberries as the winners.

The Optimod 8100 punching holes in you bassline: try backing off the input level and turning up the output level. Your average volume will drop some, so you may want to bring it up to your markets' "modulation speed limit". You may be overdriving the poor bastard. Or. adjust the attack and recovery times, but go gently into the night when doing it.

The Motown 45's, as with many, many labels, were sometimes farmed out to idle manufacturers for pressing. I have Four Tops 45's with different quality vinyls, different ink colors, and different type styles! If Capitol was idle in Scranton, Cameo-Parkway could press their 45's through them if they had a monster hit. Same for RCA and others. This explains differences in audio quality from run to run, as each would have "their" preferred settings when cutting the master.

 

[littlejohn]

In The Day, some 45s were pressed differently for distribution and for jukeboxes. Dot was famous for this. Lord help you if you got a 'Jukebox' 45, about all you could do was bitch at the rep until you got a standard or broadcast pressing. As to 'loud', I always liked the Phil Spector "Wall O Sound" processing he used on most Phillies cuts. But, the dynamic range is/was zilch on them.

 

[wgliradio]

Motown only used parallel compression, if any, when mixing, and no compression or limiting when cutting the lacquers, which BTW, was done at half speed.

They also used techniques to make the mono recordings sound larger than life. The stereo mixes, by comparison, are not as hot.

What's cool is remixing some of the Motown stuff now that the tracks are available via the Karaoke set with some of the original stereo tracks properly remixed.

 

[radioheadnl]

Don't forget that most dance/house tracks, are produced in first place for the clubs. A half year to a year after releasing for the clubs, the track will find it's way to the radio. On the most radio edits there are no (important) changes made to the mix/mastering compared to the club version.

 

[Chuck]

I would say that all of those old Raspberries records were produced with a wideband compressor that was setup quite aggressively.
-Frank Foti

Interestingly, The Raspberries sounded that way live as well. I know. In my previous life, I was in the touring sound business, and they were a frequent opening act for Rare Earth, which was one of our clients. There wasn't much processing in the house system, just one UREI 1176LN that was used more for system protection than anything else. The use of lots of compression in live sound didn't really come into vogue until the 1980's.

I used to be at the FOH console on some of their shows. It was very easy. Just set everything at about "2 o'clock" (we had rotary faders back then) and sit back. The band did the rest. I never asked them how they did it, but I don't remember their back line gear being anything unusual. They always sounded great.