drop the bass or drop the treble!

[davethedrummer]

is it just me or has the demand for sizzling top end become slightly out of hand in todays music?
we used to spend ages getting the bass right
now everything seems to centre around the high end and high mid range areas.
or has my tinnitus just got the better of me?

[spiralx]

I know what you mean... there have been a couple of tracks I've heard out recently or have got that literally make me cover my ears when they're played out because the high end is just sooo bloody sharp in places.

[Analbumcover]

Absolutely. We soundchecked our rig last week with a track on Recycled Loops and after instantly destroying the top end of our hearing we turned the tops down, and then down some more, and then some more, and then some more. At this point we decided something was seriously wrong with the system, as the tops were still painful and the crossover wouldn't go any lower.

Then we decided to **** off the recycled loops ep and reach for Hydro 9, my favorite "control" track for setting up the rig - It's firmly burnt into my brain, I know how it should sound, so it's great to fine tune the system with. At which point we had to turn the top end back up to exactly where it was in the first place.

God know what they thinking of when they cut that recycled loops ep. It was the same on both sides as well. If you played it on a big system you'd end up being sued in a mass "Where there's blame there's a claim" lawsuit after trashing everyone hearing.

[Adverse]

is it just me or has the demand for sizzling top end become slightly out of hand in todays music?
we used to spend ages getting the bass right
now everything seems to centre around the high end and high mid range areas.
or has my tinnitus just got the better of me?


nah mate you are right.. i usually have a much harder time getting the high to sound particular.

[Basil Rush]

Tricky isn't it. I pick a record that I enjoy at home and that I've heard in a club and use that as a guide. But stuff does seem to be getting toppier. The more commerical music is the worse it gets too, it's like they want it to escape from the radio and eat you or something ...

[RichieV]

maybe the fact that more music is made on computers influences the above?

[btec2004]

:lol:
THATS THE FACT !!!!

[djTequila]

It does seem to me that digital synths create more high-end detail in sounds - maybe it's the fact that a digital signal path will lose less high frequencies through processing and cabling. Or it could be that people are abusing all the high-end exciters on the market... It's easily done if you don't know when to a/b!

The other thing is, of course, that just as power is felt in the bass range, excitement is felt in the upper frequencies. A slow shift in production styles from 'power' to 'excitement' wouldn't be impossible... I'm certainly noticing this effect more and more these days.

Added to that the fact that digital techniques create high end harmonics from aliasing and other artifacts (hence the much talked about 'harsh' digital sound) and the slow migration from analogue studios to digital (and the cheapness of digital gear as opposed to avalogue) will create harsh, toppy styles of music... Just as solid state technology enabled music to become harder than valve technology. It's a real, known problem in the industry at the moment, and it is exactly why people are putting valves back into outboard gear... Things are just getting too hard/toppy/harsh/fragile sounding.

T*

[Basil Rush]

Ok, I've got another theory, perhaps is the proliferation of 'bass boost' on home and car systems that's made the average mix require far less bottom end for the same end result...?

Club mixes for radio you'll notice tend to have less bottom than some of the more banging stuff for clubs ... if you go to a night where they play a lot of commerical stuff a lot of it is hopeless inadequate at the bottom end compared to the more underground club orientated stuff.

Well, that's my theory for the day anyway,

laters, Baz.

[Clarkus]

I find that because i haven't got monitors in my set up yet the lower end of my tracks don't come over as well on other sound systems.

Hopefully this problem will dissapear when the monitors arrive!

[tioneb]

i agree : most of the techno are way too much loud bass ... which is totally useless in a club which has a decent sound system.... i have invested in good monitors at my place and i dont even need to use "loudness" or eq the sound to hear proper bass, so probably i am mong these dudes who really thnik that the meds / high are really much more important.

as an example i almost never comrpess my BD but compress the meds and high a lot.... my easiest way to see if a track is well eqed is to look to the spectrum in winamp : to sound good all teh frequancies have to reach the 0dB, but only for a few time ... if the vu meter is stuck in the 0dB for too long its loud, if it doesn reach then its not enough loud ... simple as hell but works so well

btw even if the music is crap i was amazed by madonna latest album 's production.

[interferron]

btw even if the music is crap i was amazed by madonna latest album 's production.

you're amazed that madonna's album is high quality in production? ;) i'm not.. as i understand, she's got a lot of money and lot of money can buy great production.
haven't heard but a couple of songs, the first single "american life"(?) was total crap, but i actually think "hollywood"'s a great pop tune.. ok, there goes the last of my street cred (what) ;)

[tioneb]

well the production is electronic and comes from mirwais. i mean this guy works like every otehr electronic musician in his studio and works wiht protools. the only difference with a techno producer is that he produces pop music.

so yeah that means more money and more expansive gear, but there are some techno producers who probably own the same gear coz it costs really fewer than producing a band playing with real instruments. and well i havent heard any techno record who reaches this quality of production ... the gorillaz album also impresse dme a lot

[Basil Rush]

as an example i almost never comrpess my BD but compress the meds and high a lot.... my easiest way to see if a track is well eqed is to look to the spectrum in winamp : to sound good all teh frequancies have to reach the 0dB, but only for a few time ... if the vu meter is stuck in the 0dB for too long its loud, if it doesn reach then its not enough loud ... simple as hell but works so well



I don't know what winamp's analyser is like but when i look in the waves one on a track i like the sound of it's more of a gentle slope 6 to 10db or so down at the top end compared to the bottom end. A level graph would take my head off I think ....




btw even if the music is crap i was amazed by madonna latest album 's production.

It's the vocal production on madge's stuff that blows me away, i've got an acappella of music somewhere, there's no haphazardly applied rhythmic delays there, it's a thesis in perfect production. blew me away, still does when i listen to it...

[The Overfiend]

I agree what happened to letting the bass move the crowd, or here is an idea, why can't people fuggin Eq before it's sent to get pressed? I mean jeez i ain't bigtime or anything but even I know clarity and not killin peoples eardrums help the fact of just selling ability.

[djTequila]

Ok, I've got another theory, perhaps is the proliferation of 'bass boost' on home and car systems that's made the average mix require far less bottom end for the same end result...?

Club mixes for radio you'll notice tend to have less bottom than some of the more banging stuff for clubs ... if you go to a night where they play a lot of commerical stuff a lot of it is hopeless inadequate at the bottom end compared to the more underground club orientated stuff.


Radio mixes have less bottom because bass removes headroom. You simply can't fit as many high frequencies in to your mix if your bass is big... If you look at a waveform of just a big bass sound and a hi-hat, you'll see why! (Make the bass bigger, and the hi-hat gets cut in half... The small, sharp hi-hat 'rides' the big bass wave like a surf dude shootin' the tube. As the bass gts bigger, the hi-hat clips first).

As there is a very limited bandwidth in a radio broadcast, more detail is put into the midrange and top end... The bass is sacrificed to fit it in. It'd get EQd out anyway! Then extreme compression is applied. This brings up the detail, so you can hear it through the low quality signal... And feel the 'power' of the top frequencies of the bass sound. Pop bass always has as many mid range and high end harmonics as possible.

As most of the money in the pop/commercial market is spun from sales based on radio and TV playlists, commercial mixes are assembled for radio and not much thought is given to the home listening experience. (Why bother? They've already purchased the product!) Thus you get the bass-light, heavily compressed, 'IN YOUR F*CKING FACE' production style we all know and despise.

Of course you could argue that most dance music uses *bass*-heavy, heavily compressed 'IN YOUR F*CKING FACE' production... But at least the thought, care and attention has gone into making it sound good where it'll be heard most. (I guess this is the same for radio mixes after all... I doubt people really listen much to singles after they buy them).

Maybe peole making dance music now are learning traditional techniques first? Or maybe all the top-heavy stuff is written by people who want to make money from the commercial market.

The previous mail about project studios is telling. It's almost impossible to get the sub bass region right in a home/project set-up - you need a BIG room and properly set up monitors. AND good sound damping, reflection management and sound isolation. Otherwise the bass waves don't have room to develop! Or they opverlap themselves and cancel out in odd ways, giving you a false impression of the sound. Don't get sub speakers in small rooms guys! ;) Simply leave the bass area you can't hear (anything below 40Hz, give or take) for the mastering stage in a big studio. And do a hi-pass filter on all sounds you don't want in there. Like hats and vocals.

T*

[Ritzi Lee]

Well most of the commercial stuff is mastered & processed digitally..
Just take such a track, and import it into Wavelab or Soundforge. Check out the wave patterns and the frequency spectrum by Fast Fourier Transform. You will see instantly that there is something wrong..

The wavepatterns are so compressed and finallized that the maximum of the tops are cut-off. There are no more nice wavy soundlandscapes. Meaning the normal sinus / cosinus patterns. They just pushed it to far to let the music sound hard.

Question: Are we dealing with a bad situation over here? Well it's probably something we (read consumer and record companies) wan't, so we get it!! But should we accept this?

[Ritzi Lee]

So when you have a track mixed off properly, it still can be ruined by the mastering. Especially when it's done digitally.

[Basil Rush]

Dunno, i've got some stuff I hard limited, i don't do it for vinyl like that but sometimes when it's going on a CD for home listening, just so it isn't quieter than anything else, and if you look at it in a wave editor it looks well processed but does remarkably sound alright. Not quite as nice as the unlimited version but nice.

Anyway here's another thing, I've noticed that some of what I'm doing is generating a lot of sub 0-40hz energy and wacking an expensive filter on the master outputs (or the kick and the bass seperately) before the compressor gets me a punchier mix.

Do we think anyone or any rig anywhere is going to care that those frequencies aren't anywhere in the mix. My gut reaction is no ...

[djTequila]

Anyway here's another thing, I've noticed that some of what I'm doing is generating a lot of sub 0-40hz energy and wacking an expensive filter on the master outputs (or the kick and the bass seperately) before the compressor gets me a punchier mix.

Do we think anyone or any rig anywhere is going to care that those frequencies aren't anywhere in the mix. My gut reaction is no ...

You'd be right... In fact, they'll be liking the fact that their speakers don't fray and rip when they crank it up! Also, you'll get more power in your vinyl mixes, and more headroom for mids and highs. (Hence 'punchier' tracks).

By the way, limiting to get the volume as high as other releases on vinyl is a good thing to do. As a DJ, I often rely on the VU meter to match volumes... 'badly' produced music (or simply quieter music) will lack a lot of energy in this context! Not good for the DJ, crowd or producer (in the long run).

Try removing big peaks by hand, then using gentle compression with the threshold set very low to get a tighter mix without too much distortion.

T*

[Jimfish]

I think the main reason we are getting so many records sounding like this is cos a lot of the main producers dont actually have musch technical abilty/give a flying **** about the sound... sad but true.
The of course there are the ones who, being big djs/producers automaticly assume thier way is correct cos they are so in love with themselves.

[Basil Rush]

VU measuring average volume you'd have thought it would be similar?

[djTequila]

VU measuring average volume you'd have thought it would be similar?

If the VU meter treated dynamics in EXACTLY the same way as your ears, yes. In reality, I've had *big* problems with unmastered stuff.

VU is a fudge... To give an impression of the technical details of the signal you're working on. It seems to have been optimised for analogue work, where peaks dipping into your headroom are dealt with in a warm, sweet way by amps and recording media... And a small amount of overdriving can sound lovely. To work out how things sound in a mix, engineers are expected to use... Well, their ears!

Experiment with unlimited and heavily limited signals at the same average dBVU.

T*

[Basil Rush]

I'll take your word on that one for now. Question is now though do the meters on my DJ mixer represent VU or not ... (really this might just be getting to anal even for me now though ... but somehow I feel compelled to find out)

[Basil Rush]

Here's another thought on this balance issue, what tracks sound best on a rig, there's usually a track that someone drops (or an entire set when you've got a bright spark for a dj) that sounds an order of magnitude better than everything before it.

My clubbing is mostly done in a confused haze but somehow I know that a Nukleuz track called Instrumental sounds bloody amazing at the Fridge down in Brixton, as does Mauro Picotto's Awesome (my copy of which seems to have gone mysteriously missing, those bastard record pixies messing my records up again!) and First Strike by Signum.

The top end sounds sweet on all these and the bottom end works in wonderful ways ... so when I'm working on styles that could be DJ'd with these tunes I balance so they mix well together.

Any other suggestions ?

[djTequila]

I'll take your word on that one for now. Question is now though do the meters on my DJ mixer represent VU or not ... (really this might just be getting to anal even for me now though ... but somehow I feel compelled to find out)

Good question. In general, I think analogue gear uses dBVU (Volume Unit) unless otherwise stated (like a PPM {Peak Programme Meter} for recording programme material to digital storage media). Digital equiment uses dBFS (Full Scale) to give a good (ish) idea if you're clipping.

Digital distortion is nasty. Analogue distortion is far more forgiving, and can be beneficial.

T*

[DJZeMig_L]

On the take of Basil's tip...

Has any1 ever really uses steinberg's FreeFilter??? ...

suposed 2 learn the eq. balance across 32 bands of what ever u feed and then do the same 4 yer track.. then u have a morphing percentage!


Z

[Ritzi Lee]

I think the main reason we are getting so many records sounding like this is cos a lot of the main producers dont actually have musch technical abilty/give a flying **** about the sound... sad but true.
The of course there are the ones who, being big djs/producers automaticly assume thier way is correct cos they are so in love with themselves.


yeah but can you call some DJ / producers who work with real sound engineers? I can't. Damn it would be a ****ing miracle if i can pay for one, or find a studio / label who has one for all artists.

[davethedrummer]

interesting stuff here
i think the "loudness" argument is the main rason for todays harsh top end
basically top end and mid range trnslate to the brain as percieved loudness
in a much more abrasive way than bass which needs to be ****ing loud (lot's of energy needed here) to shake the room enough.
and when you are listening to the radio in your car the music is eqed to give you a lot of top and mid range detail.
with a ton of compression although this is necessary to prevent the transmitter from blowing up mainly.
i think this has carried over into techno and now there jst seems to be a bit of an overload of top end going on.
i reckon this is because of the advent of so much cheap computer software
and people still trying to catch up to learn how to use it all.
most computer softwaer in itself sounds pretty "tinny" reason and batter being the worst i think.
erhaps this is one cause for todays music being "sharp"
but i tell you what i'm glad some of you agree ....phew i thought it was just me.

[Basil Rush]

dtd - Is that picture really you?

[massplanck]

On the take of Basil's tip...

Has any1 ever really uses steinberg's FreeFilter??? ...

suposed 2 learn the eq. balance across 32 bands of what ever u feed and then do the same 4 yer track.. then u have a morphing percentage!


Z

I have. Its sweet. Record in a few tunes from your fav producer or ones which you like the sound of, caputure their eq settings , save em as presets and apply to your own tune as you like. I tend to use this more as a reference for how my tracks 'should' sound rather than letting freefilter do all the work. But yes its great bit of software....

/S

[DJZeMig_L]

nice 1... I have some trouble finding a reference as my tracks are a little errrr... diferent (politic.. correct 4 crapy :P ) so it's not easy 2 find some1 doing the same sound..

Z

[Jimfish]

ehhe... just stick a mic up to yer butthole next time u take a dump ZM!

thats what i do!

[DJZeMig_L]

Any recommendations in terms of brands, polar patterns, models... eheheh :P

Z