mix RMS

[Zygomorph]

It doesn't work that way.

I'm sure that those who so desire will continue to use their frontal lobes whenever and however they like.

I honestly don't understand what the big deal is. I think it would be nicer if those of you who aren't so into this thread would stay out of it, instead of sullying it with unnecessary negativity.

[rhythm ranch]

It was not my intention to sully your thread. I was expressing the opinion that you may be over-thinking the process, which might be the reason that you are "almost positive that a lot of people would describe most of [your] mixes as sounding 'clinical.'"

Your sig says "better sound through soul." To me that connotes an spiritual/emotional connection - not an intellectual analysis - of sound.

I truly apologize if I offended you.

Let's all go make some music.

[blackdiscoball]

Let's all go make some music.

EXACTLY! Everyone is banned from posting on the board till they record at least one thing (record or mix, or something recording related) And your not allowed to think either, where all drummers for the day! (j/k Im in fact a drummer)

[leigh]

where all drummers for the day!

My thoughts exactly - where are all the drummers for the day?

[Zygomorph]

Your sig says "better sound through soul." To me that connotes an spiritual/emotional connection - not an intellectual analysis - of sound.

It is often said that our souls (or most anything existing in the world) consist of two complementary opposites united by love.

Sun Ra said:

I'm sittin in front of the White House, and I'm lookin across the street, and I don't see the Black House.

Welcome to the Black House of music, my friends: a necessary evil which will never fail to keep it from becoming merely decadent and debauched.

Ancient Greek music (which, whether or not you know it, serves as the germ of our current conception of music, not to mention our rational worldview in general) knew this well: representing all that ruled over by Apollo, they used the plectrum instrument known as the kithara; and in all that ruled over by Dionysus, the aulous, a double-barreled reed instrument. Both of these gods, it should be noted, are sons of Zeus; and while it would be the passion of Dionysus who would dream of going to the moon, it is Apollo who would actually take us there.

I hope that it's clear that both are quite necessary. On the one hand, we have boozy rock musicians; and on the other we have cokey A&R reps. We have Jimi; we have the technology that made his sound at all manifest. And on and on.

[Zygomorph]

I was expressing the opinion that you may be over-thinking the process, which might be the reason that you are "almost positive that a lot of people would describe most of [your] mixes as sounding 'clinical.'"

There is no "over" or "under" thinking; there is an amount of thinking necessary to the task at hand. If I've made "clinical" sounding mixes, it's because 1) i'm naturally a conduit for that sort of quality, 2) the music calls for it, and (more metaphysically) 3) I am intuitively counterbalancing popular trends in the aesthetics of audio engineering.

Clearly! This thread seems to indicate that I must be a black sheep of some sort, which I honestly hadn't intended for it to be.

Oh well!

By all means, go and make music however you will and with the utmost integrity.

Can we stop making this about me now?

[Brett Siler]

sshhhhh... it's ok... relax... Take a deep breath... Hold it... Now exhale. Ah that feels good.

It really does not have to be as complicated as you are making it. Personally I don't even know what this thread is about anymore, first we're talking about 0dbVU and pushing air out of speakers at 85-90db, then magic, then John Cage comes in, then parallel compression, somehow Greek mythology got throw in the mix, the Sun Ra ... wooo! Slow down.
When you are mixing a song or getting levels you don't have go through the whole history of music. It can literally be as easy as picking up any ol' microphone, putting it in front of any ol' sound source, listening, and recording it on any ol' medium.

Then again I am a simpleton...

[Zygomorph]

It really does not have to be as complicated as you are making it.

I really does not have to be as simple as you are making it.

But then again I am who I am.

/end contrariness.

In fact, John Cage and Sun Ra only came in as responses to posts that were also not clearly on topic. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I think they were fine illustrations of points that have the precision of a beach ball (whose center is nowhere).

Historically, almost any time I bring up anything I care about on this board, it is met with some sort of bizarre debate that has to do with me, rather than the topic. If you have a problem with me, that's for a private exchange. If you have a problem with my ideas (or ideas in general), then that's a matter for polite (if heated) discussion which assumes that you have attempted to understand ideas with as much good faith as they have been expressed.

So with that, I will no longer be responding in this thread to what seems to be unsolicited personal advice, however well-intended it may seem. If any of you care to talk about your strategies for handling mix dynamics anymore, then by all means. If not, then please don't talk about your perceptions of my character instead?that's known as "fan mail" and is best done in the form of PM's.

[/i]

[leigh]

Historically, almost any time I bring up anything I care about on this board, it is met with some sort of bizarre debate that has to do with me, rather than the topic.

From the initial post of this thread:

I also ask all of these things of you all because I wonder, because I am weaned mostly upon live classic music, if I require of my mixes a greater range of dynamics to excite or surprise me than a person who listens mainly to recorded music—wherein I postulate that...

[Nick Sevilla]

I think you are lost in the numbers. The music, it does not know what it is, how loud it is, or what you think of it. The music, it simply is. Listeners will react according to the music, not how loud it is. Any deviation from this simple truth will send you spiraling into an abyss of uncertainty, which in the end will cause the demise of the Music.

I just about categorically disagree upon every one of these points.

No hard feelings though!

After reading more of your posts... There is a fundamental difference in what your question asks... and the answer you desire.

One day, the two shall meet, I hope you don't miss it.

Cheers

[blackdiscoball]

blackdiscoball wrote:
where all drummers for the day!


My thoughts exactly - where are all the drummers for the day?

I think your making fun of my awful spelling?

[ashcat_lt]

I have never sat in front of a pair of speakers with an SPL meter. I have one around somewhere... I mix to make things sound and feel right. I shoot to keep the bulk of the material out of the noise floor but no so loud as to clip anything I don't want clipped.

That said, I find the basic question of the OP interesting.

In the interest of science, and satisfying my own curiosity, I sat down tonight with a 40 oz and soundforge, and compiled the following list of "calibration readings" from my listening library (until I realized it was an absurd amount of mostly random numbers...) Most of this comes from .mp3's and .wma's, but should still give us an okay ballpark.

You ready?

Okay:

Acetone - Sundown
overall: 0dbfs peak, -13.4dbfs RMS
verse1: -1.5 peak, -17.4 RMS
chorus1: 0, -10.3

Fatboy Slim feat. Macy Gray - Demons
overall: 0, -13.4
intro: -1.6, -16
most: 0, -13.0

Godflesh - Baby Blue Eyes
overall: 0, -15
verse1: 0, -15
chorus1: -0.4, -14.1

Morphine - you speak my language
overall: 0, -16.5
verse1: -2.7, -19.4
chorus1: 0, -15.1

Nirvana - Lithium
overall: 0, -15.6
verse1: -0.5, -20.6
chorus1: 0, -14
verse2: 0, -17.7

Retribution Gospel Choir - Somebody's Someone
overall: 0, -15.2
verse1: 0, -15.1
breakdown: -0.1, -17.7
verse2: 0, -14.3

Madonna - Burning Up
overall: -0.1, -18.7
Verse1: -0.7, -18.5
chorus1: -1.2, -18.0

Dinosaur Jr - I live for that Look
overall: -0.4, -17
most: -0.4, -17
loud soloing part at the end: -0.8, -15.4

Echobelly - Wired on
overall: 0, -11.9
Chorus1: 0, -11.8
verse1: 0, -12.2

Boys Next Door - Shivers
overall: -1, -21.1
verse1: -1.6, -22.6
chorus2: -1.8, -19.4

ABBA - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
overall: 0, -19.5
verse1: -1.7, -19.6
chorus1: 0, -18


AC/DC - High Voltage
overall: 0, -16.4
verse1: -0.6, -17.1
chorus1: 0, -15.5

Cure - 10:15
overall: -2, -23
quiet part2: -13.5, -33.3
verse2: -2.3, -22.4
loud solo part toward the end: -2.6, -19.2

Hole - Violet
verse1: 0, -12.7
chorus1: 0, -10

Johnny Cash - Rusty Cage
overall: 0, -12.1
verse1: 0, -13.6
chorus1: 0, -12.2
verse2: 0, -11.8
chorus2: 0, -10.9
second half: 0, -10.8

Low - I am the Lamb
overall: 0, -17.8
quiet part at the beginning: -6.6, -26.2
loud part in the middle: 0, -12.7

Pixies - I Bleed
overall:
verse1: -5.7, -21.7
chorus1: -2.6, -18.4

Creedence - Down on the Corner
overall: -4.2, -23.4
verse1: -5.5, -23.9
chorus1: -4.6, -21.1

Neil Young - Out on the Weekend
overall: -1.1, -24.7
verse1: -2.6, -25.2
chorus1: -3, -23.6

I'll get you some readings from my own mixes in a bit.

[vvv]

Excellent!

And at what RMS did you drink the 40 oz.?

(I refuse to ask about the Madonna and ABBA; I just do. )

[ashcat_lt]

I could go on for days about Madonna. For the purposes of this discussion, let's just say those two songs are fairly high-budget productions with which most of us are likely familiar. You've heard them, whether you wanted to or not.

But the OP asked "what do you do?" So, this pile of "science" is served up with a nice helping of Spam. It's a selection of some of my favorite Lorenzo's Tractor mixes. We talked about "making demands of the listener." Well, I think you'll be able to tell that none of these recordings ever expected to appeal to the masses. Let's try to keep in depth mix citiques out of this thread. I'd be happy to hear your opinions via PM or (better yet) in a thread on one of the Use Your Ears boards.

sinful (5.4M .mp3)
overall: -0.5, -17
noise intro: -5.4, -16.5
verse1: -8.2, -21.1
chorus1: -1.3, -16.1
verse2: -5.9, -19.5
chorus2/out: -0.5, -15.7

gossamer wings (from the moment...) (7.4M .mp3)
overall: 0, -14.2
verse1: 0, -13.3
"chorus"1: 0, -12.8

dream girls (3.3M .mp3)
overall: 0, -13.9
verse1: 0, -13.6
chorus1: 0, -12.4

The next two are included because they were mixed in such a way that they intentionally run out headroom. They tend to make people cringe and jump for their attenuators. In doing this test, I found it interesting how loud the end of Never Sleep isn't! Anyway, you're warned.

never sleep (2.9M .mp3)
overall: 0, -16.2
a section: -3.2, -18.4
b section (first two reps): -0.7, -14.4
b section (next two reps): 0, -13.8
b section (final rep after noise takes over): 0, -13

wrong turn at albuquerque (30M .mp3)
overall: -1.3, -16.1
guitar section: -1.3, -17.4
breakdown: -6.7, -23.3
ambient section: -4.6, -14.6
feedback at the end: -2.9, -9.5

[@?,*???&?]

OdbVU is a dark place never to be visited.