Does anyone else think that compression is WAY overused nowadays?

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shred101

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Nov 26, 2009
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Few weeks ago went to record drums at a local studio and we had to actually go back and do the session again because the dick had compressed the shit out of everything and there were no transients left on the snare. Flat as a pancake! Cost us as much in transport as the studio itself did. Eventually we just asked for a refund and left it at that because we couldnt be assed.
After that I went on a local band demo crawl looking for a good place to go to do some live drums (as I'm mixing in a room at home atm) and came up almost empty because most of them were pretty dire. The main thing I notice is that on a lot of semipro bands/studio recordings (and even some pro places) that everyone seems to just chuck compression all over the place regardless of whether anything even needs it or not so im just curious if anyone else is thinking the same thing.
 
So your point is there are a lot of retards out there who run "studios" that slap compression on everything and have no idea how to use it? Stop the presses :Spin: Like sweep picking, tapping, and sample replacement, compression has its place, but can very easily be overdone
 
I think things are more over compressed these days more than over used. But I guess they could be considered one in the same.
 
AerialThesis said:
Dynamics are part of the music itself, and reducing them only for level purposes is completely stupid
Click to expand...

Some music is meant to be full bore all the way though.
I can't picture many technical death metal albums having heaps of variation in loudness
 
Your issue seems to be more with poor use of compression rather than over-use. Anyone that over-does fast-attack style compression on the way down with drums is asking for a career change.

On the broader issue, I find dynamics are vastly over-rated. Unless you're sitting in a hall with an orchestra you really don't get to feel the full impact of decibel swings on home systems. Most of the time you don't want to. Usually you're riding a very sweet spot of 'loud enough to be heard over ambient household noise' and 'not too loud as to piss off others'. Dynamics fuck you here, repeatedly, mercilessly. I HATE having to reach for my volume knob during music or movies. Dynamics can be approximated with density, and the overall dynamic range does NOT have to be huge in order to be effective.

Music like rock and metal largely doesn't benefit from much dynamic range whatsoever. In fact it conversely seems to benefit from being squashed, so that the nuances of the performance, reverb etc. are enhanced and sensationalized. It makes for a more titillating listening experience, provided the limiting/clipping isn't overdone.

I'm probably in the minority with this viewpoint in the current underground rage against the so-called 'loudness wars'. Just bear in mind it's this over-compression that is allowing genres like metal to sound better than some guy shitting into a paper bag. Control of dynamics and envelopes is a powerful thing. Over-use is just poor use. Experienced operators will get what they want from it, and enhance the source material as a result.
 
While I agree that dynamics aren't really a key element for many styles of metal when you're basically trying to maximize and sustain impact, I also think it has gone too far... way to far.

There's always that trade-off between "hugeness" and "fatigue". Take the latest AIC record as an example: Staub's mix is incredibly huge but I have a hard time to really enjoy it because the final product is so fatiguing.

And that's a rock record. It's way worse with many modern metal records. Take "Beneath The Massacre" as an example: I have to turn that stuff off after a few seconds, I simply cannot stand this constant sonic assault any more.

For me personally, metal productions reached their pinnacle in the early to mid nineties (generally speaking - there are exceptions of course), when there was a good balance of everything.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Ermz said:
On the broader issue, I find dynamics are vastly over-rated. Unless you're sitting in a hall with an orchestra you really don't get to feel the full impact of decibel swings on home systems. Most of the time you don't want to. Usually you're riding a very sweet spot of 'loud enough to be heard over ambient household noise' and 'not too loud as to piss off others'. Dynamics fuck you here, repeatedly, mercilessly. I HATE having to reach for my volume knob during music or movies. Dynamics can be approximated with density, and the overall dynamic range does NOT have to be huge in order to be effective.

Music like rock and metal largely doesn't benefit from much dynamic range whatsoever. In fact it conversely seems to benefit from being squashed, so that the nuances of the performance, reverb etc. are enhanced and sensationalized. It makes for a more titillating listening experience, provided the limiting/clipping isn't overdone.

I'm probably in the minority with this viewpoint in the current underground rage against the so-called 'loudness wars'. Just bear in mind it's this over-compression that is allowing genres like metal to sound better than some guy shitting into a paper bag. Control of dynamics and envelopes is a powerful thing. Over-use is just poor use. Experienced operators will get what they want from it, and enhance the source material as a result.
Click to expand...

Yessss. Totally agree.
 
theres defiantly a sweet spot. some people do over do it. I love spanking things so they fit in the mix if they have a wide dynamic range, but i won't compress stuff that doesnt need it.
 
Dynamics really depend on the genre. As stated before, A tech DM band doesnt need dynamics, their hard hitting the whole entire time. However for classical music, only a slight amount of compression. 50% of classical music is dynamics. Lately ive been listening to some brahms and mahler and they both need the dynamics. I dont mind pumping up my volume knob a tad. However, that aside, part of the metal "sound" is compression. Im not tettering to one side or the other in the loudness war. I think some stuff benefits from being squashed and balls out, while others require the subleties of dynamics.
 
+1 to Ermz post. I love compressing things a lot, and i am getting more extreme with time when using compression. However, one should know when to stop it or it may sound fatiguing like AIC´s or Daughtry´s new one (the latter sounds terrible, it sounds almost like a sine wave heeheh). No compression at all may also sound awesome when used correctly. Latest Mariah Carey single (that one with the finger clapping noise - or whatever is is called in english) has almost no compression on the voice and her voice sounds awesome. So, it depends on the good judgment and ear of the AE.
 
I agree with Ermz for the most part. Why they're compressing your drums so hard to tape is beyond me. Find a studio/ engineer who knows how to record a live drumset for rock/ metal. You may have to dish out a little more cash for the experienced guys, but it will be worth it - trust me.

Regarding dynamics as a whole, I wish more bands would incorporate dynamic shifts in their songwriting. Opeth comes to mind as a modern metal band that relies HEAVILY on dynamics to create mood swings and interesting changes in their music. Watershed is one of the most dynamic metal recordings I've ever heard. BUT, it's music you have to pay attention to. When you're driving on the freeway jamming out, sometimes the acoustic guitar parts will go away under the background noise. But when listening on a decent system in a good environment, it provides impact and depth. You just have to find the happy medium...
 
I wonder if it makes me deaf that records like Planetary Duality by The Faceless and Black Gives Way To Blue by Alice in Chains don't sound fatiguing at all to me lol.
It sounds like music to me. Yes the latest AIC is loud, but the mix is fanfuckingtastic and so is the music and I'll listen to that album again and again and again.
For a while I was totally "MAN TEH LOUDNESZ WARZ R BAD" but then I actually started getting into this kind of stuff we do here at the Sneap forum and realized I was full of shit and I knew nothing. And indeed I still have a lot to learn.
Using buckets of compression was a big step in helping to make the low end in my mixes more defined than they used to be, because of instead of having a flubby turd of mess.
There is only so much EQ can do, how much good playing can do and good gear can do before I needed to reach for the multiband compression, compression and limiting.
Instead of just EQ-ing out frequencies that played foul with my mix in the low end, I could just compress the shit out of it, which meant I could keep that fuller low end since I no longer needed to EQ out as much offending frequencies, which translated into a bigger sounding mix overall without it sounding muddy.

I want dynamics? I'll just automate them back in after I've compressed the stuff (or in the case of guitars, they are usually compressed due to the gain so I don't add more compression, but yeah can automate sections to make them quieter).
I think Isis, Paramore and Katatonia are examples of modern artists who still have some dynamics in their music so when it goes from certain sections it kicks you in the ass, but it's not so excessive that you need to reach for the volume knob/turn down the volume in iTunes, which really fucking annoys me having to do that.
Some music calls for more dynamics than others, and that's a good thing because I like contrast.
I like being able to listen to classical music, then a moderately dynamic record like Night Is the New Day and then put on a full bore album like At The Drive In's Relationship of Command or Rust In Peace
 
Bad compression - yes. That's why your snare track would have sounded terrible. For me, I might have 5 snare tracks - top, bottom and 3 samples. I'll compress any that I think need compression, then they get bussed to the snare bus. More compression. Then the snare bus goes to a kick/snare bus. More compression. Then to a drum bus. More compression. If you get your compression right at every stage then your drums are going to be smacking you in the face and will need minimal EQ - mud cutting at the most.
 
Do it like me: make a CD version with barely any compression limiting and a download/iPod & club version that is squashed to death. It doesn't need that much extra effort and it'll work like a charm.

BTW: since October 2008 I haven't received ONE complaint that my album "FH3" is not loud enough. It shifts between -15db RMS and -11db RMS and nobody even notices. The download versions for this were much louder to avoid the "all songs need to be the same volume in my iPod or I'll freak out in a fuckin' rage"-problem. I wonder though if ya'll stopped listening to your favorite albums from 1994 on your iPod or in your cars? Cause I really don't see this as big problem for non-AE folk either :)
 
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