Re-adjusting volume on instruments playing on their own

[akarawd]

Say you've found decent settings for your mastering comp/limiter, nothing's squashed etc yet when an instrument plays on their own (say intro riff), it's naturally being clamped by the limiter and it sounds as loud as the rest of the band and volume readjustment is necessary. How many of you do that ? Or do you identify that as bad mixing/mastering ?

Thanks in advance,
akarawd

 

[GarethSE]

I identify that as bad mastering at the very least.

 

[if6was9]

Yeah, when I've mixed stuff where something plays on its own and everything else jumps in after a bar or whatever. the mastering either by myself or when done by somewone else just made it hit even harder when everything came in without having to make any adjustments for that section. I'd imagine that the level should drop enough for it to drop below the threshold that someone would use. If the limiter is catching it I'd either say the part by itself is too loud, or that the threshold on the limiter is too low

 

[John_C]

Lamb of God - Sacrament

it's so damned obvious whenever the guitars are on their own.

If it bothers you, it's nothing a bit of automation can't fix

 

[akarawd]

Thanks for all the responses. It's good to know others have that too. I stripped down my mix and found out that what caused it was carelessness. You know, when we've worked out every bit of the mastering & mixing stage we tend to work fast and sometimes oversee certain things. I was using fairly moderate settings on my mastering comp&lim (long knee&release) and apparently kept raising levels in the mix without getting any distortion until I bumped into this "effect". Took off all mastering plugs, mixed properly by keeping dynamics at bay within the mix and was good to go with a comp&lim on the master. I'm definitely getting a 2nd monitor for my mastering meters etc 'cause I hated the long forgotten feeling of being "lost'.

Thanks again guys, I'm definitely checking out "Sacrament" again.

Regards,
akarawd

 

[Morgan C]

Yeah its pretty much on most loud albums. The compressor pumps the volume up (esp on guitars) and then they start hitting the clipper/limiter and you can hear distortion. Or are you not talking about distortion, but just the overall sound not lowering in volume when instruments drop out? In which case that's pretty much on most loud albums also.

 

[GarethSE]

Wrath is even more hardcore for the really loud soloed guitar parts
That album sounds like a fucking square wave, ugh

Planetary Duality's pretty fucking horrible as well. You can hear the compression clamping down on anything threatening to be even remotely dynamic and making all the soft parts really fucking loud. Totally kills it.

 

[akarawd]

Yeah its pretty much on most loud albums. The compressor pumps the volume up (esp on guitars) and then they start hitting the clipper/limiter and you can hear distortion. Or are you not talking about distortion, but just the overall sound not lowering in volume when instruments drop out? In which case that's pretty much on most loud albums also.

Yeap, that's the case. And it's not that we're lazy and don't want to automate, it's just that it kills your ego and workflow when you have this slamming full band part and then comes this great acoustic riff and it sounds louder than the rest of it. Feels like what we'd been doing that far was somehow wrong or incomplete.

Wrath is even more hardcore for the really loud soloed guitar parts
That album sounds like a fucking square wave, ugh

Planetary Duality's pretty fucking horrible as well. You can hear the compression clamping down on anything threatening to be even remotely dynamic and making all the soft parts really fucking loud. Totally kills it.

Checking them out, I'm curious about how far gone things are. But you're 100% right when you say "even remotely dynamic", that's what 'caused it in my case too. It's a shame though, really.

 

[Morgan C]

Yeap, that's the case. And it's not that we're lazy and don't want to automate, it's just that it kills your ego and workflow when you have this slamming full band part and then comes this great acoustic riff and it sounds louder than the rest of it. Feels like what we'd been doing that far was somehow wrong or incomplete.

If you're talking about an acoustic break, vs. full band with distorted guitars n stuff, then just turn down the acoustic guitars?

Or just automate (either automate the guitars down, or make sure that when the band comes back in, EVERYTHING is edited to come in at the same spot. That helps an unbelievable amount. Make the kick come in a tiny bit before and cut the guitars/bass to come in just after it. Maybe even automate the kick's volume up a touch for that one hit too).

Anyway, I prefer no dynamics to too much dynamics. Listening to PT's new album on the bus.. the first song has a loud bit and then 30 seconds of stuff that, on a bus, you can't hear. So you turn it up and then when the loud stuff comes in its literally like 5x louder than the previous bit. Just pisses me off, you can either blow your ears out or not hear half the song.

 

[GarethSE]

If you're talking about an acoustic break, vs. full band with distorted guitars n stuff, then just turn down the acoustic guitars?

Or just automate (either automate the guitars down, or make sure that when the band comes back in, EVERYTHING is edited to come in at the same spot. That helps an unbelievable amount. Make the kick come in a tiny bit before and cut the guitars/bass to come in just after it. Maybe even automate the kick's volume up a touch for that one hit too).

Anyway, I prefer no dynamics to too much dynamics. Listening to PT's new album on the bus.. the first song has a loud bit and then 30 seconds of stuff that, on a bus, you can't hear. So you turn it up and then when the loud stuff comes in its literally like 5x louder than the previous bit. Just pisses me off, you can either blow your ears out or not hear half the song.

i have a kayo dot bootleg where the quiet parts are ridiculously quiet, so you turn the volume up so it's audible, then when the heavy bits kick in its stupidly fucking loud
i dont know how anyone could see that as a bad thing
it just means the heavy shit quite literally blows you away

thats what heaviness is about, a sense of contrast to the quiet parts. can't have heavy without soft, and you're complaining about someone milking it to its fullest extent?
i just don't get it man, sorry haha.

 

[akarawd]

So you turn it up and then when the loud stuff comes in its literally like 5x louder than the previous bit. Just pisses me off, you can either blow your ears out or not hear half the song.

I know what that feels like !

Thanks about the advice man, as I said in my 2nd post, more diligent mixing especially on the dynamics side cured the problem.

Cheers,
akarawd

 

[Morgan C]

i have a kayo dot bootleg where the quiet parts are ridiculously quiet, so you turn the volume up so it's audible, then when the heavy bits kick in its stupidly fucking loud
i dont know how anyone could see that as a bad thing
it just means the heavy shit quite literally blows you away

thats what heaviness is about, a sense of contrast to the quiet parts. can't have heavy without soft, and you're complaining about someone milking it to its fullest extent?
i just don't get it man, sorry haha.

Dynamics to a certain extent are good, but if you've got a raised noise floor or whatever (or your speakers are pretty much at max volume), then it means you can't hear the quiet bits AT ALL.

I'd rather no dynamics and hearing the music than a large range of dynamics but not be actually hearing anything, personally.

 

[Metaltastic]

I gotta +1 the dislike for too much dynamics, at least in remotely heavy music (meaning, not Kayo Dot ) - it's kind of a strange feeling, I dunno, but two examples I can think of off the top of my head that have really pronounced dynamics are the (overly IMO) extended break in Devin Townsend's "Solar Winds", and the beginning of Daath's "The Unbinding Truth" (this one is less noticeable unless you've been listening to the previous tracks on the album and then it kicks in), and both just leave me feeling really...uncomfortable, I suppose because I've gotten so used to the louder level (relatively speaking) so it just feels really wimpy and anemic at the lower level (Fletcher and Munson strike again ). I prefer "dynamics" from changes in instruments/song structure/whatever, rather than just level. And to be clear, I don't mind softer-mastered albums, of course, I just want all the levels to still pretty much be consistent!