- Aug 29, 2007
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What do you guys try to aim for in terms of Dynamic Range
- Thread starter ElektricEyez
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- Aug 29, 2007
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RaNk
Member
- Mar 28, 2010
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Depends on the music really, but usually I end up in the -11 to -13 dB range. I like that alot more than the -9dB (or even louder) that seems to be the 'industry standard' these days. I always come back to albums that are not pushed that far, to even leaving (louder) albums in my CD rack which I like the music from. Most loud productions sound like shit to me, there's always exceptions though.
schwinginbatman
It's shittay!
If the song is metal, I try to match the volume to In Malice's Wake's The Thrashening, it has a perfect volume for metal IMO. I use the TT-DR to measure dynamic range, when I master I aim for 6 or 7. When I mix it's regularly up in the 12-14 range.
waltz mastering
Member
most reliable tool is your ears because perceived loudness is different from what RMS readings tell you.
you could have two mixes, both the almost identical RMS but one can sound noticeably louder than the other if it has a lot going on in the 3-6k area, roughly.
at least that's my understanding.
you could have two mixes, both the almost identical RMS but one can sound noticeably louder than the other if it has a lot going on in the 3-6k area, roughly.
at least that's my understanding.
- Aug 29, 2007
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The reason I asked is because I was checking out that article from here, http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/en/our-aim regarding loudness wars. And with metal, a lot of times dynamics are pretty much leveled off. Not entirely, but in a lot of cases it is, like the kicks and snare almost have much of the same (or similar rather) velocity throughout an entire song.
I was recently playing around with the waves version track metering to see what my dynamic range is set to and it's about the 9 mark on much of my stuff. With all due respect our ears aren't as sensitive as these tools.
Anyway, I actually made 2 separate master tracks, one that was squashed and one that was more gentle on the limiting and compression (I used Paul Frindle's Dynamic Spectrum Mapper for this). I made one track with an RMS of about 8 and another with about 12 and then adjusted the fader of the one that had less dynamics to about the same peak level or volume for a fair comparison. The difference wasn't huge but it was there. On the more dynamic range track, the snare and kick weren't as "thin" sounding and there were some other artifacts that I couldn't quite place my finger on, but I didn't really feel that they were a so far apart as a deal maker.
Anyway, that's why I asked. Interesting that someone pointed out that its the upper frequencies that gave a song its dynamic "punch". Maybe that explains why Sneap once said (at least I thought I read that somewhere) he doesn't use any compression on the overheads, cymbals?
Anyway I think 8-10 DB of DR isn't too bad for metal? Anyone else care to comment on this? They say every 6 db sounds twice as loud. I personally think 3 DB DR is just squashing the hell out of a song and putting too much limiting distortion to be comfortable to listen to over long periods of time, but that's just me.
I was recently playing around with the waves version track metering to see what my dynamic range is set to and it's about the 9 mark on much of my stuff. With all due respect our ears aren't as sensitive as these tools.
Anyway, I actually made 2 separate master tracks, one that was squashed and one that was more gentle on the limiting and compression (I used Paul Frindle's Dynamic Spectrum Mapper for this). I made one track with an RMS of about 8 and another with about 12 and then adjusted the fader of the one that had less dynamics to about the same peak level or volume for a fair comparison. The difference wasn't huge but it was there. On the more dynamic range track, the snare and kick weren't as "thin" sounding and there were some other artifacts that I couldn't quite place my finger on, but I didn't really feel that they were a so far apart as a deal maker.
Anyway, that's why I asked. Interesting that someone pointed out that its the upper frequencies that gave a song its dynamic "punch". Maybe that explains why Sneap once said (at least I thought I read that somewhere) he doesn't use any compression on the overheads, cymbals?
Anyway I think 8-10 DB of DR isn't too bad for metal? Anyone else care to comment on this? They say every 6 db sounds twice as loud. I personally think 3 DB DR is just squashing the hell out of a song and putting too much limiting distortion to be comfortable to listen to over long periods of time, but that's just me.
schwinginbatman
It's shittay!
Yeah, that's what I use. It's mainly when I master though. I aim for about 6 or 7 when I master, that typically gives it enough room to breathe. That's the main problem with heavily squashed recordings: they don't breathe, like they've been pushed up against a ceiling. This can easily break a recording, I think. When I mastered differently before, and I had the limiter really going, things would go down as far as 3DR. Now that I use Ozone, I can keep an average of 6 or 7. When it comes to mixing though, as much as possible. I can easily get up to 12 without any processing in the master bus.
