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At 4/17/11 11:44 AM, RawGreen wrote: But it sounds like I'm neck deep in sh*t just because of this.

Wait, why are you neck deep in sh*t? What's this internet troll going to do? You had the name first (which is shown by your sign on date) and you can only trademark names which then is only enforacable if you have a business model selling an actual product or service (and then, only in North America of course). If you're not actually selling physical cds with his name (which he'd have to trademark and also be selling physical products or services with) then there is nothing this asshat can do. Tell him to suck one and die.

At 4/17/11 12:35 AM, Envy wrote: He's like the mozart of our generation. His words ring true to the heart.

Didn't Lil' Wayne write like "Ode to Joy" or something?

The M-Audio buddy is probably the cheapest, quietest and cleanest sounding 2-channel preamp on the market. I had one and they are just superb sounding for any application.

http://backstage.musiciansfriend.com/pro ductDetail/productDetail.jsp?src=3WFRWXX &entProductId=701104

One of those, A lexicon alpha and some nady sp-1s and you're good to go for extremely low-noise quality recording on the cheap.

At 4/12/11 11:21 AM, 066pop wrote: Donate blood. Buy cheap, own brand beer. Drink quickly.

LOL, yeah - that's a really bad idea.

At 4/14/11 11:07 PM, Glib wrote: hey, yeah just send me 500 dollars to my address and i will make u a soundtrack
ps. dont fuck this up

someone make this guy a mod immediately

At 4/14/11 11:32 PM, Glib wrote: hello, here is my resume:

recorder virtuoso
good at the stylophone
speaks hungarian
has reason 2.5 demo

lol, i like you already

xKore, Envy, Rig, Zirconmusic, Bjra, Waterflame

At 4/12/11 07:41 PM, Chris-V2 wrote: There's also non linear elements to tube distortion and audio transformers that distorts the curve of the wave as well as the peak, but the myth-science ratio gets pretty bad once you start talking about this. Needless to say you'd be a millionaire by now if you could recreate the effects an audio transformer has accurately on a peice of music.

UAD and Softube plugins are specifically modeled after non-linear circuit component behaviour properties. It does quite a fine job of this and some would say it does come 99% of the way there. But, then - they are also making very good money on their products.

Guitar pedals and other forms of distortion use filtering to remove the intermodular distortion effects (thing of this as frequency

This is the reason many people feel limiters take away some of the "punch" of the material. Often, less effective limiters rely on filtering to remove the potential high-frequency artifacts.

Not to mention few distortion units or effects will drive your signal as mercilessly clipped as a digital systems clipping will. It's not a fair comparison at all. That said, I have used digital distortion as an effect and heard it used also. Sometimes horrible is good, you know?

Bingo. Sound is sound. There is no "bad". There is no "good". Only creativity and what people like and dislike.

But really, we're here to talk limiters. If people want to use super high ratios, that's fine. In Dance Music that's encouraged (and if you're using synths which output fairly undynamic wave forms why the hell not?). I think it crushes the hell out of sounds and while it sounds good at first it gets fatigueing, sometimes before the end of a song.

+1

I don't feel I need rules of thumb but if I keep away from the red line and I can keep things sounding glued without removing the performance from the music then I will. But then I beleive in live recording too. It's a complex workflow/artistic/commercial/cultural issue, we wont solve it now. Go make music, people.

Likewise, +1

At 4/12/11 06:10 PM, Rottenbeard wrote: I can assure you that most professionally produced music DOES have audible clipping distortion. Hence the reason there even IS a loudness war.

I dunno about this... I can think of a couple very specific cases where I remember hearing some specific intermodulation distortion (high-frequency artifacts) due to overdriven levels (Evanescence's "Bring Me to Life" is one of the worst and I have no clue what the hell the mix engineer was thinking there, the only other specifically I can even think of was a live recording of Josh Groban where some of the hits were obviously "distorted sounding"). I can likewise assure you that I have some very expensive gear and reference system equipment that does allow me to hear any supposedly audible "clipping distortion" that may be on a track. Honestly, I have really heard very few tracks where the distortion from clipped transients is very obvious at all. Maybe you can give me a couple examples in particular of what you're referring to here so others can take a listen and see? I know there are some with very fine systems here (I've got a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-770 pros that I use to double-check for low-level issues in mixes).

Just because a professional engineer produces clipped music doesn't mean he doesn't notice it. In most cases, they are at the whims of the client who want the music to be louder than the next guys. The engineer simply does as he's told, even if he disagrees.

Depends on the engineer. There are puuh-lenty of engineers that won't even bother to deal with rap because of the issue you're referring to in terms of pressure to push levels.

Talk with any mastering engineer and they will tell you this is the case. They are routinely pushed to produce music that is too loud. Also keep in mind im not arguing against high compression, that's a style choice, i'm talking about clipping distortion for the sake of loudness.

OK. First, limiting is just high-ratio compression. Second, most engineers who know what they are doing will not just start initially using clipping to boost levels. That's what tape-saturation/distortion/warmth plugins like Cranesong stuff or PSP Vintage Warmer is for. If the engineer at the desk is stupid I guess he would initially start clipping the hell out of individual tracks/instruments but that only means he has no clue what he is doing. Hence, good engineer = no "clipping" distortion, except in really extreme cases with certain program material.

Please don't tell me you're comparing digital clipping distortion to even order harmonic distortion produced by tubes and pedals? The difference is really quite clear. One sounds awful, the other is pleasing to the ear? There's a very LARGE difference. There is absolutely nothing wrong with distortion. There IS something very irritating (to me) about digital clipping distortion.

Why do you keep talking about clipping? I'm talking about limiting. A limiter is very different from a clipper. I never remember recommending using clippers for extra gain. I remember recommending using a good transparent limiter within the realm of sanity that makes use of adding harmonics/saturation using intelligently programmed adaptive algorithms to keep a sense of "punch" while managing peaks. That to me makes a lot of sense. I don't know many mastering engineers that rely on digital clipping of say the Sonnox limiter, which is worlds better.

Anyways, maybe you should tell this guy that clipping distortion is actually "bad" and not to be enjoyed in any case or scenario:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Add-Diod e-Clipping-Distortion-to-your-Guitar-Amp /

Also please don't mis-understand me. I have no problem with limiting and compression, I believe them to be useful. My issue is with EXCESSIVE limiting when in reality, it's completely unnecessary. What real world benefit do you get from making your music 3dB louder than someone elses unless you're trying to sell records? All you're doing is damaging the music. I just don't really see the rationale behind it :(

Excessive limiting = excessive compression... same thing. Likewise, I haven't heard Metallica's Death Magnetic album but I'm sure I probably wouldn't like it. You can overdo anything though - eq, compression, reverb, cowbell. You don't see me standing on a street corner and railing against people using excessive synth toms riffs in their music though.

For the record:

I'm not saying it can't be overdone, of course it can. I am saying skillfully applied limiting and clipping is inaudible when the processors are very high-quality and reference system used for mixing is accurate enough. Loud is loud, soft is soft - neither is inherently "correct". They are all legitimate ways of creating music which is why people purchase both types. I would not want to listen to a dance song with huge sweeps in dynamics. It wouldn't be a dance song.

At 4/10/11 09:55 PM, Rottenbeard wrote: Not to disagree with you joshunsaker as you have a good understanding of compressors, but you ask why square waves are bad.. Well, it's because it's a very unnatural type of distortion that, to my ears and im sure many others, never sounds good on anything, ever. It's been proven that it's not healthy to listen to, and it can cause headaches and ear fatigue for many people.

Square waves are not distortion. Square waves are square waves. Square waves compared to waves that aren't square waves can be seen as a "distortion" of the signal but only in the classic sense that "distorting" something means turning it into anything that's not exactly the original. Therefore, applying any effect (including light compression or reverb) is distortion. There are more specific types of distortion that narrow that down but then, you've only referenced "distortion".

Maybe clipping distortion in main stream music doesn't bother you. Fair enough, we're all different, but for many people, it ruins otherwise completely good music, THIS is why there's such a backlash with many people on how hot music has become.

The only issue is only if clipping distortion can be heard, and I assure you - some of the best ears of all time use limiters and high-ratio compression to very good effect and enjoy doing so. Saying otherwise is simply, well - wrong.

I never used to notice clipping distortion when I was younger, but the more i've gotten into music production over the years, and the more i've trained my ears (as well as the more my equipment has improved) the more i've noticed hard limiting in music, to the point that now, I can't even listen to half of my favorite records anymore unless i'm using a cheap set of headphones where the distortion isn't as noticeable, and.. well, that just isn't right.

A really good limiter is inaudible. Transients below a certain length are inaudible (when comparing a clipped sample vs. non-clipped). That's very easily tested and shown to be the case.

IMO, there's no good reason to push music beyond -10 DBFS RMS. Beyond this point, all you're doing is reducing punch, killing whatever transients are left, and introducing distortion that is almost never pleasurable to listen to.

Unless it's dance music. Why is all "distortion" bad to you? Have you ever heard an electric guitar before? What do you call that? Smooth creamy-dynamic tube-warmth butter? Distortion is bad eh? FX pedals = bad? Devil-lok plugin = bad? Izotope Trash = bad? Ok, I guess if you say so.

For the record, I can't even listen to 80% of the music on new grounds because it's so over compressed!

That's because it's badly applied compression done by people listening on skull candy headphones and built-in interfaces. Of course it's going to sound like nonsense 80% of the time if that's your mix environment.

I think the issue is that more people are now making music than actually listening to it. Not really a bad thing but then here's a natural consequence of that. So many people have gotten decent at throwing together songs that the balance has shifted from a place where people can find music for flash movies and games to a place where everything someone has composed can be archived/dumped off because those are the only people using the AP by and large now.

At 4/12/11 12:30 AM, brokendeck wrote: I think maybe even return your video card, get a cheaper one, and use the saved money towards an audio card. The GTX 550 is an overpowered gaming card that you don't ever need if all you're doing is audio production. With a 2d interface, I doubt your card would even need 64-128 MB of video memory. I GB DDR3 is a bit ridiculous, not to mention the potentially future noisey video card fan. Those fancy graphics cards these days are horribly designed. They look like black bricks and they heat up like bricks too.

Not necessarily, being that's a CUDA-based NVIDIA card, he can likely run Reverberate LE CUDA edition instances on it and free a good bit of extra processing power. Decent graphics cards also go a long way in running a multiple monitor span without a hassle.

At 4/11/11 08:09 PM, sorohanro wrote: I love you. Platonic (I don't have a pink aura... yet).
First I was like... but I need a NVIDIA video card, then I got the CPU version and works perfect. It's the most awesome reverb at the moment.
Thanks.

Glad to help sir! XD

At 4/11/11 01:49 PM, TMM43 wrote: I feel like the built in audio interface on the mobo will do just fine for the time being.

At the very least get a Lexicon Alpha.

Reverberate LE

Yeah, you need DC Killer
http://www.tobybear.de/p_utilbag.html

That's the best DC eliminator I've found to date. Utterly effective, won't kill uber low frequencies (just DC). Use the "DC Blocker" algo.

At 4/10/11 09:13 PM, TMM43 wrote:

At 4/10/11 08:38 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: Wait, lol - why did you assemble outside the case??

I did benchmark tests. Basically, you assemble the processor, graphics card, and one memory card to the motherboard and hook it up to the power supply.
The only reason I did this is because it's my first time making a computer. By benchmarking it allows me to check to see what is working individually. So pretty much it allows me to make sure that each thing that I install, is working correctly.
That way if I put everything together and start it up, and it doesn't work, I don't have to unassembled everything and figure out whats wrong with it.

True true, I only ask because I know sometimes grounding issues come up when the motherboard is placed in a case that may prevent it from starting on occasion. I typically assemble inside a case to make sure the finished product does indeed work with no further tweaks.

Wait, lol - why did you assemble outside the case??

@Tome89

Here's a picture of me playing back your song "TkJ - Teklök5.snippet" with an intersample clipping meter active. Apparently... you've been limiting!! Oh the horror!! There were sqaure-waves EVERYWHERE. LOL

At 4/10/11 03:30 AM, Tome89 wrote: @joshhunsaker

Movies at least have range. Close up gunshots in Saving Private Ryan, for example, go from -6 to 0, while normal-level conversation is at around -18. Imagine everything hitting 0, and you can begin to grasp my grievance. Do you prefer the sound in the commercial breaks?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with managing dynamics, it's obviously a good thing to do, especially if its done with moderation and primarily on an element-individual level. I'm talking about listener-friendly dynamics versus no dynamics at all. What makes my blood curdle, ever since Mike Marsh fucked up Röyksopp, is the relentless -6> dBFS squashing of the final mix so common nowadays, all the elements crowding with no headroom like vacuum-packed salami. It's the aural equivalent of a size 12 dumbass squeezing herself into size 8 jeans. Everything is so loud, it's like a continuous torrent of static noise, and it's strenuous to listen to. Is it really energetic when the kick is what amounts to a hard-ass, crushed click followed by a static bass tone that immediately drowns in all the equally-loud "padding"?

When I listen to Kesha, it doesn't bother me. When I listen to dub-step, doesn't bother me. When I listen to drum'n'bass and decent hip-hop (as long as the high-hat cymbals aren't boosted to hell on the treble), doesn't bother me. You know, most of those are going to look like square-waves when you open them up in an editor/DAW. I'm not sure why that type of thing makes your blood curdle, I suppose if you really don't like songs with extensive master buss compression that look like square-waves then it's just a preference thing really. Cool. There are plenty of people in the world who like classical and jazz only and all that. More power to them. Telling someone "yur doing it wrong' is like telling hip-hop not to use grainy sounding low-bit samples triggered by an MPC. That's kinda part of the point of the music. It sounds like you don't like dance music, and/or dance music is infuriating to you. That's wonderful. If I hated dance music - I would likely never listen to it or go to clubs.

I mean, the music is flat on top, damnit. Flat?! why the hell does it need to be that? Is the ratio knob and the soft-knee toggle taboo? I would almost have understood it if it tipped off gradually or something, but this complete flattening has no excuse to offer. It really is about being the loudest bastard on the radio. It never was about good sound, it's about selling shit to unsophisticated imbeciles.

Well, now that we all know you have an ax to grind, would you like to explain why square-waves are inherently bad? To me, if I can't detect the distortion, then I can't detect the distortion. If I can hear distortion, then I can hear distortion. Compression to me actually sounds quite yummy if it's good compression (i.e. good dance music). People thought the same thing you are saying when guitar players started overdriving their tube amps. Most people thought it sounded "terrible" and "why would you turn your lovely dynamic plucking/strumming sound into a crunchy square-wave. Crazy huh? How the times have changed.

By the way, yes, I know perfectly well what drums sound like from two feet away. I play them.

Cool stuff.

I have yet to find something in wiki that was outright wrong. Better than history books they give to high schoolers honestly.

I learned that church has hot chicks.

At 4/10/11 02:26 AM, ComradeMolotov wrote: Who's Rig.

happy birthday

ONLY PEPLE WHO KNO RIG CAN POST HERE

Fricken SWEET. I want to know what it's packin. =D

At 4/9/11 10:34 PM, EternalXIII wrote: Was I the only one who was disappointed with FL Studio 10? I haven't used many of the other DAWs out there, but I can't help but feel that they are trying to become more like them.

I'll be pissed when they finally kill blocks. Dammit. Yes, in this way I feel Image Line is definitely attempting to sell out. The goofy new look of the default piano roll is stupid (not functional, just neato looking or whatever) and other little bits of functionality have been changed to where certain tasks are now more annoying (I can no longer resize the playlist horizontally by using just the mouse).

Overall, I think version 10 is VERY positive (blocks are still there after all) and there is tons of new uber useful stuff that is really quite awesome. I just hope FL Studio doesn't become what all other DAWs are by dismissing the blocks system. There is really nothing in the world that is as fast and effective as the block patterns.

At 4/9/11 11:02 PM, Tome89 wrote: @joshhunsaker

The only winning move of that war is not to play. What conceivable good does it do to squash all the dynamics of one's music together? What's "silly" about not doing so? What does "winning" the war entail?

One issue is that most people don't want to hear the actual dynamic of a lot of recorded music and sound. Does anyone want to really hear a gunshot at 150db from 5 feet away when it happens in a movie? Good lord, I hope not - everyone would be walking out of theaters with PTSD and hearing damage if explosions and gunshots all retained the "actual" dynamic of the real-life occurance. Another good example is a typical drum kit. Have you ever listened to someone play drums rather loudly from a foot or two away? Wow, that sh*t is loud and I certainly do not want half of the actual transients making it to my ears in the final recording. Shearing off a good amount of transients from a final mix actually does suprisingly little to the percieved sound (if you have a good limiter). In some cases, the softened "punch" actually works to an advantage, especially in dance music where the RMS is supposed to be very high, that's the point. If you hate dance music that's another thing entirely but I know I like dance music. Dance music wouldn't be dance music if there wasn't consistent energy (i.e. very high RMS level) throughout the track. It would be jazz, or classical or solo acoustic guitar or whatever. Those are also great genres that require much less limiting if any at all. Which is fantastic.

The great thing is that the requirement of certain tools comes with the territory of the music being used to mix with. Luckily, all music is not the same so the tools used in the production of music varies widely. So widely in fact, there is no wrong way to do anything - as long as it sounds good. Believe it or not, compression achieves some wonderful/useful things. The premise of the loudness war IMO is a moot point. If people want hot records, great whatever. The only thing that concerns me is how it sounds on a kick-ass reference system. If it looks like squarewaves and sounds like a million bucks, count me in. "Dynamics" are not some mystical unicorn that is magically "good" by default. In fact, dynamics are often "bad", like with gunshots (as I mentioned) and vocalists who can't hold a steady level or move around the mic too much or a ton of other scenarios when compressors are used to positive effect (bass guitar plucks, overly sharp piano attacks, hot drum levels). If you can make a pop song with electric guitar, piano, bass and vocals that sounds amazing without using a single compressor or limiter (no cheating by using any manual gain riding either because that's technically the same thing as compression) then you are a better man than I.

• 
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loop thing

At 4/9/11 02:25 PM, Chris-V2 wrote: Same for a drummer who kept hitting a drum ridiculously loud and spoiling an otherwise beautiful overhead sound or a singer who insists on getting CLOSER to the mic when he gets loudder. All of a sudden his P, B and T sounds are tearing the paint off your walls. De-ess, Limit, EQ. Hope for the best.

Bingo, saying "I don't use any kind of limiter ever because I want to lose the loudness war and compressors are bad" is silly. Seriously. Have fun recording symphonies with far-field omnis your whole life.