Jun 5, 2009
How to avoid over-compressing your mix
( Or, how to NOT smash it to hell ! )
Loudness has always been an important topic in mixing, and especially mastering – never more so than today.
Knowing how loud is too loud has always been difficult. I’ve written before about how we hear loudness, and different software solutions for measuring loudness - but now, everything has been made far easier.
Recently a new tool has been released, purpose-designed for measuring the loudness of music. You can now see at a glance how loud your mix is, make informed decisions about compression and limiting, and choose to make your recordings punchy, loud and competitive.
And best of all – it’s free. (*)
(*) Kind of
This tool is the TT Dynamic Range Meter, released by the Pleasurize Music Foundation. It comes in two flavours – the one in the animation on the right is the real-time plugin version, available for both Mac and PC now, in AU, RTAS and VST versions.
There is also a second, off-line version of the meter, which generates an overall DR dynamic range measurement for a complete WAV file or CD and allows you to generate a log file, which can be submitted to the (unofficial) Dynamic Range Database.
The real-time plugin version shows peak and RMS level metering for the left and right channels, but also a measurement of the dynamic range – the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of the music – in the centre, labelled “DR“.
Broadly speaking, the idea is to keep the dynamic range as wide as possible – up to a point, at least.
(Actually, it’s more complicated than that. “Loudness War” sound suffers from limited crest factor, low RMS variability and in the worst cases distortion. We’ve chosen “limited dynamic range” as an intuitive way to describe all this, but for a more rigorous technical analysis, click here.)
Both loudness and dynamic range are measured in Decibels (dB) and as a rule of thumb, anything with an overall dynamic range of 12dB or more (“DR12″) will sound great, dynamically – and in this case, the central DR meters of the plugin will stay green much of the time. Louder material will sometimes have less range than this – any less than 8dB will start to sound very aggressive and crushed, and the DR meters start to fade from green to orange to red to represent this.
So, to ensure you aren’t over-compressing your mix - keep the meters in the green for most of the time. Not all of the time, but a track where they are always red is almost certainly pushed too hard.
It’s that simple !
(Well actually, it’s not quite that simple. Firstly, if you’re making electronic music, or using lots of synths and sample loops, the sounds you have may already have quite a limited dynamic range. And so does a flute, for that matter ! So, if your mix is only DR10 without any extra compression, don’t worry – that’s the way it is naturally. And also, this rule-of-thumb applies to mixes. If you are using the meter in mastering, pushing up into the orange and occasionally red is probably OK – but use your ears and remember there is always a compromise.)
One of the cleverest things about the DR meter is that it works independently of the overall level of the music. So, something very loud, crushed and distorted, like, say – oh, I don’t know – Metallica’s “Death Magnetic”, for example – will be in the red, almost all the time - even if you turn it down.
This means you can objectively compare how squashed different recordings are, regardless of the overall level. Which in turn makes it a great mixing tool – if you over-compress everything in your mix, the meters will show you’re in the red, even if the overall level isn’t that high, yet.
Try it yourself – fire it up and watch how the meters react to your favourite recordings. Remember though they may have been pushed to a higher level in the mastering. Try comparing older CDs from the late eighties and earlier 90s – usually the overall level will be lower, and compared to releases from the last few years they will be more dynamic, ie. the dynamic range DR values will be larger.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need a narrow dynamic range for a “loud” sound – to see why this isn’t true, just click here.
It’s important to note though that the realtime DR meter only gives the loudness at an instant. And, it’s quite permissible (and necessary) to push into the red at some points. To get an overall measurement of a tracks loudness, you should use the off-line version.
Both meters are free, but to get them you need to be an “Active Member” of the PMF – meaning, you need to contribute a small amount to the Foundation. For individuals this is very affordable, and the TT Meters alone are well worth the price of admission, in my opinion. In addition to the meters you also get access to members-only areas of the site, and the right to use the DR logos.
I strongly recommend the Pleasurize Music Foundation website – there is lots of good information and they have ambitious plans, including getting all music labels to agree to a standard minimum DR14 measurement on all albums, as measured by the offline metering tool.
If they succeed, this would mean standardisation of levels across CDs in the same way there is in the cinema, and an end to the “Loudness War” madness. I’m cautious about their chances for success – in particular I think DR14 as an average is unnecessarily ambitious, but it’s an interesting idea, and one I wish them every success with – and making the fantastic Dynamic Range Meter plugin available is a great step forward and a very clever move, in my opinion.
So, head over on and sign up, download it, and start spreading the word !
And while you’re at it, you might like to support Dynamic Range Day, too 
(If you’d like to learn more about compression in general, here’s an article you may find useful:
Using compression to add punch, warmth and power to your mix)
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This plugin is really useful, I’ll be making of use of it while mixing all of my songs from now on.
One little thing though, even without any compressors at all on any instruments, quite a few of my songs have an average dynamic range of about 11. If 14 is the sweet spot, is it worth using dynamic range expanders to push it up to 14dB, or should I just leave it as it is? Right now, I’m thinking of just leaving it.
Good question !
First, remember that the meter shows the range at an instant, whereas the recommendation of DR14 is over a whole track. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that even though your mix is often at DR11, overall it will be lower.
But even if the overall value is 11, I wouldn’t try to expand it just for the sake of it. Many fantastic-sounding recordings have DRs between 12 and 10 – this is one reason I’m a little sceptical about the Pleasurize Music Foundation’s goals – I think DR14 is unnecessarily large.
On the other hand, I don’t think there’s any harm in setting ambitious targets, and I’d rather have a ballpark figure that has more dynamic range rather than less !
I used the offline program to find out the overall DR of the mix, and it’s about DR8, but that’s because there are points in the song where the DR is 2 to 4dB because there’s about about a minute toward the end of the song where it’s just a low pulsating noise, which I think throughs off the overall DR a lot.
For the majority of the song, it fluctuates between 6dB and 16dB, during the heaviest loudest section of the song it stays pretty solid at 11dB, and the last minute of the song hovers at about 2 to 4dB DR.
It’s probably easier to just link to the song than it is to describe it in great detail.
http://soundcloud.com/amoetodi/the-whisper-of-distant-earthquakes/
Hey Ian ! Again, one cool post ! I’m using this tool now.
In the TT DR manual (which is good to read) they recommend using a good brickwall limiter, adding that some of them “don’t deliver what they promise”. Would recommend one of these *good* limiter to use (I’m on Windows/Cubase, so VST one would be great).
Thanks.
@jclemay
@Toad – I agree, the end section is skewing the overall reading. This highlights a limitation of measuring things like loudness in an automated way, and why you can’t beat a real mastering engineer
If anything your track may be a little too dynamic at the moment, in my opinion…!
@jc – I’m not the best person to ask about this – I almost exclusively use the brickwall limiter in the TC System 6000, which is only available as a plugin if you have their PowerCore card. Having said that, I’ve used the Waves L1 & L2 with some success. Search over on the Sound On Sound forum, this gets discussed fairly regularly there. I think people like the Ozone stuff, for example.
Fwiw I don’t like using limiters for more than a dB or two of gain reduction, usually.
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Is this usefull for getting tracks to play at a consistent volume. I was also looking at the new waves dorrough meters?
Hi Bill,
I haven’t tried the Waves meters, but yes, the TT meter would be useful – tracks with a similar RMS level and a similar dynamic range will generally sound the same level – provided they have consistent EQs.
Another tool you could look into is Audioleak – although it doesn’t give you real-time feedback, it includes the A-weighted loudness figures, which attempt to take different EQ curves into account.
In my experience almost any RMS-type meter is a big help, but you also need to “learn” it’s characteristics, and know when to take it’s readings with a pinch of salt, too.
Here’s some more info in a post from my mastering blog – How Loud Is Too Loud ?.
Ian
While I absolutely support the cause of ending the Loudness War, I’m a bit worried by some of the comments here..
Question 1 should be “does the mix sound as good as I can make it?”
All of this business of fretting about whether the DR is close enough to 14dB seems counter-productive to me. I just hope people don’t forget to keep using the most valuable mixing tool of all.. their ears.
Aside from that, thanks for the article!
the loudness war has been going on for a long time, and yes its getting worse. we can thank the 90s for this problem. heres my take and its simple. mainstream rock in the 90s wasnt exactly detailed or intricate. the more you compress power chords, the better they sound…crank up everything else and you have a mess that covers up the simplicity. are we getting louder to compensate for lack of musicianship? and then selling it for $15.99? seems so. load a grunge track from 1996 and look at those waves…pretty much says it all. I really like pro tools because its pure and clean, you have to work hard to trash your tracks…loudness is a mastering phase chop, not a tracking chop.
Brainworx links to v1.0… here’s v1.4a http://zshare.net/download/68657716dc95b15a
It should also be noted that even the Pleasurize Music Foundation recommends different DR values for different styles of music. Those can be found at their website, even if you dont decide to sign in. Because obviously Techno needs a lower DR than Jazz. Another interesting website is the DR-Database, where users can submit the DR value they found using the offline DR-meter. A bit like Discogs with DR values (http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/index.php?sort=dr&order=desc)
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Great stuff man…can i send you some of my masters to preview and adjudicate? producers need a forum like this to share and explore new ideas esp. on mastering. Thumbs Up!!
I have downloaded the TT Dynamic range meterto test tonight then let you know what i think
[...] For more information on The Dynamic Range meter, check out this article (http://productionadvice.co.uk/how-to-avoid-over-compressing-your-mix/) [...]
Hum, recently i recorded a song with only virutal instruments, without using any compressor. I looked at my tt dynamic range plugin and the DR was between 8 and 10. Why is this happen?
Hi Rui – Great question !
The answer is that most virtual instruments have already been heavily processed (compressed & limited) before they are used in the instrument.
This is great for musicians, because it means that they don’t need to worry about working to make each element sound good, but it also removes a degree of choice from the process.
Overall, I wouldn’t worry about it – DR10 is a decent place for a mastered mix to end up at, so it just tells you that you shouldn’t need much dynamic range control when your track is mastered.
Does that help ?
Ian
Oh, thank you Ian! I was a little bit “scared” but now I understand why
Cutting hotter masters has been happening from the 1960′s it has to be said that with the advent of digital look ahead limiters that the situation has been abused and yes there is needless distortion in many instances (often client driven) but I sit on the fence as some music actually sounds a little better for limiting IMO.(improved density). Limiting does not mean instant auidble distortion. There are compromises (like any knob movement in mastering) to be had and I think keeping an open mind is key. The main issue is that the ear responds to level and louder initially appears to be better for any given volume control.
A good mastering engineer can hear the trade offs clearly, but maybe we need something this extreme to counter the ridiculous trend.
Barry Gardner
I’m not saying “no limiters”, or “no compression”, or even “no distortion” ( I love distortion ! http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/2009/01/ten-of-most-distorted-songs-in-music.html )
But the sweet spot is DR8, and if you regularly go beyond that it quickly becomes a losing battle. With artists like Kanye releasing songs with DR2, something needs to be done.
IMO
I appreciate the good intentions, I think the sweetspot is what is heard in the ears for any specific mix not what is read on an obscure metering system.
Fair point, that’s an oversimplification. For most styles, the “sweet spot” is somewhere between DR12 & DR8:
http://productionadvice.co.uk/loudness-war-infographic/
- and, individual tracks reaching DR6 can work, depending on the material. But I firmly believe (my ears tell me) that an average of less than DR8 for an album damages pretty much anything – in the sense that it would have sounded better if it could have had more DR. Great example – “Hopes and Fears” by Keane. A classic album, sounds great. But it’s DR6, and would have sounded better as DR8 or more, I think.
The big problem is that right now hardly anything is more than DR6 – DR5 seems to be the benchmark
I would like to investigate the meter do you have a download link by any chance?
cheers
It depends what you mean – the Brainworx link in the middle of the post allows you to download the TT meter plugin for free.
The offline meter is also free, but you need to be an “active member” of the PMF:
http://www.dynamicrange.de/ru/ru/active-member
You also get the right to use the various logos etc.
Ian
I’ve been aware of the loudness “thing” for a long time – I think it really ramped up when people jumped to digital and had to convert a lot of stuff to CD. Tape has its own natural compression which is making a comeback (just ask jack White III).
In my work, i tend to record willy-nilly and then go back, find and turn off compression (and yes for me that includes tube emulators as well) and build some aux or outboard path that’s focussed on a part.
The end result (cd, dvd, streamed aif or mp3) is another consideration. I could probably get along without compression (but not EQ) though using things like WaveArt’s Multidynamics plugin with TT meter are quite useful for tweaking life into track.
This is a nice tool, but flac support would be really nice…
Well my contribution to the dynamic range day was some vinyl premasters (being honest they would have retained ther dynamic range largely anyway because of the medium limitations and a thought for the lathe engineer) but nonetheless it did have me thinking so I guess it has done it’s job.
cheers
Yes the loudness wars is in part related to look ahead brick wall limiting , a digital process.
Funny that when I was at college a limiter was an extreme dynamic process. Largely cause they sounded awful, but because of the relatively reduced side effects the situation has slowly pushed them into a state which could be termed “abuse”.
You mean the offline meter ? Try it, it works with AAC & mp3 (on Mac) even though it specifies WAVs are needed.
I was unable to find the Windows RTAS TT Meter download link. Can anybody help?
I have not had a chance to try the metering yet but will do and report back at a later stage. cheers
Hi Gareth,
It’s the second link in the post:
http://www.plugini.com/download/1641-tt-dynamic-range-meter-v14a.html
Hope that helps !
Ian
Still not quite got it installed been a bit crazy of late will defo get it on the system though.
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The preferred dynamic range really depends on the genre of music as some pieces don’t need much dynamic range (at least DR8). As long as it sounds uncluttered and distorted it should make a pretty nice recording.
By the way, no matter how many times I open the TT Dynamic Range Meter, it won’t respond unless I just close it (clicking on the ‘load’ button doesn’t do anything). I’m on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
Hi Patrick,
I’m not saying all music should have the same DR, just that less than DR8 starts to sound bad in any genre, IMO.
Is it possible to make good-sounding stuff with DR6 ? Yes, if you’re skilled and clever. Does it sound better than it would have at DR8 or more ? No. Is an album with average DR6 more fatiguing than one with an average of DR6 ? Yes.
I can’t comment on your issue with the meter, I’m afraid – I would try contacting Brainworx directly.
Ian
What should be the A-weighted RMS level of a tune in general?
It depends on the genre, recording and artistic intent ! But my rule of thumb is that the quality starts to suffer if you go higher than -12 RMS (A-weighted) which is around -10 “raw” RMS (depending on the frequency content) at the loudest moments. You can push it a couple of dBs more, sometimes, but not constantly.
Lots more detail here:
http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/2008/10/diy-mastering-part-5-how-loud-is-too.html
Ian
Sometimes an album/track will just come with a dynamic range of 5 without any compression at all, especially if it’s electronic.
Hi Patrick,
Very true. But in that case you don’t really need a meter to tell you you’re not over-compressing
However I would probably be asking myself – “is there enough dynamic interest in this song”, though. If it’s an ambient drone piece the answer is probably “yes”, but sometimes it’ll be worth considering adding some more dynamic elements to the mix.
Ian
I agree with other posters that “good” DR is an artistic choice – what works for one kind of music isn’t always right for another. I’m not a fan of crushed DR, but some producers may want that sound. In my opinion, what we should really be fighting for is an agreed target for the perceived average volume level for a mastered release. This is what they are doing in TV with the ITU-R 1770 spec. This would give engineers the freedom to master with as much or as little dynamic range as they like, within reason. If a producer prefers to crush and distort their mixes to death then they can do that, but the end listener won’t get a product that’s significantly louder than another release with a greater DR. If the listener wants it loud, they can turn the volume knob up. Music would potentially sound far better, and the listener can play one album or track after another without getting blown across the room when they switch from Talking Book to Death Magnetic (extreme example!). I realise it would require the industry to police itself somehow, to prevent the whole loudness war starting up again. Is it a pipe-dream? It’s a case of explaining the problem, and getting people on board. 35 years ago in the UK, no-one wore seatbelts and drinking and driving was almost socially-acceptable. Sweden managed to change from driving on the left to driving on the right overnight. Big changes do happen.
Hi Paul,
I actually think that systems like ReplayGain will end up doing this for us, without policing required – and hopefully, as producers and artists realise this, they’ll change their ways…
I wrote about this in more detail here:
http://recordproduction.com/blog/2009/10/how-spotify-will-end-the-loudness-wars/
Ian
[...] your reference to be somewhere between -12 and -8 dB RMS. Check out another one of Ian's posts on How to Avoid Over-Compressing Your Mix if you're still [...]
Hi all
As also discussed on:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm
http://productionadvice.co.uk/loudness-war-dynamic-range/
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=940573&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#940573
… I really believe that the TT Dynamic Range Meter results should be considered with caution, for two reasons.
1) it doesn’t measure micro-dynamics, or macro-dynamics, or any kind of dynamics.
As a very simple proof, consider the following sample:
http://private.1-1-1-1.net/SOS/CF_samples/square_cos.wav
It has no dynamics whatsoever. DR as measured with the TT Dynamic Range Meter should be 0. Yet it is 11dB, which makes it comparable to albums from the Smiths or Tom Waits.
2) it doesn’t measure compression per se. As a simple proof, consider the following sample:
http://private.1-1-1-1.net/SOS/CF_samples/OboeLongP.wav
It’s a perfectly natural oboe sample. Yet the TT Dynamic Range Meter says its DR is 3dB, which http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/ considers as overlimited (“bad”). I am aware an oboe sample is not a piece of music, but still, caution concerning the TT Dynamic Range Meter results come to mind.
………….
The cause according to which music shouldn’t be overcompressed may be perfectly just and noble, but I’m not sure such confusion between the Crest Factor (which is used by the TT Dynamic Range Meter) AND dynamics AND overlimiting really helps…
I don’t understand any of this mumbo jumbo you’re all talking about.
That’s a great plugin. I’ve been recently using it to analyze some of the commercial productions, and it’s amazing how hard they push mixes.
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