Production Advice

This post ended up as a bit of a mess – if you read on you’ll see what I mean ! To find out why, read the next one.

I’m leaving it here because there are some sites linking in, and some people will find it useful, but if you really want to know what I think about Spotify and the Loudness Wars, please read my guest post on RecordProduction.com instead:

How Spotify will end the Loudness Wars

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Using compression in your mixes is essential – and you need to use it right.

OK, maybe not if you play classical harp or Polynesian nose-flute – but in most genres, using compression to control the dynamic range of instruments in the mix is fundamental.

The problem is, learning to use compression isn’t easy. And it’s not helped by the fact that most explanations start out saying something like “a compressor reduces the dynamic range of it’s input by attenuating signals that exceed a pre-defined threshold”.

Or something.

Personally I don’t find this kind of description very intuitive, so this post will try and keep things straightforward. So before we go to much further:

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I have always planned to write a Production Advice post about how to achieve clean, powerful, natural-sounding bass in your mix.

This is not that post.

This is a post to give you ideas on how to achieve monstrous, un-natural, trouser-wobbling bass like the band Pendulum – bass that goes against nature and puts you in fear of your life, bass that endangers the structural stability of your home and gently eases the fillings from your teeth.(*)

(*) Some of these claims may be slightly over the top.

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( Or, how to NOT smash it to hell ! )

This is “guest post” from my Mastering Blog – I think it’s just as useful and important a tool for mixing engineers, if not more, so I’m posting it here, too.

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.

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 version, available for both Mac and PC now, in AU, RTAS and VST versions.

There is also a second, off-line version, which generates an overall DR dynamic range measurement for a complete WAV file, but we’ll come back to that in a minute.

UPDATE – The plugin and offline tools are still free, but downloads are currently only available to “Active Members” – meaning, people who have contributed a small amount to the Foundation. For individuals this is not a great deal, and the TT Meter alone is well worth the price of admission, in my opinion.

FURTHER UPDATE – STOP PRESS ! The TT Loudness Meter plugin is currently available for free again direct from the Brainworx website – grab it while it’s still there !

The plugin 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.
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