People abusing limiters

[tmcatfan]

Damn, so a friend of mine pops over with some mixes. I go check them out and jeeezuz they look as if they had a crew cut and sitting right at 0db. Nothing dynamic about it.

I asked him what gives, and he says the band liked the sound of the bw limiter on hard. It was smashed to f'ck and back though. I asked him if he used a bus with those fx pre master ch. Nope. Right on the master bus. Yuk!!

Seems a trend with home recording dudes.

[clipless bumper]

Death Magnetic'd

[VTM]

Death Magnetic'd

Bro, do you even DAW?

[Ostinato Rubato]

Death Magnetic'd

Bro, do you even DAW?

DAW or not, can't say I can remember a Mamberg clip ever.

[clipless bumper]

I don't DAW.

Should probably start.
You have never heard a mamberg clip - and are probably better off because of it.

[junkgear]

A lot of people just seem to go for LOUD mixes these days, and like you said, slam the limiter.
It's nice to hear something that actually has some dynamics.

[Markdude]

Yeah, the brickwall lack of dynamics is bad enough, but what really drives me crazy is when there's audible pumping and/or really significant ducking when there's shifts between parts of the song that have (or are supposed to have) different dynamics. Seems especially common with the djent kiddies.

[VTM]

I don't DAW.

Should probably start.
You have never heard a mamberg clip - and are probably better off because of it.

Once you get through the learning curve you can always add some turd polish. I fought my tascam 2488 neo for 5 years and I wouldn't even turn it on unless the manual was next to me. Then I got a cheap focusrite with ableton live. The first couple months were tough, but now I don't even know what happened to the Ableton manual I printed out.

Endtime and markdude gave me lots of good advice along the way.

[Cirrus]

Loud/ crushed mixes can feel safe - if you crush them with a limiter the resulting damage kinda distracts you from listening *into* the mix to hear the bad bits - then it's just a question of whether you go "YEAH KICK ASS LOUD MIX" on a typical shitty playback system or "WHAT THE FUCK" if you've got ears.

[ajaxlepinski]

Hate that too.

Picked up a Waves Vocal Rider plugin. It can also be used on instruments.

It does a great job of leveling without killing dynamics. Next time I fire up my Mac, I'll give it a go on a mix.

[Cirrus]

I was sorely tempted by that when I saw it in the waves sale this weekend, but I'd just got NLS and Mrs Cirrus needs buttering up to let me buy some decent monitors so I passed.

[nakedzen]

question of whether you go "YEAH KICK ASS LOUD MIX" on a typical shitty playback system or "WHAT THE FUCK" if you've got ears.

Effing

Trend thankfully seems to be dying for the past couple years. There's still the occasional audibly distorting master but not so many as say 6 years ago.

[nightflameauto]

I expect this sort of thing from hobbyists and people just learning, but it kills me when you get something like Death Magnetic. Really, assholes? There's nobody in your multi-million dollar process that could go, "um, clipping is probably bad?" No one at all? Fucking thing sounds like my first attempt at mastering the way every kick and half the toms clip the main. God damn.

[Cirrus]

I expect this sort of thing from hobbyists and people just learning, but it kills me when you get something like Death Magnetic. Really, assholes? There's nobody in your multi-million dollar process that could go, "um, clipping is probably bad?" No one at all? Fucking thing sounds like my first attempt at mastering the way every kick and half the toms clip the main. God damn.

This reminds me of a story - I don't really know Metallica's back catalogue so I'm not sure which album it was (And justice for all maybe?). Here's the link but i'll do some highlights;

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/intervi ... k_him.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lars knew exactly the sound and the parameters of everything he wanted on his drums. So he would actually bring his photos of a Klark Teknik's EQ [parametric equalizer] setup because he had a certain way he wanted the drums to sound. I said, "Michael [Barbiero], why don't you work with Lars and get the drum sound he's looking for? Call me when he's happy."

What did you think when you finally heard them?

They called me in and I listened to them and I said to myself, "These sound like a-s. Terrible sounding." I chased everybody out of the room and redesigned the drum sound and brought the guitars up. Jason [Newsted] killed it on bass. Perfect marriage with Hetfield's guitars.

Was James happy with what you were doing?

I'm putting all the other stuff up and everything like this and Hetfield gives a thumbs up. Lars comes walking in a couple minutes later and listens to about a minute of it and goes, "Turn that off" and I said, "What's the problem?" He said, "What happened to my drum sound?" I said, "You were serious?" or something like that.

Lars was not happy?

We had to get the drum sound up the way he had it. I wasn't a fan of it. So now he goes, "See the bass guitar?" and I said, "Yeah, great part, man. He killed it." He said, "I want you to bring down the bass where you can barely, audibly hear it in the mix." I said, "You're kidding. Right?"

He wasn't kidding?

He said, "No. Bring it down." I bring it down to that level and he says, "Now drop it down another 5 db." I turned around and looked at Hetfield and said, "He's serious?" It just blew me away.

What did you do?

I called my manager that night and I think I talked to Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch [Metallica's managers] and said, "I love these guys. I think they're amazing and they've created a genre of their own but I do not agree with the direction Lars is pulling me in. My name's gonna go on it so why don't you find somebody else?" My manager wouldn't have anything to do with that or Burnstein or Mensch.

But you were ready to walk away from mixing Metallica?

They talked me into being there and my only regret is that we didn't have enough time to at least mix it the way we heard it. I wanted to take "Master of Puppets" and blow that away. That was my sonic direction for "... And Justice For All." It was all there but I think they were looking for more garagey-type sound without bass. And the bass was great; it was perfect. I remember when Metallica got elected to the Hall of Fame, they flew us out and I'm sitting with Lars.

Did you talk to him?

He goes, "Hey, what happened to the bass in "... Justice?" He actually asked me that. I wanted to cold cock him right there. It was a shame because I'm the one getting the sh-t for the lack of bass.

[nightflameauto]

That would have to have been Justice. I think on their other albums the bass is at least somewhat audible.

[Cirrus]

Point being, no matter how competent the production team is all it takes is one guy to mess it up if that guy happens to be paying your invoices.

[nightflameauto]

Point being, no matter how competent the production team is all it takes is one guy to mess it up if that guy happens to be paying your invoices.

Well, it's nice to know Lars is a master at fuckery even when it comes to production.