Okay, I'm a dope, but....

[Farq]

Does anyone have tips for quenching, or rather "normalizing" brightness a bit? I'm having problems with a lot (most) of my pads -- they're just going over the top and clipping. (Yes, this means I'm back at it. Will deliver RSN.) It sounds level w/ everything else until it goes over. Keeping it down to safety tends to make it sound -really- quiet.

Here's the deal -- I want/need to retain the bright sound, but I don't want it clipping. Seems I've achieved that magical mix of "is (far) louder than it sounds." Does brightness inherently have a low loudness:db ratio or something? ... all of my attempts have failed miserably. Would massive stereo width have anything to do with it?

Actually, now that I bring it up... I'm interested in this whole "loudness" vs. "decibels" thing. Is loudness just the RMS value, or something else? Any tips on balancing RMS & peaks?

Maybe I just have some bad habits.

(P.S. Got, ZEN / retrospective from ninjatune today. Wow.)
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- farq
roksteady

[errorist]

you might have a huge DC offset on the pad. correct that error, and you might want to compress a bit (not really compress, more like using compressor as limiter). my other me often uses compression on every channel, not to actually compress, but with slight settings of parameters to avoid clipping errors.

i hope this helps a bit?

ps: yay for my fast reply skillz0rz!!!
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error. no, not idm!!! ERROR!

[Farq]

DC. My god I'm an idiot. I tend to preserve DC on things from my tracking days.... when it wouldn't bite me in the ass.

I'll definitely look into that. I've also realized that I've probably got some loud inaudible frequencies in there causing saturation.

I'll let you know how I make out.

PS: I love your handle.
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- farq
roksteady

[paniq]

i usually tend to compress pads because dynamics do not matter much with those. its a solution that almost always works.

[Hamst3r]

I like loud music.

Dunno how much of the following you already know or practice religiously...so I'll just spill a bunch of stuff and let you pick-n-choose...

Roll off them low frequencies (I just use the highpass choices from Joachim Temperature/Multi1 - works for me):

1. Remove frequencies below 75hz to 100hz on pretty much everything except the kick. If your bassline is supposed to be "big and bassy" highpass the other sounds around 100hz and the bass at 75hz.

2. Rolling your kick drum off between 30hz and 50hz is usually pretty good.

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intentional distortion is good:

1. I enjoy adding a bit of distortion to just about every sound in my song. also stops it from having random loud peaks - controls it a bit.

2. Some sounds, especially leads, can benefit from much more distortion. sometimes a good choice is a guitar amp simulator such as amplitube or guitar rig. works GREAT and can make a much more interesting sound that cuts through the mix and sounds louder.

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global effects chain:

I plug all my sounds into a cheapo amp rather than straight to the master...

after that cheapo amp I have an Oomek Exciter into a Voxengo Elephant 2 limiter VST.

The oomek you'll have to mess with yourself...but for the voxengo elephant I like the following settings:

Limiter Mode: EL-2
Limiter Speed: Faster
Dithering: 16 bits
DC Filter: 20hz (shouldn't be anything that far down really after what was discussed previously, but I'd just like to make sure :P)
DC Filter Type: Butterworth
Noise-Shape: On
Stereo Linking: On
Oversampling: 4x

once you've got that set....boost that input and watch the white 1-pixel-line peaks on the meters (they go down, not up) until they get about 5 to 7.5... at that point you're probably loud enough and you'll probably notice it too.

---

that's all I have on the topic of loudness.

well, I guess I could also say...pan things slightly. 10% left. 8% right. 13% right. it's usually just enough to seperate the sound from the other sounds in the mix and makes it stand out better.

...and change the stereo widths on things so they occupy different amounts of space...sounds better.
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- Hamst3r
THA | Hamst3r.com | Myspace | Twitter | Podcast | Forum

[errorist]

i'd bet on the DC offset .
maybe it is not even the pad itself but another signal that causes the central wave to go off causing all other sounds distort at the offset . an hp filter on that signal, and you're set .

althought, on pads, earlier my host had problems with them, because he used a lot of flangering stuff and chorus and reverbs and shit, that made it go way off .
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error. no, not idm!!! ERROR!

[Farq]

Thanks all. Some damn good suggestions here. Should have a couple of new tracks up soonish. Depends on my energon supply.
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- farq
roksteady