Bloated, boomy, muddy mixes... A side effect of the loudness war?

[144dB]

Hey all,

 

Enough has been said about the Loudness war in many forums, but I'm wondering if another trend I'm noticing is linked, or if it's a separate issue.

 

Many modern tracks have a boomy, muddy, mid-range and low-end, and it makes the music very difficult to listen to. It's not the result of small home studios or untrained professionals, as I suspect some (many?) of these tracks were done in the same facilities that produced great music 15 or 20 years ago, by the same producers, engineers, and mastering professionals. And it's not digital vs. analog. There are plenty of digital recordings from several years ago that don't suffer from a bloated low-end and mid-range.

 

When I think of a good mix, I picture a modest cocktail party. There is some activity over here, some activity over there, and there is space to move around and enough room to mingle and breathe with comfort. When I listen to modern pop/rock tracks, they sound like a contest to squeeze people into a phone booth, or 29 clowns hopping out of a Volkswagen Beetle. It's not because of too many instruments or too many parts. It's a pile of mid/low frequencies that need to be reshaped or tamed.

 

I hate to name names, but it's hard to illustrate without a few examples. Listen to Bruce Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere" (2007), The Killer's "Somebody Told Me", Maroon 5's "Wake Up Call", or Rob Thomas's "This is How a Heart Breaks". Those are just a few examples that come to mind.

 

So is this another side effect of over-compression and limiting, or an unrelated trend in modern mixing and mastering?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Todd

[blue2blue]

Some of those tracks are a few years old... I've noticed in recent mainstream mixes (one of the other reasons I don't listen to mainstream music, aside from how boring it is) that there's a tendency to jack the high end to 'compensate' for having treble squashed out, and of course, as you note, they have already had to boost the upper bass to make up for having pulled out the bottom octave, so they can squash a few more dB RMS out of everything else.

[roomjello]

This is something of great interest to me as i learn mastering skills, and it goes against my instinct because i was brought up in the 80's.

Plus i like clear mixes alot. I just bought Crime of the century again and was listening today, That is some clear stuff with great bottom, no mud.

The thing is digital can handle bottom where analogue could not.

There is still and always will be the skill of one who can muster great bottom, but that isn't necessarily loud bottom.

 

Things to consider are;

-no limitations with digital, as there was with aliasing with tape, mastering to vinyl etc from the analogue days

-Laptops and earbuds, you need to fill the void to make it sound flat or at least full and there is the consideration that adding more 100hz or so will help a mix in these mediums

-Bass wars- they exist, there are people who add bass for the sake of bass and not for the good of the mix.

-poor taste

 

I don't think it is related to limiting, in fact limiting or rather making loud requires less bass, usually hard nuking kills bass a bit too.

[Cirrus]

That first Killers album is totally horrible sonically. Shame, as some of the songs on it are good. But it literally hurts my ears at any volume.

[Zooey]

I haven't noticed a lot of bloated, muddy mixes lately. The first thing that goes in the quest for more volume is usually extended low end and even low mids. Lots of artists I like are getting progressively worse sounding even as their budgets get bigger and bigger.

[Ernest Buckley]

Hey all, Enough has been said about the Loudness war in many forums, but I'm wondering if another trend I'm noticing is linked, or if it's a separate issue. Many modern tracks have a boomy, muddy, mid-range and low-end, and it makes the music very difficult to listen to. It's not the result of small home studios or untrained professionals, as I suspect some (many?) of these tracks were done in the same facilities that produced great music 15 or 20 years ago, by the same producers, engineers, and mastering professionals. And it's not digital vs. analog. There are plenty of digital recordings from several years ago that don't suffer from a bloated low-end and mid-range. When I think of a good mix, I picture a modest cocktail party. There is some activity over here, some activity over there, and there is space to move around and enough room to mingle and breathe with comfort. When I listen to modern pop/rock tracks, they sound like a contest to squeeze people into a phone booth, or 29 clowns hopping out of a Volkswagen Beetle. It's not because of too many instruments or too many parts. It's a pile of mid/low frequencies that need to be reshaped or tamed. I hate to name names, but it's hard to illustrate without a few examples. Listen to Bruce Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere" (2007), The Killer's "Somebody Told Me", Maroon 5's "Wake Up Call", or Rob Thomas's "This is How a Heart Breaks". Those are just a few examples that come to mind. So is this another side effect of over-compression and limiting, or an unrelated trend in modern mixing and mastering? Thanks in advance, Todd

 

Pretty much anything produced today for Top 40 sounds like crap. If its not overly compressed in the actual record production, don`t worry, radio compression will kill it.

 

The Killer records sound like crap even though the songs are quite good. Same goes for Maroon5, great tunes... horrible mastering. Listening to Maroon5s "Hands All Over" as I write this... great tunes/performance but it hurts to listen to it because of the crazy amounts of compression/limiting.

 

Another good record is Seals "Commitment" but the mastering completely kills it (and besides the fact that David Foster castrates all the artists he works with ).

 

Don`t get me started... I can go on and on about this but yes to answer your question, its overcompression and limiting thats making all those records sound muddy & harsh.

[144dB]

Thanks for the feedback folks...

 

I know some of those tracks aren't 2010 or 2011, but I haven't heard anything recently that would change my mind. It's not the arrangements or the parts. It's the recording/mixing/mastering. It just sounds congested and the music can't breathe. On top of that, the massive limiting/compression makes the lead vocals way too harsh and way too loud.

 

I listen to *a lot* of different styles of music from many eras, but when I listen to something from the last 5 or 10 years (particularly rock/pop), I find myself just shaking my head saying "this track has been ruined". Music is literally being ruined. There could be a future business opportunity to simply remix and remaster all of this material to more reasonable standards. Some of the songs and arrangements are fine, but the production is fatiguing.

 

But I do think the tides will turn. Technology will open the door to high fidelity again (perhaps a 24/96 downloadable format), and someone bold and influential will say "enough of this crap, I'm going to make a good sounding record". And others will follow suit. Maybe I'm pipe dreaming, but it seems like a reasonable prediction.

[Ernest Buckley]

One record that is relatively recent and its hard rock and sounds good is Slipknots "All Hope Is Gone". I picked the record up out of curiousity and was really impressed with the sound of it.

 

This is some of the hardest sounding rock I have ever heard and the clarity of the mixes is really impressive and it makes for good head banging... if you`re into that sort of thing.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

I haven't noticed a lot of bloated, muddy mixes lately. The first thing that goes in the quest for more volume is usually extended low end and even low mids. Lots of artists I like are getting progressively worse sounding even as their budgets get bigger and bigger.

 

 

This is the same opinion I have. A lot of stuff sounds very midrangey to me in the quest for loudness.

 

As far as the comments for The Killers, I believe that a lot of their stuff was recorded in somewhat crude conditions, and not a good example of high fidelity recording.

[gubu]

To add my .02:-

 

I was lucky to end up playing a little guitar on a track produced by a friend of mine recently. The track was piano driven and they managed to get access to a room that had been built and acoustically treated especially for a piano. They recorded it in stereo and it sounded fantastic.

A serendipitous meeting with a great drummer resulted in the track being underpinned by a really great rhythm section, lovely feel, really well recorded. And as the arrangement developed (viola, cello, french horn, oboe) everybody involved started to get really excited by the WIP mixes. It was a very natural, balanced arrangement and mix with huge feel and a real 'in the room' sound.

So, it was decided that it should be sent to a name mix engineer and mixed on a $500k suite in a name studio.

The first mix was terrible, overcompression on everything, distortion from desk channels being pushed too hard, mix peaking at 0 etc, RMS peaking at -12dB!!! etc. To stay on topic, the bottom end was horrific. He'd made no attempt to clean up and separate the bottom end at all (something that the recording engineer had done pretty well on his WIP mixes). Everybody that had worked on the track was like 'I'm sorry WTF is this?'

This name mix engineer charged extra for a remix and the 2nd mix wasn't really all that much better. I'm glad I wasn't paying for it because the mixing alone on this project cost more than my car! He completely mangled the beautifully recorded acoustic sounds and turned the whole track into plastic sounding wallpaper.

It ended up being mastered by another name engineer for much more reasonable money and to be fair, the mastering saved the track, just about. Except that the track sounds like so much commercial product and not anything like what was actually recorded. I honestly don't think that the mix engineer even bothered to try and understand the arrangement before he blew it thru his Neve or SSL console.

 

So here's the thing - This track ended up sounding like commercial product but because the producer didn't know enough about the gear (and didn't attend the mixing sessions) to be able to say to the mix engineer 'please don't do that, listen to how well this was recorded', the mix engineer applied his commercially successful formula and turned a great recording into plastic filler.

 

The point here is that had the mastering engineer worked on one of the recording engineer's WIP mixes, the track would have still ended up sounding commercial but would have retained the original sound and impetus of what actually happened in the room when it was being recorded.

 

Maybe this was a once off bad experience but it makes me fear for QC standards and what defines 'good product' at a commercial level when this is what you end up with.

 

My advice - if you're going to spend huge money on 'professional expertise', you really need to know your stuff and you must attend the mixing sessions! Otherwise, let the recording engineer mix it or let the recording engineer send it to a mixer that he knows and trusts

[Paul McCartney]

More bass please!

[Ernest Buckley]

My advice - if you're going to spend huge money on 'professional expertise', you really need to know your stuff and you must attend the mixing sessions! Otherwise, let the recording engineer mix it or let the recording engineer send it to a mixer that he knows and trusts

 

A little over a decade ago, an artist I knew pretty well hired a top notch mixer mix his album. This guy had credits with U2, Paul Simon so you can imagine... anyway, this artist gets the mixes back and they completely miss the mark.

 

I`m not trying to defend the mixer but this artists sound was a mixed bag of acoustic with blues and cajun and jazz all mixed up... an interesting sound, completely unlike anything I ever heard before and since. Anyway, my point is that the mixer was really not suited for this sort of music.

 

I think one of the most valuable aspects a producer brings to a project is knowing how to angle the material so that it fits within a specific genre. I mean afterall, the point of a producer is to give trusted advice to the artist and one of those things means pointing the artist in the right direction concerning the mixer and ME.

 

This artist ended up paying this top notch mixer around $10,000 to mix several tunes and he didn`t use any of the mixes because the mixes were completely inappropriate for his style of music. The artist ended up using the same mixer that did his previous record.

 

The moral of the story is that when you decide which producer, mixer, ME to use for any project, make sure those people have had success in that genre. YoYo Ma is not hiring Chris Lord Alge to mix his next record... know what I mean?

[Paul McCartney]

real funny is that you all seem to rely on the mastering engineer fixing your bull{censored} mixes

[gubu]

Well, the ME made the same points as everyone else about the amount of distortion etc. but he did a great job of making the thing listenable and translatable, a great job.

 

And Ernest, yes you're spot on about getting the right mix engineer for the job. I feel I may have said too much above and maybe was being too harsh in my criticism. The track sounds commercial and professional. It's fair to say that everybody involved did some great work on it.

 

I think the point I was trying to make (if there actually was a point to that rant :flaceplam:) is that there is clearly a culture in some sections of the audio industry which believes that a louder and more processed sound makes for a more desirable commercial end product. I agree with the OP, I can think of quite a few albums from my favourite bands in the last 4 or 5 years that just sound like plastic slabs. Maybe they sound great on iPod docks

[Ernest Buckley]

real funny is that you all seem to rely on the mastering engineer fixing your bull{censored} mixes

 

OK, admit it... you are Rudy von....

[blue2blue]

I don't think it is related to limiting, in fact limiting or rather making loud requires less bass, usually hard nuking kills bass a bit too.

What I was getting at is that people who are trying to maximize loudness will roll off the bottom octave (20-40 Hz and sometimes 60Hz or higher) in order to reduce the dynamic bandwidth so they can jack the remaining mix -- but then, if you cut too high up, it starts to sound thin, so they boost mid and upper bass which can still make things muddy. Cutting under 40 or 50 doesn't make much difference on most folks' playback systems, but if you start your roll off at 70 or 80 Hz, then it will sound thin on a lot of systems, requiring a compensatory boost higher up, and still get mud and probably boom, too. If you see what I mean.

[blue2blue]

 

real funny is that you all seem to rely on the mastering engineer fixing your bull{censored} mixes

Are you addressing anyone in particular, "Paul"?

 

I mean... I do my bull{censored} mixes myself, on my own dime, so any 'mastering' I will do myself, despite the fact that, I will grudgingly admit, when there's a budget, it can be advantageous to have a second set of hopefully sensitive and artistic ears in a presumably better listening environment, with presumably better sweetening gear/plugs.

 

But, of course, I'm old enough that much of my work for others that went to mastering engineers went to the kind who really were mastering engineers, that is to say, they were running a disk cutting lathe to create disk masters -- which really required very specific technical knowledge. Back then, of course, we had the idea that you did, indeed, get the best sounding mix you could and that the EQ and compression in the ME's rack was, in effect, the court of last resort if and when there were problems with your mix.

 

You are such an interesting entity these days, "Paul," since it seems like the only reason you come around is to insult people. Do you find that entertaining?

 

Because I'm not sure anyone else does.

[UstadKhanAli]

So far, he's just not funny. If someone is insulting but really funny, that's one thing. But it's not even entertaining. If Rudy or Paul or whoever is going to be a dick, at least be *funny*. Is this so much to ask?

[roomjello]

 

real funny is that you all seem to rely on the mastering engineer fixing your bull{censored} mixes

 

 

This place is still a retirement home, filled with better, smarter people than you.

[Paul McCartney]

 

This place is still a retirement home, filled with better, smarter people than you.

 

 

 

Yes, great smarties our resident retiree, and we shall not forget the fabulous mixes they make every which need instant renovation by mastering. I dedicate this demo below to all those pensioner,

 

 

[video=youtube;jPR3d1Qgqnc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPR3d1Qgqnc

 

 

Sorry for the muddy low end, it was Mizzy my cat walking over the guitar and fretless bass, I only autotuned something out of it with the idea to sound like electric guitars.

[Paul McCartney]

 

Are you addressing anyone in particular, "Paul"?

 

 

Maroon 5's for example?

 

It can not sound good when the crest factor gets higher then -12 dB RMS, and at -6 dB RMS, AES standard that is, you're mixing club music

 

 

[video=youtube;Hgf6jkp8bwQ]

Sorry for the muddy low end.

 

[video=youtube;6SLy2W5eC7M]

Sorry for the muddy low end.

[Paul McCartney]

 

So far, he's just not funny. If someone is insulting but really funny, that's one thing. But it's not even entertaining. If Rudy or Paul or whoever is going to be a dick, at least be *funny*. Is this so much to ask?

 

 

 

I am surrounded by fools daily, recording engineers, sound designers and so on, and no, they don't feel amused after the morning meeting

[Paul McCartney]

How to test a mastering engineer's skills:

 

Give him a wide range dynamic song, lets say with a total of -32 dB dynamic range, with a max. of 0.05 dBFS peak at the tutti and minimum of -32 dBFS at the softest passage, and tell him to expand the dynamic range to -48 dBFS peak and an RMS of 42 dB

[Ernest Buckley]

Maroon 5's for example?

 

Not sure what you`re getting at "Paul". I mentioned Maroon 5 because their records sound horrendous. Nice catchy tunes though and if you can get past his whiney lead singing... Are you Mike Shipley in disguise? He got offended when I mentioned how horrible the mastering was on their latest record over at GC.... or maybe you`re Mutt Lange?!

 

Either way, horrendous sounding records.

[Paul McCartney]

I am talking about the crest factor of any Maroon 5 song.

 

 

Usually the producer is not invited to the mastering session, and Robert rather goes for a walk to the near forest then watching how his music gets destructed by some scalawags.