Fuck over-compressed mixes

TheAppleCore

TheAppleCore

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I had been listening to a lot of recent drum'n'bass / dubstep / otherwise-electronic productions, and, although the music itself was great, I was starting to think that either my hearing or my speakers were going to shit. Nothing was sounding as clean as it used to.

I just put on a jazz record from the 80s, and it was like a breath of fresh air -- the mix sounded SO much better than any of the new releases I'd been rotating. And it suddenly clicked -- compression. This old jazz record had such a nice, wide dynamic range; in fact it was compressed so little that I found myself turning up the volume to almost twice the level at which I listen to modern electronic mixes. But I'm totally convinced that the spacious quality of the huge dynamic range was the ticket to a sound so sweet.

What do you think? Am I right? Modern electronic music sounds like trash because it's over-compressed?



P.S., this jazz record DID make use of some synths and sequencers and other primitive electronics of the 80s, so I've a right to make the comparison!
 
Yeah MP3 can be encoded in different quality.

128 kbps typically sounds alright, but kinda compressed.
192 kbps is considered the bare minimum in terms of good quality.
320 kbps is pretty much the same as vinyl/CDs (unless you get into technical details).

Basically, always try and get your mp3 in 192+ kbps. They you won't have to deal with shitty music quality. :)
 
^im pretty sure he was talking about dynamic compression as opposed to mp3 compression.

And I'd say its probably true, alot of electonric music is over compressed, especially certain genres (jump up D&B, Tearout Dubstep) are compressed to buggery and imo sound pretty horrible because of it.

Compression is pretty neccessary in EDM tho and I'd say you can get away with a lot more than you can with live music/ pop music without it being too detrimental. But yea if you can look at the waveform and its just one large block of black with hardly any visible dips you pretty much can tell straight away its going to sound a bit over-compressed.
 
I hear you OP. I'll use compresssion on certain elements of a song to "glue" sounds together (multiple snare/kick sounds). Once in a while I might compress a kick, snare, or bassline to make it less "loose" or give it more "punch" or crack" but would rarely compress an entire song on the master channel. I feel that if I'm setting my synth/sampler/channel output levels correctly, I should be able to get everything loud enough while preserving dynamic range between the elements. The only reason I could think of for a DJ to compress an entire mix would be to even levels across all tracks in the mix. For example, If I'm mixing 3 tracks in a row, they might not all be at the same audible level even if my master fader doesn't move. Compression one the finished mix could decrease the dynamic range between tracks so the listener doesn't have to continue reaching for his/her volume knob everytime I start a new track. On the other hand, overcompression loses the beautiful dynamics found in breakdowns, buildups, lush pads, and orchestral sounds and can make a mix sound/feel very one-demensional and an exhausting listen.
 
|>R()|)!G/-\|_ said:
On the other hand, overcompression loses the beautiful dynamics found in breakdowns, buildups, lush pads, and orchestral sounds and can make a mix sound/feel very one-demensional and an exhausting listen.
Click to expand...

Yeah, exhausting is the right word!
 
It's not just in EDM, you'll find it's the case for heaps of music over the last 10 or 20 years. There's an article which I can't find right now, but the bloke in it basically slags off Rick Rubin who produced Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers because he is notorious for compressing tracks to fuck and back. In fact, if you google "rick rubin compression", you'll find a whole series of articles ripping him to shreds.
 
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