FinalMix compared to?

[bmanic]

.. if Kingston knew as much as he pretends to, his mixes would be so good they would need no further processing..

They are - haven't heard better stuff from a KVRian so far, and with each progressive step the gap is widening (which only goes to show that I've yet to hear stuff from so many "I'm a professional" types with words as big as a mountain on every subject - whereas the only few really good, enjoyable things I've heard is from people whose post count is minimal and most posts are links to music...)

Plus he's a perfectionist, which pretty much means he'll never be truly satisfied with the results - until that one day when he can afford to go all analogue when it comes to sound processing

Highly off topic, I know, just couldn't resist this opportunity.

And Kingston... tsk tsk tsk

Regards,

JMH

And if anybody doubts this, just go dig up your Sound On Sound copy from last month (september) and check their website for a rather positive review of Kingstons tracks in the Business End part of the magazine. Usually the 'experts' there KILL most of the demos but in Kingstons case they quite clearly state that the production/mixing is good.

In general I have to agree with Kingston a bit. I try to cover up my elitist dark side a bit when I'm on KvR as I do realise that most people here have NOT had experience with music production in a studio with good accoustics, good monitoring and high quality outboard gear. But sometimes it's really hard when some people try to desperately believe that their favourite plugin can sound like a world class effect and is doing only great things to their mixes when in fact, if they'd know any better and have more experience, would realise that they are actually more damaging than good.

just my 2 cents on the matter.. oh and btw, in my not so humble opinion, final mix is a pretty bad sounding solution for anything considered 'mastering'.

Cheers!
bManic

[Tim Brackett]

Hey, Kingston puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. It is just that once his pants are on he makes hit records.

[Kingston]

Kingston, what are your credentials? It sounds like you do this for a living (or professionally) so there must be something on Itunes or somewhere that we can hear?

I've only ever posted 2 songs here on KVR, you might still be able to find them (try the keywords heavy soul). If I still had the bookmarks to the direct links I'd give them to you. The songs were called 'system will go down' and 'I'm gonna rock you baby'. Then there's the free drumkit website http://kingstondrums.bombsquad.org/ but it's outdated (stuff from around 2000). There is a review of my album on the latest (september 2005) 'sound on sound' in the 'business end' section. I do not have a record deal as of now so I'm a bit protective about giving away the commercial stuff. Sound on sound might have some examples on their site, but you probably need to be a member to hear them. I tried my best searching for this song competition I won on the net years a go, it's not there anymore.

Damn. I really need to put a personal website up one of these days.

[Highvoltage]

Now Lunch Money, you made this thread 5 pages longer without saying anything on the topic, just to clarify your sensible soul. Besides i can hear the artifacts of multiband processing, without being any professional engineer. And sometimes i can use it with great effect on separate tracks.
(ofcourse i had to be warned before too, but thats good in learning, isn't it?)

take care

[Frippertronix]

Kingston, isn't Soniformer 2 a "massively multiband" compressor? If multiband compression on a stereo master is bad, why isn't Soniformer bad as well?

Why would you use a 3 band comp on an instrument track and not on a mixdown? Are the phase artifacts not a problem on individual tracks?

Hi,

Any multiband comp to date was based on crossover filters with several compressors implementation. These crossovers have phase artifacts, or errors, due to the bands literally overlapping on the crossover points. With linear phase crossover you would have preringing artifacts instead. In essence, this kind of multiband comp is always a compromise. Yes, even if it was fully analog and on the expensive sonalksis multiband. And yes, you can definetely hear these things. They are even easier to spot on full mixes than on individual tracks.

The previous explanation is scientific enough, but I keep forgetting that it's not exactly common knowledge here in KVR (but it should be). Just because we lack an objective scale to measure these things (filters, compression), it doesn't mean that these things aren't there. Sure my posts look like opinions, but the factual matter is there for learned ears. (and there was a finaliser/finalmix/behringer history lesson there as well) I'm sorry, but the harsh tone of my posts wasn't just opinions.




Soniformer could be considered the ultimate multiband, but it's not a traditional implementation at all. I asked Aleksey about it, but of course he wouldn't tell me his trade secrets. I've no idea how he did it (tho I could make educated guesses), but soniformer is devoid of phase smearing. Hence the recommendation.


3 band comp on an instrument track and not on a mixdown? Are the phase artifacts not a problem on individual tracks?

You aswered the question yourself. The smearing is still there, just more difficult to spot, and you could in isolated cases even take advantage of it. Sometimes you need that extremely shrink wrapped squash or dynamics control as an effect. With vocals, you can de-ess with a multiband while you're compressing the rest as well. Cleanish guitars are a good multiband experimantation ground. Unless you're doing tarnce, multibands might actually do more damage on drumbusses.


Although here we completely enter the subjective territory, there's the aesthetic consideration as well. Are you willing to sacrifice the punch, slap and oomph (etc) of a good singleband compressor just to get the tight, undynamic and controlled (ie. boring) multiband sound.

My main interest in multiband compression is in some of those evening effects that seem to happen between high, mid, and bass. Aleksy described Soniformer 2's purpose as being to even out the spectral contour of the whole mix. I like that kind of tool as it seems to make mixes gel sometimes when they are otherwise refusing to do so. I have Soniformer and use it, but it has a certain color (I'm not one of the people that tout Voxengo plugs as being particularly transparent) and sometimes I'm looking for something else.

You've implied that no serious professional studio puts a three band comp on a master mix, but I'd need to see more evidence that that is actually the case with the vast majority of them all over the world (I'm not saying you aren't being honest about what you've personally seen).

As you said, subjectivity is inherent in all of this, so the kind of smear you talk about and seem to hate might sound good to some people and maybe to many casual listeners (consumers) as well. All producers have their own bag of tricks. Citing the technical "incorrectness" of having phase distortion artifacts cropping up in your final mixes is a bit like citing harmonic distortion as a fatal flaw in high fidelity tube processors.

[Frippertronix]

Hey, Kingston puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. It is just that once his pants are on he makes hit records.

Is he in the Kingston Trio?

[mandolarian]

And we won't mention the fatal phase distortion in all those monkey-box speakers we call monitors.

[Frippertronix]

And we won't mention the fatal phase distortion in all those monkey-box speakers we call monitors.

There are also phase artifacts produced by most commercial EQ's. Ted Fletcher (Joemeek) has done a lot of work to get around this problem. this is one of his latest creations:

http://www.tfpro.com/products/info/20.php

Mr. Fletcher has been at odds with sound engineers on many points, including with regard to the "incorrectness" of non-linear compression.

The bottom line is that there is no such thing as perfect audio processing and there is no "right" form
of recording, mixing, or mastering. There are strengths and weaknesses all around.

Forget multi-band compression, we could be in a raging argument with certain (no doubt educated) people as to whether any compression is acceptable in "correct" audio recording practice. Some people avoid it as much as possible.

[Lunch Money]

Now Lunch Money, you made this thread 5 pages longer without saying anything on the topic, just to clarify your sensible soul. Besides i can hear the artifacts of multiband processing, without being any professional engineer. And sometimes i can use it with great effect on separate tracks.
(ofcourse i had to be warned before too, but thats good in learning, isn't it?)

take care

f**k off.

How's that for sensible?

Greg

[Frippertronix]

Now Lunch Money, you made this thread 5 pages longer without saying anything on the topic, just to clarify your sensible soul. Besides i can hear the artifacts of multiband processing, without being any professional engineer. And sometimes i can use it with great effect on separate tracks.
(ofcourse i had to be warned before too, but thats good in learning, isn't it?)

take care

fcuk off.

How's that for sensible?

Greg

Now, now...



I still think this whole notion of being "educated" as to what sounds good is ridiculous. Put your hand on your mouse. Drag Final Mix into your master bus. Export.

Now, load the new track and listen to it. Do you like it?

If yes, then Final Mix is AWESOME, and all the engineers in the world can't change that.

If not, then dump it. It was free anyway...

[Lunch Money]

Sure. Doesn't hurt to be educated about phase errors on crossovers, though.

Ultimately, and the point I was originally making before I started assuming the role of "classroom teacher", I'm a hobbyist. Final Mix is working for me pretty well, and lots of people whose ears and knowledge I trust are getting good use out of it.

Kingston's no fool, and he's given me something new to think about (I hadn't known about crossover phase errors, though it makes sense now that he's mentioned it). It doesn't mean I'm going to ditch Final Mix, but at least I WILL be aware that there are factors to consider.

5 pages... 10 pages... I know at least a few people who learned something, and that's never a waste.

Greg

[Frippertronix]

Sure. Doesn't hurt to be educated about phase errors on crossovers, though.

Ultimately, and the point I was originally making before I started assuming the role of "classroom teacher", I'm a hobbyist. Final Mix is working for me pretty well, and lots of people whose ears and knowledge I trust are getting good use out of it.

Kingston's no fool, and he's given me something new to think about (I hadn't known about crossover phase errors, though it makes sense now that he's mentioned it). It doesn't mean I'm going to ditch Final Mix, but at least I WILL be aware that there are factors to consider.

5 pages... 10 pages... I know at least a few people who learned something, and that's never a waste.

Greg

True about the value of learning, but there is also the value of dispassionately communicating facts vs. slanting them with personal opinions. Kingston said his posts "sounded like opinions", and that's probably because he peppered them very liberally with opinions about the aesthetic effect of phase distortion from overlapping crossovers.

As is usually the case with message board arguments (and message board argument threads that go on for over a hundred posts ), what arguing there has been in this thread was prompted not by information (i.e. the fact that there is crossover phase distortion inherent in multi band compression) but by the continuous implication that accompanied the information that anyone who wasn't horrified by phase related problems in their master bus (though they are already there from their EQ's and inherent in their speakers unless they correct them with BBE) has no taste, is silly and "undeducated", etc.

[jmh]

I've only ever posted 2 songs here on KVR, you might still be able to find them (try the keywords heavy soul). If I still had the bookmarks to the direct links I'd give them to you. The songs were called 'system will go down' and 'I'm gonna rock you baby'. Then there's the free drumkit website http://kingstondrums.bombsquad.org/ but it's outdated (stuff from around 2000). There is a review of my album on the latest (september 2005) 'sound on sound' in the 'business end' section. I do not have a record deal as of now so I'm a bit protective about giving away the commercial stuff. Sound on sound might have some examples on their site, but you probably need to be a member to hear them. I tried my best searching for this song competition I won on the net years a go, it's not there anymore.

Damn. I really need to put a personal website up one of these days.

You know I'm there for you man If you want, I can put those 3 mentioned songs (System will go down, I'm gonna rock you baby and that competition thing) online.

Regards,

JMH

[jmh]

Kingston, isn't Soniformer 2 a "massively multiband" compressor? If multiband compression on a stereo master is bad, why isn't Soniformer bad as well?

Why would you use a 3 band comp on an instrument track and not on a mixdown? Are the phase artifacts not a problem on individual tracks?

Hi,

Any multiband comp to date was based on crossover filters with several compressors implementation. These crossovers have phase artifacts, or errors, due to the bands literally overlapping on the crossover points. With linear phase crossover you would have preringing artifacts instead. In essence, this kind of multiband comp is always a compromise.

Citing the technical "incorrectness" of having phase distortion artifacts cropping up in your final mixes is a bit like citing harmonic distortion as a fatal flaw in high fidelity tube processors.

First, sorry for the heavy quoting

My humble take on this... One reason I cannot really stand certain well received and praised "mastering plugins" is that when they're on the master bus, just on, without doing anything other than splitting bands and spitting them out recombined, it sounds annoying. Didn't take me long to notice that this is exactly what I'm hearing - the crossover frequencies get an audible boost. And especially since there's more than one, you just end up having a static subtle phasey tone imposed on your material.
Granted, I didn't pay that much attention to it on speakers, but since I'm using headphones mostly (as my music making is on the back burner right now), it's too noticeable to let it go. Hence it's a no go for me. And before someone feels the need to post example MP3s trying to prove me wrong (!!! ), let me just inform you that it really doesn't matter - as long as I'm able to notice it on my own material, I cannot even consider using such plugins.

I've had the same exact feeling about linear phase plugins too. A lot of stuff I've done is about percussive sounds with distinct transients and snappy attacks in general, and what do you know, that pre-ringing side effect ruins it for me. Grossly exaggerating, it's the same as encoding the drums with Fraunhofer MP3 codec at a low bitrate So, linear phase plugins are mostly a no go for me, albeit using them on sounds other than drums isn't excluded totally...
And yet, seeing the somewhat mindless praising (I'm taking the worlds outside KVR into consideration with this, and especially some music technology magazines) about linear phase stuff with little or none whatsoever regard to this matter, I'm still wondering how some rather well known, perhaps even trusted authors and reviewers are totally deaf and/or ignorant to the whole matter. It's rather careless and somewhat disappointing to see authoritative figures recommend linear phase solutions as the best possible choice for a task without even considering the possible side effects

As for that harmonic distortion versus phase distortion artifact comparisons, that's just... cheap, off the point and somewhat incorrect - harmonic distortion after all is generally considered pleasing to the ear (as in 'moderate amounts') and is a often a desired effect, whereas static phasing artifacts imposed on audio material...
I've yet to see a product that's based on deliberately introducing crossover phasing issues on audio material, apart from a couple of "vintage sounding" plugins that is Not to mention I've yet to see a discussion revolving around a topic where people are deliberately doing that to their sounds/music because it's something they're aware of and like it (excluding the aforementioned plugins - though the 'aware' bit should cover that).

And I have to add (once again) that I'm nowhere near The League Of Golden Eared People like Kingston and bManic, but it's been a constant learning experience, especially with these two fellows since I know them in real life. I just got reminded yesterday that even though I think I'm not able to hear certain minute subleties and thus wouldn't pay that much attention to them, I actually can once I've shown what to listen to - and then such things start to matter. Which pretty much means I'll get even less done in the future since tweaking all the little pesky details will have more importance

Pheww... you can notice from the length of this post that I'm frustrated with my current project (business cards going into print today, website for the same client going online in two days)

Regards,

JMH

[Frippertronix]

I realize phase distortion is not viewed as "musical" in the same widely held way that tube coloration is, but I don't think it's necessarily true that no one thinks of it as in any way musically useful. There is such a thing as a phase distortion synthesizer for one thing, and, on a different but somewhat related note, a lot of people actually like the phase distortion issue introduced by speakers because, when it is negated by BBE, they think the sound is too thin (I swear by BBE, though).

My reaction is simply to the Draconian "I'm an engineer (or some semblance of one) so buck up and take my preachy attitude because you are the student and I am the teacher" attitude. I couldn't care less if you have a PhD from MIT, we are talking about art, not designing the International Space Station. So what if there is phase distortion? There are also other effects that a 3 band in the master bus has and if they aren't simply "all bad" in every way.

Another point is this: if I had the money I wouldn't spend time with digital in any other sense than recording, sequencing, and editing. I would do all of my processing with outboard analog gear and I wouldn't use samples for anything, I'd hire whole symphony orchestras, choirs, zither players, the works. I would use only analog synthesizers and things like Pultec EQ's and Neve strips and I would hire Geoff Emerick to engineer the whole thing.

PC home recording is full of shortcuts and evening out and maximizing your whole mix with a 3 or more band compressor/limiter is just one among many. Freaking out about the lack of purist sensibility about it is just misplaced effort.

All this ranting aside, I do agree that mutli-band hammering of master bus material is a quick and dirty solution and, getting back to what I said above about Geoff Emerick, if I had the time and wanted to put the effort and money into graduating to the serious, difficult, and expensive side of high level studio engineering, I know I could make better masters because there are much better (and more difficult) ways of doing things. Maybe later when I'm not just trying to make reasonable sounding demos so I can concentrate more on composition and arranging.