Meter shows the SECRET to Ultimate Hit Records
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 มิ.ย. 2024
- github.com/airwindows/Meter/r... / airwindows
What's this?
I can measure the hit-record-ness of audio, and rate it by how compelling and attention-getting it is, and also by how commercially successful it's likely to be. Those are NOT the same things, but points along a scale I can define as 'density of ear-catching events', where the 'vibe' of the hit record is determined by how intensely it hammers you with these events.
None of that has anything to do with 'maximum loudness' and in fact loudenating will hurt you, provably, and kills the energy-build whenever it kicks in. The secret is distribution of peak energy.
The events I'm talking about are the combination of PEAK (not RMS, you can safely ignore RMS. Really) energy and slew rate. There's a balance between these things and every known hit record noise, whether it's Steve Perry belting in Journey, or James Brown screaming (not shrieking: when he makes cat noises it's a completely different type of energy) or hard-hit drums mixed just perfectly or Burial hitting the perfect sub-bass or nearly everything in a Mutt Lange mix, nails this balance. It's most easily understood as 'the aura (of peak energy) given off by passionate performance' and it applies across the board, from Count Basie to Ace Of Base. (brief examples of each are given in the video)
The Airwindows Hit Record Meter (or 'Meter' as it'll show up in your DAW) will show this directly. Did you think you 'can't hear peaks'? Doesn't matter, now you can see them. And where you place them is hugely important. You can cram them all up as close to clipping as you can get, and have LOTS of them constantly, to get a sound that's just as attention-getting as any loudenated sound (as squashed sound cannot technically BE any louder than clipping, it can only have more distracting distortion layered on). Or, you can make sure you have some of the peaks crammed up toward clipping and doing their job optimally, while having the 'cloud' of peaks occupy a bigger space that is still constantly in flux.
And doing that consistently scores higher in Billboard chart rankings, and overall SALES, than the hyper-aggressive stuff. But the extreme stuff does get attention very well… and as long as the peaks (and their respective slews) are where you need them, it makes NO DIFFERENCE whether you have high or low RMS loudness and in fact you will do better, get more attention, and sell more records if you have the peaks maxed out and optimal, and the RMS as LOW as you can get it to be without losing the constant peak energy.
You can even target comfort and vibe while still having sparkle and peak energy by aiming for it using this meter.
These are strong claims but you know I've been working on this for literal decades and had the beginnings of this in 'Mastering Tools', which existed before any of my plugins, before 2007. This isn't new, I've just been able to put the work in and I figured it out. You don't even have to use my plugins to make stuff work using this meter: I try to make stuff that'll help, but you could do it with anyone's plugins, or with hardware and tape machines, or indeed with any basic DAW right out of (in the) box. It's all about shaping the peak energy, balancing it with slew, controlling the slew and creating the 'cloud of peaks' at the density you want, with the volume of the peaks constantly varying between whatever amount of 'space' you want (18 dB is a lot, 12 is nice, 6dB is getting on the loud and fatiguing side) and clipping, without actually clipping.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves and I'm not the only person able to tell you how to mix hit records, even classic evergreen ones. It just looks like I'm the first to be able to give you visual reference to what's supposed to be 'inaudible', and that's Meter. For now, try this meter and see if you can recognize the various hit formulas (for instance, vintage southern rock, or 80s, or intense sixties and fifties hits) and explore them a little. - เพลง
Chris, I first came across your plugins in the Surge synth. Then I downloaded all the Airwindows plugins and played around with each one extensively. Now I'm creating my own. You are an inspiration. Thank you for your work and effort. It means a great deal. Glad I found this channel.
Man, this is cool but you seriously need to write a manual for this.
Yeah this needs a manual for sure
You did it Chris. Now you've really gone and done it. What if... what if because of this, somebody makes an album that I actually want to come into contact with my ears. That would be a surprise.
I think I'm starting to get... stoked.
Thank you sir for pointing this one out. I'm all for ending the loudness wars and go back to normal levels.
Truly fascinating stuff you have uncovered, the connection with the sound of rain, and then the dynamics of the intensity of the rain, which really does invoke diferent feelings when you think about it.. Im guessing other natural sounds , either pleasent or unpleasent will follow these same patterns. I think a lot more connections will be made and a big window was just opened in understanding why music is the way it is and why we interpet it the way we do, or really why and how music emerged. You really should publish this in a scientific journal, not that that would mean anything, but this is something more than just a meter. Salute!
"a big window was just opened in understanding why music is the way it is"
...on of those Air Windows... :)
Wow, amazing stuff Chris. I never imagined metering could evolve in this way
Thanks in advance for the additional videos you mentioned having planned, where we can hear music, especially as you adjust parameters, while watching the meter. I think that will help my understanding in a practical way, as this video helps me understand theoretically and establish a baseline using the rain examples.
I'm not currently creating commercial music, so "sales" or similar metrics are secondary concerns. But I'd still like my mixing and mastering to be able to sound professional in some scenarios other than luck, so I'm looking forward to trying this out, and watching the additional videos.
Cool, now to press Play again and finish this video... this is one where I can't afford to think and type while it's running... I've had to rewind a few times as it is, when I got lost in thought for 10 or 15 seconds🤣🙈🙉
I'm in the example section... this is what it is, but the necessity for ContentHideID makes me want to hear continuous clips of non-copyrighted music.
Jesus finally someone had the skill to code this. I tried to code something to just analise the variance and average frequencies in C , but my audio code skills are not good for that. More ro make systems and security than code audio stuff. Thank you for your awesome work
Man... This is damned fascinating. And, in highlighting the overlap of hit song characteristics with that of rain, I feel this also leads toward explaining why people prefer vinyl; the noise of a needle dragging through a groove naturally gets pretty close to organic noises we're deeply coded to recognize and compensate for.
Congrats and thanks for the plugin, Chris. A fascinating thing I found with your plugin is that tracks I made that are significantly quieter than others I also made seem louder because they have more "presence". Which can be translated as having more peak energy. A lot to learn.
What plugin helps with that?
Wow just watch half of this video and begin to realize this video is a big thing going on for Music Inudustry
Fantastic work as always! Big congrats on finally getting this one out!
I think the amount of songs that didnt became hits, but look like this is, is... enormous !! 😂
this is impressive Chris. thank's for sharing all this/your research, work and knowledge to the community!
Chris, you are a gift! Thank you!
Astounding. This is really fascinating stuff. You really make innovative tools! Saving this, can't wait to dig in a bit later soon as time permits. Oh this is going to be so fun
This is a super nice helpful tool and your rain analogy really bring the whole idea into focus. Thanks Chris. new Sub here.
Omg, it is done! Congratulations!
So good to see you are still at it Chris and progressing into the realms of GUI, with this analysis of the 'Hit Sounds' and a GUI to show you, that is some achievement. Thank You once again.
These plugins are amazing. The knowledge imparted is astonishing. I listened to "Natural One" the other day and was like, "Oh, yeah, that, a real band, real room mics, that's what live sounds like."
At some point, records will not be released as "audio" but rather as a mathematical representation. Then we'll be able to apply processing like this to make it sound how we most enjoy listening. Personally, I can't wait for the "don't apply autotune" button.
You the best Chris! Love your creations! Great research!...
I tested this out with tidal with songs by people that I know and songs that I worked on that got lots of views / steams etc. Not Billboard 100 but songs that actually gained traction. They all rose to the "Biggest" level or higher. Wow.
Very cool! Can't wait to try it. Will definetely compare my favourite songs from famous bands to my own mixes.
You’re friggin brilliant man
Wow, thank you so much!!!!!
A Wonderful! accomplishment....
The rain sounds like a pink noise generator.
Look forward to testing this out when my Mac is fixed. Thank you
Thanks for making this, Chris! “Super interesting!” as I’m always saying in my channel.
Love you and all you do.
wow, thank you very much. will help me a lot, I think. u are a genius
Man that's amazing. It seems that your meter is really into techno tho. Everything I tried easily reaches B, but whenever some swinged 16th hats come in the meter goes crazy and start jumping to AA pretty fast!
Been using your plugins for many years, been on your Patreon for years (different account, different name, anonymously,..), but this might be the most useful plugin so far. Maybe. Gotta test it in my niche kind of tekno. :) Thank you Chris!
Chris at this point you should try making a daw
I do have ConsoleX coming, which ought to work in whatever DAW you like best :)
Like Harrison mixbus that would actually function, cpu footprint of reaper, midi of cubase. Id be sold pronto
@@hr2186 fl studio has good midi functions too. Workflow and modulation capabilities of ableton live and bitwig.
@@hr2186 You are asking for a miracle here.😂 If you find such a unicorn, come back and tell me. I left Cubase for Studio One, which is great, but the stock plugs are mostly trash.
This was the best music production video I've ever watched - my intrigue leads me to what I feel is a ln obvious next dive into the specifics - a per genre, look at the top music under the same criteria - country, rap/hip hop, pop, grunge/alternative, nu metal, heavy metal, classic rock, edm - trance/techno etc.., and classical symphonic etc.. I'd be really interested in genre specific hallmarks of the top music.
Top record producer Max Mosley one time went crazy at engineer Jaycen Joshua for removing white noise Max had placed into his recording sent to be mixed by Jaycen.
That’s funny I thought the same from 19:00 but thought it was Max Martin lol iirc JJ also said he was sitting in on a Pensado session and noticed a low level noise driving him crazy but Pensado said it calmed him and reminded him of the ocean lol they a/b’d it with & without the noise & decided it sounded fuller with it. I think he also said the very low level noise acts like a natural dither for tails and reverb tails etc but what DP said about the ocean could be a thing too, like how some people purposely listen to noise to sleep/relax. Is it because as humans we are used to constantly filtering out noise without even being aware, like if you record a video on your phone and play it back you can hear it, do you think on some level that feeling of the process of our ears/brains filtering it out is satisfying and makes things feel more “real” because we do it everyday? Or just the dithering purposes? It’s fascinating isn’t it!
Chris... thank you!
Chris you are awesome ❤
I really need a detailed manual for this.
I know, right? I don't even have one. I'm able to coax the data out, but we're all in the same boat as far as interpreting it. I know I can tell you 'clipping - probably bad' and 'middle meter red dots - bright, middle meter black lines over the grey area - too bright' and 'evenly distributed clouds of dots are best'. Beyond that, we're all finding out together :)
What about the bottom meter?
not all heroes wear capes
Legendary
I like the idea of this plugin in principle, but...
I think that "hit records" were popular because the music resonated with people, either that or they had successful promotion, not because they were well-produced. In other words, a song that was badly mixed but had good melodies would sell better than a song that was well mixed but wasn't catchy. At the end of the day, the rhythms/melodies/harmonies/timbres largely lie outside of mixing and these factors are most important.
Many modern songs arguably have too little dynamics, but dynamics don't necessarily contribute to punchiness, or sounds cutting through (not that Chris said that, but that's the wrong impression some people have).
Skrillex is obviously better mixed than Burial, but would score worse on the meter. All I'm saying is the hit record meter won't tell you how good your song sounds, even by the average consumer's opinion of what good is.
izotope's Ozone plugin is probably your best bet if you'd like to see how your mix/master compares to popular ones.
Chris is not saying the plugin will turn crappy songs into a hit. It is a tool that will elevate a good song to where it's plasant to listen to over and over without ear fatigue.
I was going to write something like this comment. 'So now we all know we can get a hit record?' This is my point. Its a lottery, music popularity is a popularity contest.
@@imaginarytube I think ear fatigue is more of an issue with headphones rather than speakers (many consumers don't have good speakers nowadays - idk why), I could be wrong about that tho.
@@mementomori317 Yes to overly-hyped consumer devices, and also no. In a song, the constant/focused saturation of upper mids, too much low end that creates a "woofy" sound, or too much highs, can cause ear fatigue.
@@mementomori317 Ear fatigue is not limited to headphones use. It is a known issue in many industries.
There is obviously a treasure of information here. Unfortunately it’s prevented poorly and is missing a lot of “why” and “how” from the host. I’d love to hear this explained to maybe…a 10-year old?
Wow. Now I'm wondering about jazz records. Oh! And also premium, higher speed reel-to-reel tape recording versus slower.
I tested Dave Brubeck - Take Five, and it's a CF. Just a spot check (original record: was my Dad's). As for 30 ips, that's a lot of the tone difference between 70s and 80s, equally valid tones for this. 30 ips gets you brighter but you can still craft the brightness to not be excessive: lots of examples.
i actually prefer the compressed sound on headphones/low volume listening
Airwindows: “stop limiting your tracks. Stop clipping them”
me, who prides himself on achieving phat sausage-like waveforms on his tracks:
👁️👄👁️
In fairness Meter is able to show you which peaks you can totally get away with clipping and which are better not to :)
..it all comes from the "noise". I understand the audio presented directly represents the energy content...noise is the source of all music as silence is the source of noise!...
I appreciate that you're introducing this new perspective. I definitely am not 100% clear on what the ratings mean though.
I ran the chorus of Lorde's "Sober II" through the meter & the chorus, which is at -6.6 LUFS & is constantly showing clipping, is somehow giving an "EF" rating - which is apparently the same as extremely quiet pink floyd music? How is this possible? Am I misunderstanding something? Wondering if the meter simply can't process things at these extreme level of loudness.
It's such that the rating actually goes up in the quieter parts of the song - the outro shot up to a "DB" rating, while being much, much, quieter than the chorus. Would really appreciate some more explanation here. Thanks Chris.
Correct, it can't. I got the same thing off Skrillex. If the meter's showing constant clipping, the 'line' stops meaning 'go up to show excitement and energy' and starts to show how much the energy FAILED to convey itself. The line can go down either because you intentionally restrained energy, or because you screwed up the conveyance of energy. Some super-aggressive but also loud mixes hang on to a fairly high rating simply because they're trying to do that, and the intended sound keeps peeking through all the time.
I suspect that one of the secrets of a hit record is making sure its peak level exceeds -15dBFS and that it has a comparable loudness to other similar TH-cam videos er sorry I meant other hit records
I can go you one more than that. It looks to me like, to be competitive, your peak level must CONSTANTLY be over -12dBFS and maybe even over -6dBFS, for just about every moment, while your RMS stays under -12dBFS and maybe even under -18dBFS. And that the bigger the crest factor and the more evenly you fill it in with peaks, the better, as long as there's always a loud one, like ten to twenty a second, peaking over -6dBFS.
I just have to say... "Wow"
Hi. I'm Chris from Airwindows. I am Spacey Blurr. You are Spacey Blurr. We are Spacey Blurr.
(Just kidding, or am I?)
i always wondered why nobody talks about crest factor and stuff like this. really does feel like an industry inside secret or something
If anybody ends up with a real take-away from my release of Meter, it should be this. Crest factor is not 'leave empty space to make people turn the music up', it means something is happening over the RMS. Loudly! Peak energy is not only a thing, it's the whole secret to hit records. It's not just 'occasional loud hit', it's a vibe that is happening CONSTANTLY while the music is playing, and that's what's missing. It comes from talent and effort and mixing skill, and current practice excludes it (hence the industry-wide decline. why put yourself through modern music when you can play video games?)
Hey Chris. Congrars on the release! I have a question... I feel like radio was a big part of the "classic hit record" sound... This sounded better on The record player but that's not what made people run out and buy music... Feel like there should be a way, a meter version....to factor in radio broadcast compression... And I'm curious how that interacts with the sound of the old records... What's that would look like on a meter. Radio was the hook for a long, long time.
When you're just playing an actual record on a turntable you can turn it as loud as, or quiet as you like..... Still is the issue of the stream version... Today's radio version. How to maximize those. There are some negative repercussions and being turned up on a streaming service.... I forget what they are but they're there.
I feel like like even after watching this I don't understand the relationship between slew and RMS. Is there something you can point me to help me understand it more?
It's going to take a while for me to understand this.
But now I'm really curious, but was the best option for radio stations with their broadcast limiting/compression? What sounded best there? And it's there anything we can learn from it when dealing with streaming. Radio is what caused us to go out and buy records. Fortunately the streaming services themselves have done some things to help with the loudness war. It was getting really, really crazy there for a while.
I like Andrew Sche0's approach of using parallel compression on a music bus, to bring everything up but maintain the peaks. That's helpful too.
This is why the unbelievably dynamic 80s stuff worked. That 80s/DAW degree of extreme dynamicness is not actually the best until you compress it a bit. You can do that in a mix: compare to for instance old Beatles, which is heavily compressed since well before Rubber Soul, and gets extreme from then up to Abbey Road (totally different sound)
@@ramspencer5492For radio it’s best to have not squashed dynamic masters and let their processing do the job. In theory around -12 LUFS or even less. I had one mistake mastering a dj mix loud that was played on radio. It sounded dreaded awful, the radio processing squashed it even more and it was a mess.
@@ramspencer5492 A lot of broadcast stations used the Optimod processor built by Orban, first developed as an analogue processor and latterly as a digital solution. This contributed to the sound in a major way as you've noticed yourself, and quite positively in many instances as you also mentioned, to the extent that people have made attempts to replicate its processes.
The Orban entry in Wikipedia will give you some basic info about what the Optimod does (hesitant to post here in case it's interpreted by TH-cam as spamming) and also if you're more interested you could do worse than look up the Stereotool (audio broadcast processing) forum for a thread titled "OPTIMOD SOUND IS HERE !" where a user has attempted to replicate Optimod in the software affiliated with the stereotool forum
This was my first thought. I assumed others had the same exact concern and went to the comments.
At the moment... I'm not sure how these readings can be useful if they're NOT the radio broadcast versions of these +radio hits+. It would also SEEM to presume that the audiences tastes/sensibilities (even JUST for compression) have remained constant for over half a century, but.... I'm not done considering the entire video. And I'm 100% sure Chris has thought of this stuff if +I+ thought of this stuff, lol.
SCIENCE!! love it MASTER!!
Most new music I cannot listen to. I do really love what Steven Wilson has put out. I need to get this tool and run the music I like these days and run it thru. Also some Christian Contemporary Music, or CCM for short, this now has a modern feel but has a lot of air play on some stations. I mix at a church and want to get better at my live mixes. I should be able to run the live mix thru it. Amazing tool and my mind has been wanting something like this for a long time.
I'm thinking none of this has anything to do with crafting hits... but rather about producing a commercial sounding recording.
If I'm not mistaken, many, many hit records have a frequency spectrum that rolls of same db per decible as.... ready for it?... pink noise...
The interesting part is we're seeing intermittent peak spectrum against frequency spectrum. It's not simply pink noise. It's brighter, louder peaks against a more rolled-off background: this corresponds very closely to the sound of rain in an open environment, at different rain intensities. I think this is worth attention. It's not just noise, but noise in an acoustic environment, driven by eons-old natural phenomena. The idea is that we've evolved to fit this: the sound was around long before we ever were.
@@airwindows I don't think you understand my point...
1 Your talking about there graphs with no clear explanation what they represent.
2 Your talking a sub-atomic particle level when an elements and compound level is needed. I'm 20 minutes into this vid and I still haven't heard one thing I can use to sit down... and know I'm writing a potential hit.
Things like... "Hits generally use chord progression x"... "Hits generally get to the chorus in 30 seconds"... "Hits generally... [Fill in the blank]....
There's literally nothing useful to a composer or even a mix engineer at this point.
Maybe something in the next 30 minutes?
Most folks would have abandoned the vid by here...
Check your stats, I'll bet you can see that's true.
is METER included in "Airwindows Consolidated"?
What is Slew Energy?
do you have your meter plugin in .dll ? the .vst3 is not recognised by all daws to my knowledge
Thanks for all your hard work.
I do have a suggestion to your videos. The volume is super low. I crank up the volume but still pretty hard to hear you. Maybe you could push the gain a bit harder on your microphone? 😊
I will speak up :) for this one, I had so much else to think about that I was unusually low key. I guess, knowing how big of a deal it was, I was more shy than usual.
@@airwindows Why dont you use the plugin to check if your volume in your videos is good?
As a mastering engineer this REALLY interesting. Seems like it gives you some extra perspective of the crest factor. Is that a fair statement?
What's the definition of a "hit record" in the context of this meter please?
'maximizing a particular kind of crest factor you didn't get eyes on before, that is associated with popular and big-selling audio over the last 50 or 60 years (or longer)'
I am watching this for the second time now. I would really like to understand exactly what it means. I get the take away and in general what the point is that Chris makes, and I am testing it with some of my own music with comparisons. But I don't think I understand what slew energy is exactly. Can someone explain and how you can listen for this?
You can see the Deadmau5 - Strobe Lead is definitely limited / compressed as the fat blue dots are pretty much clamped, at least in that example. The gap seems difficult to achieve in any electronic genre as the bass is so prominent. I wonder what strobe looks like on the drop.
Remember, literally all the super-high-performing stuff is ALSO compressed, including all the Beatles and don't even get me started on the Cheap Trick :) compressed is NOT bad, limited is NOT bad, even clipped is NOT automatically bad. The question is whether you're doing it to good effect, or bad.
Beautiful! I'm already using it to monitor my mix. I tried using the standalone version on Mac with a trying to use the loopback function on my Focusrite Scarlett but for some reason Meter won't receive the input signal from the channels I've selected. Perhaps I'm missing something...
I didn't design this for the standalone, it's a plugin. Standalone is just something JUCE can try to do: it's good for softsynths! Don't assume I mean for you to use it as an application, it's just something JUCE does :)
@@airwindows Oh that makes sense! :D Thank you for letting me know.
Once again, very exciting to me to finally try Meter out myself!
@@airwindows Ah this probably explains why the standalone isn't working right on PC either when I play music through the Windows Media Player or just music from any site through Chrome. No worries. At least the VST3 is working.
@@airwindows I'm curious, what does the red and green overlays represent in the top graph? Are those also slew related?
wow
+1
Watching the video, downloaded it, tried it.. still can't understand how to "read it" or what I'm looking at is there a manual or anything explaining what everything that's on the screen is?
No. This didn't even exist a couple months ago. It's a new thing showing interrelationships in sound, some of which (peak energy) has been vastly underrated for decades, so the history of this starts here and there is no manual :)
@@airwindows Cool. Hope perhaps one can be made in time. I downloaded and tried it a bit this morning, still trying to udnrstand what exactly everything shown in is, the three bands, the redsm the greems the dots and so on :)
By the way since I'm here commenting, thanks for all the work you're doing. I just found your plugins cause These past days I've decided that to improve I wanted to take away as much "visual" information possible in my mixing session and start working only on ears and you work immediately came up, so trying all of your stuff out :)
The plugin you've made is fantastic and impressive. It's intended use based on your claim is what I'm struggling to wrap my head around. Can this plugin meter hits from today? (From 2023 to present Let's say) If so, why not use those examples? If the plugin can't meter them due to them being too loud to process, is loudness really an issue here, given it's a hit? Great work and looking forward to seeing more!
Timeless hits continue to be relevant, years later. I'm going to suggest that anything from 2023 that is still getting anybody's attention in even 2025, never mind 2033, is going to be doing at least something right on this meter. Rap music adjusted by having more space within the beat for hit vocals. Billie Eilish-style soft vocals adjusted by turning the inability to convincingly do loud vocals, into a form where the amplified quietness is the point. All those things register on the meter successfully, as adaptations.
@@airwindows I'll have to definitely check it out. Thanks for your response!
Revolver came out before whole lotta love? That high frequency difference is more due to the sound of the production most likely not it beint older. Revolver is a much more polished record, beautiful!
Hi there, is anyone else having issues getting this to work on Mac? Any config settings are very appreciated?
You have to be able to get a CLAP, AU, or VST3 plugin to work. Meter is a JUCE plugin, so if your system breaks JUCE-based plugins in some way there's not a lot I can do…
Hmm, I'm having no luck getting this to work right on my PC. It is just drawing flat lines. The VST3 does work though. Just the standalone does not.
Your music is dead! 😲
I wish that Fleetwood Mac was showcased here lol... But I guess I can just download the plugin, huh?
I've got some Fleetwood Mac recorded off my old vinyl. Depends on whether I can do an Evergreens/Timeless video and treat it like a react video. I might be able to, and I'd love to showcase some of that stuff :)
@@airwindows maybe you should ask the community for requests.
I mean, I'd ask for Fantomas 'Director's Cut', but I might already know that it might even be slightly overly compressed/limited, or something. Idk, though... The entire album is a field study IMHO.
Pink Floyd 'The Great Gig In The Sky', would be my other number one request.
*Edit*
And, you should check out the movie, TMNT Mutant Mayhem... then check out the musical score by Trent Resnor and Atticus Ross. It's the best musical score that I've ever heard, in my life... but perhaps watching the movie is necessary, to get that visual representation of stuff.
@@airwindows wait, would TH-cam strike you for copyright things?
Maybe something for a private stream.
Don't let Greta see your modular !
Lesson learned... just release recordings of different rain storms. I was just listening to the police.. they are a power trio so by necessity their arrangements are pretty sparse.
While I agree completely about the nonsense of fatigue inducing modern mixes and masters you are comparing hit songs from decades ago. It was a different world back then, technologically but also psychologically. That’s simply not the case nowadays, there are countless of hit songs that are squashed to death and borderline unlistenable. But they sound loud on cellphone, bluetooth speakers or airpods or whatever the young generation sadly consumes music on.
Not just pop, for example, recent drum and bass Chase & Status album is unlistenable with -3 RMS masters that are literally distorting and unlistenable and have MILLIONS of streams.
Why? Because a good song is nothing today without hype, image, social network presence (big labels today don’t even consider you if you’re under 50k followers on TikTok). Attention of kids due to forementioned idiotic social networks are few seconds (constant swiping generation) and everyone is fighting to get them in those few seconds and they do it with loudness among other things (memes etc.)
The only good thing streaming services brought to the table is loudness normalization so nowadays you really don’t have to squash masters to death to be “as loud” as others if u don’t want to. I already started to see some dynamic mixes and masters in mainstream due to that. Also buying vinyl is a much better chance of getting good sound as brickwall limiting for vinyl is completely useless and only idiots do it.
So yeah I get your point but I don’t think it’s applicable to todays chaotc world suffering from infodemic noise which is about to get even worse due to AI-everything.
It’s surely a sad state of music industry that perfectly depicts a sad state of pre-WW3 humanity.
Why Burial’s music got famous? (btw it’s not dubstep but more UK garage music). Not because he properly distributed frequencies and dynamic range but nailed that grimey “big city” (London) night vibe and emotion at 3AM when you are wasted after party going home tired by public bus or walking the empty streets alone.
Unfortunately today a great song has no chance becoming a hit without it “blowing up” on TikTok. The world has dramaticly changed to worse, especially after covid…
@@Before-23 People don’t remember Dre and Eminem for mixdowns but for their lyric skills. I mean you said it yourself mentioning the transistors. It’s the song, not the mix. A good song will not be drowned by an average mix. That’s where our thoughts differ. A good riff, hook, chorus, groove makes a good song, not the mix. A mix can emphasize greatness, but can rarely destroy it.
There will also probably be less “evergreens” in the future because the culture changed. Everyone wants new, fresh, hyped, “in” and they want it now. Culture has became much more disposable because of Internet. Everything is extremely faster than before, and I mentioned it when I talk about attention span change. You just can’t compare past and present.
Hard not to be depressed looking at what’s going on in the world. In the 60ies you haven’t really had a realtime feed of everything (Internet) and Covid slso brought sociologic changes, some kids basically almost finished high-school (Europe education) with masks on. That must have an impact on society.
Good music will always find audience but unfortunately not necessarily enough to make a normal living out of it (as you mentioned “some”)
Music on Spotify “clips”because most are still afraid to use less limiting and clipping in mastering, so it’s still a shit master now playing at -14 LUFS integrated and also YT music sadly doesn’t normalize so it’s still a sensless loudness race… but at least some efforts are being made to solve the wars, I mean -14 LUFS integrated is basically a mix without any clipping and/or limiting and if you upload it to Spotify it will sound comparably loud as unlistenable C&S song that’s -3 LUFS
Anyways like a lot of Airwindows plugins I will make good use of this one, and to clarify I am all in for great sounding dynamic mixes that don’t pierce your ear.
@@Before-23 I agree about Dre, but I think his main thing was being a producer, and by producer I mean the man pulling the strings, connections etc…
Of course life was bad before, but just because you’re sitting confortably in your house in USA doesn’t mean things are not weird atm. We never had such thing as Internet and mass information we have acess to atm and we are rapidly starting to see consequences of that but if you don’t understand that I can’t do anything to explain, it’s all around you and it’s getting worse and worse…
I've got all the songs I referenced with the meter on my computer (since I own the records :) ) and so, I am also able to make reasonably good mp3s of 'em, and put them onto my phone. It's not an especially big phone, it's a mini iPhone. And so, I can also play the same hit record mixes that I showed, on the phone. The AA and BA stuff plays better on the phone than modern loudenated stuff. It sounds bigger, is clearer, has more drama and mojo, everything better and not quieter. The peak energy projects well, through a phone, when focussed.
The super-dynamic DA and EA stuff, for instance the original mixes of that Genesis album with 'That's All', also sound good but have SO much crest factor that they're a bit quiet off a phone. Easily fixed, don't go to that much of an extreme, allow more of a Beatles/Zeppelin level of RMS loudness and you're good.
You're mistaken that peak energy will not grab listeners in the first seconds. Peak energy is the ORIGINAL 'grab listeners in the first seconds', and it's easily do-able with modern technology, and hearable on any phone :)
If your music suck, it sucks. We need a plugin to tell the truth instead of another turd polisher.
(FACE PALM) IT took you "this" long to realise that extreme loudness detracts from dynamics?
He mentioned it's a bit more than just that.
This is now the only time I use the term "gamechanger". Here we go ... Gamechanger! :-)