COMPRESSION MYTH BUSTER

Urban myths and legends have a way of sticking around even in the information age. Knocking on wood is one convincing example. We don't really believe it helps but, it can't hurt so why not.

Such is the way of some myths in the audio game. One myth that's been kicked around a long time has to do with compressing your audio to thwart the beat down it would otherwise get from a radio station's processing. The usual version of this story says that if you hypercompress your audio, the on air chain won't really touch it and you'll take control away from radio's aggressive broadcast settings.

It's not quite true. The only true aspect is that if you input material with no dynamic range, it's tough for the on air compression to reduce it further. Of course, it's more complicated than that. The audio still has to run the gauntlet of processors and it will be degraded further. Heavily compressed audio does not sound louder over the air, it just sounds more distorted which may lead to perceived loudness but at a heavy cost.

That gauntlet of processing just mentioned includes, phase rotation, automatic gain reduction, spatial enhancement, equalization, multi-band compression, limiting, high frequency limiting and clipping (peak limiting). This is a typical processing lineup that can be seen all over the world. Just hitting your compressor harder will not dodge this blitzkrieg. Not by a long shot.

Let your audio breathe. Don't fear the Orban. Make it sound great in the studio and let the on air crunch monsters do their worst, you have nothing to worry about.

EQ QUICK TIPS

First, always try to cut instead of boosting frequencies.

Second, when cutting use narrower bandwidth settings. Use wider settings when boosting.

These are general rules of course. The ultimate rule to remember is...If it sounds good, it IS good.

THE IPHONE ECONOMY

People are not buying cars but, iphone apps are flying off the virtual shelves. At the bottom of this post is an article that explains exactly how lucrative it has become to develop goofy phone apps that nobody really needs.

The app at the right for example, will spin a wheel of pics of your friends and stop on one at random. You can use it to select which one of your buds will pay for dinner. The developers are not responsible for the subsequent beatdown you've got coming for using the app.


http://gigaom.com/2009/08/27/how-big-is-apple-iphone-app-economy-the-answer-might-surprise-you/

MIC QUICK TIPS

Positioning the sweet spot of a mic just above the tip of the performer's nose can help reduce nasality. The singer/speaker may have to tilt their head up slightly.

This is a subtle adjustment you can make after selecting the right mic, the right preamp and the right vocal space.

Resist the temptation to eq the mic for recording. Save that for the mix. A little bit of compression can help sometimes but go easy, you can't take it off later.

RADIO AND RAILROADS

In the news recently was a rumor that Greenstone Media, a feminist radio network, is going to shut down. One of it's backers is none other than Gloria Steinem. Whether it survives or not isn't important to this post. What's more important is it's beginning which was only about a year ago. When interviewed about the development of Greenstone's programming by women, for women she was asked, "Why radio"? Her reply indicated that she thought radio was the most democratic of all media. We'll risk putting words in her mouth to explain further.

Radio is just about everywhere. The average household has more radios than televisions. Receivers are cheap. Until HD came along, you could get a hand held radio for next to nothing. All you needed was a nine volt battery to stay connected to world news, a local baseball game or the music that accompanied some of the great moments in your life. The internet doesn't come close to being as democratic as radio. So, what is all this web chatter about the grim future of towers and transmitters?

Theater survived talking pictures and radio survived television. AM radio survived FM. All of these have been declared to be on life support by someone with air time, print inches or cyberspace to fill. That task is now almost exclusively the domain of the internet. The web has a mechanism to deliver negativity quickly and easily. Just paste "FAIL" next to anything and surfers flock to it like Romans to a slaughter at the coliseum. But what about success? Is there any way to seek out and denote innovation or evolution? Maybe, but it certainly isn't as popular or as visible as "FAIL".

Isn't radio old technology? Yes, but so is the railroad, another business many tried to declare dead a long time ago. In the end, the railroad could do certain things better than any new technology so although, it got smaller, it survived.

On the flipside, criticism is good. Everybody needs to be checked into the boards now and again to be reminded to keep their head up. Maybe that's where radio is right now. It might have a bloody nose from getting it's face smacked into the glass but it will be back. A little smarter for the lesson as well. (This edition of Analogy Theater brought to you by Spishak Cola).

Creative and scrappy radio people have made a lot of amazing things happen for a long time. It's doubtful they'll roll over. Greenstone Media was one example. The company saw a need and took a risk on something that hadn't really been done before. Even if they don't make it, it was the right thing to do. Innovation is messy and involves much more failure than success.

Fortunately, we live in a time where anything is possible. One indicator of that would be that Jesus Christ has his own radio show. Surely, he could have chosen any outlet and he chose radio. Maybe he too felt it was the most democratic medium.

FRESH SNAPPER

We at the BAG have become fans of a cool audio app called Snapper. It's a Mac only goodie, sorry PC. The folks at AudioEase have really presented a great productivity tool. You can audition sound files from the finder, make selections from the waveform and drag them out as "snippets", convert and export to AIFF, WAV, BWF, mp3 and mp4a. What is really slick, you can spot into Pro Tools to cursor position or the audio bin.
The sweetness of this app is evident as soon as you start using it. If you rely on CDs as your source for content, get ready to save yourself a boat load of time in auditioning, transferring files, re-auditioning.... you get the picture. Just select what you want from the waveform and drag it to your session. Presto, it's like magic.
Snapper supports multi-channel formats and sampling rates from 1kHz to 384kHz.
You can also convert to mp3 and email the file via a one click button. Snapper really is a productivity utility with rich features. AudioEase has a 100 day fully functional demo. Check it out, it is a great partner when using your Brown Bag Production Library.
Link: http://www.audioease.com/Pages/Snapper/SnapperMain.html

THE LIFE OF LES PAUL

Waukesha Wisconsin was home for Les Paul but it would seem he didn't spend much time there once he learned to play guitar. He played on air as a live musician in St. Louis and Chicago radio in the 1930s even though he was born in 1915. He was a high school drop out.

He gets credit for the solid body electric guitar (1939). He developed multi track recording and many audio effects like phasing and delay. The details can be argued but there is little doubt that he was a pioneer in creating a whole new world of recorded music. In 1950, Les hosted his own radio show on NBC. While he kept inventing, he never stopped playing the guitar. He was a relentless performer and won 2 Grammy awards at age 90.

There are other honors of course. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, National Inventors Hall of Fame, and the Grammy Hall of Fame are all on the list. He was a creative tornado that even a severe car accident in 1948 could not stop. Paul had only limited use of his right arm after that and had doctors set it in such a way that he could still hold his guitar.

You can get more details on Wikipedia and many other sites. We just wanted to take a moment to applaud his talent and passion.

To seem him in action demonstrating the Les Paul-verizer watch this.

Les Paul died at age 94 on August 13, 2009.

MAGIC COMPRESSION

The knobs may look old but, this pic is of a brand new LA610 MKII micpre/channel strip from UAD. Specifically, you're seeing the compression section. How can this be? Where are the threshold, ratio, attack and release settings? Not needed. This unit has magical internal workings that only require you to turn the beefy peak reduction knob to taste. We use this tube driven beauty and can't get over the smoothness and texture. What it does for a microphone is impossible to find in a plug in.

THE PRICE OF LOUDNESS

Is louder better? That debate is raging all over the audio world. While the debate continues, there is no question that overall, recorded music has been getting louder over the past 20 or 30 years.

On vinyl, levels had to be kept lower since louder meant wider grooves and less audio per album. Smart, resourceful people back in those ancient times used the volume knob on their stereo to achieve a desired listening level. Those people had to be resourceful since they spent most of their time running from flesh eating dinosaurs.

Rumor has it that audio playback and listening devices today still have these volume knobs. Why the loudness competition in recording and mastering studios then?

Part of it is driven by artists and part by engineers. Another part is driven by information that says if a person hears the exact same song at different levels, he'll always say the louder version sounds better. We've never seen that study but, that info gets thrown around a lot. Human ears tend to hear more highs and lows as volume increases so, it's certainly not a wild concept. Boomy bass and crisp high end seem to sound good to most folks.

The debate rages on with no end in site. Levels will probably get louder as long as someone is making gear that will accommodate. What does that mean? Who knows but, as audio people we should at least understand the basic principle that more loudness means your audio will be affected in other ways. Trying to get the loudness and sound you hear on high budget recordings in your (project) studio comes at a price.

Mastering studios have mondo expensive and sophisticated gear which most radio or project studio producers will never see or be able to afford. The big guys are in a world of their own and the rest are forced to do what they can with whatever plug ins they can afford or crack.

A very popular loudness tool for a long time has been the Waves L2 limiter. Great plug right? Yes, but the harder you push it, the more it goes all Freddy Kruger on your audio. Limiters limit, it's that simple. More limiting means a ceiling that your audio can't get through. Your audio will sound crunchy and you may notice a loss in top end.

Adding loudness with eq and compression have their effects as well. When you boost eq you add distortion in upper harmonic frequencies. Some say a little of that is good. Hard to know where the line is since too much can smear the sound. Gotta use your ears.

With compression, more equals less dynamic range. Also, there's the pumping. A little might be good but too much could drive listeners nuts.

In the midst of the loudness war are many produers who feel that boosting loudness is simply unnecessary and frivolous trickery. They also believe it's counter to good audio. They would prefer that listeners kick it old school and adjust the volume control to determine level while the audio source remains truer to its origins. It makes for great discussion over a few microbrews. The way it's going, it may join politics and religion in the list of topics most likely to start a fight.