I'm getting ready to do the full listening tests- should be good- I've also written a level matching program that I'm using to do it with, which is giving me +db measurements for people's entries by averaging every sample in the song
how's that for a big measurement window? I can post it if people want, perhaps on yousendit. It's a simple OSX program with a bunch of movieplayer controls that you drag and drop files onto. The level matching part is trickier- it only reads 16, 24 and 32 bit AIFFs and WAVs at 44.1K stereo, and some people's files (notably Patrik's) give it problems as Patrik's WAVs seem to not have a data block marker in the place the program expects it to be. I had a similar problem with UnderTow's, but then it went away. WTF???
This time around I controlled tone issues with only extreme treble and extreme bass EQs. The treble is the same one that threw up all over Rugged Cross, except for I've got some of the internals (a second FIR tap) onto their own controls now, so it's like I have a variation on a FIR filter with two taps which can give me more shaping of the highs boost. Seems to have mostly worked. I also wrote code to depict the brightness of the tone relative to pink noise. It seems that many natural phenomena have the same frequency weightings as pink noise, and whenever I've gone way under or way over the brightness of pink noise I've been scolded for it, so I'm giving myself a guideline.
The bass was weird- I'm doing basically a subsonic boost. No touchy anything in the actual bass, midbass, midrange, or mid treble. That's why it seems true to the sound of the mix. With respect I've totally ignored Cerberus's sensible advice on account of I think I just work better when choosing not to doctor things too much.
I got back into compression with this one, after many WUMPs where I was experimenting with doing it all with limiting/saturation. I'm doing 2.3/1 compression with the threshold at -6.75 db. I'm not getting more than one db of limiting over the entire verse, and not more than three db at any point including the chorus. In retrospect this was indeed real conservative, and I've been adjusting my various guidelines to give me a better idea of where most people seem to need the body of the sound to be, and where the sound starts to go seriously 'scrunch'. For that reason, this was an extremely useful learning WUMP for me.
I've experimented and I find that I can get the levels right up to most other entries without a lot of mess, with the following exceptions: I can't get peaks hotter than Sunny and Matt without making things scrunch too much, and I can't get the body of the sound hotter than Norbert and Matt without scrunching everything. This is not to say they didn't, what I'm saying is that I think I'm discovering areas of density where you CANNOT get things hotter, no matter who you are. I am not seeing pro examples exceeding these levels either. The areas are as follows as RMS loudness: remember, this is in a context of rock music that's being mastered hot, NOT classical or some form of accentuated dynamics. This is 'real world' as I see it.
'Blue', -18 to -15 db: very open, don't drop below -18 with music content or it'll sound unnaturally empty and quiet.
'Green', -15 to -12 db: okay for verses or low intensity stuff. Will feel open.
'Yellow', -12 to -9 db: choruses and loud bits, will feel dense and solid no matter how cleanly it's done. Should be reserved for dynamic effect.
'Red', -9 to -6 db: Sounds in this area will scrunch. The density is simply too high. It works very well for drum sounds as long as they do not ever EXCEED this zone.
Beyond 'Red': forget it. All that will happen is a big scrunch and it won't really rock any harder. Beyond red is hotter than -6db remember! This is already right at the brink of superhot commercial work that still sounds like the ME was working miracles. Instead of going hotter than -6db RMS, ever, stick to -6 as an absolute max and shape the EQ better.
With any of these, as you approach the brink of the next level up, it starts to seem like that level. A relaxed open verse at around -13.5db will really come across nice and open, one at -15 borders on being maybe too sparse, one at -12 is starting to get dense enough to lose that open feel. This is independent of how distortedly or cleanly you're doing it- it's purely a mechanical perception of nothing more than the RMS relative to peaks
Thanks everybody for all the raw materials to speculate upon! The next thing will be to see whether next WUMP I turn out a track everybody thinks is awesome- by observing these guidelines closely
