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[Lee Tyler]

chrisj wrote on Thu, 28 April 2005 16:05

Hey, it's a valid approach- your take on it did not sound anything like bad. I'm only saying that at least for me and Lee, what we got seemed like 'the worse' already, and screamed 'change me radically'. I didn't percieve that as mix decisions, it sounded to me like a relatively normal mix that had been dubbed onto cassettes 1000 times with the azimuth off. I understand that this changed it a lot, and if it was meant to sound like that, woopsy   I'm all the more interested to see what Bill does, now. Does he go minimalist and treat the presentation as a set of mix choices, or does he do what me and Lee did, decide that it's a drum machine, bass, DX7 or something and voice- that he knows what those sound like- and break out the chainsaws and oxyacetylene torches to render the thing in a wildly different way? That's certainly what I was doing when I chose to EQ that radically (had to be 20 db of notch in a narrow spot in the midbass) and apply the expansion stuff. I was like 'this is a drum box, and a keyboard, and I know what this stuff sounds like' and I tried to dig that out from the mud of the source. Makes me wonder what would happen if we got some other posters to try their hands on this. Would they try to smooth the grunge out of the existing presentation, or re-imagine it into something more characteristic of them? In particular I'm curious how it strikes Brad, because the way the mud is shoveled onto this, it's like the Anti-Brad, it really is. Not only is it massive mud and no definition, it's phasey as hell and just about the opposite of his sound in every way. What would he do? I could see his take being closer to Lee's than mine or yours (Lee got some good clarity there), but without anything comby about it- but some of that is in the recording itself and has to be removed. Hmmmm... Bill? Same goes for you- are you preserving the presentation of this track like it was intentional, or are you treating it like it's covered with a ton of mud and making it strikingly different?

Hi Chris. You and all of the other dudes here have WAY more experience/equipment/audio savvy than I will probably ever have, so I want to ask you guys a question regarding "phase". I know what phase is and how it sounds, but with a simple, rudimentary audio-editing program like Adobe Audition, how would one adjust the phase on the bass alone? I would imagine I would have to make a copy of the original track, make a sub-track with a proper low-freq range, and adjust the alignment of the left and right tracks to "sit right"??? I have no idea, really. And in regards to what I personally did to try to improve this presentation? After like 20 "fixes", I am truely clueless!   It is like I went into the ocean to refresh myself, swam about somewhat aimlessly, and then came back to shore kinda refreshed.  

Lee

[chrisj]

I'm not sure how you'd do it in Adobe Audition. There are quite a few issues going on here that can be referred to as 'phase'.

The way I manipulated the highs changed phase relationships because I had stuff split into different frequency ranges and moved the highs forward in time relative to the mids. If you had a frequency that was covering both ranges, one band would have it oscillating normally but due to the shift in time domain the other band would have the frequency shifted forward in its oscillation- so when the one was crossing zero, the other might be peaking out. That would be 180 degrees of phase alteration.
(edit- no, 90 degrees, nimrod- 180 degrees would be negative to positive peak)

With regard to the bass, what Bill was talking about is that when one woofer is moving out, the other isn't necessarily matching it- they are sort of fighting each other. I don't know why he says it's 270 degrees wide- perhaps he's measuring somehow that the same bass guitar waveform is nearly a whole cycle delayed on one channel, but one cycle at what frequency?

I will say this- all this phasey stereo hoo-hah is making me want to set up my software with _stereo_ group delay hackery. I'm like, 'wait a minute, what if I did have the bass band come out with different adjustments for right and left?'. Sounds like a reasonable enough suggestion, and I'd like to be typing in the delays as numbers- I have 'em on a slider and it's a bit vague. If I did that, I could change the phaseyness significantly. Whether that is desirable is an entirely different question

[Level]

Here is mine..for fairness, taken directly off the mp3 from this post.

I will explain; after everyone does a comparison.

I am not saying who is best here..it is for comparisons. You all decide.

[Cary Holding]

I'll play along.

[Level]

Here they all are, in order, Starting with original, Allen, Chris, Lee, Myself, Cary

[chrisj]

Right, comparisons 'r us. In the order given:
Original.

Allen: better controlled, pretty dull like the original, Bassdrum sort of rumbles interestingly, I like that. Vocal sounds very similar to the original.

Chris: apparently I like drum machines, because I contrived to have it much more present. Vocal is way more spotlit, but without sibilance getting out of control. Sort of grainy, thanks to all the treble boost. Sounds a bit like it was re-recorded, so great is the alteration. I still like it

Lee: hey, shaker! Voice is sort of weird as it's got roundness but a real tizzy edge. I like the bassdrum better than on mine- partly because I took away the reverb from behind it to make it more focussed. You can always have more bright than the next guy but it does tend to make things too upfront. I sympathise with this version completely. Brothers in bright

Bill: I'm really liking the rimshot. I'm really liking the bassdrum. I don't think anyone got a version that's better behaved than this- but it freaks me out how distant it sounds. Is that really what this guy was trying to do? I know that my and Lee's version must be hurting you over the tweeters-center Yamaha uberspeakers, but what you're doing isn't translating to my rig, and my rig is not exactly treble-shy. That said- my version and yours are doing something similar with the bassdrum there. What are you doing to make that happen?

Cary: I like the overall frequency balance here- like Allen's version, this is making the sloppiness of the original recording behave, without doing anything radical to the sound.

Very interesting. I guess my question now is: what did you mean by bass phase, Bill, and whatcha do? I know I mid/side EQed really radically, and then got medieval with group delay, roughly like this:
0-300hz, delayed very slightly
300-1K or so, forward a bit
1K-10K, baseline
10K+, forward even more

Since you got similar behavior off the bassdrum and all, how'd you adjust these things? Your methods would probably translate better for other people since I hadda write software to do it. I'd say whatever it was, it's worth doing.

[Lee Tyler]

I must admit there is a honky thang' going on vocal-wise in my attempt that "forced" me to drop a few db centered around 283hz with a Q of 3. Now I can live with myself. I will leave the old version there for now.    

Lee

[Level]

Being very busy..and not reading your last post Chris, think DVD soundtrack response. I am at liberty (due to content) to post a modern set of snips of a modern soundtrack balance.

(Editing of a movie I worked on)

More later...I am in heavy editing now..taking 5 to catch the thread...but I am on an 18 hour day..so I got to keep commitments..and will travel back here when I can..

PS..Chris, this was cut from a CD of the original tape. For all that participated to date, I will provide whole song so you see where it goes..

Sorry so tied up.

[HansP]

here we are
I like the results of crh and ajc.

I did not phase shift the lower mid+high bass to get the upright bass sound ok, this was done by the others quite well. but it is working with mono switch, sounds much clearer than the original, and distortion is tamed in spite of the brightness enhancement.

ah FYI- in the source, the left channel is ~3 samples late..
and I think we are beating a dead horse here but its fascinating to learn and practise.
an AI algorithm could do some more about the distortion, it needs to model the dolby behavior to get down to a reliable transfer curve (histogram inversion etc).

[Level]

Sound sweet hans...remember, movie context...level lower will give a different frequency layout..on your buss..


Study movie soundtrack level, not pop music nor cd.

See if that affords you more depth.

back to work here.../w me

[Level]

Movie level, this is hot for it.

Notice eq curve, clean and not brassy, round.

[Ronny]

Not sure what you guys are trying to do here, I didn't know it was mastering for film when I read the posts a half hour ago. Anyway here's another version.

[chrisj]

Level lower will give you a different frequency response on your buss?

I don't get it. Unless you're trying to produce a backdrop/bed to go behind dialogue (a perfectly legitimate thing to do), I'm not aware that film work requires levels to be real low or the top to be so rolled off. I thought current films were experiencing just the same problems of hyperlimiting that pop music was.

If somebody had said 'this has to go behind dialogue, Chris' I'd have been like 'oh!' and set it up more in the far field. That's not difficult, it's just the last thing I'd expect to do for a pop release- or the focal point of a DVD soundtrack. I admit to being very confused by this, and by the idea that lower level gives you a different frequency response.

So you want it quieter than the original source, and set up in the far distance? Okey dokey. Give me a few minutes.

[Level]

Actually, this exersize is more of "what would you do with this old track" whether for a movie or not. The track has been used in an upcoming movie (very difficult unless mono to feed in properly) and everyone...has a different take on it. So far, Ronny seems to have the cleanest restoration of it. Restoring first before folding into a soundtrack is very important...certainly.

Ronny did really well at cleaning it up.

Objective here..is:

Without knowing the use, what would you do? ..and it has proved very interesting, no doubt. Allen did not change the balance at all...and made the track sound really nice. All I did was to mono the bottom (everything below 400 6dB/octave) and not much else...because..changing the overall "selected" piece is something that the producer may not want. Should this represent the sound of its era or sound up to date? How deep do we go to find out what the intended purpose of the track is? Restoration, for CD, Film, Advertisement? Do we take the time to find out where it will ultimately end up? How important is it to know?

I also notice how folks are listening to others to get a reference and this could be good..or maybe not good. The reference is the original. Again, Ronny ..so far has the best averaging of all the factors.



So basically, everyones take is interesting, no doubt.

Knowing how the track is to be applied is part of the communication but everyone has a preference.

Chris, analog busses behave differenly at different levels and digital is also reported to change dynamics and frequency curve..depending on how hard it is pushed..but it is subjective and I have not seen any scientific data to really support that claim. We know...compression changes the FR curve.

[chrisj]

*LOL*

So the idea is, here, master this track, and then we'll see if you decided not to master it? And all you did was sum the bass? That's not true- the whole reverberant field collapsed somewhat on your take, which I thought was an intentional effort to control the washiness. You didn't mean for that to happen? Must have been the two layers of mp3ing.

The wav example you've put up isn't what I think of as 'film score' quality- it is an unrestored historical recording. Is the idea to make the new track (with drum machines and all) merge seamlessly with the historical recording, or is that just an example of something else you've done for DVD?

Give me a few minutes, I'll put up a track that's at the same general level and balance as yours (but is still 'fixed up'). Who knew?

Ronny's take is one of the most radical changes when you go to mono. I thought the idea was to push for more mono compatibility? Not that you said that, specifically