It's crazy that out of all the thousands of DJs there are in the world, not one of them has ever unlocked the "dynamic range" skill. Just like we do in mixing film and video games - slowly bring the levels down and your audience won't notice. Then you have all that headroom to drive it up again when you need it to hit hard and they'll notice it like a kick in the chest. Contrast, friends - it's your best weapon.
We do notice it, and sure in movie theatres it sounds great, but at home we hate it because some people are in the living room but not caring about what's on tv while I watch, then suddenly it's super loud and I have to apologize to people. Maybe master with a bit less crazy contrast for tv, then go full crazy with the contrast for the theatres?
Right? Instead of listening to what actually sounds and feels the best... And what he said about walking out into the crowd if your booth isn't in an ideal location or you're not doing your job properly-I thought that was like live sound 101??
I mean it's not far off from reality. My wife was booked to play locally, closing for a touring headliner. We noticed upon arrival that despite the Funktion-One system, the headliner's set sounded crap. As my wife went behind the decks to prepare she looked and told me -- "Ah he's redlining this Pioneer mixer no wonder." You could get away with pushing an analog mixer a bit but you'll get garbage from most current Pioneers if you redline them. And this guy is on tour. He probably made a few grand from the show while she made a few hundred. She immediately correct the gain issue when she went on and it sounded much better. It's a strange market for sure.
@@R3BBiT I noticed Dan was fast to Like the comment as it confirmed his belief, but I would love for him to look at the Deadmau5 waveforms himself and tell us it's "wrong" as described in his video here. I could be completely misuderstanding here, but so many decent sounding records (electronic) all seem to look like Deadmau5's waveforms - they're not squared off, but they're certainly not preserving the full crest of the wave either. Streaky mastering seems to have a very different view, which is sometimes using a limiter/clipper for 'a bit of sound' isn't a bad thing.
@@BrassicaMusic are they squashed against a hard limit? Are these his old or newer releases? I mean, he was young and naive wannabe once. It could be that he's just talking shit in his master classes (preaches but doesn't practice)....
@@alexcore697 It could have been clearer, like in the title, but it's easy to understand that he's mainly talking most of the EDM DJ he saw doing that. I too saw lots of DJs of any music genre hitting the red, but mainly in EDM you see lots of DJs hitting the red, AND doing that with tracks that are already loud and with low dynamic.
@Vikhr Its not EDM its Techno,All genres of Techno has its own name,Jungle,Drum n Bass,Gabber we used to call that Rotterdam,HardHouse,HardTechno,Hardstyle,its big tree of great music and its not called EDM,I prefer Rave cause im old n went to huge raves since 88,It is crap when skateborders call our music shite names,Boring simple names,Rave music born out of Techno music,Im off to have some Tea and Biscuits now before i take a stroke
@lucky luck I wonder how we all coped back in the nineties, when real DJs played real vinyl? I guess all those parties were a lot quieter than i remember..?
@UCUc7zcmbquaaKVomIAadoiQ I make videos on audio engineering, primarily. And there is an audio engineering aspect to DJing: your DJ mixer is like a teeny weeny toy version of the consoles I operated in the same venues for over twenty years. Over that period I got to observe DJs at close range, and concluded that many still don't understand the basics of gain structure. Comments on this video kind of confirm that! And I'm definitely qualified to preach on the subject of gain structure through a little toy mixer. Also on the stupidity of thinking you need loud masters to play loud through a PA. I mean, Lol! A PA will make anything loud, that's what it's for!
3 года назад+143
There's another side to this: that horrible limiting has been a part of EDM music for so long that fans of it actually prefer it. It may be part of the style. And if it doesn't sound that way, it's just not part of the aesthetics of the genre. It may be not just the loudness in itself, but the actual butchering of transients. Just like a honky tonk piano can be better than a perfect Steinway in many contexts.
I agree, in the same way I love overdriven, distorted 50's bollywood recordings. It's obviously clipping and distorting as hell, but it sounds so nice! :-)
Largely because that whole term was bastardised away from meaning dance music, and evolved as a label attached to music largely produced by bedroom kids who can't A) dj, or B) dance.
The only time I like the harsh, overly-compressed, digitally-clipping, maximized limiter, ‘non-analog-speaker-failing’ sound is when I’m listening to early Skinny Puppy. Period.
Nice to see you here W. Have you ever heard of Dave Rat? In case you'll ever get bored check him out, he's all about Bass, inside and out. Veel plezier.
I actually think E minor or G major might be more accurate. Bad guitarists would be more likely to avoid Eb unless they have to retune their instruments or make ridiculous use of the capo on the 11th fret.
t.b.h. I thought that was why guitarists changed to a differently tuned guitar for each song when playing live, so they can just play one shape all night.
Problem with PA limiters in the past was that most were voltage based peak limiters. These limiters were often advertised as power limiters, but you derive the RMS power from the peak voltage, based on a sine wave. When you run everything into clipping you get close to almost producing double the power at your speakers. The second, actually bigger problem is that subwoofer might happily take 2000W for a short kick drum hit, but the voice coil will fry, when you send it a low crest factor bass signal for however long your chorus is (say 20 seconds). This requires a sophisticated setup, combining peak limiters (aka excusion limiters) and true power long term limiters. It is advised by B&C (one of the largest PA component suppliers in the world), to set your long term average limiter to a tenth of your subwoofer's rated program power (yes, your 2000W subwoofer should not see more than 200W of power on average over the time span of an entire gig). Of course, those kind of amps (for example Powersoft) are very expensive (3k+), but reconing drivers all the time is too :-) If you have limiters like this in place you won't have to worry about idiot DJs anymore, since the amp adapts to the program material. Your pro DJ will have his 20KW of system power available (random example) for his dynamic peaks, while DJ Distortion has to work with 2KW, because his tracks have no dynamics. Oh, and did I mention that your subs will also need vastly different powers to produce the same SPL at different frequencies? Sophisticated limiters will know that, but basic peak limiters won't care. There is a nice video about this topic by Bennett Prescott, who is the US sales manager of B&C Speakers. I'm sure Dan knows most of this stuff, but I hope this can be helpful to some and maybe even prevent some expensive mistakes ;)
So much this: "clipping >...> double the power at your speakers". The way I understood the dangers, is that clipping introduces even harmonics. Those not only add their amplitude to the power level, the combination creates a signal that is exceedingly difficult to translate into the lateral motion of a speaker cone. And then there are potentially phase problems as well. When clipping and even harmonics happen, the speaker is told to generate many non-harmonic frequencies in s short span of time and at high volume. Some of the signal can't even be translated into motion because of the latency and other physical limitations of the speaker. The result is heat, eddie currents and more distortion, that all add up to make the signal even more destructive, saturating the coil until a resonant spike cause a fatal excursion. And of course whatever the rating of your equipment is, the assumption is you feed it a signal that resembles a wave, not a barrage of distorted spikes...
@@disklamer Voltage clipping gradually transforms your sine wave into a square wave, which consists of the fundamental and an infinite series of odd order harmonics with decreasing amplitude (as frequency goes up). A square wave is bad because it's basically DC, which turns your voice coil into a heater. Woofers need excursion for cooling (air flow), or they'll only be able to take super small amounts of power. That's how you can destroy a 1000W woofer with a 200W amplifier. In practice, a perfect square wave will never reach your woofer (in a regular speaker), since it'll pass through a passive crossover first, which filters out the high frequencies and turns the square wave more into what the sine wave was supposed to look like (the rest of the distortion gets sent to the tweeter). It's still not a pretty function and the woofer will not like it. Over excursion you mention is not a threat to modern woofers, as they've been engineered to not care. Some woofers can hit excursion levels, where the coil former hits the back plate (and either dents the cone or welds itself to something), but I regard those as engineering failures. Don't buy crap and you won't have to deal with crap :-)
@@peniku8 I always wondered this, although I saw it more simplistically as "the square wave jumps between voltage values and thus asks the cone to teleport, and since that's impossible, it probably damages it". The thing I wonder is, how harmful are the square wave settings on synths?
@@nicolarulli7733 The system crossover will make sure the drivers will only get frequencies they're supposed to get, and since a square wave is a function of sine waves, your subs will only see bass, no matter what you feed into the crossover. Your tops will reproduce the rest of the spectrum (each driver gets its dedicated frequency band) and all those sine waves that make up the square wave will combine back into an "acoustic square wave", if the system is phase cohesive, disregarding the physical limits of the system itself (limited bandwidth of say 30-18khz, distortion etc). Even if your speakers were theoretically perfect (unlimited bandwidth, no distortion), your amp will limit cone speed by its slew rate. If you take a 100Hz square wave and pass it through a 101Hz Brickwall LPF, you'll be left with a 100Hz sine wave. That's more or less what yours subs will be seeing after the PA crossover, which is typically a LR4 LPF (24dB/octave Linkwitz-Riley, somewhere around 60-100Hz). If you play a 1khz square wave, no signal will be sent to your subs, since the signal contains no frequencies below 1khz.
I'm a DJ, and I've played shows where my volume has been percievably "lower" than other DJ's who presumably have had crushed masters (much lower in LUFS). What I'm getting is that I can set my output gain higher than those DJ's who play very limited masters, because of the dynamics?
The root cause of this is overcompensation and fear- as a direct result of under education. DJ culture insisting on lossless files in the time domain- yet demanding information loss in dynamics, punch and rhythm is an obvious contradiction in logic. Engineers that bow to this kind of pressure are at worst enablers, and at best, incompetent. A congested master with poor dynamics is never beaten by a balanced master and a basic understanding of the trim knob. Bravo to you for underlining this Dan. Many of us that work on both sides of the engineer/performer equation are highly aware of this and will continue to stand our ground.
spent years telling djs that hitting the reds is making their mixes sound like shit and that i'm the one in charge of the club volume not them. amen to everything you said
As a DJ who also understands gain structure, music production and performing/touring at live shows, I’ve never had an engineer tell me to turn down the music. I usually get asked to turn up a little! Having toured for several years, the techs never worry when I’m around. More DJs do need understand gain structure and the times when I have taught classes I’ve always mentioned to do things correctly so that the engineers become your allies and that they don’t damage any equipment.
@@GreatBurningNullifier true, some just press play but the ability to chain/curate music together musically is a skill. As the youth would say, “there’s levels to this” I would class myself as a DJ/Turntabalist having grown from the hip hop scene where the turntable becomes an instrument being able to trigger and manipulate sound. I get to perform with artists on stage and regularly work with bands/musicians who call me in for my musicality on the decks.
@@sseb_music To play piano at a professional level you have to study for so long it's not even comparable, also instruments such as a piano involve more than just pushing keys (and pressing pedals) There's so many things to keep in mind such as dynamics, tempo, key, etc.
I'm sometimes live-sound engineer and even DJ as side-jobs. I'm playing retro music in our club like 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's pop/rock/rock'n'roll/dance and other old styles. As you can imagine, those songs are totally inconsistent with each other in terms of mastering and tempo. But my DJ program (and probably every other one!) has very simple thing that exists since 2001 year… ReplayGain. It just scans all songs, writes metadata to those files about "difference in gain from -18 LUFS" and just uses it later. So every song I play is at about -18 LUFS no matter what. Coincidentally, PA system in our place is setup in such way, that when I'm peaking my XAir18 mixer right at first "yellow" led (which means, I just reached -18dBFS), it's "loud enough" - which means: very loud, but still usable for people's hearing. So I'm pretty confident that my music is balanced between the songs without needing to even touch deck gains, and that it doesn't hurt people because it stays in all green meters (in my case).
I really enjoyed the spectrum view, not only because i like the colors, but even more for the fading effect it created on your channel logo and end card. Thought I was tripping when the stiff lines distorted as if they were moving left at different tempos while actually standing perfectly still. Well done, you got me. :)
Awesome video as always DW. Until the majority learn about gain staging and dynamics I think we will continue to see the trend of rectangle masters. I’d love to see a video showing the difference between an overly compressed track vs a track with more dynamics but then turned up. Then I can just link it to literally everyone who sends me tracks on Discord… lol.
I used to work as an FOH engineer in a club that had live acts and DJs. There was this really big name DJ that had come down for a gig and in between the gig the audio just completely cut out. He looked up at me and raised both his hands in confusion immediately gesturing to the audience that there was a problem with the PA system or the sound engineer. I camly got out of my booth walked up to the stage and moved the cross fader on his DJ mixer to the correct deck. He smiled, didn't bother apologising and continued the gig like it never happened. At the time this guy was amongst the highest paid DJs in the country. There are some amazing DJs out there who are very talented and knowledgable but the bar for technical knowedge to become a DJ is so abysmally low that when you can get away with not understanding what LUFS means why bother ?
I like quite a bit of electronic music and even a bunch dj’s, but most of that scene is just people who wanna be all hype. I mean, I get that it’s ‘in the name “dj” but so many of them are literally just playing other people’s music and passing it off as their own. So with that in mind, what makes us they’ll ever stop completely butchering mixes?
Im a DJ but Im also a producer and a mix engineer. DJs today play with software like Traktor and Serato on a laptop. When I started making my digital playlists I would use audio (either flac or mp3) transfered from CD or audio transfered directly from vinyl. I noticed that the most punchy and better sounding music was the music transfered from vinyl. I knew this would be the case cos of my audio engineering background. Audio for vinyl cannot be mastered with a hard limiter like CD audio cos the lathe cutting head cannot cut heavily limited audio. So it has way better transients than the CD. One could argue that the CD would sound louder though, right? WRONG! Software like Traktor normalizes the audio by the average loudness and not by peak levels. So If you play the same song ripped from CD and ripped from vinyl both would play at the same loudness but actually the vinyl audio would have higher peaks since those transients would not affect the loudness and would be higher than the peak levels of the CD. It was a revelation to me and put a smile on my face. I started going after all the vinyl rips I could find of albums and single I had on CDs and not on vinyl. Then the youtube / spotify era came. And for similar reasons RUclips and SPotify normalizes by loudness so if you master at -14LUFS youd be as loud as a loud master but youd have higher peaks! DJs who think that louder is better have not compared louder and less louder songs on their system. a -5 LUFS will sound as loud as a -16 LUFS on Traktor! but the -16 version will have more pronounced rhythm than the -5 which will sound more like an amateur master where verses hooks bridges and breakdowns will have more or less the same energy. If people couldnt realise the benefits of audio mastered for vinyl , at least youtube and spotify forced everybody to not master as loud as they once used to. Sucker DJs, WAKE UP!
Mostly agree with everything you said, but I just wanted to point out, it’s not so much when you’re DJing yourself, but other DJs are playing your music. Firstly, the DJ has to decide to play your music. And when they’re going through their library and making playlists, if your track sounds less exciting, it’s not getting included (most DJs aren’t going to think, oh it’s just a bit quieter, I can turn it up.) And then when they do play it out, the fact is, most DJs aren’t gain compensating. If your track is significantly quieter than the track played previously, people will start walking to the bar. -6LUFS and louder is too much regardless but I do still think loudness is relevant to a certain degree. Anyway, thank you for your videos, no one on RUclips knows their stuff like you do. PS. Found the spectrogram much more pleasant to look at.
In addition to deafening the listeners, in most cases, there is also the fact that those loud signals will start hitting the low speaker protection limiter before the driver limiter, changing the mix balance to something extremely shrill, if the speaker doesn't burn out...
The point of the video is that loud masters don't make the end result louder. If the masters are very loud, the volume will be turned down to compensate. If that masters are quiet the volume will be turned up to compensate, thus making LUFS level and loudness pointless
Hi Dan, here's a thought on what you said. With less limiting, it's true, dynamics will be better, and I personally prefer that, and what you're saying about setting the gain structure is also correct in principle, the issue is, the majority of DJs are not particularly well versed in the nuances of dynamics etc. so will usually DJ on the mixer with either no headroom or, often, just run the mixer into the reds. The problem doesn't end there, as most sound engineers (here in Australia anyway) would expect that the DJs will do that and set their FOH console up in a way that they expect the DJ to be redlining. Quite often they're not constantly monitoring the DJs levels either (as you can see from the comments they consider it "babysitting") so if you're not clipping like the other DJs you essentially get penalised for being more dynamic. That's basically where that culture of mega loudness in dance tracks comes from. I'll also add that that's a lot more prevalent in mainstream music styles and festival DJing where you have a shorter set so impact is key. It's very nice when you have a DJ who understands DJing with headroom and not needing mega loud tracks and an engineer that is willing to accommodate that.
Good point Lewis, the FOH engineer (if there is one) should be ready for the times when the DJ does know what he is doing. I would suggest having a chat before your set if you can see an engineer is present, otherwise you have to have the balls to drop the system level in the hope the engineer is paying attention, and you may have to make eye contact as they will be trying to figure out what your about! But it will be worth it. In my experience as a system engineer I would very happy with this situation because now I can ease off the limiter and increase the system gain and the rig is going to realise it's potential and sound sweet, and it will also be louder than when the fools thrashing the reds were playing. Even in a situation like a club where there is no engineer it is worth pulling back on the mixer output and listening to the rig to determine at what point the limiters are kicking in, if you can turn the monitor in the booth down for a moment that will help you hear the rig more clearly.
I like the spectrogram much better Mr. Worrall. The animation just scrambled my brain and I had to look away 😅. Thank you kindly! Love your channel by the way....
first of all: yes, this spectogram view looks really cool. could have a bit of a better resolution in the lowend for my taste, but really close enough. it seems to have a bit of latency though. i got used to it after half a minute but it was slightly irritating first. about this topic: idk if i'd be so hard to the DJs about saying such things. i think when they say a limited mix is "punchier" they don't actually mean punch, but rather pump. like the glue that occurs, when things are smashed together. the density of all the sounds together. i'd still be on your side that this is not crucial on a club loudness, but i understand it
The way you explained this cracked me up! As a DJ, producer and engineer for the past 30 years I give you credit. You sound like me on occasion (with far less curse words and smoother delivery). The DJs that come from vinyl and fully analog mixers totally understand your point. Spot on.
As an ex nightclub DJ who does music production, mixing live events and live stream production, I 100% agree with you Dan. There's a reason why EBU R128 says -23 LUFS (a standard for most TV broadcast companies around these parts).
@@POLYFUSIABAND watch the Fabfilter two-part series on loudness, which this video seems to be a “sequel” to. They don’t “want” you at -14LUFS, and parroting that information doesn’t really help anybody.
@@POLYFUSIABAND that's wrong, spotify and other streaming services are phasing out the LUF limit, so they don't really "want" you at any specific loudness
I really think you nailed it. And, I know you don't mean ALL DJ's - but there are certainly enough that fit the description exactly so that I know what you're talking about as you describe them. And, yes - I suspect (2) channels is near the zenith of their ability.
Message. 👍🏾 I’ve worked alongside DJs for nigh on two decades by now and it always boggled my mind how few people demonstrably comprehended this stuff, and even some of the few that did to any appreciable extent still managed to blame others for their own shortcomings… 😣
Worked at an independent guitar store a few years ago. You'd be surprised how many people didn't know how to change their strings or even tune their guitar. Boss told us we could charge whatever we felt and keep it.
Dan, any and all ways in which you choose to represent yourself on screen are more than adequate. Spectrograms, scopes, blank screen, old cartoons, it’s all fair game because the words have such wisdom! Thanks for sharing, as always.
This was just beautiful😭. The worst part about DJ's that have no clue what they're doing is when there on cocain or some other drug when there doing there set and really aren't listening to you when you say turn your mixer down. Then they come over to you and ask you to turn him up, and you say, i had to turn you down cause you were clipping everything. So then they are turn it down. 1 song later, blasting the channels. Thank the heavens above for limiters cause without them when, my PA's would be fucked by now when I'm doing live sound :)
Being a live sound engineer myself, I can confirm, that i rarely see a DJ that doesn't have his/hers meters in the red consistently. At one point i started to question myself, whether it is their way to keep all songs at the same level.
as a dj, for my personal experience, i can say that even if i pay attention every time i can to not go red, i've found that sometimes it happened to me (and other many people i think) because after hours of loud music the ear get used to it, so the more time passes the more you tend to raise the volume more and more if you're "in the mood" and you don't pay attention to the gain staging/consistency of your mix...
I think this happens because all night long they crunck up the PA volume to the end of limits and a quiter song can't get louder because no more gain is available so they need to make other songs quiter to match up but dj's want not do this in a full club. Normally they need to manage the loudness from beginning to end of the night to overcome such a problem. Otherwise I totally agree with Dan, just use the mixer gain or volume..
As a non native English speaker, I find it really hard to try and explain all that was said in this video to my fellow producer friends, which is why I'm happy to just link them here. I freaking love this video because it puts to words perfectly what I have had in mind for so long. Which was something I am not able to do.
As Dj I understand your frustration, that loudness hunger is all around the scene. Give that dj a bag of vinyls and he'll understand that a quieter source will produce a stronger result.
@@nissimtrifonov5314 I kindly disagree, a well recorded Vinyl(from a well made mix) has a good dynamic range and a solid crest factor , i was referring to the -6 dB LUFS requested to Dan by the dj and that's not possible to obtain on a vinyl.
@@nissimtrifonov5314 except that's not true at all, are you just looking at specs? there are plenty of cases where the vinyl release has better dynamic range than the CD release.
@@salvatorediguido4883 I am not talking about the content, I am talking about the media. Of course a well recorded Vinyl will sound better than a crappy CD. But talking about the media itself vinyl has at best 70 dB of dynamic range while a CD has 96. That means that a CD has the POTENTIAL to store music with far superior dynamic range (26 dB is a huge difference!). Lowering the dynamic range of recorded material is called compression...
As a DJ with 20 years of experience I can say 80% of DJ's have no clue how gain staging works and they just ride everything on red. A very few actually knows how signal flow works and how to keep clean signal. So I would say around 80% of DJs are idiots.
Unfortunately most of these people are DJs precisely because they're not good at anything. They lack the talent to be musicians, lack the knowledge and skills to be engineers, lack the social abilities to be bouncers. They're not DJing out of a passion for music but because plugging a USB into a mixer and pushing play is easier than any other job they could do. So THANK you for caring and I do hope you get compensated for it.
@@marq_8976 really..? You really think the DJ who is up there trying his best not to drown in pussy while earning copious amounts of money, actually wish he was the sound-guy in the back, IF ONLY he was smart enough?? And "social ability to be bouncer" :'D ? For real? You think the bouncer is the one with the social ability, not the DJ, am i getting that right? This is just oozing of cope! And fyi i am not a DJ, i have no stake in this, i just find it very funny.
@@jkRatbird Short answer just for you at the very end! :D Your concept of 'DJ' is very narrow. It may not be evident to you, but Most DJs work in bars/small clubs. A minuscule handful of them are headlining festivals in the main stage. Not that it matters anyway. All of them are red-lining already clipped songs with very low dynamics and abusing PAs and people like you are more than happy and willing to defend them and pay copious amounts of money to see them pretending to beat match already rendered sets. TLDR: LOL I KnoW riGht?? XD o boi
I too was a DJ for 20 years and I'm afraid I have to disagree, you clearly don't have the remotest idea what you are talking about. There's no way on earth a whole 20% of DJs have any clue about gain staging, headroom etc. A realistic figure would in fact be about 2%, and then I'm being generous. So AT LEAST 98% of DJS are idiots! Not joking!
I am really asking a lot of questions about loudness lately... I tend to think the idea of "louder than the last DJ" arguments are stupid, but I generally like the way that a reasonably squashed mix sounds, at around -6 to -8 lufs. I would love to know your take on why people are so concerned with loudness in Pop. I know that "As It Was" by Harry Styles is -5.7lufs integrated, and it is abundantly clear that the song was made with high prioritization of loudness, from start to finish. The song sounds a little too limited for my liking, but I am trying so desperately to understand why they would go to such limits to achieve such ridiculous loudness for a clean sounding track. The best argument I have heard so far is that "everything is brought forward so you can hear it at low volumes, like in a grocery store." Cheers, love your videos.
Great video Dan. Most DJ softwares (including free software like MIXXX) have loudness leveling. Set it once and forget it. No need to fiddle with mixer gains. This can allow the DJ to set a respectable level and not kill the venues sound systems.
DJ here. I agree with most of what is said, fun fact: there's this club where I ussually DJ at where the audio guy in charge always softens up the limiter and gives me more wiggle room than other DJ's because he knows I dont crush the mixer into the reds as most DJ's do; my levels are lower on the mixer but I'm actually playing louder and cleaner. That's a sure way to win the heart of the Audio guy in charge of the club.
as a DJ who also engineers, i love the knob on the back of the old pioneer mixers that lets you change the displayed peaks on the mixer, so the morons who demand three reds can be happy, and your sound system can also be happy
I agree with you Dan, but some of the top mastering engineers like Luca Pretolesi actually use very fine tuned chains to simulate more of a dynamic while being at -3dB RMS. You should check that out, maybe even do a video on that if you're interested. I myself mostly aim between -14 to -8, but this guy really did make a good sounding mix plugged at -3. I think he uses clipping in conjuction with expanding to achieve it
As a DJ and producer, I fully agree. However if a label listens to my track in the middle of tens of others which are 2x louder, it will, apparently (!), sound weak. Same for the audience (provided that there’s a limit at 0 dB..). That’s unfortunately what we have to produce for. And “top” labels easily produce tracks with 4 dBs range without, apparently, sounding bad. I wonder how..
If a said "top" label can't recognise the difference between demo with headroom vs reference master vs actually mastered track (and to actually correct the loudness with THEIR volume control), why even bother to send them a demo?
Less compression and limiting, turn your volume up and just enjoy the full dynamic range. I've learned that a couple years ago, I'm glad you tell it on your FF tutorials (and here aswell!). That's probably why I like how music was produced during the 70s, I guess. Cheers from Belgium.
Sadly, many partiegoers actually dont want dynamic range. How many parties really has people listening to music? Only dedicated parties with big artists outside of pop music, which in my direct surroundings have become scarse, sadly. What I mean is that a lot of people going to raves, parties etc, go to dance a little, socialise a lot and drink even more. When you are in that state and mindset, you just want a pumping beat to make you move. When it becomes too quiet, you'll just hear the other drunk people that arent your friends, not the music. Thats why I love electronic concerts, if I can call it that. I was once at a Puce Mary performance and it felt so good that the ENTIRE crowd just immediately shut their mouth when she walked on stage. Full attention to the artist and because of that, you can actually work with dynamic range. But few people want that experience (or even know that its a possability :/ )
Full dynamic range can be brutal though, it's not fun having your ears blown off by horns suddenly coming in at a million decibels louder than everything else. Like watching a movie and constantly having to turn the volume up for the whispered dialogue and rushing to turn it down for the explosions.
@@AfferbeckBeats like how a lot of classical music does not work as background music if you're talking. You wont hear the quiet parts, or if you adjust the volume so you dl hear the quiet parts, you'll be blasted away by the loud parts.
@@thaDjMauz Classical listener here. Full dynamic range is needed - usually. Just witness the punch in Mahler 6 ending as an extreme example. Not needed in louder surroundings like eg a car, that's right. I am using VLevel dsp with foobar2000 for my classical music in cars. Which pushes up the low volume parts automatically in a decent way.
@1:39 “You’re making the live engineers forced to listen to you while packing the gig that’s just ended, despise you deeply and profoundly.” 😅😂🤣 Oh, do I know that feeling.
Thank you thank you thank you! Perfectly reasoned excoriation of every moron who we had to follow with PA repairs. The worst was club or bar managers who believed the slavering idiots over, you know, the people who designed and built the system, and who patiently attempted to instruct them on the things they had spent so much money on. They were always mystified as to how expensive commercial speakers could blow so frequently. I’m sure they thought that turning the system up as loud as it could go would draw and maintain a crowd, but thoughtful observation notes that the opposite is true: if the music is distorting and ears are in pain (and assuming a functioning brain), customers leave. Smart management won’t rehire or refer such DJ’s. It isn’t complicated (refer to functioning brain). I love what you said about walking the room to see what it sounds like from the audiences’ perspective. That was part of our routine. Too many “sound” people set up, turn up, and then stand like monoliths, frozen in a glaze. Until you walk the room, or send somebody (possessing subject referred to in parenthesis above) you can’t know what you’ve done and make appropriate adjustments.
The spectogram is very nice, but pretty delayed. The point we're currently hearing would be nice if was on screen while we hear it, maybe even centered, with a pseudo-playhead in the middle.
Thank you for all the videos that you put out Mr. Worrall. I may not understand everything in them, but I always learn something. I am thankful for teachers like yourself. I’m no DJ, but I love creating music.
As a DJ, I agree with you. Was nodding along with the fab filter video aswell. Loads of djs just don't know enough about audio. ps. i liked the other waveform more.
I play guitar with DJs often, and this is the most refreshing rant I´ve heard in a while. Honestly, I´m convinced that 85% or more of the people I´ve played with completely shut their ears off as soon as they start playing, and only concentrate about syncing transitions. Also, comparing the amount of effort/time it takes to move a fader 2 cm as opposed to engineering a -5db LUFS track into sounding like it has more than one dimention is ridiculous to think about.
Ironically, myself and a couple of people I know actually refuse to play stuff that's mastered too loud. And most of my masters, mix dependant, of course, may sit as quiet as -8 or -9 LUFS because I think that's where it sounds good. I get sent demos as loud as -3 and they sound awful, so i do my best with my somewhat limited knowledge to explain why "louder" isn't always better
@@mod3l The loudness creep in the industry is real, and it's only gotten worse with amateurs pretending to be experts and telling everyone to go louder and louder. -8 is really loud, and the point beyond which there are few benefits to perceived loudness to justify the loss of audio quality. Going louder than that is just a stupid meme that has to die.
Looking at the spectrogram of your voice inflections is really interesting. You can see the note like a midi note in the low mid range weaving around like a melody.
If you want all your tracks to be the same volume and some of them are louder than others, it seams to me that it would be just smarter to make the loud tracks quieter in the digital realm so they are all relatively the same, and then amplify the signal as much as you need to
Also if I can literally feel my eardrum expand and contract by the kickdrum to the point where it starts hurting what is the point? I can’t listen to that without pain and irreversible hearing damage. Drums are loud as is, don’t need to amplify them to rocket launch levels.
Ever since I was a little kid using my family’s audio gear to create feedbacks through delay pedals I have been invested in sound design. Nothing makes me happier than playing live sequences on a bunch of synths for an audience. However, most venues won’t take a live set since it’s just easier to show up with a usb stick. I think the industry is too standardized, but what can you do? DJing is fun and inspiring, and it’s what keeps the lights on for a lot of talented producers who can’t carry their prophet Vs around clubs. So we’re left with all the studio magic we can summon, to then play the best mixes we can do in a DJ set.
Looool this is gonna roll some heads. I think part of the issue in certain genres of edm is that some djs are constantly cutting between tracks and playing 1-2 mins of each one. Like riddim (dubstep) djs, who arent even beat matching are also too lazy to adjust gain between tracks because they are constantly "mixing". Having boring slabs of sound all at the same level is useful to them. Riddim is the worst offender of the loudness wars, check out "now that's what I call riddim -subtronics" for some of the nastiest ear raping brick walls you will ever hear. On the other hand, actually knowing how to gain stage as a dj can really set you apart. I always talk to my foh guy to get an idea of their set up and make sure to never get in the red on my mixer. That way when I mix in some yazoo or Depeche mode then crank the gain it slaps hard. I cringe so hard when I see a massive name headlining a club with every track and the master in the red..... like please turn it down then let the pas turn up for godsakes lol..... thanks for this one Dan, hopefully it finds the right ears
THANKK YOUUUUUUU!!!! Been having these discussions with these missguided kids online, just now. The concepts they hold are many times totally backwards, and super hard to unlearn... Mostly cause they refuse to change.
when you have enough watts to level match all songs in your library at a targeted level, dynamic music will always sound a lot better than squashed ones both musicians and DJ's should strive for that
As a DJ i can say you're 100% right with the point of some djs don't know how to use a mixer. Ive seen djs playing before or after me just putting their gain trims to a 12 o'clock position and not moving them for their whole set. I usually do a tempo match and a level match by ear before I mix two songs. Level matching by ear might be the easiest part of my djing because come on, I just listen to two songs on my headphones and decide if the next track is louder or quieter by hearing it and then I change the gain trim or level knob or whatever you wanna call it accordingly. But hey apparently some djs like the vocal of a new track being buried beneath the crossbeat of an old track because that never sounds weird.
You can always use the Bob Katz test to put them to shame. Load a wave file of the song in question, duplicate it, then convert the duplicate to a 64k mp3. After that, invert the phase of one of the tracks. See all that high frequency noise? You're hearing that and it can damage your hearing.
Agree 1000%. The thing is, however: For not so established mastering engineers, we have to do as the clients want. I try to educate the clients but they just go somewhere else. The only thing we can do is play the game finding ways to trick the ear to hear the least destruction possible while reaching those levels, while hoping that DJs will someday understand the stupidity of -5 LUFS
The truth has been spoken! You can see how true the last statement is with the dance music from 80s, that music keeps so much energy and punch rhythms because back then music wasn't as compressed/limited as it is now. So much good music that is being released in the last years doesn't have all the sonic and emotional impact they could have if they just didn't try to accomplish with this -6-or-something LUFS nonsense.
Well.. RUclips is flooding with (knowledge) clipping your tracks to get loud masters, same as your fav Dj/Artist plays. Won't Lie , Started doing the same for my tracks. In the last two months I realized if you take break and come back and listen to your "Loud" masters, You will feel less and less punch when u compare Your Un-mastered mixes and bring them to same Level through GAIN knob. IT works, It really works. Thanks Dan to bring this knowledge for us. I hope more and more new producer/Dj's watch this to understand what's really happening .
Yeah. If you're making an EDM track and you need to smush your master to get the drums to punch you just need to mix your drums better. When I do offline mixes (as in not through DJ equipment) it's really annoying that I have to turn down everyone's tracks that aren't my own because they slammed them into a limiter, but the thing is just that, I can just turn them down. I don't get why people still make unreasonably compressed masters in 2021 it just makes the drums sound weaker. That being said, if my mix is properly compressed/saturated, and has enough high end, and I push it into a limiter just a tad I get like -7 to -6.5LUFS anyway at the "drop" sections.
@@MIDNIGHTCVLT He manages to get his kicks to really hit by making the sub louder in the kick than in the bass and using extremely heavy sidechain, and also being so much louder than everything else that it ducks the whole track. The transient still like don't exist though. I won't dog him or anyone for it, I just don't understand why people still feel the need to do this. The music is still good even if I don't agree with how he masters it. Also hey, your track Can't Escape is awesome I play it out all the time lol
@@KindridMusic oh thanks man! And I don't think he's actually adding sub to the kick, in fact space laces kicks are super short so they only have transient, obviously they have a bit of low end but the big low end comes from the sub of the track. I think people do this because clipped kicks and snares has an aggresive sound. I'm so used to clipped stuff right now that when i hear a kick with no clipping it sounds weak to me lol.
This rant is so politely British, well, most of it, I need to hear it again right now. Dan is dishing out so savagely, not just with words, but on multiple levels. And he´s right on top of that. Such weaponry can´t be legal without a proper loicense, can it?
Great to hear your perspective and real-world experience as always. Keep in mind the social media pitfall of extreme views = more views though. We love your balanced explanations too much for that!
As a veteran Dj of 30 years, I also approve of this message in all it's scathing grandeur. There is a huge divide from the old analogue vinyl dj's that were raised on varying master levelled records to the new wave of one channel hands in the air, redline at 128bpm kids that think it's more important to make lovey dovey hand gestures while the confetti canons blast masses of fake enjoyment over their EDM-MDMA soaked brows as the selfie sticks wave in common naivety at the capture of yet another sub-par performance. When I grew up and was learning my trade, it was ALL about preserving the sound quality and adapting it to fit the room acoustics. There was nothing better than finding that quality pressing of a smooth sine kick and feeling the warmth as it tickled your soul. There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon as the 'loudness wars' seem to have been identified and a lot of producers are now dialling back. I hope this trend continues alongside the re-emergence and popularity of analogue gear amongst the electronic producing community, Oh and thanks Dan for your channel - subbed immediately and will now continue my education.
As someone who has been djing in the techno scene as well as mixing bands and producing my own dance music, i must say: Amen! It's insane how many dj want to go louder and louder, and i understand it, the crowd is cheering when there are big improvements in loudness, but most of the djs havent learned a thing about audio. The know how to do a basic mixing from one song to another with a 3 band eq & the mostly mix techno intro into outros (so kill bass in track a, bring in bass of track b, then mix out a whilst b is evolving) or similiar easy techniques. Even if they get creative still many dont consider learning enough about audio to really know what they are doing when controlling such weapons (at least a badly set up PA can be one). So yeah, thanks, let's spread the word and hope for more dynamics and more lively music. (though i think the techno scene will take the longest for that. Its all about a faaat kick and the rest is just there so it doesnt get too boring -.- ) Man i'm ranting more than i wanted as well :D Thanks for all the videos Dan!
Classic British :) Absolutely to the point, without loudness and humour in between. I just wish I could compose my sentences the way Dan and Brits do! Loved it.
Too true Dan. Like yourself. I have been a live sound engineer for many years and seen and heard everything you have touched on here. A very small rant, but needed to be said. Thank you!
While I do believe that there's a lot of... foolishness in aspiring DJs, I disagree when you say there's no reason to apply heavy limiting to a track. Well, I say limiting, but I also include clipping in that general arguement. In a lot of electronic mixes, a key ingredient is maximizing the aggression in your available soundstage. I'd argue that transient punch may be lost in the limiting & clipping of tracks or stems - as the current trend has become - but there's a certain flavor of energy that comes from that same technique. Obviously, there's a point where the carefully built house of cards collapses on itself, but I'd be very interested to hear a low LUFS mix that's as aggressive as one of Noisia's post-2016 tracks, once turned up to equivalent loudness.
You do understand that limiters have Attack parameters, and this fact kind of destroys your entire argument? It's foolish to gauge the mixing or mastering skill employed on a track by looking at it's waveform. Also, there is NO trend of clipping audio these days, at least not in the sense of hard clipping. That is utter nonsense Source: mix engineer of 15 years
@@mgmg116 That's precisely missing my point. It's the sound of the sausage, the completely cut peaks, that lend to the sound. Noisia, to the best of my knowledge employs a combination of processing the stems with limiting and clipping among a range of other transient shapers and compressors, and then applying the final mix with another set of the same or similar effects. On clipping, I didn't explicitly state hard-clipping; I'm not sure where you got that. I do agree that hard clipping is exceedingly rare. The only track I've heard that I suspect might have hard clipping is scheme's Quake. I haven't checked, though. Either way, the general trend of heavy electronic productions do indeed have strong clipping effects on both stems and masters. Why do you think Boz sells Big Clipper? Even TDR has a clipping module on their Limiter 6's.
@@williambrewer3150 Soft clipping isn't doing the same thing as hardclipping, and hardclipping is almost always what people are really talking about when they say 'clipping'. Also, it seems to me you are fundamentally unaware of how transient shaping works. You can absolutely thicken the body of a transient without taking its impact out, even though the resulting waveform looks like the peak has been rounded off, it can STILL cut through a mix. This is like, basic production/mixing 101. It's why you can't always judge a production from looking at its waveform. You need to use your ears. I don't care how the waveform looks. How does it SOUND? You know, the only concern of a producer or audio engineer? I know for a fact I can use a compressor to fatten up my transients and they'll appear to be rounded off, and yet I can still get them to punch the way I want. Through a combination of parallel processing, attack automation, and extreme soft knee-ing, I know I can get it to punch
@@mgmg116 Hey Mr. mgmg. I'm not even sure what we're arguing anymore. Everything you're saying is absolutely right. It does all come down to how it sounds. How the transient shaper presses into your limiter/clipper absolutely matters, and you can certainly get enormous punch out of a brick of sound with no visible transients whatsoever. All I meant to say is there's a kind of sound that arises from brick-wall limiting that can be used to great effect, not just as a sacrifice in mastering. Maybe everyone does refer to "clipping" without qualifiers as hard clipping. I am a bit surprised since every kind of overdriven distortion can come from all kinds gear, and I've certainly never picked up that verse of lingo in my circles. But, I wouldn't be surprised to be in the minority.
Best point ever. Reducing the dynamic range makes little speakers sound bigger. If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in amps and bins flying all around you...it's counter productive.
Spectrogram seems less distracting than the waveform. DJ's gonna be quieter than your noise floor after this one
I guess if the waveform was smoothed out a bit (so it averages a 250-500ms timespan for example), it would look actually quite soothing :)
XD
Haha 😆
the bad ones
I'd love to see a spectrogram like fl studio's wave candy in enhanced frequency mode!
It's crazy that out of all the thousands of DJs there are in the world, not one of them has ever unlocked the "dynamic range" skill. Just like we do in mixing film and video games - slowly bring the levels down and your audience won't notice. Then you have all that headroom to drive it up again when you need it to hit hard and they'll notice it like a kick in the chest. Contrast, friends - it's your best weapon.
I haven't even dared to make this argument yet! Baby steps ;)
@@DanWorrall Give 'em hell XD
We do notice it, and sure in movie theatres it sounds great, but at home we hate it because some people are in the living room but not caring about what's on tv while I watch, then suddenly it's super loud and I have to apologize to people. Maybe master with a bit less crazy contrast for tv, then go full crazy with the contrast for the theatres?
Whoa I’ve never heard of that. That’s crazy. Gonna try that now. Is there a rule of thumb for how quickly to decrease your levels?
omg...
@@maxwilson7001
As a DJ, I approve this video. Seems a lot like DJ's still think red lining will make them headline anyways so don't blame you for calling us idiots.
Love that… “Redline does not mean Headline”
This.
+1 (sadly)
Right? Instead of listening to what actually sounds and feels the best...
And what he said about walking out into the crowd if your booth isn't in an ideal location or you're not doing your job properly-I thought that was like live sound 101??
I mean it's not far off from reality. My wife was booked to play locally, closing for a touring headliner. We noticed upon arrival that despite the Funktion-One system, the headliner's set sounded crap. As my wife went behind the decks to prepare she looked and told me -- "Ah he's redlining this Pioneer mixer no wonder." You could get away with pushing an analog mixer a bit but you'll get garbage from most current Pioneers if you redline them. And this guy is on tour. He probably made a few grand from the show while she made a few hundred. She immediately correct the gain issue when she went on and it sounded much better. It's a strange market for sure.
Deadmau5 for all the crap he talks literally agrees with you on this. He said in his masterclass turn up the volume instead of sosig'ing your mix
Deadmau5 is a pofessional, not a wannabe idiot.
I've just looked at the waveforms of a dozen of more Deadmau5 songs. The peaks are squashed on all of them.
@@BrassicaMusic Yep. His latest tracks all hit around -6 lufs short term or more on the drops…
However, his “while 1
@@R3BBiT I noticed Dan was fast to Like the comment as it confirmed his belief, but I would love for him to look at the Deadmau5 waveforms himself and tell us it's "wrong" as described in his video here. I could be completely misuderstanding here, but so many decent sounding records (electronic) all seem to look like Deadmau5's waveforms - they're not squared off, but they're certainly not preserving the full crest of the wave either. Streaky mastering seems to have a very different view, which is sometimes using a limiter/clipper for 'a bit of sound' isn't a bad thing.
@@BrassicaMusic are they squashed against a hard limit? Are these his old or newer releases?
I mean, he was young and naive wannabe once.
It could be that he's just talking shit in his master classes (preaches but doesn't practice)....
I am a DJ. I applaud you good sir. This was what was needed to be said and how it should have been said. This is pure excellence, sir. Thanks you!
Apart from him callin our music EDM
@@alexcore697 he's speaking in broad terms and in broad terms it's technically all EDM and we cannot escape that lol.
@@kewk Go back to your bed
@@alexcore697 It could have been clearer, like in the title, but it's easy to understand that he's mainly talking most of the EDM DJ he saw doing that. I too saw lots of DJs of any music genre hitting the red, but mainly in EDM you see lots of DJs hitting the red, AND doing that with tracks that are already loud and with low dynamic.
@Vikhr Its not EDM its Techno,All genres of Techno has its own name,Jungle,Drum n Bass,Gabber we used to call that Rotterdam,HardHouse,HardTechno,Hardstyle,its big tree of great music and its not called EDM,I prefer Rave cause im old n went to huge raves since 88,It is crap when skateborders call our music shite names,Boring simple names,Rave music born out of Techno music,Im off to have some Tea and Biscuits now before i take a stroke
I loved every second of his rant. So relatable.
Half of it was total nonsence
Was that too technical for you?
True. I put in the effort and learnt to play an instrument... ;)
@lucky luck I wonder how we all coped back in the nineties, when real DJs played real vinyl? I guess all those parties were a lot quieter than i remember..?
@UCUc7zcmbquaaKVomIAadoiQ I make videos on audio engineering, primarily. And there is an audio engineering aspect to DJing: your DJ mixer is like a teeny weeny toy version of the consoles I operated in the same venues for over twenty years. Over that period I got to observe DJs at close range, and concluded that many still don't understand the basics of gain structure. Comments on this video kind of confirm that! And I'm definitely qualified to preach on the subject of gain structure through a little toy mixer. Also on the stupidity of thinking you need loud masters to play loud through a PA. I mean, Lol! A PA will make anything loud, that's what it's for!
There's another side to this: that horrible limiting has been a part of EDM music for so long that fans of it actually prefer it. It may be part of the style. And if it doesn't sound that way, it's just not part of the aesthetics of the genre. It may be not just the loudness in itself, but the actual butchering of transients. Just like a honky tonk piano can be better than a perfect Steinway in many contexts.
I agree, in the same way I love overdriven, distorted 50's bollywood recordings. It's obviously clipping and distorting as hell, but it sounds so nice! :-)
Largely because that whole term was bastardised away from meaning dance music, and evolved as a label attached to music largely produced by bedroom kids who can't A) dj, or B) dance.
The only time I like the harsh, overly-compressed, digitally-clipping, maximized limiter, ‘non-analog-speaker-failing’ sound is when I’m listening to early Skinny Puppy. Period.
@@CaramelSons yesssss
@@Bthelick B) lol
Nail on the head! 💪
Nice to see you here W. Have you ever heard of Dave Rat? In case you'll ever get bored check him out, he's all about Bass, inside and out. Veel plezier.
What a lol
Yooo White Sea here
I have all my copies of NANI on max volume.
But don't i remember you advocating for EDM masters as loud as -6 lufs?
Has your viewpoint on this topic evolved?
"This is like a guitarrist asking for all songs to stay in C major so that he doesnt have to move his fingers" :D :D :D Couldnt agree more !!!
Not quite true...
A real master of the six strings would ask for every song in e-minor....
@@yoshi-808 0-3-5 all the way, baby
I actually think E minor or G major might be more accurate. Bad guitarists would be more likely to avoid Eb unless they have to retune their instruments or make ridiculous use of the capo on the 11th fret.
t.b.h. I thought that was why guitarists changed to a differently tuned guitar for each song when playing live, so they can just play one shape all night.
@@yoshi-808 That would be me right now in my first year of learning guitar! Lol
I love when Dan gets in argument with someone 😂
This brings me unimaginable joy
Problem with PA limiters in the past was that most were voltage based peak limiters.
These limiters were often advertised as power limiters, but you derive the RMS power from the peak voltage, based on a sine wave. When you run everything into clipping you get close to almost producing double the power at your speakers.
The second, actually bigger problem is that subwoofer might happily take 2000W for a short kick drum hit, but the voice coil will fry, when you send it a low crest factor bass signal for however long your chorus is (say 20 seconds). This requires a sophisticated setup, combining peak limiters (aka excusion limiters) and true power long term limiters. It is advised by B&C (one of the largest PA component suppliers in the world), to set your long term average limiter to a tenth of your subwoofer's rated program power (yes, your 2000W subwoofer should not see more than 200W of power on average over the time span of an entire gig).
Of course, those kind of amps (for example Powersoft) are very expensive (3k+), but reconing drivers all the time is too :-)
If you have limiters like this in place you won't have to worry about idiot DJs anymore, since the amp adapts to the program material. Your pro DJ will have his 20KW of system power available (random example) for his dynamic peaks, while DJ Distortion has to work with 2KW, because his tracks have no dynamics.
Oh, and did I mention that your subs will also need vastly different powers to produce the same SPL at different frequencies? Sophisticated limiters will know that, but basic peak limiters won't care.
There is a nice video about this topic by Bennett Prescott, who is the US sales manager of B&C Speakers.
I'm sure Dan knows most of this stuff, but I hope this can be helpful to some and maybe even prevent some expensive mistakes ;)
So much this: "clipping >...> double the power at your speakers". The way I understood the dangers, is that clipping introduces even harmonics. Those not only add their amplitude to the power level, the combination creates a signal that is exceedingly difficult to translate into the lateral motion of a speaker cone. And then there are potentially phase problems as well. When clipping and even harmonics happen, the speaker is told to generate many non-harmonic frequencies in s short span of time and at high volume. Some of the signal can't even be translated into motion because of the latency and other physical limitations of the speaker. The result is heat, eddie currents and more distortion, that all add up to make the signal even more destructive, saturating the coil until a resonant spike cause a fatal excursion. And of course whatever the rating of your equipment is, the assumption is you feed it a signal that resembles a wave, not a barrage of distorted spikes...
@@disklamer Voltage clipping gradually transforms your sine wave into a square wave, which consists of the fundamental and an infinite series of odd order harmonics with decreasing amplitude (as frequency goes up).
A square wave is bad because it's basically DC, which turns your voice coil into a heater. Woofers need excursion for cooling (air flow), or they'll only be able to take super small amounts of power. That's how you can destroy a 1000W woofer with a 200W amplifier.
In practice, a perfect square wave will never reach your woofer (in a regular speaker), since it'll pass through a passive crossover first, which filters out the high frequencies and turns the square wave more into what the sine wave was supposed to look like (the rest of the distortion gets sent to the tweeter). It's still not a pretty function and the woofer will not like it.
Over excursion you mention is not a threat to modern woofers, as they've been engineered to not care. Some woofers can hit excursion levels, where the coil former hits the back plate (and either dents the cone or welds itself to something), but I regard those as engineering failures. Don't buy crap and you won't have to deal with crap :-)
@@peniku8 I always wondered this, although I saw it more simplistically as "the square wave jumps between voltage values and thus asks the cone to teleport, and since that's impossible, it probably damages it". The thing I wonder is, how harmful are the square wave settings on synths?
@@nicolarulli7733
The system crossover will make sure the drivers will only get frequencies they're supposed to get, and since a square wave is a function of sine waves, your subs will only see bass, no matter what you feed into the crossover.
Your tops will reproduce the rest of the spectrum (each driver gets its dedicated frequency band) and all those sine waves that make up the square wave will combine back into an "acoustic square wave", if the system is phase cohesive, disregarding the physical limits of the system itself (limited bandwidth of say 30-18khz, distortion etc).
Even if your speakers were theoretically perfect (unlimited bandwidth, no distortion), your amp will limit cone speed by its slew rate.
If you take a 100Hz square wave and pass it through a 101Hz Brickwall LPF, you'll be left with a 100Hz sine wave. That's more or less what yours subs will be seeing after the PA crossover, which is typically a LR4 LPF (24dB/octave Linkwitz-Riley, somewhere around 60-100Hz).
If you play a 1khz square wave, no signal will be sent to your subs, since the signal contains no frequencies below 1khz.
I'm a DJ, and I've played shows where my volume has been percievably "lower" than other DJ's who presumably have had crushed masters (much lower in LUFS). What I'm getting is that I can set my output gain higher than those DJ's who play very limited masters, because of the dynamics?
So this guy, he literally turns himself into a spectrogram. Funniest shit I've ever seen.
“I’M SPECTROGRAM DAN!!!”
he is a spectre of the spectral world. he will live on forever in energy form long after the rest of us. Immortal is supreme leader Dan Worrall. :D.
Waiting for Vtuber Dan
SPECTODAN
Why did I read that in a British voice?
The root cause of this is overcompensation and fear- as a direct result of under education.
DJ culture insisting on lossless files in the time domain- yet demanding information loss in dynamics, punch and rhythm is an obvious contradiction in logic.
Engineers that bow to this kind of pressure are at worst enablers, and at best, incompetent.
A congested master with poor dynamics is never beaten by a balanced master and a basic understanding of the trim knob.
Bravo to you for underlining this Dan.
Many of us that work on both sides of the engineer/performer equation are highly aware of this and will continue to stand our ground.
This is a great use for the DBX160 with the "infinity+" ratio, where it makes the output quieter the further over the threshold they go.
I love your last quip. More people need to hear it. So many flaccid drops and indistinct basslines just because people can't lay off the compression
spent years telling djs that hitting the reds is making their mixes sound like shit and that i'm the one in charge of the club volume not them. amen to everything you said
As a DJ who also understands gain structure, music production and performing/touring at live shows, I’ve never had an engineer tell me to turn down the music. I usually get asked to turn up a little! Having toured for several years, the techs never worry when I’m around.
More DJs do need understand gain structure and the times when I have taught classes I’ve always mentioned to do things correctly so that the engineers become your allies and that they don’t damage any equipment.
With all due respect, DJs are nothing but glorified button pushers. Keep in mind I'm talking about DJ'ing not electronic music production.
@@GreatBurningNullifier Couldn't you say the same thing about a pianist?
@@GreatBurningNullifier true, some just press play but the ability to chain/curate music together musically is a skill. As the youth would say, “there’s levels to this” I would class myself as a DJ/Turntabalist having grown from the hip hop scene where the turntable becomes an instrument being able to trigger and manipulate sound. I get to perform with artists on stage and regularly work with bands/musicians who call me in for my musicality on the decks.
@@GreatBurningNullifier ... I've never seen a dumber generalisation in my opinion haha
@@sseb_music To play piano at a professional level you have to study for so long it's not even comparable, also instruments such as a piano involve more than just pushing keys (and pressing pedals) There's so many things to keep in mind such as dynamics, tempo, key, etc.
I'm sometimes live-sound engineer and even DJ as side-jobs. I'm playing retro music in our club like 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's pop/rock/rock'n'roll/dance and other old styles. As you can imagine, those songs are totally inconsistent with each other in terms of mastering and tempo. But my DJ program (and probably every other one!) has very simple thing that exists since 2001 year… ReplayGain. It just scans all songs, writes metadata to those files about "difference in gain from -18 LUFS" and just uses it later. So every song I play is at about -18 LUFS no matter what.
Coincidentally, PA system in our place is setup in such way, that when I'm peaking my XAir18 mixer right at first "yellow" led (which means, I just reached -18dBFS), it's "loud enough" - which means: very loud, but still usable for people's hearing.
So I'm pretty confident that my music is balanced between the songs without needing to even touch deck gains, and that it doesn't hurt people because it stays in all green meters (in my case).
I really enjoyed the spectrum view, not only because i like the colors, but even more for the fading effect it created on your channel logo and end card. Thought I was tripping when the stiff lines distorted as if they were moving left at different tempos while actually standing perfectly still. Well done, you got me. :)
Now I wanna hear Dan say "dumbest thing I've ever heard" while doing a plugin demo
That should be a meme :))
Awesome video as always DW. Until the majority learn about gain staging and dynamics I think we will continue to see the trend of rectangle masters.
I’d love to see a video showing the difference between an overly compressed track vs a track with more dynamics but then turned up. Then I can just link it to literally everyone who sends me tracks on Discord… lol.
I hope you watched the hilarious followup of this video: "I WON THE LOUDNESS WAR" xD
@@lolilollolilol7773 I did lol
One of the most polite rants I've heard in a longer than looong time. Thank you 🍀
I used to work as an FOH engineer in a club that had live acts and DJs. There was this really big name DJ that had come down for a gig and in between the gig the audio just completely cut out. He looked up at me and raised both his hands in confusion immediately gesturing to the audience that there was a problem with the PA system or the sound engineer. I camly got out of my booth walked up to the stage and moved the cross fader on his DJ mixer to the correct deck. He smiled, didn't bother apologising and continued the gig like it never happened. At the time this guy was amongst the highest paid DJs in the country. There are some amazing DJs out there who are very talented and knowledgable but the bar for technical knowedge to become a DJ is so abysmally low that when you can get away with not understanding what LUFS means why bother ?
I like quite a bit of electronic music and even a bunch dj’s, but most of that scene is just people who wanna be all hype. I mean, I get that it’s ‘in the name “dj” but so many of them are literally just playing other people’s music and passing it off as their own. So with that in mind, what makes us they’ll ever stop completely butchering mixes?
Even though i think you are talking here about another, deeper, level of stupidness
And then everyone stood up and clapped
BRUH THE CROSSFADER THING JUST KILLED ME MHAHAHAMHAMAHH
ok who
This is the tea
love u
He is talking bs. Not true what he is saying. He is not a DJ or an EDM producer to understand this topic. I could have done it better
@@RP-vq4wd do it then, arrogant cuck, or at least explain what he is saying that is "wrong"
Im a DJ but Im also a producer and a mix engineer. DJs today play with software like Traktor and Serato on a laptop. When I started making my digital playlists I would use audio (either flac or mp3) transfered from CD or audio transfered directly from vinyl. I noticed that the most punchy and better sounding music was the music transfered from vinyl. I knew this would be the case cos of my audio engineering background. Audio for vinyl cannot be mastered with a hard limiter like CD audio cos the lathe cutting head cannot cut heavily limited audio. So it has way better transients than the CD. One could argue that the CD would sound louder though, right? WRONG! Software like Traktor normalizes the audio by the average loudness and not by peak levels. So If you play the same song ripped from CD and ripped from vinyl both would play at the same loudness but actually the vinyl audio would have higher peaks since those transients would not affect the loudness and would be higher than the peak levels of the CD. It was a revelation to me and put a smile on my face. I started going after all the vinyl rips I could find of albums and single I had on CDs and not on vinyl. Then the youtube / spotify era came. And for similar reasons RUclips and SPotify normalizes by loudness so if you master at -14LUFS youd be as loud as a loud master but youd have higher peaks! DJs who think that louder is better have not compared louder and less louder songs on their system. a -5 LUFS will sound as loud as a -16 LUFS on Traktor! but the -16 version will have more pronounced rhythm than the -5 which will sound more like an amateur master where verses hooks bridges and breakdowns will have more or less the same energy. If people couldnt realise the benefits of audio mastered for vinyl , at least youtube and spotify forced everybody to not master as loud as they once used to. Sucker DJs, WAKE UP!
So there are DJs that know what they're doing! Good for you :)
Mostly agree with everything you said, but I just wanted to point out, it’s not so much when you’re DJing yourself, but other DJs are playing your music.
Firstly, the DJ has to decide to play your music. And when they’re going through their library and making playlists, if your track sounds less exciting, it’s not getting included (most DJs aren’t going to think, oh it’s just a bit quieter, I can turn it up.)
And then when they do play it out, the fact is, most DJs aren’t gain compensating. If your track is significantly quieter than the track played previously, people will start walking to the bar.
-6LUFS and louder is too much regardless but I do still think loudness is relevant to a certain degree.
Anyway, thank you for your videos, no one on RUclips knows their stuff like you do.
PS. Found the spectrogram much more pleasant to look at.
One of the most satisfying videos I've ever come across on RUclips. Thank you.
In addition to deafening the listeners, in most cases, there is also the fact that those loud signals will start hitting the low speaker protection limiter before the driver limiter, changing the mix balance to something extremely shrill, if the speaker doesn't burn out...
The point of the video is that loud masters don't make the end result louder. If the masters are very loud, the volume will be turned down to compensate. If that masters are quiet the volume will be turned up to compensate, thus making LUFS level and loudness pointless
Dan, bit by bit you're helping me unlearn so many unhelpful myths about mastering. Thank you, and keep it up!
Hi Dan, here's a thought on what you said. With less limiting, it's true, dynamics will be better, and I personally prefer that, and what you're saying about setting the gain structure is also correct in principle, the issue is, the majority of DJs are not particularly well versed in the nuances of dynamics etc. so will usually DJ on the mixer with either no headroom or, often, just run the mixer into the reds. The problem doesn't end there, as most sound engineers (here in Australia anyway) would expect that the DJs will do that and set their FOH console up in a way that they expect the DJ to be redlining. Quite often they're not constantly monitoring the DJs levels either (as you can see from the comments they consider it "babysitting") so if you're not clipping like the other DJs you essentially get penalised for being more dynamic. That's basically where that culture of mega loudness in dance tracks comes from. I'll also add that that's a lot more prevalent in mainstream music styles and festival DJing where you have a shorter set so impact is key. It's very nice when you have a DJ who understands DJing with headroom and not needing mega loud tracks and an engineer that is willing to accommodate that.
Good point Lewis, the FOH engineer (if there is one) should be ready for the times when the DJ does know what he is doing. I would suggest having a chat before your set if you can see an engineer is present, otherwise you have to have the balls to drop the system level in the hope the engineer is paying attention, and you may have to make eye contact as they will be trying to figure out what your about! But it will be worth it. In my experience as a system engineer I would very happy with this situation because now I can ease off the limiter and increase the system gain and the rig is going to realise it's potential and sound sweet, and it will also be louder than when the fools thrashing the reds were playing. Even in a situation like a club where there is no engineer it is worth pulling back on the mixer output and listening to the rig to determine at what point the limiters are kicking in, if you can turn the monitor in the booth down for a moment that will help you hear the rig more clearly.
I like the spectrogram much better Mr. Worrall. The animation just scrambled my brain and I had to look away 😅. Thank you kindly! Love your channel by the way....
first of all: yes, this spectogram view looks really cool. could have a bit of a better resolution in the lowend for my taste, but really close enough. it seems to have a bit of latency though. i got used to it after half a minute but it was slightly irritating first.
about this topic: idk if i'd be so hard to the DJs about saying such things. i think when they say a limited mix is "punchier" they don't actually mean punch, but rather pump. like the glue that occurs, when things are smashed together. the density of all the sounds together. i'd still be on your side that this is not crucial on a club loudness, but i understand it
The way you explained this cracked me up! As a DJ, producer and engineer for the past 30 years I give you credit. You sound like me on occasion (with far less curse words and smoother delivery). The DJs that come from vinyl and fully analog mixers totally understand your point. Spot on.
As an ex nightclub DJ who does music production, mixing live events and live stream production, I 100% agree with you Dan. There's a reason why EBU R128 says -23 LUFS (a standard for most TV broadcast companies around these parts).
And if you are using a streaming service like Spotify, they want you at -14 LUFS, which is more than loud enough. -6 is insane.
@@POLYFUSIABAND watch the Fabfilter two-part series on loudness, which this video seems to be a “sequel” to. They don’t “want” you at -14LUFS, and parroting that information doesn’t really help anybody.
@@POLYFUSIABAND -14 is just when they start to normalize it downward.
@@POLYFUSIABAND that's wrong, spotify and other streaming services are phasing out the LUF limit, so they don't really "want" you at any specific loudness
I really think you nailed it. And, I know you don't mean ALL DJ's - but there are certainly enough that fit the description exactly so that I know what you're talking about as you describe them. And, yes - I suspect (2) channels is near the zenith of their ability.
Message. 👍🏾 I’ve worked alongside DJs for nigh on two decades by now and it always boggled my mind how few people demonstrably comprehended this stuff, and even some of the few that did to any appreciable extent still managed to blame others for their own shortcomings… 😣
Worked at an independent guitar store a few years ago. You'd be surprised how many people didn't know how to change their strings or even tune their guitar.
Boss told us we could charge whatever we felt and keep it.
Are they allowed to distort the signal though? Or will that mean less money for guitarists because they have to keep buying new amps?
Dan, any and all ways in which you choose to represent yourself on screen are more than adequate. Spectrograms, scopes, blank screen, old cartoons, it’s all fair game because the words have such wisdom! Thanks for sharing, as always.
This was just beautiful😭.
The worst part about DJ's that have no clue what they're doing is when there on cocain or some other drug when there doing there set and really aren't listening to you when you say turn your mixer down.
Then they come over to you and ask you to turn him up, and you say, i had to turn you down cause you were clipping everything. So then they are turn it down.
1 song later, blasting the channels.
Thank the heavens above for limiters cause without them when, my PA's would be fucked by now when I'm doing live sound :)
The "oof" LUFS is very high on this one for sure. Well deserved
Being a live sound engineer myself, I can confirm, that i rarely see a DJ that doesn't have his/hers meters in the red consistently. At one point i started to question myself, whether it is their way to keep all songs at the same level.
I´ve thought the same on way too many occations to count
as a dj, for my personal experience, i can say that even if i pay attention every time i can to not go red, i've found that sometimes it happened to me (and other many people i think) because after hours of loud music the ear get used to it, so the more time passes the more you tend to raise the volume more and more if you're "in the mood" and you don't pay attention to the gain staging/consistency of your mix...
I think this happens because all night long they crunck up the PA volume to the end of limits and a quiter song can't get louder because no more gain is available so they need to make other songs quiter to match up but dj's want not do this in a full club. Normally they need to manage the loudness from beginning to end of the night to overcome such a problem. Otherwise I totally agree with Dan, just use the mixer gain or volume..
As a non native English speaker, I find it really hard to try and explain all that was said in this video to my fellow producer friends, which is why I'm happy to just link them here. I freaking love this video because it puts to words perfectly what I have had in mind for so long. Which was something I am not able to do.
As Dj I understand your frustration, that loudness hunger is all around the scene. Give that dj a bag of vinyls and he'll understand that a quieter source will produce a stronger result.
Vinyls have crappy dynamic range though, meaning they are compressed by definition
@@nissimtrifonov5314 but they sound "naturally good"
@@nissimtrifonov5314 I kindly disagree, a well recorded Vinyl(from a well made mix) has a good dynamic range and a solid crest factor , i was referring to the -6 dB LUFS requested to Dan by the dj and that's not possible to obtain on a vinyl.
@@nissimtrifonov5314 except that's not true at all, are you just looking at specs? there are plenty of cases where the vinyl release has better dynamic range than the CD release.
@@salvatorediguido4883
I am not talking about the content, I am talking about the media.
Of course a well recorded Vinyl will sound better than a crappy CD.
But talking about the media itself vinyl has at best 70 dB of dynamic range while a CD has 96. That means that a CD has the POTENTIAL to store music with far superior dynamic range (26 dB is a huge difference!).
Lowering the dynamic range of recorded material is called compression...
I feel like I just listened to both a meditation podcast and observed a heated debate at the same time
As a DJ with 20 years of experience I can say 80% of DJ's have no clue how gain staging works and they just ride everything on red. A very few actually knows how signal flow works and how to keep clean signal. So I would say around 80% of DJs are idiots.
Unfortunately most of these people are DJs precisely because they're not good at anything.
They lack the talent to be musicians, lack the knowledge and skills to be engineers, lack the social abilities to be bouncers.
They're not DJing out of a passion for music but because plugging a USB into a mixer and pushing play is easier than any other job they could do.
So THANK you for caring and I do hope you get compensated for it.
@@marq_8976 I agree. Never quite understood why these idiots are paid so much in comparison to real musicians.....
@@marq_8976 really..? You really think the DJ who is up there trying his best not to drown in pussy while earning copious amounts of money, actually wish he was the sound-guy in the back, IF ONLY he was smart enough?? And "social ability to be bouncer" :'D ? For real? You think the bouncer is the one with the social ability, not the DJ, am i getting that right? This is just oozing of cope!
And fyi i am not a DJ, i have no stake in this, i just find it very funny.
@@jkRatbird
Short answer just for you at the very end! :D
Your concept of 'DJ' is very narrow.
It may not be evident to you, but Most DJs work in bars/small clubs.
A minuscule handful of them are headlining festivals in the main stage.
Not that it matters anyway. All of them are red-lining already clipped songs with very low dynamics and abusing PAs and people like you are more than happy and willing to defend them and pay copious amounts of money to see them pretending to beat match already rendered sets.
TLDR: LOL I KnoW riGht?? XD o boi
I too was a DJ for 20 years and I'm afraid I have to disagree, you clearly don't have the remotest idea what you are talking about. There's no way on earth a whole 20% of DJs have any clue about gain staging, headroom etc. A realistic figure would in fact be about 2%, and then I'm being generous. So AT LEAST 98% of DJS are idiots! Not joking!
I am really asking a lot of questions about loudness lately... I tend to think the idea of "louder than the last DJ" arguments are stupid, but I generally like the way that a reasonably squashed mix sounds, at around -6 to -8 lufs. I would love to know your take on why people are so concerned with loudness in Pop. I know that "As It Was" by Harry Styles is -5.7lufs integrated, and it is abundantly clear that the song was made with high prioritization of loudness, from start to finish. The song sounds a little too limited for my liking, but I am trying so desperately to understand why they would go to such limits to achieve such ridiculous loudness for a clean sounding track. The best argument I have heard so far is that "everything is brought forward so you can hear it at low volumes, like in a grocery store."
Cheers, love your videos.
Great video Dan. Most DJ softwares (including free software like MIXXX) have loudness leveling. Set it once and forget it. No need to fiddle with mixer gains. This can allow the DJ to set a respectable level and not kill the venues sound systems.
DJ here. I agree with most of what is said, fun fact: there's this club where I ussually DJ at where the audio guy in charge always softens up the limiter and gives me more wiggle room than other DJ's because he knows I dont crush the mixer into the reds as most DJ's do; my levels are lower on the mixer but I'm actually playing louder and cleaner. That's a sure way to win the heart of the Audio guy in charge of the club.
as a DJ who also engineers, i love the knob on the back of the old pioneer mixers that lets you change the displayed peaks on the mixer, so the morons who demand three reds can be happy, and your sound system can also be happy
I agree with you Dan, but some of the top mastering engineers like Luca Pretolesi actually use very fine tuned chains to simulate more of a dynamic while being at -3dB RMS. You should check that out, maybe even do a video on that if you're interested. I myself mostly aim between -14 to -8, but this guy really did make a good sounding mix plugged at -3. I think he uses clipping in conjuction with expanding to achieve it
Gold. I dj’d for nearly 15 years at local venues and clubs in my hometown . I couldn’t agree with you more 🙌
As a DJ and producer, I fully agree. However if a label listens to my track in the middle of tens of others which are 2x louder, it will, apparently (!), sound weak. Same for the audience (provided that there’s a limit at 0 dB..).
That’s unfortunately what we have to produce for. And “top” labels easily produce tracks with 4 dBs range without, apparently, sounding bad. I wonder how..
They have virtual earplugs in their ears and need to pull them out ;)
If a said "top" label can't recognise the difference between demo with headroom vs reference master vs actually mastered track (and to actually correct the loudness with THEIR volume control), why even bother to send them a demo?
Debussy said music is the silence between the notes. He was preaching for dynamic range before mixing was a thing. Ha.
Mixing was a thing. You did it by telling musicians to play louder or quieter :)
Less compression and limiting, turn your volume up and just enjoy the full dynamic range. I've learned that a couple years ago, I'm glad you tell it on your FF tutorials (and here aswell!).
That's probably why I like how music was produced during the 70s, I guess.
Cheers from Belgium.
Sadly, many partiegoers actually dont want dynamic range. How many parties really has people listening to music? Only dedicated parties with big artists outside of pop music, which in my direct surroundings have become scarse, sadly.
What I mean is that a lot of people going to raves, parties etc, go to dance a little, socialise a lot and drink even more. When you are in that state and mindset, you just want a pumping beat to make you move. When it becomes too quiet, you'll just hear the other drunk people that arent your friends, not the music.
Thats why I love electronic concerts, if I can call it that. I was once at a Puce Mary performance and it felt so good that the ENTIRE crowd just immediately shut their mouth when she walked on stage. Full attention to the artist and because of that, you can actually work with dynamic range. But few people want that experience (or even know that its a possability :/ )
tbf "loudness" is really on the songwriting, if your song is "loud" all the time your listeners will be tired af quickly.
Full dynamic range can be brutal though, it's not fun having your ears blown off by horns suddenly coming in at a million decibels louder than everything else. Like watching a movie and constantly having to turn the volume up for the whispered dialogue and rushing to turn it down for the explosions.
@@AfferbeckBeats like how a lot of classical music does not work as background music if you're talking. You wont hear the quiet parts, or if you adjust the volume so you dl hear the quiet parts, you'll be blasted away by the loud parts.
@@thaDjMauz Classical listener here. Full dynamic range is needed - usually. Just witness the punch in Mahler 6 ending as an extreme example.
Not needed in louder surroundings like eg a car, that's right. I am using VLevel dsp with foobar2000 for my classical music in cars. Which pushes up the low volume parts automatically in a decent way.
@1:39 “You’re making the live engineers forced to listen to you while packing the gig that’s just ended, despise you deeply and profoundly.” 😅😂🤣 Oh, do I know that feeling.
Thank you thank you thank you! Perfectly reasoned excoriation of every moron who we had to follow with PA repairs. The worst was club or bar managers who believed the slavering idiots over, you know, the people who designed and built the system, and who patiently attempted to instruct them on the things they had spent so much money on. They were always mystified as to how expensive commercial speakers could blow so frequently. I’m sure they thought that turning the system up as loud as it could go would draw and maintain a crowd, but thoughtful observation notes that the opposite is true: if the music is distorting and ears are in pain (and assuming a functioning brain), customers leave. Smart management won’t rehire or refer such DJ’s. It isn’t complicated (refer to functioning brain).
I love what you said about walking the room to see what it sounds like from the audiences’ perspective. That was part of our routine. Too many “sound” people set up, turn up, and then stand like monoliths, frozen in a glaze. Until you walk the room, or send somebody (possessing subject referred to in parenthesis above) you can’t know what you’ve done and make appropriate adjustments.
Their hearing is so damaged that they literally can’t hear the mix 🤣
Mate! it's like you've been reading my thoughts lol, What a rant, loved it
The spectogram is very nice, but pretty delayed. The point we're currently hearing would be nice if was on screen while we hear it, maybe even centered, with a pseudo-playhead in the middle.
Thank you for all the videos that you put out Mr. Worrall. I may not understand everything in them, but I always learn something. I am thankful for teachers like yourself. I’m no DJ, but I love creating music.
As a DJ, I agree with you. Was nodding along with the fab filter video aswell. Loads of djs just don't know enough about audio.
ps. i liked the other waveform more.
Discovered Dan's channel only yesterday. Already big fan! Please preach more of those wise words!
I'm an EDM producer and I absolutely love this.
I play guitar with DJs often, and this is the most refreshing rant I´ve heard in a while. Honestly, I´m convinced that 85% or more of the people I´ve played with completely shut their ears off as soon as they start playing, and only concentrate about syncing transitions. Also, comparing the amount of effort/time it takes to move a fader 2 cm as opposed to engineering a -5db LUFS track into sounding like it has more than one dimention is ridiculous to think about.
Ironically, myself and a couple of people I know actually refuse to play stuff that's mastered too loud. And most of my masters, mix dependant, of course, may sit as quiet as -8 or -9 LUFS because I think that's where it sounds good. I get sent demos as loud as -3 and they sound awful, so i do my best with my somewhat limited knowledge to explain why "louder" isn't always better
Idk, -9, -8 are actually loud masters. When did -8 start being ''quiet''?
@@mod3l The loudness creep in the industry is real, and it's only gotten worse with amateurs pretending to be experts and telling everyone to go louder and louder. -8 is really loud, and the point beyond which there are few benefits to perceived loudness to justify the loss of audio quality. Going louder than that is just a stupid meme that has to die.
@@mod3l electronic music is like this. I saw a dubstep producer hit positive levels of LUFS on Twitter once.
@@mod3l HAHAHAHA! All of the people high-fiving Dan in comments probably just mean they're not hitting -1 LUFS.
@@BrassicaMusic that definetely means we're not hitting -1
Looking at the spectrogram of your voice inflections is really interesting. You can see the note like a midi note in the low mid range weaving around like a melody.
If you want all your tracks to be the same volume and some of them are louder than others, it seams to me that it would be just smarter to make the loud tracks quieter in the digital realm so they are all relatively the same, and then amplify the signal as much as you need to
If they would just do that though...
As a Producer and DJ I can only say two things: true and real!
Pretty accurate rant and the spectrogram is as calm as your voice.
Also if I can literally feel my eardrum expand and contract by the kickdrum to the point where it starts hurting what is the point? I can’t listen to that without pain and irreversible hearing damage. Drums are loud as is, don’t need to amplify them to rocket launch levels.
:D love this comment! absolutely agreed!
Ever since I was a little kid using my family’s audio gear to create feedbacks through delay pedals I have been invested in sound design. Nothing makes me happier than playing live sequences on a bunch of synths for an audience. However, most venues won’t take a live set since it’s just easier to show up with a usb stick. I think the industry is too standardized, but what can you do? DJing is fun and inspiring, and it’s what keeps the lights on for a lot of talented producers who can’t carry their prophet Vs around clubs. So we’re left with all the studio magic we can summon, to then play the best mixes we can do in a DJ set.
Looool this is gonna roll some heads. I think part of the issue in certain genres of edm is that some djs are constantly cutting between tracks and playing 1-2 mins of each one. Like riddim (dubstep) djs, who arent even beat matching are also too lazy to adjust gain between tracks because they are constantly "mixing". Having boring slabs of sound all at the same level is useful to them. Riddim is the worst offender of the loudness wars, check out "now that's what I call riddim -subtronics" for some of the nastiest ear raping brick walls you will ever hear.
On the other hand, actually knowing how to gain stage as a dj can really set you apart. I always talk to my foh guy to get an idea of their set up and make sure to never get in the red on my mixer. That way when I mix in some yazoo or Depeche mode then crank the gain it slaps hard. I cringe so hard when I see a massive name headlining a club with every track and the master in the red..... like please turn it down then let the pas turn up for godsakes lol..... thanks for this one Dan, hopefully it finds the right ears
THANKK YOUUUUUUU!!!!
Been having these discussions with these missguided kids online, just now. The concepts they hold are many times totally backwards, and super hard to unlearn... Mostly cause they refuse to change.
when you have enough watts to level match all songs in your library at a targeted level, dynamic music will always sound a lot better than squashed ones
both musicians and DJ's should strive for that
I only wanna complain about the spectragram cuz i want you to get into visual synthesis lmfao great video
Loving all the content recently. Petition for a Dan Worrall long form masterclass.
As a DJ i can say you're 100% right with the point of some djs don't know how to use a mixer. Ive seen djs playing before or after me just putting their gain trims to a 12 o'clock position and not moving them for their whole set. I usually do a tempo match and a level match by ear before I mix two songs. Level matching by ear might be the easiest part of my djing because come on, I just listen to two songs on my headphones and decide if the next track is louder or quieter by hearing it and then I change the gain trim or level knob or whatever you wanna call it accordingly. But hey apparently some djs like the vocal of a new track being buried beneath the crossbeat of an old track because that never sounds weird.
You can always use the Bob Katz test to put them to shame. Load a wave file of the song in question, duplicate it, then convert the duplicate to a 64k mp3. After that, invert the phase of one of the tracks. See all that high frequency noise? You're hearing that and it can damage your hearing.
Congratulations. Keep doing your thing Sir. 👏😎
Unprofessional DJs: I want, I want, I want....
Dan: Lock & load...
Game over.
Nice shooting Dan. 👍
Agree 1000%. The thing is, however: For not so established mastering engineers, we have to do as the clients want. I try to educate the clients but they just go somewhere else. The only thing we can do is play the game finding ways to trick the ear to hear the least destruction possible while reaching those levels, while hoping that DJs will someday understand the stupidity of -5 LUFS
😂😂 I’m an audiologist and a dj/producer and I couldn’t agree more
The truth has been spoken!
You can see how true the last statement is with the dance music from 80s, that music keeps so much energy and punch rhythms because back then music wasn't as compressed/limited as it is now. So much good music that is being released in the last years doesn't have all the sonic and emotional impact they could have if they just didn't try to accomplish with this -6-or-something LUFS nonsense.
Come for Dan’s usual impeccable knowledge and tact, stay to hear the dressing-down that so many DJ’s deserve.
Lol this DJ aint even mad. Love this content keep it up Dan 🤣🤘
People say -6LUFS, but some genres get to a extreme -1LUFS and that's a whole other level of squished
only PCM based Chiptune should be hitting that 🥴
theres a video from skrillex track reaching 0 lufs its called Mumbai Power
Well.. RUclips is flooding with (knowledge) clipping your tracks to get loud masters, same as your fav Dj/Artist plays. Won't Lie , Started doing the same for my tracks. In the last two months I realized if you take break and come back and listen to your "Loud" masters, You will feel less and less punch when u compare Your Un-mastered mixes and bring them to same Level through GAIN knob. IT works, It really works.
Thanks Dan to bring this knowledge for us. I hope more and more new producer/Dj's watch this to understand what's really happening .
Yeah. If you're making an EDM track and you need to smush your master to get the drums to punch you just need to mix your drums better.
When I do offline mixes (as in not through DJ equipment) it's really annoying that I have to turn down everyone's tracks that aren't my own because they slammed them into a limiter, but the thing is just that, I can just turn them down. I don't get why people still make unreasonably compressed masters in 2021 it just makes the drums sound weaker.
That being said, if my mix is properly compressed/saturated, and has enough high end, and I push it into a limiter just a tad I get like -7 to -6.5LUFS anyway at the "drop" sections.
That's still way too loud man. Just nip the peaks a tiny bit.
Check Space Laces tracks and tell me if you can't feel the punch 👊
@@MIDNIGHTCVLT He manages to get his kicks to really hit by making the sub louder in the kick than in the bass and using extremely heavy sidechain, and also being so much louder than everything else that it ducks the whole track. The transient still like don't exist though. I won't dog him or anyone for it, I just don't understand why people still feel the need to do this. The music is still good even if I don't agree with how he masters it.
Also hey, your track Can't Escape is awesome I play it out all the time lol
@@KindridMusic oh thanks man! And I don't think he's actually adding sub to the kick, in fact space laces kicks are super short so they only have transient, obviously they have a bit of low end but the big low end comes from the sub of the track. I think people do this because clipped kicks and snares has an aggresive sound. I'm so used to clipped stuff right now that when i hear a kick with no clipping it sounds weak to me lol.
Good information and a solid rant!
What a channel! i do love me a good rant.
This rant is so politely British, well, most of it, I need to hear it again right now. Dan is dishing out so savagely, not just with words, but on multiple levels. And he´s right on top of that. Such weaponry can´t be legal without a proper loicense, can it?
Great to hear your perspective and real-world experience as always. Keep in mind the social media pitfall of extreme views = more views though. We love your balanced explanations too much for that!
i like wave more than spectrogram
or if you will be spectrogram then please do that in 60fps
My client: "Yes, I understand ... but can I have my master louder now, please?"
As a veteran Dj of 30 years, I also approve of this message in all it's scathing grandeur. There is a huge divide from the old analogue vinyl dj's that were raised on varying master levelled records to the new wave of one channel hands in the air, redline at 128bpm kids that think it's more important to make lovey dovey hand gestures while the confetti canons blast masses of fake enjoyment over their EDM-MDMA soaked brows as the selfie sticks wave in common naivety at the capture of yet another sub-par performance.
When I grew up and was learning my trade, it was ALL about preserving the sound quality and adapting it to fit the room acoustics. There was nothing better than finding that quality pressing of a smooth sine kick and feeling the warmth as it tickled your soul. There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon as the 'loudness wars' seem to have been identified and a lot of producers are now dialling back. I hope this trend continues alongside the re-emergence and popularity of analogue gear amongst the electronic producing community,
Oh and thanks Dan for your channel - subbed immediately and will now continue my education.
As someone who has been djing in the techno scene as well as mixing bands and producing my own dance music, i must say: Amen! It's insane how many dj want to go louder and louder, and i understand it, the crowd is cheering when there are big improvements in loudness, but most of the djs havent learned a thing about audio. The know how to do a basic mixing from one song to another with a 3 band eq & the mostly mix techno intro into outros (so kill bass in track a, bring in bass of track b, then mix out a whilst b is evolving) or similiar easy techniques. Even if they get creative still many dont consider learning enough about audio to really know what they are doing when controlling such weapons (at least a badly set up PA can be one). So yeah, thanks, let's spread the word and hope for more dynamics and more lively music. (though i think the techno scene will take the longest for that. Its all about a faaat kick and the rest is just there so it doesnt get too boring -.- )
Man i'm ranting more than i wanted as well :D Thanks for all the videos Dan!
I'm a simple mind. I see there's a Dan's new tutorial, I start secreting dopamine 🍀
Classic British :) Absolutely to the point, without loudness and humour in between. I just wish I could compose my sentences the way Dan and Brits do! Loved it.
This is so good and accurate!!
Too true Dan. Like yourself. I have been a live sound engineer for many years and seen and heard everything you have touched on here. A very small rant, but needed to be said. Thank you!
While I do believe that there's a lot of... foolishness in aspiring DJs, I disagree when you say there's no reason to apply heavy limiting to a track. Well, I say limiting, but I also include clipping in that general arguement. In a lot of electronic mixes, a key ingredient is maximizing the aggression in your available soundstage. I'd argue that transient punch may be lost in the limiting & clipping of tracks or stems - as the current trend has become - but there's a certain flavor of energy that comes from that same technique. Obviously, there's a point where the carefully built house of cards collapses on itself, but I'd be very interested to hear a low LUFS mix that's as aggressive as one of Noisia's post-2016 tracks, once turned up to equivalent loudness.
You do understand that limiters have Attack parameters, and this fact kind of destroys your entire argument?
It's foolish to gauge the mixing or mastering skill employed on a track by looking at it's waveform.
Also, there is NO trend of clipping audio these days, at least not in the sense of hard clipping. That is utter nonsense
Source: mix engineer of 15 years
@@mgmg116 That's precisely missing my point. It's the sound of the sausage, the completely cut peaks, that lend to the sound. Noisia, to the best of my knowledge employs a combination of processing the stems with limiting and clipping among a range of other transient shapers and compressors, and then applying the final mix with another set of the same or similar effects.
On clipping, I didn't explicitly state hard-clipping; I'm not sure where you got that. I do agree that hard clipping is exceedingly rare. The only track I've heard that I suspect might have hard clipping is scheme's Quake. I haven't checked, though.
Either way, the general trend of heavy electronic productions do indeed have strong clipping effects on both stems and masters. Why do you think Boz sells Big Clipper? Even TDR has a clipping module on their Limiter 6's.
@@williambrewer3150 Soft clipping isn't doing the same thing as hardclipping, and hardclipping is almost always what people are really talking about when they say 'clipping'.
Also, it seems to me you are fundamentally unaware of how transient shaping works. You can absolutely thicken the body of a transient without taking its impact out, even though the resulting waveform looks like the peak has been rounded off, it can STILL cut through a mix.
This is like, basic production/mixing 101.
It's why you can't always judge a production from looking at its waveform. You need to use your ears.
I don't care how the waveform looks. How does it SOUND? You know, the only concern of a producer or audio engineer?
I know for a fact I can use a compressor to fatten up my transients and they'll appear to be rounded off, and yet I can still get them to punch the way I want.
Through a combination of parallel processing, attack automation, and extreme soft knee-ing, I know I can get it to punch
@@mgmg116 Hey Mr. mgmg. I'm not even sure what we're arguing anymore. Everything you're saying is absolutely right. It does all come down to how it sounds. How the transient shaper presses into your limiter/clipper absolutely matters, and you can certainly get enormous punch out of a brick of sound with no visible transients whatsoever.
All I meant to say is there's a kind of sound that arises from brick-wall limiting that can be used to great effect, not just as a sacrifice in mastering.
Maybe everyone does refer to "clipping" without qualifiers as hard clipping. I am a bit surprised since every kind of overdriven distortion can come from all kinds gear, and I've certainly never picked up that verse of lingo in my circles. But, I wouldn't be surprised to be in the minority.
Best point ever. Reducing the dynamic range makes little speakers sound bigger. If you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in amps and bins flying all around you...it's counter productive.