Music, limiting and Hell…
When I started discovering the world of music recording, I thought all the technology is a wonder used to create great sounding tracks. Soon I realised, how easy it is to use and abuse it in such a manner that the music is not music anymore and it begins to detract people.
Now when you consider that music business is about entertaining people it is a paradox why these entertainers wreck the listener‘s chance to enjoy it by ruining recordings…
Yes I am talking about over-limited songs that are hitting the charts in these days (and then fall quick). Right now I am listening to Beyoncé’s Deja Vu and man it hurts! Please don‘t get me wrong Please don‘t get me wrong – I do like her, she’s not only cute but can actually deliver the goods in terms of music. What is done poorly is that the track was limited in such way that the waves are totally sqared and the distortion is extremely annoying. This signature approach can be heard (and seen) on many tracks. Some have been affected just sligthly, while others hit 11/10.
Speaking technically, by chopping off the tops of sinewaves, one achieves a sound close to white noise. This actually blasts much louder than anything else, so using such treatment on single sounds like snare drums or the bass drum can be beneficial (particularly in hip-hop, contemporary pop). However this counts only if the counter-elements are kept lower in level to maintain dynamics!
Another interesting phenomena is that these tracks were made with a big budget but in the end their sonic quality was killed by the oh-so-great marketing idea called „louder is better!“. I still can‘t quite get the point what can be achieved by squeezing in these 2-3 dBs for any price. Plus by doing this the mastering engineer‘s struggle to sonically enhance the sound is virtually flushed.
Stop this madness. I do like Hell, I heard there are plenty of hot chicks :) but this sonic hell is not good…
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like what you posted there mate! also, maybe one can think about what these square waves do to our behavior, brain etc…
Thanks for Your interest nico. Listening tests show that signals rich in (uncontrolled) harmonics created by distortion sounds annoying, so I don’t personally think they do any good to us. As said before, short bursts of distortion on some instruments are acceptable and many times intentional - think about drums, guitar FX. But this happens in the stage of recording or mixing.