Verb - Angels & Studs EP

[Verb]

Hello folks!

 

Started to put all my psy online, and eventually It'll all be there...

most of it is rather old, dating back some 10 years or so.

 

Here's one EP....

 

http://verbalise.bandcamp.com/album/angels-studs-ep

 

[Space.Dolphin]

Here's my opinion... The Angels and Studs tracks are superior for their musicality, in contrast to the glitchy, experimental-sounding Dark Times tracks. The best track for me is Daytime. Your productions do have a special something, so keep up the good work.

 

One other thing to mention, I had to turn up my headphones quite a bit for all your tracks, maybe it's Bandcamp, or I've gone a bit deaf, and if it's neither of these things, then your work could do with a lick of mastering/compression, to really make your work shine, sounds a bit dull in mastering.

[Verb]

Thanks for listening! :-) well, all my verb things are quite old by now, caligula track is 8 years old, daytime is 6 years old. I was using a pair of JBL 4412 with original crossover filter, in a big room without basstraps or anything like that. Still quite happy with the sound of em for how they turned out. Unfortunatly almost all my projectfiles for Verb productions have been lost over time.

 

Both these tracks are rather loud actually, compared to later and current productions by me. I've found compression and limiting to well, screw things up and remove the magic, rather than add anything of value that couldn't be added more proper in mixing stage. But I suppose that's also about wether or not the producer knows what he's doing. I work a bit with mastering every once in a while, for a few people who know that I know what to do and understand my views on "the business of mastering" haha, I'm hard to work with unless you understand where I'm coming from... (which isn't very conventional...)

 

For me, mastering is mostly removing whatever distortions lies between the heart of the musician and the eardrum of the listener, Rather than Adding some sortof magical sheen to productions. I add the sheen in mixing stage myself these days, and don't do any mastering on my own tracks besides maybe removing a couple of peaks by 1 db or so. anyway, I'd like to encourage a somewhat lessening of viewing "mastering" as the "magical stage" where things become awesome, or Pro. Especially if you're an artist or producer, make it pro from the beginning, it does NOT come from mastering... Though it does require some very nice speakers, and a proper room... If anything is magical in making a track, it's the production, performance and origins of it[the track]. Mastering is about maintaining that magic, not adding that extra thing, it's rather removing all extra things that got there in production... but well, my opinion, and maybe a few other agree with me.

 

END THE LOUDNESS WAR!!!! NEVER USE COMPRESSORS TO GET THINGS LOUDER!! hehe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

[Space.Dolphin]

Well, you obviously have your own ideas and experiences with mastering and labels, and you must make your own judgments. Clearly thousands of people are having different experiences to you with labels, or the labels would have become extinct. As far as mastering is concerned, I am not an expert, but there must be good reasons why all the millions of CDs that are pressed every year, are mastered at the final stage, which seems to disagree with your view again.

 

You can have your own ideas to a point, but there are some standards we just have to conform to.

 

My own professional experience is many years in FM radio (presenting, production and voice-overs), and I can hear the difference between a track that's been mastered, made ready for wide consumption, made to sound at the same quality as everything else, playable in clubs, radio, and music that has not been made ready.

 

I don't think mastering is about adding any extra thing at the end. I think of mastering as simply making sure that the quality of your audio complies with everything else that you deem to be a professional production, I'm particularly thinking of records and CDs. And this includes levels, and clarity on a variety of mediums and listening volumes. I made the comment about the mastering on your work, because listening to lots of music posted on this forum, yours was different to all of them, in that your tracks sounded quieter.

 

And yes, you're right abut the loudness wars. Some record companies have been ignoring Red Book guidelines and pressing louder CDs. A waste of time for FM and AM radio of course, because broadcast compression brings everything up or down to the same level.

 

I think all music-makers here would really benefit from a few guidelines from labels, as to how to prepare music for labels. What levels should we peaking at, should demo audio be compressed, and many more questions.. or has this already been done, please tell me where it is.