At 9:34 AM -0700 4/13/07, Dan Dugan wrote:
>Klas, you wrote regarding your great track:
>
>http://www.telinga.com/gallery/dumetorum.mp3
>
>> > >Dan, if you should remake the Blyth's Warbler into a commercial CD
>> > >for car and small home stereos and so on - what would you do with i=
t?
>
>followed by
>
>>How would such a recording be best post.processed, to sound good both
>>in a car stereo, a flatbed television and a small radio in the kitchen?
>>And in my headphones....
>>
>>I have no good experience of just simple freq. correction. The sound
>>gets dead and boring. I am more thinking of some kind of compressor,
>>which - in a fitting way - would level out a bit of the dynamic
>>range, making gentle parts stay the same, while "intrusive" parts get
>>softer. Such things.
>
>OK, how would I master it.
>
>First I'd watch an analyzer for a while to get an idea about whether
>certain frequencies coincide with the "hot" bits. If so I'd try some
>narrow-band EQ notching on the frequencies that peak. Only if it
>sounds good.
Working from a mp3 original was distracting, but there are some very
intense peaks/hits in about three ranges.
>
>The recording is very clean!
And very dry. I can only hear another bird skipping around once of
twice and some very faint distant traffic that is garbled with mp3
encoding.
> Next thing I'd mash the level of the
>peaks a few dB (maybe 6?) with a fast look-ahead mastering limiter
>like Waves L1.
I couldn't take enough of the bite off with EQ. Yep, some compression
or limiting.
>
>I'd use a convolution reverb to recreate a forest meadow
>reverberation effect, just a little.
I tried four or five convolution reverb patches, but its so dry, one
could push it anywhere one wanted. It will need some help from
reverb to settle into any space.
> I'd try driving the reverb from
>the pre-limited signal to keep the natual loudness of the peaks while
>reducing their actual level. Only if it sounds good.
That worked okay for me though I had to warm-up the verb to
compensate for those penetrating highs.
>
>Finally I might "perfume" it with a woodland ambience--just a subtle
>sigh of wind in trees or distant water--to "ground" it from its
>clinical isolation--figure and ground.
My thought was to start with an actual, low-key location with some
explainable reflective surfaces. I tried some canyons and live woods
impulses for the warbler and they seemed to work best and loudness
adjusted for being about 20-30 feet away in the mix. I placed him
closer to a live wall so I could justify more reverb.
On the good recording =3D bad marketing principle: We're at the
doorway. I think the recordings we are making will gain value over
time and the fact that no good recordings existed 100 years ago,
we're pioneers by any standards. We are kind of lucky we don't have
market forces to take our thoughts off of what we really enjoy about
it. Rob D.
>
>Just brainstorming.
>
>-Dan Dugan
>
>
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