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2023-11-15 16:10

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

SID recordings – opinions on normalizing?

This isn't really aimed at composers but more on people who do real SID recordings:

What is your opinion on "normalizing" (or even more post processing) of SID recordings?

I usually record my music collections in one go and choose the input volume by the "loudest" song. When I later export those to individual files I'm always asking myself if I should normalize them all to -0.2 db or not. I'm unsure if it will destroy the "natural" feeling when you then again listen to the tunes in an MP3 playlist or similar.

In recording "normal" / acoustic music over the years it was never a question to normalize and even compress the heck out of everything. But just because "everyone does it" and sometimes it is even necessary to simulate the energy of a raw live rock sound when beeing in a recording / studio environment.

With SID it seems different. Even the tunes that have lower peaks already sound great. The "mixing" and in parts even "mastering" has already been done by the SID musician himself.

I would be interested in how others approach this subject. Do you normalize or even compress SID? Do you use even more post processing like EQ / reverb etc.? And if: why? And to what extend?

Cheers,
spider.

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2023-11-15 22:29

ws

Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 251

firstly, please don't normalize to -0.2 but -0.3 db. i don't find the explanatory article on that right now, but if you want to test it, open a -0.2 db limited mp3 as wav and you can actually see the effect.

normalizing shouldn't do anything bad to the overall artistical value for a SID recording, in the contrary: if you do not normalize, you actually waste amplitude power and leave unnecessary headroom.

compression: you would rather want brickwall limiting or multiband limiting. compression would change the dynamics of the song while limiting makes your track "louder" while also cutting off some dynamic peaks and introducing some kind of distortion, but for a 3-voice signal, it works pretty well.

if i want to do things like that quickly (and 99% of the time sloppy as it is a trade mark of WS), i'd recommend izotope Ozone. Also Izotope RX has some very nice spectral denoising, if that is ever desirable because you will at some point always get artifacts.

:-)

ps.: if you recently won the lottery, i recommend these monitors, they are like an electron microscope for the ears: https://www.abacus-electronics.de/c-box4.html

2023-11-15 22:44

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

Quoting ws

firstly, please don't normalize to -0.2 but -0.3 db. i don't find the explanatory article on that right now, but if you want to test it, open a -0.2 db limited mp3 as wav and you can actually see the effect.

Okay, I didn't know that. If you stumble over that article again post here or PM. I'm very interested. The -0.2 db normalization peak was what my audio engineer friends taught me in the 90ies XD

Quoting ws

compression: you would rather want brickwall limiting or multiband limiting.

Yeah, brickwall limiting seems to be the best option of you want to go for compression/limiter on SIDs for me too.

Quoting ws

i'd recommend izotope Ozone. Also Izotope RX has some very nice spectral denoising, if that is ever desirable because you will at some point always get artifacts.

Thanks for the recommendations. I must admit I'm completely out of the "audio engineer" business for a long time now. Last album I made was in 2012 and that was mixed and mastered by a friend. Never bothered with audio stuff in the last >10 years because my 100% switch to linux. But a lot of VST(i) stuff seems to work nowadays. Have to look into it. Just bought a REAPER license one or two years ago and have only used that to capture raw SID so far.

2023-11-15 23:11

ws

Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 251

and before the wiseguys pop up and quote "apples and oranges" or "outdated", yes, we're talking LUFS these days, when it comes to limiting/mastering for the digital realm, i know.
https://bobbyowsinskiblog.com/lufs-standards/
[but i nevertheless personally insist on -0.3 db headroom wherever i go ;-) ]

2023-11-16 20:40

vincenzo

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 83

Quoting spider-j

Quoting vincenzo
For this reason I use noise reduction too (record the pure output noise only, then use it as a noise pattern in eg. Izotope RX or similar plugin).

Oh, that is interesting. Coming from acoustic music I completely avoid noise "reduction" (I only used "noise gate" on things like bass drum / snare i.e.) – always fearing that noise reduction will destroy the "natural" sound. Especially with those noise footprint functions you mention.

Do you have any (example) SID recordings where that technique was used? Would really love to hear those and compare to raw SID ouput.

Thing is, the lower the volume level of a music, the noisier it gets when you normalize it after recording. Obviously, the noise will be "normalized" too.
A gate could help but it's pretty tricky to set it up properly because a fast gate/treshold might cause stutter, a slow gate might not close quick enough.

Whenever there's no silence or gap but music is playing, the SID's and motherboard's noise is practically inaudible, but as mentioned, where the music is fairly quiet or has a gap, the noise is more audible.

Check out my C64 releases here, they are all denoised with Izotope RX: https://strayboom.bandcamp.com
(Funktastic SID, Clockwork Factory, ByteMorphoSID)

2023-11-16 21:08

Flotsam

Registered: Jan 2004
Posts: 84

Vincenzo said: "Thing is, the lower the volume level of a music, the noisier it gets when you normalize it after recording. Obviously, the noise will be "normalized" too."

Sure, the volume of the noise will be higher when normalized, but it does so in 1:1 ratio to signal. So, the SNR will remain the same and that's really all that matters. If you think of the source (C64), the target (human ear) and everything in between (most likely lossy formats), the earlier you normalize, the better. That way you'll have the best possible resolution for the following stages to work with. There's no way around it.

But I agree, using a gate seems wrong, because inevitably it will alter the sound itself too, unless you set the limit so low that it basically does nothing. Side-chaining the effect to react to just the upper spectrum won't help either because a tune might have a part with just noise playing at a low level. Using more sophisticated algos like the one in RX might work slightly better, but then again... we're dealing with an analog device, why should all noise be killed? I think noise is part of the sound, it smooths things out a bit and creates atmosphere just like it does in photos.

2023-11-16 21:45

vincenzo

Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 83

Quoting Flotsam

Vincenzo said: "Thing is, the lower the volume level of a music, the noisier it gets when you normalize it after recording. Obviously, the noise will be "normalized" too."

Sure, the volume of the noise will be higher when normalized, but it does so in 1:1 ratio to signal. So, the SNR will remain the same and that's really all that matters. If you think of the source (C64), the target (human ear) and everything in between (most likely lossy formats), the earlier you normalize, the better. That way you'll have the best possible resolution for the following stages to work with. There's no way around it.

But I agree, using a gate seems wrong, because inevitably it will alter the sound itself too, unless you set the limit so low that it basically does nothing. Side-chaining the effect to react to just the upper spectrum won't help either because a tune might have a part with just noise playing at a low level. Using more sophisticated algos like the one in RX might work slightly better, but then again... we're dealing with an analog device, why should all noise be killed? I think noise is part of the sound, it smooths things out a bit and creates atmosphere just like it does in photos.

To be fair, I don't mind having noise in the signal. What I dislike is the buzz of the modulator and/or other motherboard components. Probably it can be killed with some modding, but I have no further knowledge about it and never experiminted with changing the components.

2023-11-16 23:30

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

Dang. I should have asked earlier. Due to some misinformation our release is already tonight at 00:01 and not tomorrow as I thought.

What I did, encouraged by this thread was:
* normalizing (at -0.2 db, sorry WS, but I will release FLAC not MP3 only)
* "manual" normalizing / cutting out clicks / heavy pops especially at init
* a tiny – almost unnoticable bit of reverb
* a tiny bit of compressor
* brick wall limiting

Personally I'm quite happy with the result.
But I already learned a lot for the future. -0.3 db it will be and I guess I'll start playing around with noise reduction by patterns ... Although I still don't feel it is neccessary.

@Vicenzo: thanks for the link, will check those recordings out.

2023-11-16 23:58

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980

Where does normalising to -0.2 or -0.3 dB(FS?) come from?

Some considerations wrt the corresponding real-world peaks being closer to 0 dB, i.e. physical speakers overshooting the digital curves due to their inertia and momentum? (In other words, normalising to just under 0 dB would be a recipe for audible clipping.)

2023-11-17 00:16

spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 498

Quoting Krill

Where does normalising to -0.2 or -0.3 dB(FS?) come from?

In my case: mouth to mouth propaganda. Don't know if it's really important. WS sent me some links about what happens if you convert to MP3 then which I have to check / try out.

2023-11-17 00:19

Krill

Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980

MP3 is still a thing? :-O

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