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Forums > C64 Composing > SID recordings – opinions on normalizing?
2023-11-15 16:10
spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 502
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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2023-11-18 12:45
spider-j

Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 502
Quoting acrouzet
and if you're doing it to a tune you didn't compose, it may go against how the composer intended the tune to sound like.

That is an interesting take. As I come from a plain acoustic music background there it is quite "normal" that audio engineers do those decisions and *not* the composers there. Mixing and mastering is an art form itself in that domain and the results are of course discussed in a good relationship between artists and engineers but I think there is a huge tendency to "trust" your enigneers choices as an artist*.

SID music is a bit different. There is no such thing as "Mixing" that an audio engineer would do. Mixing is completely in the hand of the artist – it's part of the process to create a tune. And only "Mastering" will eventually be applied by someone else if that SID is recorded. And yes: that could be perceived as more "intrusive" than in the acoustic domain, because one is just not "used to" someone else fiddeling with their sounds.

That is one of the key points why I started this discussion here and I thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on that matter.

EDIT: * in fact the one best sounding album of my whole "career" as a musician was the one where a friend of mine didn't take any hints / infos / ideas from me at all and just did the complete mixing and mastering process alone and kept me at a distance. At first I was shocked because he did things I would not have approved in the first place. But as time went on I noticed that engineers listening to me as an artist was probably the cause for every thing before not sounding really "good" in the long run. In retrospective I have to admit: that is the best sounding album I ever released and I (as the composer and main performer) had nothing to do with how it was mixed and mastered.
2023-11-20 01:12
acrouzet

Registered: May 2020
Posts: 97
Quote: Quoting acrouzet
and if you're doing it to a tune you didn't compose, it may go against how the composer intended the tune to sound like.

That is an interesting take. As I come from a plain acoustic music background there it is quite "normal" that audio engineers do those decisions and *not* the composers there. Mixing and mastering is an art form itself in that domain and the results are of course discussed in a good relationship between artists and engineers but I think there is a huge tendency to "trust" your enigneers choices as an artist*.

SID music is a bit different. There is no such thing as "Mixing" that an audio engineer would do. Mixing is completely in the hand of the artist – it's part of the process to create a tune. And only "Mastering" will eventually be applied by someone else if that SID is recorded. And yes: that could be perceived as more "intrusive" than in the acoustic domain, because one is just not "used to" someone else fiddeling with their sounds.

That is one of the key points why I started this discussion here and I thank you very much for sharing your thoughts on that matter.

EDIT: * in fact the one best sounding album of my whole "career" as a musician was the one where a friend of mine didn't take any hints / infos / ideas from me at all and just did the complete mixing and mastering process alone and kept me at a distance. At first I was shocked because he did things I would not have approved in the first place. But as time went on I noticed that engineers listening to me as an artist was probably the cause for every thing before not sounding really "good" in the long run. In retrospective I have to admit: that is the best sounding album I ever released and I (as the composer and main performer) had nothing to do with how it was mixed and mastered.


Ah yeah, it really depends on what/who you're composing for. This varies even within chiptune itself. Generally in "western" chiptune, it's expected that the composer do everything themself. However, what's interesting is that in Japanese game studios it was common to separate composers and programmers. The composer wouldn't do any work with the computer/console. It was up to the programmer to port the composer's composition to the sound hardware, basically doing everything from instrument creation to mixing, and possibly even deciding what parts to omit to fit the composition into limited channels. In other words, the programmers were basically making covers.
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