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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
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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ws
Registered: Apr 2012
Posts: 230 |
and before the wiseguys pop up and quote "apples and oranges" or "outdated", yes, we're talking LUFS these days, when it comes to limiting/mastering for the digital realm, i know.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 ;-) ] |
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vincenzo
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 79 |
Quoting spider-jQuoting vincenzoFor 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) |
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Flotsam
Registered: Jan 2004
Posts: 82 |
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. |
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vincenzo
Registered: Sep 2003
Posts: 79 |
Quoting FlotsamVincenzo 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. |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
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. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
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.) |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
Quoting KrillWhere 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. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
MP3 is still a thing? :-O |
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spider-j
Registered: Oct 2004
Posts: 449 |
Quoting KrillMP3 is still a thing? :-O
It's quite common still. And I must admit as someone who tries to keep everything as FLAC I had some streaming problem because of filesize when I was in holiday. I stream from my own private nextcloud running in a Ubuntu VM and have "only" a "classic" 100MBit / ~30-40MBit upload, because this is the maximum I can get here.
FLAC files had problems, MP3 of course didn't. And VBR highest quality is for the most cases quite close to FLAC/WAV. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2855 |
I meant, it's still a thing while AAC and other more modern psycho-acoustic encodings allowing for better perceived quality at equal bitrates exist? =) |
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