17
votes
FLAC compression level comparison/efficiency analysis
FLAC compression levels are (only) a trade of between encoding time and file size. The decoding time is pretty much independent of compression rate. In the following I will refer to the compression ...
- 371
6
votes
Accepted
Which kind of dynamics processor is this (inverse expander, reverse compressor)?
You talk about increasing gain below threshold. An upward compressor does this.
You mention "inverse expansion" - this is normally called an upward expander (sometimes called an "...
- 3,782
5
votes
Accepted
is there a common low-end level for a song?
Here, is there any common low-end level that every song should has?
No
or Does it just set by ear?
Yes. In fact, it should be set by ear, not by eyes. Don't bother with what the spectrum analyzer ...
- 2,255
5
votes
Accepted
Which acoustic spectogram shows higher quality of audio file?
What you are asking is impossible to determine from a spectrogram. Spectrograms indicate frequencies present, not the quality of the audio. There may be loss of fine detail in one that would barely ...
- 8,162
4
votes
Accepted
Can compressed music files be adequately recovered by remastering?
GIGO [garbage in, garbage out] does apply...
...however - a good mix, master or especially restoration engineer could pull apparent newness out of a low quality file - that's essentially the same ...
- 8,560
4
votes
Accepted
FLAC compression options unclear: --exhaustive-model-search, --qlp-coeff-precision-search
They give a small improvement to the compression at the cost of encoding time.
As neither requires specifying --lax, they do not make the resulting files less compliant.
-8e, -8p and -8ep could be ...
3
votes
Accepted
Mid/side multiband compression
Multiband Compression is not something Standard.Most of the time it's a complex procedure but you have to keep in mind that you are doing this to a whole mix which means your dB reduction should be ...
- 1,539
3
votes
Will stereo compression affect stereo image?
As you specify using a 'stereo linked compressor', neither the timing relation or the level differences between both channels should be modified. Therefore, the stereo width should be unaffected. That'...
- 2,834
3
votes
Accepted
Making loud sounds louder but leave under threshold
I think what you are looking for is an expander, here's a link that explains it
Quoted here:
Audio expansion means to expand the dynamic range of a signal. It is basically the opposite of audio ...
- 46
3
votes
Accepted
Are FLAC audio files automatically decompressed by music players?
Yes. Without decompression a flac file contains just pseudo-random data. A media player requires an ordered stream of PCM stereo audio samples in order for them to be converted to analogue audio via a ...
- 8,835
3
votes
Accepted
The function of attack,release and threshold in a compressor
Briefly, threshold is the level at which the compressor is triggered, attack is how quickly the compressor reacts to the trigger, and release is how long the compressor stays activated before ...
- 46
3
votes
Accepted
Low microphone volume, even with phantom power enabled in my audio interface software
A 57 doesn't need phantom. It won't hurt it, it just has no use for it at all.
With no further info, testing is done by swapping out/comparing each component - mic, cable, interface - to see whether ...
- 8,560
3
votes
Are "fake rimshots" really viable, and how can they be done?
I wonder if they mean what I'd call the 'Green Day sound'? Not that they're the only band to ever do it, but just the one I specifically noticed first.
It's a sound I liked when I first noticed them ...
- 8,560
2
votes
Can compressed music files be adequately recovered by remastering?
Mp3 is a lossy compression format, the removal of frequencies is permanent. There are lossless files such as flac files which 'pack' the file down to a smaller file size that can then be 'unpacked'. ...
- 242
2
votes
Accepted
How can I fix robotic distortion from an audio track?
Buffer underrun might have caused that distortion to the audio.
Buffer values can be increased in the audio driver section of the software or DAW you're using so that the issue disappears when ...
- 842
2
votes
Why does a FLAC file have a lower bit rate than the CD file?
FLAC is a lossless audio encoder so the bitrate is nothing other than an indication of the compression ratio FLAC has been able to achieve. Since FLAC is not allowed to change the material at all, ...
- 21
2
votes
Mixing advice - let me know your opinion
Firstly, align your mixing environment to a technical level using pink noise and a sound pressure level meter. There are various articles on how to do this .... for example.
Secondly, listen to lots ...
- 8,835
2
votes
mixing bass issues
This is actually a classic mistake most people do. And it really affects the outcome.
Most of the times it's the plugin , the harmonic content added by the plugin OR the beef in that particular Hz ...
- 1,539
2
votes
How to avoid killing headroom when mixing action scenes?
It's not so much that you compress to limit the headroom [although TV & Home Theatre releases can often be compressed because the full dynamic range of a theatre movie tends to annoy the ...
- 8,560
2
votes
Accepted
Multiband Compressor or Octave-Band Filter plugin
What you're looking for is incredibly hard to implement. Filters always have a slope measured in dB/Octave or dB/Decade and it's a measure of the attenuation of frequencies beyond the cutoff frequency....
- 1,573
2
votes
Which acoustic spectogram shows higher quality of audio file?
Best audio quality is difficult to assess objectively.
What you can say from the given audiograms is (as you mentioned) that N° 3 includes more high frequencies, which is usually considered better.
...
- 2,834
2
votes
Is there a way to find the degree of compression used in a recording
(This answer assumes that the OP is asking about dynamic compression while recording)
Note : it is usually considered bad practice to apply dynamic processing while recording as it is much easier to ...
- 2,834
2
votes
Accepted
Why does compressing a kick drum make it sound punchy and louder?
The overall sound of a kick drum is made up of a number of different spectral components. While there are significant components in the 200Hz range, which accounts for the 'punchiness' of a kick sound,...
- 8,835
2
votes
How do you set each stage of compression when using 3 or more compressors in a DAW?
Assuming you're not going to find data published on exactly how the RNC does it, I'd think more in terms of two-step rather than 3, just with a good amount of knee in the first step.
You still need to ...
- 8,560
2
votes
How do you set each stage of compression when using 3 or more compressors in a DAW?
The great thing about virtual compressors is they come with presets. And the good ones, like Waves, even have featured presets created by some pretty great sound engineers.
As you want something quick ...
- 2,526
2
votes
How do I cope with "spikes" in voice over
This is of necessity vague. Without actually hearing it, it's hard to say with any precision.
Compression may remove the worst of it, multi-band compression may allow you to fine-tune to those ...
- 8,560
2
votes
Accepted
How do I cope with "spikes" in voice over
There are various ways to deal with this kind of things:
The one I would go with: send it back to the speaker and say that it is unusable and he has to make a better recording. Do help in setting up ...
- 1,539
2
votes
How to interpret the spectogram from spek
The only information I could possibly garner from those three spectrograms is that it's a reasonable possibility that the WAV wasn't the original source file.
There's evidence it has already had a ...
- 8,560
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible