The art of LOUD - masterclass with thomas penton

[ForbiddenFruitRecord]

Alrighty,

latest feature article looks at how to get your productions LOUD, with one of the masters - progressive producer Thomas Penton. This is indepth article looking at methods, plugins and tricks, along with examples to see the impact... enjoy

http://bit.ly/rusQH6

[blinx]

cool read... seems like he likes to push shit hard though lol and then nerf the signal at the end to create headroom? idk if i agree 100 percent but hes def. doing bigger things than i have so ill try to take a few points and work them into my workflow.

How he filters the basses and plays different rythms on different frequencies is pretty cool and seem slike solid tech to use in dubstep/electro.

Thanks for the post/read!

[RandoRando]

great thread posting to watch later

[mmjdw]

So don't bother mixing and rape everything with a limiter at every possible stage?

[mekha]

Terrible advice imho.

[deadly_habit]

watcch this
his drum sets kill vec and he knows his shit

[Sharmaji]

some very solid advice-- IF you're making super bright and kind-of fuzzy electro stuff. The inflator is a fantastic tool to bring up apparent volume, but it can do weird, unnatural things to the high end quite easily.

[deadly_habit]

watch it ffs cant emphasis enough
use his drum set over vec

[nowaysj]

The inflator is a fantastic tool to bring up apparent volume, but it can do weird, unnatural things to the high end quite easily.

What in the F@CK does the inflator actually do? The man himself won't even say?

[-[2]DAY_-]

i didn't like the part about never playing kick and sub at the same time, basically due to being unable to push the mix into super loudness if you do

I'm more a fan of "write the music first, then mix it as best you can". I mean everyone does both at the same time to some degree, at least in electronica... but ... i mean, more often than not i want my track to have kick drum playing over the bassline at some point. that rule would just render a lot of great compositional ideas out of the question...

[nowaysj]

Look man, this advice isn't for everyone, for all types of music. These are specific techniques to achieve specific types of effects. Jaknow? Could you imagine this technique employed on a recording of a symphony orchestra? "OI, that violin sounds weak..." "PUT THE SAUSAGE ON IT!" "NOW MY VIOLIN LOOKS LIKE A SAUSAGE!"

[-[2]DAY_-]

naw its good info, especially the duplicated kick track transient thing. i just didn't like that never play the sub with the kick thing, its like letting loudness write your beat for you

[nowaysj]

People've been making compromises like this since day 1 in recording. Recording is a bitch. Our ears and brain remain a shit tun better than the tech that we use to record sound. And really, I'm with you, mixing is the last thing I think about. Screw it right? But still, it is an interesting endeavor to work within constraints like this, like this has to be louder than a jet engine at full thrust, how do we do that?

[-[2]DAY_-]

very good point

[mekha]

People've been making compromises like this since day 1 in recording. Recording is a bitch. Our ears and brain remain a shit tun better than the tech that we use to record sound. And really, I'm with you, mixing is the last thing I think about. Screw it right? But still, it is an interesting endeavor to work within constraints like this, like this has to be louder than a jet engine at full thrust, how do we do that?

Yeah, I have to agree that doing it has it's own merits, is just.. that I wouldn't personally consider it "art".

@Sharmaji I haven't used the inflator tbh although I have a plugin called "puncher" which i'm sure it does some similar stuff. Do you know it?

Anyone know how much different is to follow the process described in the link rather than doing a clean/punchy mixdown and then use parallel compression? I always had the idea that by using a bit of parallel compression you had more control and cleaner results for "loud" tasks.

[-[2]DAY_-]

he's teaching how to do a squashed, slammed super loud mixdown
so: hard limiting, saturation, and layering. duping the kick track is an example of parallel processing, he's just not using an aux channel.
lining up hard hitting elements so that they don't compete with one another, inserting multiple "filler" basslines that play syncopated patterns over the sub. high passing the filler basses and bussing them together, hard limiting that bus. actually... its the same ideas as one would employ when going for a clean and punchy mix. just kind of exaggerated for hardstyle ish.

[hasezwei]

he's teaching how to do a squashed, slammed super loud mixdown
so: hard limiting, saturation, and layering. duping the kick track is an example of parallel processing, he's just not using an aux channel.
lining up hard hitting elements so that they don't compete with one another, inserting multiple "filler" basslines that play syncopated patterns over the sub. high passing the filler basses and bussing them together, hard limiting that bus. actually... its the same ideas as one would employ when going for a clean and punchy mix. just kind of exaggerated for hardstyle ish.

i personally think it's way overdone tbh, if he limits everything so hard yet brings in more and more elements throughout the song isn't everything effectively getting quieter the more shit he's introducing?
and i don't see the point in squashing all the dynamics out of every single element in your tune.
sounds a bit like the edm equivalent of metallica's death magnetic.

[-[2]DAY_-]

i fully agree. id rather the entire playback systems industry raise the standard volume scale by 10dB, and we all let our mixes breathe, stop reaching for a 0dbfs RMS, its ridiculous =\

[ascent]

good read, cheers

[mekha]

he's teaching how to do a squashed, slammed super loud mixdown
so: hard limiting, saturation, and layering. duping the kick track is an example of parallel processing, he's just not using an aux channel.
lining up hard hitting elements so that they don't compete with one another, inserting multiple "filler" basslines that play syncopated patterns over the sub. high passing the filler basses and bussing them together, hard limiting that bus. actually... its the same ideas as one would employ when going for a clean and punchy mix. just kind of exaggerated for hardstyle ish.

Yeah I get the idea but thought that doing parallel compression would be much less troublesome... Also mantaining/mixing some properties of the original material (by doing ParallelC) sounds like it would be a bit cleaner rather than limiting everything in the mixdown stage and then limit everything again in the master.