Compression in Orchestral Music??

[djbobm]

There are a lot of wonderful, knowledgeable people on these forums. Thanks for your insight.I’ve been at this for a year and a half now and while I’m still experimenting with writing and recording different styles, I have these questions about orchestral music.If a piece starts at a low volume but increases to a fortissimo at the end, for recording, do you compress to make the soft passages louder, or appear to be louder, and then in the loud sections, squish them down in order to achieve a more constant level throughout the recording, or do you set the overall level to keep the fortissimos from clipping (maybe use a limiter?) therefore making the pianissimo sections a very low signal. (I’m glad I have spell check!) Dynamic contrast is so important in live music. Do we sacrifice that contrast or do we make it an implied contrast? I suppose there are many opinions on this. Hmmm! That sounds confusing! How's this? Do you use compression when you write orchestral music?I use Logic8 (Logic 9 tomorrow) and I have EWQL Goliath and Orchestral Gold, which I believe are 16 bit. Can you achieve those big crescendos found in movie scores with 16 bit or do you need the 24 bit libraries? From a recent thread on what composers need to know, there was something about dithering. I started reading up on that but I don’t really understand it yet. Does dithering come into play here?I hope these questions are clear enough. I just read them over and am getting more confused.Thanks.Bob

[fullbirdmusic]

Bob, there are definitely a couple of schools of thought on the orchestral compression. I've been involved in film composing the last couple of years and I don't know any composers that think it's acceptable to use a limiter/compressor on the master bus. With that being said, sometimes it is difficult to hear those soft passages without a large difference in volume perception from section to section, so there are some that use those devices on certain instruments or sections. I, personally don't use ANY compression on orchestral recordings (ESPECIALLY on anything percussive) except for any guitars or synth sounds I might be using. The dynamics in orchestral music are so important that using these effects on the master bus completely take that away. So, I would say no - don't use it. By the way, dithering is a process of adding noise in between samples when down-converting (I'm not sure if I even used the correct words there!) but other than that, I don't know anything else about it!

[fullbirdmusic]

Oh, and I believe you can get those huge sounding crescendos with 16bit samples. But if you're an audiophile and can hear EVERYTHING (there are some!) then just use the 24bit samples.

[mazz]

I think it depends on where your music ends up and how it's used. It may not be you putting the compressor on the master bus, but it may be a library or end user that needs to hear that very soft passage or wants to limit the dynamic range for some reason.That being said, I do like the practice of "selective" compression, in other words, compressing some things and not others. Again, it depends on the style of music and the ultimate usage.I'm not a big purist when it comes to sampled orchestras because, let's face it, #1. It's not a real orchestra and there's some things that, at this stage of technology, it just can't do well, and #2. It's not a real orchestra and you can make it do things that would be impossible, or at least very expensive for a real orchestra to do.So I guess if the music needs to be as organic sounding as possible, then do what it takes to make it sound like that. If it needs to be punchy and in your face to compete with a heavy electronica bed, then do what it takes to make that work.The music should dictate the tool usage, not the other way around, IMO.Mazz

[mojobone]

Compression is used on orchestral music all the time, in a faraway land called Hollywood. Probably, it's used a lot more than some would like to admit on many non-film recordings of classical music. Certainly, it was used plenty when the records were made of vinyl, because the dynamic range of a symphony orchestra had to be shoehorned into the dynamic range of the vinyl record format, and before that, into the smaller range of lacquer 78 RPM discs-this is why compression was invented in the first place. There's a lot to know about the many uses of compressors-your basic compressor can do a lot of different jobs- hard limiting, soft clipping, upward expansion, downward compression, downward expansion, gating, ducking, etc. I've got books on the subject, and not enough time to give a dissertation, so if you'll bear with me, I'll scrounge up some useful links. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1996_ar ... ed.aspWith orchestral music, compression is generally only applied at the mastering stage, in order to conserve as much of the natural dynamic range as possible-the goal is to lift the quietest passages above any ambient noise in the end-user listening space while ensuring that the loudest passages don't blow up the listener's equipment, all without damaging the intended tonal balance of the composer, or the mix balance of the conductor-that's a tall order.

[mazz]

Mojo is right on: compression was used in recording and broadcast long before it became an "effect" as it is often used today. Dynamic range compression was necessary for vinyl and multiband dynamic compression/expansion was invented long ago by a guy named Ray Dolby to improve the signal to noise ratio (and thereby the perceived dynamic range) of tape.I would also be willing to bet a lot more compression goes on in classical music than we think, it's just done with really great compressors by great engineers with great ears and a light touch on the controls! Film music is compressed by necessity. What orchestra plays in the middle of a freeway car chase with explosions going on around it? I think I'd have a hard time hearing the orchestra under those circumstances!!

[fullbirdmusic]

Right, I agree with you guys. I guess what I meant to iterate was the usage of a limiter on the master buss, slamming all the tracks to their dynamic limit. Of course compression can be used to a major advantage in orchestral music, and I should have thought to say that before.

[watksco]

You can do a lot to level out the various volumes in a track by riding the faders (that or processing the various parts of track with a gain function - as in Pro Tools Audiosuite Gain) This is done a lot in popular music with vocals particularly to level out the performance somewhat before it hits any compression - that way the comps are not working as hard and are less noticable in the mix. I'm sure this technique would apply to orchestral music....?Scott

[waltzmastering]

Aug 11, 2009, 2:58pm, djbobm wrote: do you compress to make the soft passages louder, or appear to be louder, and then in the loud sections, squish them down in order to achieve a more constant level throughout the recording, or do you set the overall level to keep the fortissimos from clipping (maybe use a limiter?)There are many types and technical ways to use compression/limiting.If you want to bring quieter levels up you can use parallel compression. Basically you blend a time aligned moderately compressed track in with a uncompressed track, by doing this you are increasing the level of the lower level passages while leaving the peaks untouched. You can also use conventional downward compression, which knocks down the peaks while doing a make up gain.You can also do a combination of both. As FBM had mentioned, it's better to do these process's as a separate or mastering stage and not on the 2 buss. IMO they haven't gotten plug ins to sound nearly as good as good analog compression, so I would recommend that when possible.Limiting is basically compression with a ratio of 10:1 or higher. You can follow compression with limiting or use limiting as well on it's own. It will push the signal that exceeds the threshold down farther than a compressor.Also agree with Scott, riding or automating fader/levels is another more natural way to go.Dither comes in to play later and is the last thing you would add to any digital process and when needed to reduce the word length.

[suzdoyle]

Great suggestions here -- thanks for sharing your knowledge, everyone! ,Suz(in a dither -- or NOT?)