So, I helped a friend record some of his folk tunes - voice and guitar for most of the selections, a string quartet and some singers for a couple of others.
I mixed everything for him and the result was quite pleasing (and quite good, if I do say so, myself).
That was several years ago. Last evening, I was chatting with him and he mentions that some of the selections were played on an internet radio station, that he thought the sound was muffled. Another friend tells him that there is a special way to record for radio - otherwise the sound is muffled and doesn't come through.
I am skeptical. I have read (here mostly) about compression to raise the volume of the soft portions and push everything else as high as it can go without distorting. I believe I understand that the original logic was to bring soft material up so that noise (like the sounds of wind and road noise) do not cover up those passages. I read somewhere that compression then became a tool to make one recording stand out (in comparison to other non-compressed recordings) and that, the compression war that ensued has caused most popular genre to be recorded in this manner.
. . . but I remain skeptical that anything other than a recording that sounds good when played on decent sound system at home equipment needs much to sound acceptable when the signal is initiated and received from a broadcast source.
So, can someone shed some light on the subject for me, please?
Thanks.
Del
I mixed everything for him and the result was quite pleasing (and quite good, if I do say so, myself).
That was several years ago. Last evening, I was chatting with him and he mentions that some of the selections were played on an internet radio station, that he thought the sound was muffled. Another friend tells him that there is a special way to record for radio - otherwise the sound is muffled and doesn't come through.
I am skeptical. I have read (here mostly) about compression to raise the volume of the soft portions and push everything else as high as it can go without distorting. I believe I understand that the original logic was to bring soft material up so that noise (like the sounds of wind and road noise) do not cover up those passages. I read somewhere that compression then became a tool to make one recording stand out (in comparison to other non-compressed recordings) and that, the compression war that ensued has caused most popular genre to be recorded in this manner.
. . . but I remain skeptical that anything other than a recording that sounds good when played on decent sound system at home equipment needs much to sound acceptable when the signal is initiated and received from a broadcast source.
So, can someone shed some light on the subject for me, please?
Thanks.
Del