the mixing/mastering is ruining his recent stuff

OKay, I'll cut to the chase here.

2khz--often referred to as the "pain frequency"--seems to be the loudest frequency. (And generally speaking 2khz-5khz = loudest range of frequencies)

Tomorrow when I wake up I will run the album through a frequency analyzer. I will share screens shots if possible. I am fully expecting it to be heavy in the 2khz-5khz range. If it is then I will feel confident in my theory that the record was EQ'ed for loudness.

Squarpeusher has worst sounding tracks I've ever heard. I mean seriously, it would sound better if he just fucking put all the tracks at the same level and put random fruity soundgoodizer presets on them. What the fuck he does to his tracks is insane. If he did it for loudness then fucking lol because he failed COMPLETELY to make it any loud compared to well mixed tracks and at the same time it's fucking RUINED COMPLETELY on every level. Everything sounds like it's fucking mono and like it was made using a fucking calculator to generate the drums. It would sound better if not fucking mixed at all. His earlier tracks were not mixed at all or mixed by a fucking sheep and they still somehow manage to sound better. He should hire anyone from EKT to mix his tracks and I'm sure most would do a better job . Fucking retard autist cunt.

Well is there anything we can do with the recordings of Ufabulum and the rest that we do have? Like put them through a de-EQ process in Audacity or some shit?

  On 5/7/2013 at 3:31 PM, Adam Beker said:

Squarpeusher has worst sounding tracks I've ever heard. I mean seriously, it would sound better if he just fucking put all the tracks at the same level and put random fruity soundgoodizer presets on them. What the fuck he does to his tracks is insane. If he did it for loudness then fucking lol because he failed COMPLETELY to make it any loud compared to well mixed tracks and at the same time it's fucking RUINED COMPLETELY on every level. Everything sounds like it's fucking mono and like it was made using a fucking calculator to generate the drums. It would sound better if not fucking mixed at all. His earlier tracks were not mixed at all or mixed by a fucking sheep and they still somehow manage to sound better. He should hire anyone from EKT to mix his tracks and I'm sure most would do a better job . Fucking retard autist cunt.

Stop swearing so much..

  On 5/7/2013 at 5:45 PM, Friendly Foil said:

 

  On 5/7/2013 at 3:31 PM, Adam Beker said:

Squarpeusher has worst sounding tracks I've ever heard. I mean seriously, it would sound better if he just fucking put all the tracks at the same level and put random fruity soundgoodizer presets on them. What the fuck he does to his tracks is insane. If he did it for loudness then fucking lol because he failed COMPLETELY to make it any loud compared to well mixed tracks and at the same time it's fucking RUINED COMPLETELY on every level. Everything sounds like it's fucking mono and like it was made using a fucking calculator to generate the drums. It would sound better if not fucking mixed at all. His earlier tracks were not mixed at all or mixed by a fucking sheep and they still somehow manage to sound better. He should hire anyone from EKT to mix his tracks and I'm sure most would do a better job . Fucking retard autist cunt.

Stop swearing so much..

 

What's with you and swearing, Foil? honest curiosity

  On 5/7/2013 at 6:05 PM, ThatSpanishGuy said:

 

  On 5/7/2013 at 5:45 PM, Friendly Foil said:

 

  On 5/7/2013 at 3:31 PM, Adam Beker said:

Squarpeusher has worst sounding tracks I've ever heard. I mean seriously, it would sound better if he just fucking put all the tracks at the same level and put random fruity soundgoodizer presets on them. What the fuck he does to his tracks is insane. If he did it for loudness then fucking lol because he failed COMPLETELY to make it any loud compared to well mixed tracks and at the same time it's fucking RUINED COMPLETELY on every level. Everything sounds like it's fucking mono and like it was made using a fucking calculator to generate the drums. It would sound better if not fucking mixed at all. His earlier tracks were not mixed at all or mixed by a fucking sheep and they still somehow manage to sound better. He should hire anyone from EKT to mix his tracks and I'm sure most would do a better job . Fucking retard autist cunt.

Stop swearing so much..

 

 

What's with you and swearing, Foil? honest curiosity

 

It's not nice.

  On 5/7/2013 at 5:40 PM, phudoshin said:

Well is there anything we can do with the recordings of Ufabulum and the rest that we do have? Like put them through a de-EQ process in Audacity or some shit?

yes cut 2khz 5khz 10khz and shelf the air

  On 5/7/2013 at 3:31 PM, Adam Beker said:

Squarpeusher has worst sounding tracks I've ever heard. I mean seriously, it would sound better if he just fucking put all the tracks at the same level and put random fruity soundgoodizer presets on them. What the fuck he does to his tracks is insane. If he did it for loudness then fucking lol because he failed COMPLETELY to make it any loud compared to well mixed tracks and at the same time it's fucking RUINED COMPLETELY on every level. Everything sounds like it's fucking mono and like it was made using a fucking calculator to generate the drums. It would sound better if not fucking mixed at all. His earlier tracks were not mixed at all or mixed by a fucking sheep and they still somehow manage to sound better. He should hire anyone from EKT to mix his tracks and I'm sure most would do a better job . Fucking retard autist cunt.

maybe the mastering is designed so that you can turn the bass way up and still have a rich sound palette.

Yeah, In the Future Music interview Tom said something about Ufabulum being mastered for loud playback.

  Quote

So this is best enjoyed live? And loud?

Yeah. There are some thing I've done which are much better suited to home listening. One aspect of playing loud is where you've got much more limited dynamic range - the louder it is the less you perceive differences in amplitude so it just turn it into a mush. But with this album I've worked hard to maintain the transient dynamics so consequently when you play it loud it absolutely kicks your head in. I absolutely love it.

how it's a year later and people are still wondering if he's mixed the album for club/festival to go with his new a/v show is beyond me... if you've seen the show.. it's fucking mental...

venus no. 17 ep/hello everything - most of it was made on monitors with blown tweeters...

I have no problems with the album on my home stereo, which is... well... I have a huge stereo.

But on the car stereo I have the same problems everyone else is talking about. It's grating, tinny, and... well it sounds shitty.

It seems obvious that it was mastered to be played loud on big systems.

seemingly on purpose... these bits here are very harsh on my ear through headphones. (4001)

  On 5/16/2013 at 8:46 PM, isaki said:

 

seemingly on purpose... these bits here are very harsh on my ear through headphones. (4001)

I definitely find the same thing on heaphones, especially on tweeters. But blasting on my home stereo it's fucking great!

I find it an odd approach though, mastering it like this for specific use. Seems it could be mastered to be pleasing all mediums IE headphones, stereo, car stereo,

  On 5/7/2013 at 3:31 PM, Adam said:

Squarpeusher has worst sounding tracks I've ever heard. I mean seriously, it would sound better if he just fucking put all the tracks at the same level and put random fruity soundgoodizer presets on them. What the fuck he does to his tracks is insane. If he did it for loudness then fucking lol because he failed COMPLETELY to make it any loud compared to well mixed tracks and at the same time it's fucking RUINED COMPLETELY on every level. Everything sounds like it's fucking mono and like it was made using a fucking calculator to generate the drums. It would sound better if not fucking mixed at all. His earlier tracks were not mixed at all or mixed by a fucking sheep and they still somehow manage to sound better. He should hire anyone from EKT to mix his tracks and I'm sure most would do a better job . Fucking retard autist cunt.

Hopefully, there are guys, thanks to soundcloud, that have the kindness to provide the world some ultra-interesting, never heard drumz patterns with cutting-edge never heard sounds!

Plenty of details on placements of drum hits on 4 bar, 2 pattern drum loops, so many nuances in the velocity of the one snare hit exploited! It seems like there are real drummers in here. WOW, what a lesson of composition! So much ideas in so short tracks, with the benefit of real harmony skills!

With such nuanced ears, it is certainly normal to think that Squarepusher's drum programming is chaotic and random, and that you simply dont get it. Then, as you dont get it, because it is too much complicated, you speak separately about the sound quality, thinking that your "knowledge" about sound and critical point of vue would interest someone. What you dont get in this music, is that sound and composition come together, they are bound around the experimentation.

It seems on this forum that, the more ignorant people are, the more they talk and are confident in explaining no point theories.

Some people should go and read some ideas about humility, modesty, than maybe study real sound theory, not just making opinions on 100 characters wikipedia articles.

About Ufabulum sound, in my opinion it is clearly nowhere a matter of loudness war, and there is plenty of headroom everywhere! It is about the way the independant samples are processed, expecially drum sounds, often with very aggressive compressor settings, and it is clearly a choice. A lot of aggressive transient everywhere, as one said. Certainly the euphonix table has a big influence on it.

Personally I like it a lot, especially when I listen to this album on my PSI A215m speakers in my room. It is quite well balanced and it has a unique sound that I never heard before.

And so what? Of course it could sound different, but better? better in the sense of majority of over produced DnB, dubstep music, etc? totally sterile as everyone there sounds like each other, using the same equipment, sound libraries, pseudo glitch effects and, the worse, almost the same ideas.

As I remember when I first heard Squarepusher long time ago, it was underground music, with all the "production defaults" it implies, and for me it is still underground, experimental music. If some people dont get the point of the need of such guys to constantly re-invent themselves, doing everything alone, not sitting on their assets, that's ok, go listen to your well produced music or go and make better music! But at least have some respect, because I doubt anybody on this forum, even if we addition we/us all, will contribute and produce so many fresh musical ideas in so many different ways!

Maybe it is time for some people to take a look at themselves and ask : "what am I contributing to music?" the answer may be : "I post comments on watmm and spread my critical analyzes, I do know what sounds good and I have to explain to others what's wrong in this or that. But in fact, I am frustrated, I know very little in music, I cannot make a difference between a good and bad drummer because the details are not accessible to my 5 neuronal circuit, and my music sounds like shit"

and, yeah, my english really sucks, sorry ;)

Is Warp brick walling their stuff now? I haven't looked at it thru an analyzer but that would really suck if they go the way of the major labels.

  On 6/14/2013 at 2:50 AM, Rubin Farr said:

Is Warp brick walling their stuff now? I haven't looked at it thru an analyzer but that would really suck if they go the way of the major labels.

Has anyone compared 4001 off the album to the stems given for the remixing contest a few months back? The stems sound excellent with lots of dynamics compared to the ultra-limited mastering. I don't like hearing the pumping/ducking of the mix when the bass drum hits in most of the songs. That bass drum should boom nicely instead of sounding like flat cardboard. I remember hearing it in the video for 'Dark Steering' and thought it was youtube compressing it too much somehow, but no. I don't find the high-end too shrill though, but maybe I'm losing my highs too!

Love the album and I find the mix is good. Just too squashed compared to something like Shobaleader One which I find is very creatively mixed and very well mastered!

  On 5/7/2013 at 9:12 AM, Wall Bird said:

Not sure what y'all are talking about when it comes to the loudness or Tom's use of compression. Ufabulum has a good amount of dynamic range compared to a lot of contemporary electronic and club music. In fact, I recall Tom leaving a large amount dynamic range in Ultravisitor as well. On these two albums he is certainly not maximizing loudness or making the levels too hot.

 

I went ahead booted up a wave editor and loaded four tracks from Ufabulum just to be sure: 4001, Unreal Square, The Metallurgist, and Drax 2. Of each of those 'The Metallurgist' is the hottest. I concur that that track can become distressing over it's duration, but considering how much dynamic space there is in the other tracks it may very well be intentional. The other three are relatively minimal in their usage of buss or mastering compression.

 

Ufabulum is noticeably crispier than his last few albums. I wonder if what some of you are hearing are the transients which Tom is not only accentuating, but leaving room for by not squashing the hell out of his recordings. Perhaps some of you are simply not used to hearing so much transient in a contemporary recording. That's one theory.

After he abandoned his mastering engineer, it timed up nicely with upgrading his outboard gear too, so Go Plastic may be deafening at some points and inaudible at others, the general sound of the album seems to work well with the dynamic gymnasts. Then he goes absolutely crazy with transient enhancer on DYKS, which is pretty fatiguing after a while, and the bulk of the music seems much quieter than the drums and percussive attack sounds. Then Ultravisitor seems to go for the complete opposite, all flattened out, everything sent through saturation/distortion and once again the loud parts are really silly loud in compared to average levels of the album. I think Ufabulum, while definitely lacking bass freqs, actually is alot better mastered and mixed overall than the rest of the tracks. I'm not including albums in-between in my assessment as the majority of them are jazz/funk albums that aren't really trying to be explosive or aggressive, but in short, I'd say the sound is getting better.

Just my 2¢.

Mixing and mastering aside, post Ultravisitor just doesn't hit the spot anymore for me. Squarepusher and Aphex have been setting the bar for years now. Half of ekt is analord or go plastic copycat even still. Is anyone trying to sound like ufab or jas? I'm beginning to view this whole scene as dead. It feels worn out and exhausted with the same ideas rehashed. I think a large appeal of the "idm" and glitch electronic genres was in the computer trickery and the "how the fuck did he do that?" factor. It always felt like they were somehow ahead of the technology but to some extent I think it's all caught up. There are things that used to drop my jaw to the floor which I can now do with 2 clicks of free vst. There was barely any complexity in music outside of this scene but now there is because its so much easier. So now if you step outside of tricks and skills and unthinkable programming, what is left? Previous work would still stand up as great music if they were given simple arrangements because the content was quality but recent stuff feels empty and somewhat desperate to me. I don't really know where it's all going but for me it doesn't feel right. Maybe I just got old.

I like how with Clark's Turning Dragon some people were saying it was part of his style, while with Ufabulum people are just outright complaining.

Well I think we've come to expect making all his tracks look like a big square wave from all his brickwalling, I think it's a bit of a disappointing surprise that Mr Jenkinson has decided to come and ride that particular bandwagon

I think the latter isn't helped by the EQing either - the mid-high boost is really quite wearing when attempting the album in one go.