Arseniy wrote:Это што?
А вот что:
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General Info
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The original album I feel has alot of things going against it sound-wise. The vocals are muddy/muffled and generally quite unintelligible, the overall EQ is also muddy and undefined, the hihats and cymbals are suspended in a hazy cloud in the midrange, the snare thuds with little definition or highend. Overall middy and undefined are keywords for what I hear. Add to it that the sound at times is compressed with settings that cause pumping, and that leads to certain parts of songs, generally the ones that are supposed to be the most epic sections containing lead guitar over keyboards and rhythm guitars, to basically just scream at you like a wall of compressed, featureless midfrequencies. Hardly anything you'd close your eyes and be carried away by.
So I've done alot of stuff here to change the sound of the album. The only thing I haven't done is add any artificial harmonics on low- or highend. What I have done is major EQ tweaking, dynamics modulation and stereo field modifications.
The results are that high-end and low-end are both made more audible in general, I've done some glancing at Insomnium's previous album "Across The Dark" for the general vibe, particularly for the low-end and bass guitar which is generally very prominent in previous albums. The dynamics have been modified to basically provide a snappier sound, using very specific tools aimed at a transparent sound free of artifacts from this processing. This also has the benefit of essentially removing some of the pumping from busy parts of songs, and the reinstated peaks for snare and kickdrum also give you a "base" to use as a reference and "restingplace" in the sound, making busy parts less chaotic/screaming-wall-of-sound sounding.
Also stereo field modifications, mainly narrowing the stereo width in the higher frequencies, have made the "cloud" of hihats and leadlines less obtrusive, aswell as more centered, giving the rhythm guitars more room on the sides, and also highlighting material in stereo center position, such as snare and kickdrum, giving the tracks a more stable core for the transient percussive instruments. Vocal intelligibility is far greater with the new EQ and the less intrusive cymbals and hihats. The balance of the vocals now I am really happy about, not overly "essy" at all which is the risk of brightening EQ, and again, juat alot more intelligible and less muted.
The overall volume of the tracks has been slightly reduced to not cut any peaks or introduce pumping. I have kept the sound generally a bit "darker"/less bright than "ideal", generally because I kind of just like the results, and one of the hihats (intro to "Unsung" and start of "Every Hour Wounds" has that hihat in display, panned right of center) would basically be too bright and brittle sounding for my tastes with any further brightening, seeing how it already is EQd alot brighter than other drum elements, for some reason.
Also "Across The Dark" is fairly muted for the highest frequencies, and I like the consistency from that album to this.
I hope this might be of benefit to someone, and do give me your comments and criticism if you want.
