I agree with Mac on this question - Try uploading a file to YouTube, there are all kinds of data compression options - which is the only kind of compression that YouTube invokes. It has nothing to do with level compression of the audio stream.

Also, you can absolutely screw up a well mixed/mastered song with too much audio compression.

If you critically listen to this song, the various sections, you will see that it was very well composed and mixed to begin with. As just one example, listen for where the hi-hat appears in the mix right near the fade near the end. Or for that matter, the arpeggiated guitar line that runs through the whole thing. They are nearly hard-panned, except for their reverbs. The guitar at the beginning is hard left, the open hat at the end is hard right, etc. There might be 10 total tracks in this song, and at no point is there any fighting between that arpeggiated guitar and some keyboard part, or other another guitar. About the only thing that takes up the same spectral territory are the BGVs, and a little bit of what sounds like a strat panned in the middle. But it's a very 'open' mix.

It would be tempting to add a piano or electric piano track, some B3, etc. But those would close up the mix. That's an orchestration and composition decision.

Then the mix engineer did his/her job to keep the few instrument parts there very separated from each other in a pan, volume and frequency content standpoint.

This is true also for old Van Halen albums, true for Beatles mixes from more ancient mix capability, etc.

To be honest, I don't think that this song has very much 'dynamics' as I understand the term. That would be very quiet to quite loud sections and back and forth. This song is actually pretty 'even' from that standpoint - but the mix is wide and open.

Another song which you might like with similar minimal instrumentation but mixed absolutely perfectly is Lyle Lovett's "She's Already Made Up Her Mind". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofv9goALt3c

That YouTube example does suffer from some data compression issues, but even with the data compression artifacts, you can hear that it's also a very open mix, with some fairly aggressive hard panning, but a very wide and open mix, with conservative instrumentation. Very similar in mix philosophy to the Harry Nilsson example.

I don't really like Lyle Lovett's singing voice necessarily, but this particular song orchestration and mix is one of the best in modern recorded music, in my opinion. George Massenburg was the engineer on this song. This song has more 'dynamics' from quiet to loud, etc. than the Harry Nilsson example. I bought this CD at a thrift shop just for this one recording as what it sounds like to have a 'quiet but fierce' type of mix. If you get the opportunity to hear this song direct into good headphones from CD, it is simply magical.






Last edited by rockstar_not; 03/21/14 03:14 PM.
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