Experienced audio engineers know the power of dynamic compression, and the risks of doing more harm than good if misused. I know this firsthand. When I started 20 years ago, I was a fraction of the engineer I am now. Looking back, there were a few times that I probably over-compressed some things.

When I was reminded recently how much I love Guided By Voices, I pulled out the first album I bought of theirs and one of my favorites, “Isolation Drills.”

When I put it on, I started wincing…I couldn’t listen to it.

For years I’ve shunned ‘brickwalled’ recordings. If I want to purchase a CD, I seek out early issue, un-remastered pressings. I bought digital files for a long time, but usually only the latest remasters are available.

In my work, I’ve had to fight in the mastering stage for songs I MIXED not to be RUINED in mastering. Yes. I said RUINED.

I’m at war with the loudness war.

Artists frequently prioritize ‘loudness’, as to compete next to other songs on Spotify or whatever…But here’s the thing, Spotify is normalizing every track, so making your songs LOUD shouldn’t be a priority. Preserving the integrity of the MIX should be.

I often mix get sessions with tracks that are too loud. Recorded too hot, aggressively compressed, or just plain CLIPPING. The first thing I do is reduce clip gain and put on a hi-pass filter to clean up sub-sonic rumble. This allows me to manipulate the track with plugins, otherwise it’s just a distorted mess as soon as I try to do anything with the audio.

So, I thought about this album I love and how I wanted to enjoy these songs again.

I decided to indulge myself…

While waiting for a project to come in, I extracted the files from the CD (not IMPORT into iTunes) and loaded them into Pro Tools. The tracks were brickwalled, confirming my suspicions. Look at the first song, “Fair Touching.”

I lowered the ‘clip gain’ on every track by 3.8db. This didn’t change the ‘flat-line’ ceiling of audio, but gave me some headroom.

Then I put TDR Nova GE, a dynamic EQ, in the first plugin slot. I certainly wasn’t about to ADD compression, but this plugin has great hi/low-pass filters, which have made it the first plugin that I put on EVERY track in a mix. Secret: I engage a hi-pass filter on EVERY track, even kick drum and bass guitar.

“Alex, you’re losing warmth, weight, and impact.” No. The filters are set at very low frequencies…Even hip-hop engineers employ hi-pass filters, allowing them to make the track loud but retain punchy transient information.

I engaged the hi-pass filter at 31hz with a 12db/oct slope. Viewing the analyzer of the input vs the output, I was removing a lot of low-frequency information in the 10-20hz range. Almost 6db – the left is with the hi-pass, right is without. (It does appear in the photos that the kick drum lost some heft, but I compensated for it, read on.)

This made the drums punchier and gave the track “air.” Ultra-low frequencies eat up headroom and trigger compressors down the processing chain. The mastering engineer for this CD pushed pretty hard into a limiter without engaging a hi-pass filter.
BAD.
Ruined? Kind of.
At least the CD…

But by doing TWO things – lowering clip gain and employing a hi-pass filter, I recovered transient detail and gained dynamic range. Check out the photos below! The second plugin IS a limiter, and to my knowledge only trimmed 3 peaks from going above -0.3db throughout the entire 16 songs.

No more brick. Look at the beginning when the song kicks in. There’s dynamic punch happening!

‘Fair Touching’ has peaks…

Even this quieter track benefited…

I did a 0.2db boost at the kick drum resonant frequency, and a -0.4 cut in the upper midrange to ease some of the guitar bite covering up the lead vocal. These are TINY moves that made a big difference.

I printed the songs one by one and exported 24bit 44k AIFF files. They are noticeably quieter than the CD and don’t make my ears bleed.

Turns out, you CAN fix brickwalling to a certain extent. Even though pulling from a CD isn’t the best source, I’m winning and this album sounds great!

GBV rules.

Where are my mastering engineer friends? Leave your thoughts below on this!