Or, more specifically, What Sounds Good on Radio 1? I've been wondering whether maybe there's a quality that certain types of songs or genres or sonics have that makes them sound good when run through all the compression that Radio 1 use to broadcast? Is there a certain quality in a song's dynamics or rhythm or structure or production which makes it sound better or more at home on the airwaves of Radio 1 than it would on a clearer, more audiophile-friendly channel like Radio 2 or 3? Do other big commercial stations which play music equivalent to Radio 1 compress their signals as much?
― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 10:18 (twenty-one years ago)
Mixing for radio is an art-form in itself, it's bad art, true.
A rough guess would say that the early eighties would have been the start of concious radio mixing, playing up the optimod compression systems that the larger pop stations use.
This is why when you hear any Stock Aitken & Waterman production on good speakers they are almost unlistenably enhanced in the middle frequencies, roughly 1khz to 6khz, this bandwith really goes for yer ears.
Trevor Horn is also a culprit but he was a lot more tasteful that SAW, but most early/mid/late eighties pop/rock/metal singles have been mixed for radio.
I suppose the pinnacle of this would be something like Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard, which is heavy but not. An implied heaviness that sounds awesomely full on the smallest radio.
Quite clever when you think about it, but still sick.
― mzui (mzui), Wednesday, 10 November 2004 10:48 (twenty-one years ago)
three years pass...
one year passes...
Apologies if there is another thread about this, I couldn't find any... There was a comment on the "La Roux" thread about how some songs sound great on the radio (I think Girls Aloud was the example), but poorly on record. Anybody knows why this happens?
― touch my bum / this is life (daavid), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 20:15 (sixteen years ago)
i read somewhere, maybe in the Stax biography that they used to mix through car speakers, to get that "perfect sound" for am. and i feel Phil Spector may have perfected this in the 1960's, but i don't really know enough to elaborate
― outdoor_miner, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 20:34 (sixteen years ago)