Lessons Learned...Give a small child a hammer... -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Lessons Learned...Give a small child a hammer... Posted by: sk Date:11/8/2001 3:55:30 AM What a great wisdom: "Give a small child a hammer and s/he soon discovers the whole world needs hammering." Needless to say, I just discovered "Wave Hammer" and Compression/Maximizing. Likewise needless to say, I hammered all 22 songs of a cd compilation I'd been working on. The first few I tried worked so well I figured it would add that 'punch' to all the songs. Only problem is... I didn't know the process introduces some raspiness and harshness on certain types of songs. I know now. lol. (Hey...watch where you swing that thing, ok? Ouch!) sk
Subject:RE: Lessons Learned...Give a small child a hammer... Reply by: sk Date:11/9/2001 8:10:36 PM ...And speaking of the "Hammer", I just took identical songs and boosted the volume of one from 16 dB to 14 db using the Normalize/Peak feature of SF, then used Hammer to boost the other one to 14 dB as well. I used the 'dynamic compression' option in Normalize, and a reading of the peaks indicated that I only had about .5 db before clipping should have occurred. I checked both files after processing and could detect no clipping in either one. It seemd to me that on this particular song - a Joni Mitchell solo acoustic guitar song - that the Normalize process resulted in a more open, flowing, natural sound than the Hammer. They were similar in some characteristics, but on a not so obvious level the Normalize seemed to do a great job and it was as easy as dialing in the final volume I wanted and choosing dynamic compression. I guess my question is how are the two routines different - Normalize with dynamic compression and Hammer. sk

Subject:Lessons Learned...Give a small child a hammer...

Posted by: sk

Date:11/8/2001 3:55:30 AM

What a great wisdom: "Give a small child a hammer and s/he soon discovers the whole world needs hammering."
Needless to say, I just discovered "Wave Hammer" and Compression/Maximizing. Likewise needless to say, I hammered all 22 songs of a cd compilation I'd been working on. The first few I tried worked so well I figured it would add that 'punch' to all the songs. Only problem is... I didn't know the process introduces some raspiness and harshness on certain types of songs. I know now. lol.
(Hey...watch where you swing that thing, ok? Ouch!)
sk

Subject:RE: Lessons Learned...Give a small child a hammer...

Reply by: sk

Date:11/9/2001 8:10:36 PM

...And speaking of the "Hammer", I just took identical songs and boosted the volume of one from 16 dB to 14 db using the Normalize/Peak feature of SF, then used Hammer to boost the other one to 14 dB as well. I used the 'dynamic compression' option in Normalize, and a reading of the peaks indicated that I only had about .5 db before clipping should have occurred. I checked both files after processing and could detect no clipping in either one. It seemd to me that on this particular song - a Joni Mitchell solo acoustic guitar song - that the Normalize process resulted in a more open, flowing, natural sound than the Hammer. They were similar in some characteristics, but on a not so obvious level the Normalize seemed to do a great job and it was as easy as dialing in the final volume I wanted and choosing dynamic compression. I guess my question is how are the two routines different - Normalize with dynamic compression and Hammer.
sk