Ok.
This has been driving me nuts for the past few years now.
I always used a hi-res normal limiter on the final master instead of hard limiter that causes unwanted gain, both on the instrumental and final mix so they sound the same, but they end up sounding different.
I tried a heavy limiter on both the instrumental..And it made it sound retarded, and the final mix, and it sounded more retarded...
I listened to The Real Slim Shady and the instrumental, and the beat keep a constant fucking volume with hardly ANY volume loss, only microscopic at most.
Same with When I'm Gone.
I noticed the vocals are very quiet in TRSS which might be a hint about the way Dre mastered the track.
I tried comparing other mixes, and somehow the final master with vocals compressed in and instrumental have the same sound almost..
I was wondering how the hell they preserve the kick's heaviness..
I know that hard limiting on both mixes would be pointless, seeing when I add vocals to the mix, it goes past the point where digital clipping occurs...Yeah I used to use clipping to keep the same sound but you get major distortion in the final mix..You get distortion from hard limiting too..And harsh peak sensing..
Clipping works well with well recorded beats with loud kicks and quiet melodies and heavy metal because clipping heavy metal vocals is fine seeing there's already high amounts of distortion..But vocals is a no-go in hip-hop.
Anyway, what I'm trying to ask is, what methods do you guys use?
I got another question as well, you guys ever tried recording your verses 4 bars at a time?
Or punching in or out?
Like, record them, mix, record, mix and not move from the mic while you do it so it sounds natural...
Anyway, I just wanna know about your methods.
I've been reading this shit too:
http://www.loopking.com/resources.php
Thoughts?
I'm not too concerned about this whole thing really, just curious how those guys manage to pull that shit off.