Trying to get some different viewpoints on why dynamics processors (hardware or plug-in) seem to be so popular. Seems to me that there are so many professional engineers and other recordists that don't like dynamics processing but seem to liberally use it. There seems to be a weekly announcement of either new hardware or software dynamics processor. I'm not making judgements either so please don't take it that way.
I'm starting to wonder if the transient detail/capture/dynamic range of digital recording makes their use required? Was dynamics processing so widely used in the pre-digital days? I'm aware of tape compression but I can't imagine every engineer in the days of tape said "we don't need outboard compressors, the tape will do it for us"...?
I'm not specifically talking about the loudness wars either.
Thoughts?

My knee-jerk, unschooled reaction would be:

Because "real life" (where most recordings originate) has something like a range of 150 decibels, from total silence to deafening roar, whereas "recording playback" has a range of, oh, maybe 40 decibels from hitting the zero to down far enough to be pretty quiet.

So dynamic processors are the tools to convert the original span into a reasonable playback span?

Suppose if you use a mastering engineer to finish your recordings, then probably not a good idea to mess up the tracks first. Hard to undo that unless you are stamping your signature sound beforehand. But if you aren’t sending your songs out to get mastered, then playing with dynamic processors is like applying weird filters to an image in photoshop, until you go back to the original and like it better. It’s a circle jerk.
Regarding how high is practical hi-rez? Perhaps the max that phones can playback since that is the most common device for listening, whether using earbuds or through car audio system. Although video soundtracks are 24/48, so why record at 512 DSD

Seems valid. But then I wonder why the obsession with high bit-rate recording? Academic question here but does high bit-rate recording give us only an increased dynamic range or does it absolutely correlate to increased resolution?

This video will help answer a few questions, but no doubt raise some others:
https://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

NB - the ultimate context of the above video is to address hi-res recordings as presented to the HiFi/audiophile market.
Some of the assumptions, points and concerns will apply more or less strongly to us, compared to the above crowd.


When it comes to talking about compressors specifically, here's how I see it:

At a fundamental level, a compressor's job is to make loud things quieter, and maybe add some make-up gain if that'll help your gain structure.

If you'd like a box that does things outside of that, then that's fine, but it's now obviously an FX box which happens to act like a compressor.

IMO, then, the question should be: why do sound engineers like to have so many FX boxes?

I'd expect the answer to that to be pretty obvious.


Chris

when tastefully applied, dynamic processors are useful tools...

(or are simply necessary to keep excessive levels at bay)

...but we've had loudness war I (the idiots won...) and now we're in loudness war II (don't let the idiots win!) so i think i get your point?!

Mixing a multitrack recording is like making a meal with multiple ingredients. Sometimes heat is applied for utilitarian reasons (eg food safety) and sometimes for flavor reasons (char). It’s similar with audio tools; you can use them as a practical tool or as a spice in the spice rack. I think dynamics processors have some unique mystique because of their non-linearity (difficult to master, fun to use… like a secret sauce) and because of their ubiquity and utility in popular music (the reduction of dynamic range to accommodate everyday listening environments). We’re also simply accustomed to it, thanks to multiple generations growing up listening to the radio. It became the popular preference and stuck.


I’m not knocking it. Big fan of dynamic processors myself.

Right? Although it seems the loudness war hasn't stopped. I've no problem with dynamics processing and like you said "when tastefully applied" but I wonder if the relatively newfound ability for us to mangle dynamics, especially via software means, has lead to a production style that we will look back at in 10 years and regret.
The relative "flatness" of so many modern recordings I hear can get to be really fatiguing to me after awhile. I'm not specifically talking about the loudness war issue, but more about how every individual element in a mix sometimes is just up front, audible, etc. Seems to me that there's not a lot of sense of space in some newer recorded music.

we older drummers suffer twice: from stupid 'modern' squashing of tracks and from the groove getting affected in negative ways by the mis-use/careless handling/adjustment of dynamics, eq and efx (or the widespread use of samples)...

You bring tears to my eyes with the truthfulness of your post.

I'm the first to admit it, and admit it I do: the true science of how all these audio processes and stratagems work is admittedly way out of my boxcar-- but I do have a grab-bag of impressions and intimations that have seemed to serve me well.

"Well" being, of course, a relative term.

Compression in this ontology (a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them) is needed because the machines that capture and playback sound will on their own deliver "overblown," (not moderated by a human touch, 'specially as you start to pile on the microphones) and this needs to be under blown-- higher resolutions will give you a more finely detailed, accurate version of what the sound was, but there's still the danger it's all too much, cumulatively.

So here's a prime example, a snippet of one of Bach's unaccompanied cello suites-- on its own, it was almost blaring, but with a touch of soothing compression, more of a musical experience... like God meant music playback to be...