time to unleash my inner music s(k)nob.
I won’t lie, I think David Guetta’s ‘Titanium’ is an absolute tune. But I cannot explain how much I hate his usage of a compressor.
A compressor, in very very basic terms squeezes down the dynamic range. This means it’ll turn the signal down when it’s too loud, and up when it’s too quiet. This is an effective thing to use on vocalists etc. Guetta uses them on EVERYTHING. Essentially, his production is just a loop. Instead of using the compressor on the loop to fatten it up, he’s assigned the kick drum as a controller. So when the kick drum fires, it pulls the loop down and makes the kick sound louder when it actually isn’t. It’s just being emphasised.
The effect this has on the music is that kind of whooshing/running-out-of-breath sound that characterises his music.
Him and LMFAO are the worst offenders for this. Though it appears everything is sounding the same these days.
Apologies for sounding like a real snob here. But it does annoy me.
