Getting Louder using plugins?

Was asked why I don't chime in on threads like this.

(1) I'm not a fan of the loudness war in the first place. I'm certainly a participant - Not particularly by choice, mind you. But for the most part, I don't particularly want to add fuel to the loudness fire.

THAT SAID --

(2) And this is the part that few tend to wrap their head around for some reason -- "Loud" is easy. It's an afterthought - honest. Least important and most simplistic part of the entire process with a reasonably well-balanced mix.

Waves Mercury - I know some schools with a license, several large studios. Individuals who don't actually do this for a living...? IMO, anyone who would even consider spending more than *maybe* a couple $k on plugs is just wasting money. With all the places to put smart $$$, plugs are by far the least important. Some of the best (digital, mind you) mixes I've ever done were done with whatever stock EQ and dynamics whatever program I was working with had. Great mixes are about great sources picked up by great (even if cheap, "proper" for the source) mics into solid preamps feeding into quality converters. Other than time-based, spatial or modulative effects (again, most programs have these also) that are actually adding an element to the sound, if you need stacks of plugs to make something sound good, you probably went wrong at the source.

I'll let you in on a secret -- There are four or five plugs that I use regularly. Three of them are free plugs from Tokyo Dawn Labs. I use them *so* much that I bought several (of the "advanced" or "Gentleman's Edition" or "Mastering Edition" or whatever they call it) just to support them while I continue to use the free versions anyway. Of course, I'm not suggesting to not buy plugs -- I own several Waves licenses myself for individual plugs that are unique in some way (4 or 5 that I hardly ever touch over months of everyday work - Can't actually tell you the last time I loaded one).

Blah, blah, blah - It's not the plugs - It's the guy using the plugs and the source that's going through them.

But on the "volume" situation - If you're struggling with playback volume, it's probably the mix. That said, if the mix sounds great and sounds like you want it, then just bring it to the volume that best serves the mix. The whole volume war thing isn't anything that the end users wanted -- It has been and continues to be a pissing contest between [artists] and [labels]. I'd argue that if the end listener knew what those mixes could sound like, there'd be a revolution.

And I hope I don't sound - miffed(?) jaded(?) frustrated(?). But for years, I get calls and e-mails from clients (or potential clients) that think that "mastering" is "where volume comes from" -- And while it certainly is established during the mastering phase, it's still arguably the most insignificant part of the entire process. And I don't know a ("real" or "serious") mastering engineer that's happy about taking otherwise wonderful sounding source material and damaging it just so it sounds as loud as the other damaged material out there...

As a side-note -- I've actually changed the way I operate in the last several years just because of the wonderfully high interest in "high-res" formats. I get more and more requests for (MFiT, FLAC, etc.) lately than I ever have before and I hope that trend continues to grow.
 
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At least one Hi-Res source is offering 10 formats - not pop/rock, of course : ) I can't remember if mp3 in in there, too.

Some free downloads (which HiRes seem to offer to get customers);
http://www.2l.no/hires/

Anyway, if one feels it needs to be a loud as the next guy at the 2-buss, then that's the way it is. Then one has to worry about Stereo . It's possible the home recordist would get a better feel for what is loud enough with a finger on the volume knob of a big amp
 
Massive made an excellent post.

In my opinion.....
The loudness thing is partially driven by consumers as well. It has been shaped in part by the way people listen to music.

In the old days you put on a record, adjusted the volume to taste and sat back and listened to a whole album.

If you wanted a mix tape so you could listen to your favorite songs in your car it was done on cassette. Each song was usually 'level matched' by adjusting the record levels. At least that's how I did it.

Then came CDs, the rise of computers, winamp, mp3s and CDrs. Now a set of tunes was selected, you clicked on the 'rip CD' and minutes later had a CD you could play wherever. No volume leveling though.

Today, people listen on phones primarily.

It's a whole different world and no one wants to got to the trouble of raising and lowering the volume from song to song.

People want it to all sound the same.

I blame the music industry for the loudness wars, but really they are just giving the consumers what they want.
 
Well, I did the level matching on the computer - same as I did tape. The tedious ritual was the fun. We are confronted with what is easily available. And, mp3 is easy. No cash payroll check and walk over to the record store every Saturday : ) Hi-RES IS A BITE for the cost and download size. I can look around and, sometimes, decide a used lp is the best bet. Could be CD, mp3, tape, DSD, whatever

I dunno. I suspect many (consumers and engineers)don't explore choices beyond the MacDonalds experience ?
 
I blame the music industry for the loudness wars, but really they are just giving the consumers what they want.
Partially -- The industry (the artists and the labels) wanted *their* artists to be "just a tiny bit" louder.

"Just see if you can make it just a bit louder than 'the Black album' (Metallica)..." (1991)

"Just see if you can make it just a bit louder than Dirt (Alice in Chains)..." (1994)

"Just see if you can make it just a bit louder than (whatever the really loud stuff is that day)..."

Eventually, you get to the point where the client is asking for "just a bit louder" than stuff *I* worked on -- Suffocation was a biggie - And lemme tell you - that was done under protest. And the version that *I* listen to sounds friggin' amazing (it's the one without the final limiter). I only hope that some day, the label asks for that one. But I'm not holding my breath.

But it's never what the consumer wanted -- It's what they wanted to present to the consumer.
 
I get that, but its kind of like "which came first the chicken or the egg". I see lots of non musician types gravitate towards the "loud". As soon as you put on s/g "pre-loudness wars" the interest goes down.

I sincerely believe that the younger audience is so used to it, that earlier dynamic music sounds foreign to them.

Even amongst musicians and engineers of the younger generation, I see them prefering the louder stuff.

I had a friend over and we loaded up in PT two different AC-DC records. 74Jailbreak and Black ice. I level matched them and we went back and forth. His preference was the squashed one, Black ice. Not the songs, but the sound.
Looking at just the waveforms its obvious how chopped the post loudness record was.

The thing that suprised me was the fact he was a really good engineer, with a couple of paid albums under his belt.

So in closing, I agree that the record companies started it, but at this point, people are so used to it that they actually want it.

Its a viscous circle if you ask me.
 
Ya, loud will be part of that generation. That's a different loud than with Corner Horns, or, Heresys. Heep's Look at Yourself always sounded pretty smashed to me and that was '71. Smashed but not loud. Over modulation in various parts of the chain during the years - like at the groove.
 
I know some schools with a license, several large studios.

Oh that makes sense. If you're running a number of computers and have experts training new users on how to use all those plugins, buying in bulk rather than iteratively as your skills grow makes sense.
 
I thought I'd tag onto this subject.....

you can hear for yourself if you want by clicking on various tunes recorded before and then the more recent.

for those unaware of some of this sample tasting for the ears.
try a few sample previews of the Something Anything album....then go to Arena.

there are many choices due to Todd's long career as musician and producer.

I was listening to a few old favorites and noticed how horrific some of the new stuff sounds, it was so bad I thought something was off in my speakers but then playing some of the olden gold hits...like I SAW THE LIGHT on Something/Anything....then maybe a track off ARENA like MAD....

the trend from someone who did the decades and within this one Amazon page you can hear the Loudness Wars uglier side.

Another thing I noticed, ymmv, is that if the needles are swinging the sound is better to my ears, when the needles are pinned to 0 the treble-dist ear spike seems to be present.

Another thing is the cymbals, listening to the SOmething Anything, the cymbals have a sound much different than say a modern release where it sounds like someone just took the old song and ran it through a loudness plug.

so then I took something of my own HR and removed the 0db blaster plug and instead just turned up the volume and left the needles swinging a bit more, and there seemed to be less harshness.

weird....really noticeable on Rundgrens decades of releases and re-releases....wow?
you ever hear classical and the needles swing a lot....sounds better to me when the needles have room to swing and move.

https://www.amazon.com/Todd-Rundgren/e/B000APVJOQ/digital/ref=ntt_mp3_rdr?_encoding=UTF8&sn=d

preloudness wars-
Something Anything
Hermit of MinkHollow
SoemthingAnything -Hello Its me- 1972 song

post LW
ARENA
HelloItsMe-re-release 2007 song
 
Here's an idea: find out what the OP would like to do and offer appropriate advice.

Ooh, party pooper. :D
The OP's question was directly addressed in the first two pages. Now the thread has evolved. It's still on the general topic, so no harm. It's all good info on the concept of loudness.
 
.." noticed how horrific some of the new stuff sounds",

For sure. Some may wonder why I buy the scratchy old album off eBait. I get mp3 I can be happy with, also, but some stuff really sucks and bears little resemblance to what was heard in the day
 
yeah I think a lot of re-releases might be take the old master and smush it through some flat lined waveform to blink the red led's and pin it to a solid 0db to be "new and improved"..aha
 
It's always interesting to read the wide variety of opinions here. We live in a wonderful time to make music and our options of tools has become almost daunting. With so many plugins that Waves makes ... where does one begin?
Mastering would be a place to finish and loudness could be the salt you add to your grandma's favorite recipe. Too much and you can ruin everything that grandma took so much time to perfect.
That is what Ian Shepherd had to say and I agree.
You can't hit a home run without running all the bases and home plate is not where you start.
If I owned the Mercury bundle I would try to learn everything about my DAW so that I'd have a basket to put all my eggs in. Maybe take one plugin and learn what it does, how it does it and why. EQ is a good place to start because you're going to finish with it as well. Compression would be #2 provided that you learned about gain staging in your DAW first.
Without a good foundation all of your building efforts will crumble if you get ahead of yourself.
Learn to crawl. Learn to walk. Learn to run .... then enter the race..prepared to lose for a while.
Anyone who's still reading this is probably sick of metaphors by now but I think it would be pointless to try and explain mastering pros and cons .... outlining the finer points of M/S, lossy format conversions, intersample peaks and dithering.
You can't do any of that if you don't first understand headroom and dynamics.
It was Tom Brady who conspired with the Russians and created the loudness wars so that we could all beat that dead horse into eternity.
(Sarcasm Intended )
 
I think it may be more of a people thing and, maybe, noise makers are drawn to mixing. Before metering, I wasn't concerned with S/N all that much. Then metering became the focus and its own game.
 
Lot of good point of view and perspectives. Tons of plugins out there. Can't afford the Mercury bundle for my hobby but if you pick up the waves bundles or individuals on sale it is doable. Still going to cost you some money. I think of it as pay to play. I think most engineers have their go to plugins that get used more often than others. Really good engineers know how most of them work and where they need a specific plug for a specific sound or situation. If a person does their best to try and cut good clean tracks to start with it is going to make their life a whole lot easier down the road. I'm 60 and this is my hobby, I'm not trying to make money or sell records. Just trying to make good recordings for my own pleasure. It can get very complicated. I've screwed many mixes up by adding to many plugs, but what the heck it's my dime. I just turn them off and start over. When I get close I save it as a version to go back to if need to.
 
Fabfilter Pro L is a great limiter. I wouldn't worry about mastering at this stage bud. Just work on your EQing and panning, etc.
 
But on the "volume" situation - If you're struggling with playback volume, it's probably the mix. That said, if the mix sounds great and sounds like you want it, then just bring it to the volume that best serves the mix. The whole volume war thing isn't anything that the end users wanted -- It has been and continues to be a pissing contest between [artists] and [labels]. I'd argue that if the end listener knew what those mixes could sound like, there'd be a revolution.

Great explanation Massive Master. Thanks.

About the volume. Didn't they do that in the early day's too? With the hardware EQ, echo, reverb (rooms), and more of those tricks?
Volume ain't everything, but you can say what you want, not superb singers get much better vocals with a c-plugin on it. Song get more 'depth' and excitement also by the plugins.
It's not alway's the volume which is the subject. More body on certain tracks can really raise the quality of a song. In the end you can only add body cause actually raising the volume eventually will bring you clipping. And more body can be good.
And as we have simple plugins to do what in early day's was done by hardware and actual space, i don't see why we should not use that. We do nothing else than always done, only different and easier.

And even not cause i for instance still record my electric guitar the old hardware way while that still sounds better then whatever (cabinet) plugin can make.
 
Well, there was "can we do something to make it 'pop' a little more...?" and there's the outright destruction of the audio we're doing today. You could only hit tape so hard before it would distort in a nasty fashion and print through to the next layer. Vinyl could only handle "so much" before the needle would jump out of the grooves and start skipping across the surface.

Then we were given this "digital gift" -- A dynamic range like nothing else -- a basically non-existent noise floor allowing all that dynamic range to be utilized -- clarity and impact we couldn't have imagined back in the 80's -- and what did we do with it...?

Don't get me wrong - I'm all over the "make it hit" factor -- But there's a point where "pushing it" for impact and power turns into "pushed it too hard" and you *loose* that impact and power while distorting and skewing the source.

I still have yet to hear a recording at (let's just call it non-AES17 dB(FS)RMS) -15 or -14 that actually sounds better at -10.

Back in the 90's, I felt like it would be silly to issue a "standard" for volume (it was being bantered about) -- I honestly didn't think people would wreck otherwise perfectly decent recordings just for the sake of making their recording louder than everyone else's.

I thought wrong.
 
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