Hypothetical Question? Philosophical question?

Moseph

New member
First off, let me start by saying that I tried to search for this sort of thing but quickly found out that I'm not exactly sure how I can get the results I'm looking for.

But consider this:

You have a collection of tracks to be put together on a CD. You have the order and spacing figured out. You're content with the consistency of volume/panning/timbre between the tracks. You don't hear any other common offenders (noise, etc.) in the mixes themselves. The mixes themselves sound good individually. In short, you're happy.

BUT, for various reasons, let's say that your volume levels are quantitatively low. And by that, I mean your PEAK gain on the songs maxes out well below full-scale. For convenience, let's call it -6 dB. You don't need to compress it or anything, you're happy with the intrinsic loudness/crest factor you've got. Is there any real harm in bumping up the fader an extra 5-6 dB?

On the one hand, my intuition tells me that it's a transparent change, but it will improve SNR on playback systems.

On the other hand, my guilty conscience (abused by the horror stories of the loudness wars) tells me that this is basically "using up all the bits" and shouldn't be done, because it doesn't "improve" the way the mixes sound. That this change is just trying to keep up with Jones' a little bit in terms of overall loudness.

On a third, mutant hand, I get the distinct impression that maybe I've already over-thought this.

So I'm curious as to what everybody's reaction to the scenario is, and why.
 
This is one of the few (perhaps the only) valid use for normalization (as a complete project of course - Not individually).

Go for it.
 
You don't need to compress it or anything, you're happy with the intrinsic loudness/crest factor you've got. Is there any real harm in bumping up the fader an extra 5-6 dB?
No there isn't.

The whole objection with the "volume wars" thing is the wanton sacrifice of audio quality for loudness by things like hyper compression, excessive clipping and so forth. What you're describing is a simple gain change that has no effect on the character of the waveform or the audio and therefore not only has no real downside, but is probably pretty much SOP.

G.
 
So I'm curious as to what everybody's reaction to the scenario is, and why.

It depends.

Do you want people to actually like your music? Then sure, bump up the volume.

Do you just wanna sell it and don't care what they think once they've paid for it? Leave it as-is. Hell, sell em a blank disc. :laughings:
 
What does it say about the consumer and society in general when
they can't be bothered to just CHANGE THE VOLUME CONTROL.....
 
What does it say about the consumer and society in general when
they can't be bothered to just CHANGE THE VOLUME CONTROL.....

I know where you're coming from TO'B and this has been done to death before, but how many people actually listen to full albums any more... so it's actually quite annoying to be continually adjusting the volume when you're listening to a playlist and this really cool quiet song comes on and you have to turn it up, only to realise it's been followed in the list by the Chemical Brothers or something equally harsh that takes your head off and destroys your hearing for an hour or two when it starts up at the new, upwardly adjusted volume - so I understand the desire of people to get as close as they can to "commercial" volume - question is whether they can do it without negatively impacting the sound... and in this case it would appear the OP can..
 
What does it say about the consumer and society in general when they can't be bothered to just CHANGE THE VOLUME CONTROL.....

Well yeah, that's kind of where I'm going with this. The whole "standard operating procedure" (as SSG labeled it) seems intuitive to me. Why leave that much head room when

But beyond the intuitive, I have TOB's reaction (at least a little bit). And then there's the SNR consideration, though with most CD players, the noise floor probably won't come into play with a 6 dB boost.

I realize I'm probably over-thinking this (I ended applying the gain because "well, why not?"). But it just seemed weird to me that this was a consideration that I didn't have a clear-cut answer for.
 
And then there's the SNR consideration, though with most CD players, the noise floor probably won't come into play with a 6 dB boost.
The kind of gain boost you're describing won't change the SNR at all.

Yes, it will increase the playback level of the noise floor, but so will the listener turning up the volume. In fact there's no difference between what you describe and a simple turning up of the volume on the player

Remember, what you describe does not change the actual sound of the mix at all. Which is why I say just do it and don't worry about it.

G.
 
depends on what you mean by push the fader up.

If you are using an mixer, it will depend on the mixers internal headroom...you might significantly change the sound trying to get it that loud in the analog domain.
 
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