The loudness war

[noisewreck]

I'm quite preplexed by this. Everyone complains about this, and everyone is guilty of it. Can the pros shed some light on this? Specially the mastering engineers, who seem to be the most vocal about this, yet seem to be forced into it. Why do you do it? Who makes you do it?

This specially hit home a couple of days ago, when I was at my cousin's house and he had put on an old Ella Fitzgerald album and was telling me in an almost childish glee "look at how she just got quiet, and now how she's loud, yet relaxed, what a range!". Now, he's not a musician, and pretty much a casual listener, but unbeknownst to him, he was commenting exactly on the dynamics on the record. Obviously this is something that even the casual listeners appreciate.

So, who's great idea is it to compress the shit out of everything?

If we're becoming a culture where we like everything really loud, I'd prefer if the burden fell on the stereo manufacturers (specially the car audio manufacturers) to make more powerful amps with better headroom and match them with appropriate speakers, at lower cost, so the listeners could crank up the volume 'till their eardrums bleed and their tupees fly off, if they so wish.

Any thoughts?

[legionserial]

The reason why they try to make things as loud as possible, is to make it stand out....
Imagine someone has 6 cd changer full of cd's. 5 of them are mastered to current commercial volume levels, and one of them isn't. And despite actually sounding better, is much quieter than the others. Most of the general not-so-musically-minded public aren't going to be interested in the dynamic range, the tones etc etc, to them its just too quiet in comparison, and they are going to skip it. Unless they really love it, but thats the point.

If your CD is too quiet in comparison, most people are going to lose interest before they even listen to it enough to decide whether they like it or not. And in the music industry, thats not good for business.

Therefore its the execs that force the engineers to master to these levels, so they are more likely to get public interest and make the big bucks they want. However, for radio this is fruitless in a way, as the radio stations add there own compression, limiting, normalisation etc when its played on the radio. In fact what this does to the sound is now what a lot of artists are striving for, even though sonically its crap, it pulls the crowd. But in clubs, places with jukeboxes etc, people are going switch off if a tune comes on that isnt as loud as the others...supposedly

[NashBackslash]

I still remember my early days of sound recording. I would record a song with no final limitting or whatever. I would look at the waveform of my song in Soundforge to see if the waves look "nice" or not.

Then I opened some modern hard rock songs (I refuse to name any).

I was surprised. Zoomed out all the way, the waveform looks like a huge blue square drawn full screen. I was like, "WTF? Is something wrong with my graphics drivers?". I didn't understand it quite yet back then.

[legionserial]

Its got to the point these days that you can actually hear the limiter kicking in big time on some cd's. Its a shame cos the cd's have in mind, the music itself is awesome.

[therage!]

Originally Posted by noisewreck

I'm quite preplexed by this. Everyone complains about this, and everyone is guilty of it. Can the pros shed some light on this? Specially the mastering engineers, who seem to be the most vocal about this, yet seem to be forced into it. Why do you do it? Who makes you do it?

I'm not aware that any of the big league pro's have talked about that in depth. I would love to have any of them come in here and explain how that shit is suppose to sound good. But yeah, they are being forced into it I'm sure.

I know this much, so much of the shit today causes listening fatigue.

[Cloneboy Studio]

When record companies and artists (your clients) demand something is done a certain way you either do it or lose the business. While I hate the loudness wars and think that pretty much every CD of the last 5 years sounds like squashed crap I pay my bills by recording. If you don't give people what they want they'll find someone else that will and I'll be broke.

It's no different for the big boys either.

I know a lot of people preach for the high artistry of proper dynamics and I agree, but it's a lot easier to spew rants against it if you're some dude in a basement studio doing recording for fun, rather than profit.

And yeah, for a pro it's about profit.

[mixandmaster]

I agree with cloneboy.

[Massive Master]

I'm guilty. I'm not proud of it, and I've turned down (or "gave up on") work because of it.

It really does suck...

But I just heard some news - The Loudness War ends on Tuesday afternoon. Some time between 1 & 3:30pm. Mission Accomplished. We can all just turn up the volume knobs instead.

[metalhead28]

Most of the people I know, even the ones who are music nuts, have no idea why a CD is limited in volume. I have tried to have this conversation with multiple people and it is obvious that most of them think you can just "turn it up" or something when you record the CD. The idea of a maximum level with digital audio just doesn't compute. I think this might lead to so many people thinking that quieter CD's are shitty or were done wrong because they don't grasp what is really going on. As a result, the market has to cater to these people.

[Cloneboy Studio]

As usual the mooks set the pace.....

[IronFlippy]

What cloneboy said is half the reason. The other half is the general lack of dynamic diversity in the songs themselves. Most modern rock is just 2:30 of loudness. Modern music is like the harpischord: You can't increase or decrease the volume of it in any "normal" aspect. Harpischord players have found ways to make their instrument sound louder or quieter. The same applies to modern day recordings: you'll hear what sounds to be a quiet part of the song, which in reality is just an adjustment of timbre (ie loud = distorted guitars, quiet = clean/acoustic). Looking at the actual waveform of the song, you won't really see the difference. That said, I don't necessarily think it's bad to have this effect, but what moves me the most in music, apart from a good chord progression, is the the expression of emotion through volume. It's lame, but I get shivers when I hear a properly placed crescendo.

[snow lizard]

10 years ago this wasn't a problem. RMS levels from CDs were much lower, but then the record company execs started creating this volume war thing, even though it's bogus. I'm sure the buying public doesn't care to understand what a dBFS is, but if what Metalhead says is true (I don't doubt it) then it's the fault of industry mooks with a philosophy that destroying audio helps their record sales. Louder is better?

Now when CDs (perfect sound forever!!!) first started coming out (AAD, DAD, ADD, DDD etc...) people were saying that digital (arguably) has "greater dynamic range" than analog. Career artists with loyal brigades of fanatic stalkers would enjoy the benefits of 1. selling them a crappy vinyl record, 2. selling them a first generation CD with "Due to its high resolution however, the Compact Disc may reveal the limitations of the source tape" written on it somewhere through their entire back catalog, and then once digital technology began to improve and the engineers started figuring out how to handle it, they'd sell the entire catalog again to the same people with the new remastered version that improved on the "perfect?" version with the cop-out disclaimer on it.

Now as the childhood of digital technology continues to improve (on something that was once perfect), everything has come full circle. I've seen the vinyl products in the music stores. I've heard people say things like "Vinyl is better because digital sucks" without really understanding why. I've tried to record my own vinyl collection to my computer to find that it's not uncommon to see variations of 20 or more dB's in dynamic range, while most popular CDs are lucky to have 3.

It's my guess that marketing and honesty very rarely have much in common when it comes to music. This volume war is one of the many ways that the industry mooks have painted themselves into a corner. The biggest problem is that everyone else has to suffer for it. People become bored with music quickly because of listener fatigue. Auto Tune and excessive editing of top priority artists help to suck the life out of recordings until you smash the crap out of it. (Can't they just work with talented people?) Once it's dead, it gets released and the public quickly moves on. Sales are down. There are very few long-term artists these days. Brilliant!

My only hope is that this is just a trend, and that all trends come and go. Smashed audio has defined popular music of late, so it's reasonable to think that if you haven't completely and violently killed your music, you're not running with the pack. Disco may have been a similar phenomenon in the late '70's, when it abruptly ended.


I'm sorry, what was the question?


sl

[giraffe]

just an aside..........

go out and buy a record, and a cd (both new)
listen to them both....... and.........

the record does sound better!!!!!
no, i'm serious, it's fairly obvious if you listen to them back-to-back.
disclaimer: if you have a well kept turn table

[maestro_dmc]

Originally Posted by noisewreck

I'm quite preplexed by this. Everyone complains about this, and everyone is guilty of it. Can the pros shed some light on this? Specially the mastering engineers, who seem to be the most vocal about this, yet seem to be forced into it. Why do you do it? Who makes you do it?

Any thoughts?

Here's a link where the "Pro's" (many who post here as well, ) are discussing this very topic at length.

[noisewreck]

Thanks for the link. That was a great read. That's the thing though, a lot of A&R people and some artists ask for it, but I think it's misguided. Let me give you another example. Some time ago, I had one of my friends listening to a tune that I had just done, which was not mastered. Again, this guy is NOT a musician, can't even whistle in tune... he made a comment like "I like your music." When I asked why he pointed at the graphic EQ/level meter in his stereo and said "see how these bands are moving? That's why". Again, w/o realising, he was talking about dynamics.

Apparently the listeners also instinctively appreciate it. But then again, maybe my prespective is skewed, because pretty much none of the people I associate with listen to pop... hmmm... maybe that's saying something in itself.

[mshilarious]

Seems that the result of that thread was no agreement on a solution. That leaves only the possible of voluntary standards. The music world needs somebody with enough clout, like Lucas and THX, to say this is the way things have to be. I don't think there is anybody like that though, and nobody here much like the idea of certification for audio engineers.

It's doom then, I guess. Or maybe expanders on consumer CD players

[Wireneck]

I know there aren't alot of metal fans on the board but has anyone heard the new Hypocrisy album (virus)? It is beyond squashed, the songs are just flat out distorted. Whoever gave the ok on that mastering job should be shot. I can't even get through the whole album because it is so grating on my ears.

[metalhead28]

Originally Posted by Wireneck

I know there aren't alot of metal fans on the board but has anyone heard the new Hypocrisy album (virus)? It is beyond squashed, the songs are just flat out distorted. Whoever gave the ok on that mastering job should be shot. I can't even get through the whole album because it is so grating on my ears.

I have not heard that album in particular, but I know what you're talking about because I've heard that on alot of new metal albums. How many people do you know that want to sound just like "Ashes of the Wake" by Lamb of God? That's one of the first albums that I think of that is just too loud for it's own good. Not that I have anything against their music I hear alot of distortion on that album as well and I am no mastering engineer

[Pinachi]

fghfdhgh,dsakgd

[GreenDank]

I agree with notion that when you have several CDs or songs collected, the one with the "dynamics" sounds the weakest, even though that's usually the CD or song that kicks the most ass musically.

On the latest song I was mixing/mastering, I'd upload the MP3 to my player alongside other songs from this site, myspace bands, bands' websites, etc. Mine (before it was mastered) sounded so tiny in comparison. I couldn't wait to master it. Now that it's a little compressed and louder, it can stand alongside the others with some pride. I actually like compression on my songs, I think it brings out a lot of cool stuff, like make my drum machine sound a tad more realistic.

One of my former bands' promo CDs was ruined because of bad compression though. So, I'd say when used right, it's a good thing. When abused, it kills all the work you've put in up to that point.

[7string]

Then wouldn't making a 'quieter' CD stand out from the LOUD ones? I would think so. For one, it would force people to listen a bit closer. So this trend could turn around if we ALL insisted on getting back to normal.

[noisewreck]

^^^ I think you have a point there That reminded me of my philosophy professor I had at the university. They guy almost whispered during class. I mean he spoke so quietly that if a chair squeaked you'd miss a bunch of words. Needless to say, the students' ears were glued to the words that were coming out of his mounth.

[ermghoti]

Yeah, but you didn't have to put your professors lectures on radio in between a bunch of Sam Kinison routines, and you couldn't swap to a different professor with your Shuffle button

[noisewreck]

Originally Posted by ermghoti

Yeah, but you didn't have to put your professors lectures on radio

That's the worst argument. Things on radio are already so compressed, that it doesn't really make any difference whether something is slammed or not... wait... actually it does... the stuff that's already slammed just sounds like nails on the chalkboard... sorry... what's on the next channel?

[ermghoti]

I didn't say it made it sound good. I can hear how over-compressed the crap on radio is, and I don't care for it either.

However, if a dim-witted music exec listens to a few soon-to be released tunes, and has to turn up the volume knob a few clicks to hear one of them, do you think he listens for the breathtaking dynamic range on the song, or jumps on the cell to the mastering engineer to yell at him for releasing this quiet-ass disc?

Also, even skilled ears will often interpret the louder of two similar sounds as "better," at least temporarily. So the buyer listening to samples of music will be superficially impressed with the louder tracks. He or she may get a headache from listener fatigue in twenty minutes, but they will never know enough to associate the pain with excessive compression.