The Loudness War has NOT reduced dynamic range

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benage

New member
Just read this article from 'Sound on Sound' magazine, thought some may find it interesting, basically saying that actually the loudness war has not reduced the dynamic range of modern music after all, and how it's the same as the 70's.

It may get a bit technical at times (for some), but the basic concepts are graspable for the semi-Layman.

'Dynamic Range' & The Loudness War
 
He should have stopped at: " or are they simply voicing their preference for a particular style of sound?

There is truth in that...everyone has a style preference.
All that mathematic techno-babble to prove there is no effect on dynamic range wasn't very convincing to me.

It's simple...you have a song with soft passages and loud passages. You compress/limit the crap out of it and raise the total average level...the *differences* between soft passages and loud passages disappear. That's the dynamic range.

Otherwise ...if people like smashing their audio...that's cool, and that's a style choice.
 
Yeah, I know what your saying, I think the loudness war has reduced dynamic range, from what he's saying, we'd actually have more dynamic music these days due to modern mixing/arranging styles than we used to and the Loudness War has just counter-acted that so it ends up about the same. But yeah, as regards your own music it does what you said.
 
If people like LOUD...it's their choice, and I think trying to push production/mixing/mastering styles back to yesteryear before digital audio...is futile and pointless IMHO. It would only work if EVERYONE took a few steps back...but that will never happen. The minute a few people do that, the competition sees that as an opportunity to make their stuff louder in order to get more attention...so just about everyone will keep doing it. In a away, it's better that we get to the "wall" sooner...that way there will not be anywhere to go! :D

I'm just chuckling at the writer's attempt to prove with math that what we are hearing is NOT true...that dynamics are still there no matter how much you flat-top a mix. ;)
 
miroslav said:
If people like LOUD...it's their choice, and I think trying to push production/mixing/mastering styles back to yesteryear before digital audio...is futile and pointless IMHO. It would only work if EVERYONE took a few steps back...but that will never happen. The minute a few people do that, the competition sees that as an opportunity to make their stuff louder in order to get more attention...so just about everyone will keep doing it. In a away, it's better that we get to the "wall" sooner...that way there will not be anywhere to go! :D
Click to expand...

Yeah that sounds about right, but I've got a fear the next step is people will include a small virus on their track that hacks your media player and pushes the physical volume up a notch.
 
Didnt read all of it, but I saw one interesting point. How the time between the peaks effects the wave form. Visually the level meters on my mastering program look like there's only a -3db-0db range, but the loudness module detects plenty of dips from -9db to 0. but they're very fast.

Maybe someone can comment on whether new digital limiters are capable of reacting faster than older analogue models.
 
Not sure about "old analog" comps...but I think top-shelf analog comps will outperform digital comps.
I'm not talking about "sound quality"...that's a separate discussion...just how quickly/accurately they react.
Maybe one of the mastering gurus can provide input...they would know better.
 
The idea that "louder is better" is not new. Vinyl transfer engineers used to compete for the loudest record back in the 60's, for sure.

It's just that now we have the [digital] technology to take it to new heights. Music has never been so intrinsically loud and that is just a fact.

Cheers :)
 
This report is rubish. All one has to do is listen to todays music and hear the loss of dynamics. I cant believe SOS published this !!!
 
PDP said:
Maybe someone can comment on whether new digital limiters are capable of reacting faster than older analogue models.
Click to expand...

Digital is WAY faster. The can react BEFORE a transient. No analog gear can do that.
 
I think that the author ignores lost fidelity while talking about perceived loudness. It doesn't matter how much difference their might be in perceived loudness in a track, it's simple math to know that your fidelity is decreased when you are effectively only using 4-6 bits (the top 4-6) of the 16 available to you. Smashing the peaks down allows you to push your levels and affect perceived loudness, and it may if used judiciously not take too much from the musical dynamics of music, but in electronic terms when you take away the true, mathematical dynamic range and encode your sound file on a range of 6 bits rather than 16, you're losing a lot of fidelity. You can only store so much data on 6 bits.

And they track to 24-bit!
 
benage said:
Just read this article from 'Sound on Sound' magazine, thought some may find it interesting, basically saying that actually the loudness war has not reduced the dynamic range of modern music after all, and how it's the same as the 70's.

It may get a bit technical at times (for some), but the basic concepts are graspable for the semi-Layman.

'Dynamic Range' & The Loudness War
Click to expand...
thanks for sharing. that is a really nice & detailed analysis.
 
karumba said:
thanks for sharing. that is a really nice & detailed analysis.
Click to expand...

No problem, I was hoping it would kick off more in here though, there's still time.;)

(By 'Kick off' I meant fight- not sure if that translates well across the pond, wasn't saying the posts weren't interesting)
 
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NL5 said:
Digital is WAY faster. The can react BEFORE a transient. No analog gear can do that.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I didnt want to say something without being sure, but thats what I figured.

The Digital("intelligent" setting) limiter I have does a pretty good job making a loud master without sounding crushed.

It sounds best on the fastest settings, when you slow it down it starts to sound very "obvious".
 
I do believe there have been analog look-ahead detectors that employed some type of millisecond delay circuits to the signal.

With any look-ahead...yeah, that will obviously be faster as the audio is anticipated.
I was thinking more in terms of the pure compression action without look-ahead detection in either...would analog or digital win???
 
BrentDomann said:
fidelity is decreased when you are effectively only using 4-6 bits (the top 4-6) of the 16 available to you.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid it's a lot worse than that. Using the top 4-6 bits would mean the material has got 24 to 36dB of dynamic range since each bit is roughly equal to 6dB of DR. You will be hard pressed to find this in even the most dynamic material. Sadly, most modern pop music has anywhere from 3 to 6 dB of dynamic range, and less! This would mean this music is utilizing only the top bit. And yes, I said BIT. ONE.

Cheers :)
 
miroslav said:
I do believe there have been analog look-ahead detectors that employed some type of millisecond delay circuits to the signal.

With any look-ahead...yeah, that will obviously be faster as the audio is anticipated.
I was thinking more in terms of the pure compression action without look-ahead detection in either...would analog or digital win???
Click to expand...

Digital limiters can react down to the sample. So if it's reacting to say, the second sample, that means that at 44.1, the fastest attack time would be 0.0000226ms or 226 microseconds. The speed would half at 88.2 and half again at 176.4 which is 113 and 56.5 microseconds, respectively.

Although, I know that the 1176LN's fastest attack time is 20 microseconds. That's MILLIONTHS of a second, which is conceivably faster.

Cheers :)
 
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