Loudness Wars are over

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Cool article, and I think he's on to something. But, the current algorithms like Sound Check are not very good yet. For instance, I have one metal album that is RIDICULOUSLY loud. When a track from it comes on my iPod, I jump every single time. It's like my ears are gonna bleed. To listen to that album, I use around half the volume of any other tracks. Way too damn loud.
But here's my point... Even on my PC with Sound Check enabled, that album is still way too loud compared to all the others. It's just not getting the job done yet. Hopefully soon.
 
That's because how the human ear / brain perceives loudness has not been sufficiently modeled yet.

Cheers :)
 
Mo Facta said:
That's because how the human ear / brain perceives loudness has not been sufficiently modeled yet.

Cheers :)
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word. I like loud metal and I think from around 1999-2001 albums were loud but to me sounded good. (i guess this is my generation) Now it seems its gone too far. Is it just me or does just about every new metal album that comes out sound like the mastering engineer just ruined everything? The only thing I'll admit that is getting better is the low end I think that is getting tamed a little better. I listen to some European metal with lots of keyboards in it and it sounds like a radio station got a hold of it and compressed it to pieces. Metal drums now a days are just horrible thats why I think fake drums are so popular cause real drums are sounding so fake. No one knows what real drums even sound like anymore. I mean take some of that subtle virtuoso rudiments that are all but non existent now because drums in any given song have only about different 7 levels of velocity.

I'm going to shut up now and go listen to some Beatles/Bob Dylan songs.
 
Relying on a bit of software in a media player to even things out sounds like pie in the sky to me. Certainly if iTugs and otehr proprietry mobs agree, accept, pay & comply there'll be a degree of commonality but no universality. Apple will accept things that make them specila or different - their marketstrategy is about proprietry difference not quality or commonality.
It also become another tool in the media player box along side bass boost & scooped smilies for train & plane travel.
Clever algorithms may do the job, crushed tracks may have their dirty linen aired but will people listen on sufficiently good quality machines, using sufficiently good quality media through sufficiently good quality ear gear in sifficiently good listening environments to notice anuthing other than that they don't jump out of their skins when a Norse Death Penitentiary Metal track comes on?
 
guitarded2 said:
I think fake drums are so popular cause real drums are sounding so fake.
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This has got to be the quote of the month. Don't bother to try to better it. You cannot. It's unassailable. I know when I'm beaten. I surrender.
 
grimtraveller said:
This has got to be the quote of the month. Don't bother to try to better it. You cannot. It's unassailable. I know when I'm beaten. I surrender.
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I disagree with it though. In many metal bands the only difference in the sound of the drum kit to me is that they sound so much better because I'm used to hearing them in my basement with no treatment. obviously, as you can see from my signature, I like avenged sevenfold so obviously I am going to be biased but thats what I think.
I also think that one reason why people are into all this pop music with all the electronic instruments is because it's simple. Quite a few people can't play any instruments very well, and because modern chart music is mostly based around the singing, it means they don't have to play any instruments, and for those that do, most the parts are very simple and easy chords
 
rayc said:
Relying on a bit of software in a media player to even things out sounds like pie in the sky to me.
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I say measure the RMS levels of all the songs in a collection, attenuate the highest ones to match the lowest ones and let the chips fall where they may.

In film sound there is already a standard for dialog level and a method for normalizing it between different productions that need more or less peak level above that. It's not that hard to do but it would help to embed the correction factor into the audio data (as done in film) for consistent results.

The result is that different recordings would come through at about the same volume and if a recording was crushed to death it would just be crushed to death but not any louder than anything else. The volume wars would be over instantly.
 
ollie99 said:
Quite a few people can't play any instruments very well, and because modern chart music is mostly based around the singing, it means they don't have to play any instruments, and for those that do, most the parts are very simple and easy chords
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Quite a few singers can't sing very well either, hence the blown out use of pitch correction. If a singer can't sing in tune, then in my opinion, he or she should not be singing. (And I'm not referring to just the occasional dud note).

But I think we have strayed from the original discussion...
 
PRHunt said:
Quite a few singers can't sing very well either, hence the blown out use of pitch correction. If a singer can't sing in tune, then in my opinion, he or she should not be singing. (And I'm not referring to just the occasional dud note).

But I think we have strayed from the original discussion...
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we have, but one last thing from me, even if they cant sing they still do, it's easier than trying to play the piano chords to it without knowing how to do them
 
pdern metal drums don't sound like drums to me - the kick sounds like a finger nail flicking the foil seal on a can of Ovaltine/Milo, the snare is as overprocessed as the one on Jack'n'Dianne in the 80's and the rest is just the rest. It's an over genre defined genre if that's possible - a bit like when merseybeat was the be all and end all to record companies so every recording by every group used the same instrumentation, the same production and the same song (more or less).
 
Loudness wars are over we lost general commercial public won! All in favor of over 0 dB's say "I". Everyone grab your L2's LETS MAKE'EM FEEL IT!!!!!!:spank:
 
ollie99 said:
as in it was worded well then?
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I don't know. It was the irony of it I guess. The real thing starts to sound unreal then the unreal takes over and becomes popular. Theoretically, the public shouldn't be able to tell the difference. It appeals to my warped sense of humour.

rayc said:
modern metal drums don't sound like drums to me - the kick sounds like a finger nail flicking the foil seal on a can of Ovaltine/Milo, the snare is as overprocessed as the one on Jack'n'Dianne in the 80's and the rest is just the rest. It's an over genre defined genre if that's possible - a bit like when merseybeat was the be all and end all to record companies so every recording by every group used the same instrumentation, the same production and the same song (more or less).
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I've felt that way about metal for close on 30 years and I think quite a few genres have sort of ended up that way.
In terms of actual drums, I'm not a big fan sonically of many of the drums I hear these days. But I don't need to be because I'm happy to stay stuck in the music of days past !
 
grimtraveller said:
I don't know. It was the irony of it I guess. The real thing starts to sound unreal then the unreal takes over and becomes popular. Theoretically, the public shouldn't be able to tell the difference. It appeals to my warped sense of humour.

I've felt that way about metal for close on 30 years and I think quite a few genres have sort of ended up that way.
In terms of actual drums, I'm not a big fan sonically of many of the drums I hear these days. But I don't need to be because I'm happy to stay stuck in the music of days past !
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Do you mean commercially available drums, or modern recordings of drums in general? I myself am heavily influenced by older music and I try very hard to combine the 'open' sound of older recordings with the volume and presence that today's listener demands. I don't think that this is an impossible task... I just think that most people would rather just take the easier route of close micing a kit and compressing the heck out of it - or just replacing the drums altogether to get that same sound.

The loudness war will not end, imo. When I sit on a bus and can quite clearly hear some dudes music from 10 seats away or watch somebody crossing the street, not seeing or hearing the car honking it's horn as it tries to avoid running this person over, I realize that these days people listen to music not because they love it but because they use it as a way to 'tune out' the sounds of life. Seems to me that this has become the main purpose and if that's true, the motto becomes "The louder the better!"
 
elbandito said:
Do you mean commercially available drums, or modern recordings of drums in general?
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The latter. I don't find there to be the variety of different drum sounds that there once were. But that's not a criticism, just a personal preference thing.
elbandito said:
the volume and presence that today's listener demands.
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I think it's just plain weird that the listener can demand anything. If true, then music ain't worth making because the punter shouldn't be making demands of the artist. It's like the consumer saying "I want my fish to taste like lamb !". :D

elbandito said:
When I sit on a bus and can quite clearly hear some dudes music from 10 seats away or watch somebody crossing the street, not seeing or hearing the car honking it's horn as it tries to avoid running this person over, I realize that these days people listen to music not because they love it but because they use it as a way to 'tune out' the sounds of life.
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I heard a preacher say that in 1988 about people and their walkmans. In the early 80s, you could get on the train or bus or get into a lift and hear "Boof boof boof boof chikka tikka chikka tikka" and that hasn't changed. I used to wear a walkman everywhere, on the bus, plane, train, riding my bike, going for walks in much the same way I'd put on the stereo while washing up or doing DIY. Often pretty loud. Not because I wanted to zone out the sounds of life but because I wanted to listen to the music I loved and didn't want the roar of a jet engine or the clakitty clack of train wheels on rails or beeping traffic or whooshing buses interfering every four seconds. People have always listened to their music loud. Records in the late 60s and early 70s even carried the instruction "PLAY LOUD". Adults have long thought that the music younger people listen to is too loud.
 
David Bowie once recorded a little unimportant album that was to be played at maximum volume.
 
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