Stronger Than Pride

If I offered a mix for assessment that never peaked above -48dbfs, I think everyone would ask why I left it so low. How low is too low? Although many of the answers here are out of the book that says you don't have to compete in the loudness wars, there is still an "acceptable level" to which you master your work. I don't know what that level is in quantitative terms so there must be some qualitative standard that we aim for intuitively. I just thought that Sade's album as it comes off the CD was a bit below that level. See the wave sample here. Even the drum hits that tower above the mix are way down as far as peak levels go. This is why I posted the original question but I am getting the back of my head slapped instead...

Wave1.webp
 
No one is "slapping the back of your head".... :D.....you asked why it was done so low, and I think the answers are what they are.

Understand that at the time, there was no digital loudness war stuff going on.
That really wasn't the mindset back then.
People would play their music as loud as they wanted by way of the stereo system volume knob.
Radio stations had analog gear and they had their max, allowable analog levels that thery could transmit.

Etc...etc...

Digital brought a completely different perspective to all that, since it is just about 0s & 1s, everyone started using them all up....and then of course, once they hit the top, in order to STILL be louder than the other guy who also hit the top...comp/limitng was the next step to squeeze even more perceived level out of those 0s & 1s

So looking at it these days, yeah, you're right....people would ask "why so low?". :)
 
miroslav said:
So looking at it these days, yeah, you're right....people would ask "why so low?". :)
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Thanks for the response. It makes sense. I just thought that when they transitioned from vinyl to CD that some normalization would have been natural. I was curious why this one was so low. I have many other CDs from that era that are not that extreme. Back then I had the vinyl album of Sade. It was given to me by someone who didn't like her... later I bought the CD. Just happened across it the other day when looking for something else and played it. But I thought it was very quiet and that was what raised this question
 
One thing about Sade albums.....(regardless if you like her music or not)....they are very well recorded and have that clean, delicate sound quality that almost demands your attention.
Maybe keeping the levels reasonablylower, it draws you in more...as opposed to somethng blasting at you full-tilt.....?
 
She's not an artist I listen to but I do enjoy relatively quiet music like Leonard Cohen's 1st few.
I would hazard a guess that Sade's producer wants you to listen with a capital L rather than hear with an ear full.
"Normalizing" can affect things in unpleasant ways - for a start it raises the noise floor along with everything else.
 
rayc said:
She's not an artist I listen to but I do enjoy relatively quiet music like Leonard Cohen's 1st few.
I would hazard a guess that Sade's producer wants you to listen with a capital L rather than hear with an ear full.
"Normalizing" can affect things in unpleasant ways - for a start it raises the noise floor along with everything else.
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You're kidding right? This album is acclaimed for its quality and you want to play the "noise floor" card? There is nothing wrong with normalizing to bring the track up to the same level as all the other music you are listening to. Sure it raises the noise floor. So does turning it up. I am told here that some devices like iPods and companies like iTunes normalise their music as a matter of course. If this is not introducing unacceptable noise then what would have been the problem with normalizing this album in the mastering process? I am not talking about destroying the dynamics and squashing the life out of it. Just make the damn thing audible without having to "turn it up" just for this one album. If you have to turn it up to hear it, you are going to raise the noise floor anyway. I just don't believe that has anything to do with why this album was mastered at such a low level.
 
Do you think all albums were Mastered to the same level or something and this is one that slipped through the loop? They just weren't and this one just happens to be a bit quieter than most.

When this was released in 1988 people still listened to music on stereos, walkmans, CD players, etc. Usually a whole LP/Cassette/CD album at a time and would adjust the volume to the mood that they required. Sadly they didn't have the foresight that in nearly 30 yrs time some numpty would be listening on a player with a mixture of songs at different volumes.

The album just is what it is. The volume of the master was most likely something to do with how it sounded on that particular day, to that particular ME in that particular room and how he/she felt it should sound.

Like I said before, create a playlist with un-remastered music from the 50's, through the decades, to present day and listen to the inconsistencies in volume levels. It's just the way it is.

:thumbs up:
 
Mr Clean said:
Do you think all albums were Mastered to the same level or something and this is one that slipped through the loop?
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Not the same level, but some average level that is considerably higher than this one. I boosted this song by 9db without hurting the song in any way. I didn't want to start a war here, I was just asking for opinions but I am getting responses like I shouldn't be asking the question.

Boosted 9db
 
GuitarLegend said:
I was just asking for opinions but I am getting responses like I shouldn't be asking the question.
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I, for one agree with you, though I do think you also got some good explanations, responses, and opinions.

I'll never agree with the simple "just turn it up", though. I've said it before. "Just turn it up" sounds good on paper, but it's not realistic. Not because it's so hard to turn it up, but because you won't remember you turned it up and the next tune will blast your head off. Or, if you're playing music on your system in the living room while doing something in your kitchen, you'll turn it up, and then the next tune will blast your speakers. Besides the fact that you'll have to keep walking to your living room to turn up and turn down.

It happens to me all the time. I'll make a playlist, whether with songs I have, or on Youtube. I have speakers running from my studio to my gym. I hate the fact that, unless I keep interrupting my workout to walk all the way back into my studio, one song is really loud, and the next one is almost inaudible.

I don't see anything wrong with GuitarLegend's question. I don't have the Sade album, but it seems his point is that it's WAY lower than anything else he's ever heard. It's a legitimate question as to why THIS one CD is so much lower than everything else.
 
There's no war here. I am, however, intrigued why you're so fascinated with something so insignificant as the mastering of one album though.

An album is created by an artist to be listened to, usually as a coherent piece. So by that measure, if you put the vinyl/cassette/CD on and sat down to listen, you would adjust the volume of your stereo to suit your hearing pleasure at that particular time and not consider for one second about the mastering process. If you changed album after that one ended and the volume was louder or quieter on the next one, which it most likely would be perceived depending on the style of music contained within, you would adjust the volume of the replacement album to suit.

Obviously, in this day and age you can cram a billion and one mp3s on to a little box in your pocket and listen to any one of them and randomize them. But there was no preparation for this when this album was created, mixed and mastered.

I personally still listen to music a lot in this old fashioned way, a single/album at a time. I put needles onto vinyl more than anything else to listen to music. It's my thing. I have a ridiculous collection of vinyl that spans from the 1930's (78's) to the present day and I can say, with all honesty, that the volume control on my amp is up and down more often than a hookers arse.

Levels on meters are for people to look at, just numbers and mean pretty much nothing to the perception of sound or volume. Perhaps the ME that did this one used only his/her ears? Maybe it just felt right.

I can tell you this much. I've just been listening to some classical music ( The Choirboys - Pie Jesu.mp3 - ripped from a CD) that I'm putting on CD for my wife's Gran's funeral next week, and I had it at a reasonable volume on my system. Your attached file is much louder in comparison, whereas the same song on Grooveshark sounds more on par, sound/volume wise, with my file.
 
Thanks RAMI

Here is the original as it came off the CD. The highest peak from a drum hit is at -6dbfs. The rest of the audio peaks around -21dbfs.

Original

This is the same track boosted 9db, certainly not maxed out by any means

Boosted
 
Mr Clean said:
There's no war here. I am, however, intrigued why you're so fascinated with something so insignificant as the mastering of one album though.
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I am fascinated with all audio engineering, I love it. I was just throwing this one out there to see what others thought about it.

Did you compare the two samples I just posted? I just think the original is WAY low...
 
Mr Clean said:
An album is created by an artist to be listened to, usually as a coherent piece. So by that measure, if you put the vinyl/cassette/CD on and sat down to listen, you would adjust the volume of your stereo to suit your hearing pleasure at that particular time and not consider for one second about the mastering process. If you changed album after that one ended and the volume was louder or quieter on the next one, which it most likely would be perceived depending on the style of music contained within, you would adjust the volume of the replacement album to suit.
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Right.

That's what I was suggesting earlier...that back then, there wasn't this concern/consideration of "iPod play lists" and/or a need to have an album stack up volume-wise with what every other album was doing at the time.
I mean, there obviously were many accepted/standardized mastering practices...but each album was still a standalone offering.
I can recall many albums swinging from one end to the other in level when compared *to each other*...but on their own they all sounded right.
I even remember some vinyl albums stating that they were "made to be played loud"...IOW, they depended on the listener's playback system to provide that final "punch", as it wasn't possible to do it all on the vinyl...unlike these days where everyone tries to lock the final listening level in the actual digital audio, so that evey album sounds exactly the same as the next...eveyone masteres at the absolute limit of the technology, and then adds to it artificially with compression and limiting, looking for that little bit of extra.

I just don't see the low level of the Sade album as such a "mystery"...or that it was a mistake or an attempt to hide noise, etc, etc.....it was probably mastered the way they felt it sounded best.
 
miroslav said:
I just don't see the low level of the Sade album as such a "mystery"...or that it was a mistake or an attempt to hide noise, etc, etc.....it was probably mastered the way they felt it sounded best.
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Well that seems to be the consensus here. I master my recordings with little headroom, the way I see the recordings of my favourite music. It just seemed unusual in this case. As always, you keep learning every day...

Thanks for the responses
 
GuitarLegend said:
Did you compare the two samples I just posted? I just think the original is WAY low...
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Just listening now. Comparing the original to the same file (The Choirboys - Pie Jesu) I compared your 9dB boosted to earlier and the original is around the same average volume to my ear, if not louder. But, there is a lot more going on musically in the Sade song.

Just out of interest, comparing your file to mine in Reaper alongside another file of completely different music. Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK mp3 320kbps file ripped straight from CD. All 320kbps files. (Bear in mind that Pie Jesu is a classical song with choir vocals being the main sound and the Pistols are a full band)

There is what appears to be quite a bit of headroom on all 3 tracks. The Choirboys and Sade both come in between -4dB to -4.5dB where the pistols come in around -1.5dB on Reaper's meters. The Pistols very noticeably louder.

Image00001.webp

The question is do those numbers and waveforms we see give a reading of volume? A person whispering and an electric guitar solo both coming in at the same on the meter wouldn't sound the same volume would they? Surely the guitar would sound louder?

Applying 9dB, as you did, to the same files and Pie Jesu has notable artifacts when hitting the peaks as does the Sade song, they're not quite as noticeable as the first but there are some. Anarchy just sounds plain awful.

Image00002.webp

I guess in a perfect world, everything would be equal and you wouldn't have to adjust your volume control but as Miro said before me and after me, I'll say again, albums were and are created to be listened to as a package and mastered as such. I believe these days there is much more unity in the overall volume of music because people are working to different standards maybe? I don't know. But in days gone by, you got an album and it didn't matter if it was mastered to the same overall volume as your other albums because you would put it on and adjust your volume when listening to suit yourself. I'm sure flipping from Simon & Garfunkel to Jimi Hendrix on vinyl in the 60's probably required some volume adjustments. I know it would to me today.

But in answer to your question : Why is the album awfully quiet? It's not, really. It sounds fine. (To me)

:thumbs up:
 
The peak level doesn't matter. You have to look at the RMS level, which is at the bottom in REAPER.
 
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