Help me, I'm a victim of the volume wars

[mshilarious]

So I'm doing some work this AM, and I started spinning the Cranberries' "No Need to Argue" from 1993. Anyway, I'm on the second tune, "I Can't Be With You", which is a rockin' tune, and I start thinking, hey this isn't that loud. So I check the volume on WMP, it's full up, I check the soundcard mixer, it's full up (I have it calibrated so -6dB is my 0VU, which should give me 85dBSPL on a -11dBRMS mix). So I figure it ought to be pumpin'. I check the rack to see if I'd turned it down for my kids to play computer games, but no, all the controls are at my calibration points.

So now I really get interested. I rip the tune off the CD and open it in Wavelab. First thing I figure out real quick is that WMP somehow is attenuating the signal, because it is back at its proper level in Wavelab.

But then I go on to have a look at it, a track I am quite well familiar with. It's actually very quiet. Peaks are less than -0.3dBFS, RMS is -15.5dBFS. It looks like a *quiet* modern premaster, the kind that you just don't see on the threads where people are trying to push a mix to -11 and then master it.

So, being my smug self, I think "see this is what music should sound like, open and airy, not squashed, etc."

So then I decided to see what the "modern" version would sound like, presumably awful, so I opened my limiter and crank it up a few dB . . .




. . . and I liked it better




I'm scared, hold me

 

[EdWonbass]

Be careful young man that is dangerous territory you are in.

You should be very afraid.

 

[NYMorningstar]

. . . and I liked it better




I'm scared, hold me

Yup, it's a scary thing but even the Stones knew it, louder is better

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It's actually very quiet. Peaks are less than -0.3dBFS, RMS is -15.5dBFS. It looks like a *quiet* modern premaster

Excuse me??? This is right where most of my mixes come out AFTER mastering. It's also where a WHOLE LOT of commercial mixes still do come out after mastering. Youse guys gotta stop listening to nothing but Clear Channel programming! Just because there's some pop-inclined people and headbangers out there that fall for the RMS Wars bullshit doesn't mean that the rest of the music world has it wrong or is out-of-date.

So then I decided to see what the "modern" version would sound like, presumably awful, so I opened my limiter and crank it up a few dB . . . and I liked it better

How did you compare them?

G.

 

[mshilarious]

Excuse me??? This is right where most of my mixes come out AFTER mastering. It's also where a WHOLE LOT of commercial mixes still do come out after mastering. Youse guys gotta stop listening to nothing but Clear Channel programming! Just because there's some pop-inclined people and headbangers out there that fall for the RMS Wars bullshit doesn't mean that the rest of the music world has it wrong or is out-of-date.

Well, I don't know what to say. I avoid a lot of modern music because of that. I guarantee you if I pulled the Crans' last release out, it would be much louder. Of course they got heavier-sounding as they aged too.

Another factor is lots of this particular CD had scads of airplay, so to some extent I've been conditioned to the radio mix.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I'm still interested as to how you compared the pre-limited and post-limited version. Did you actually A/B them at the same SPL? In other words, did you actully turn up the volume of the original rip so that it was on a level playing
field with the limited version?

I'd also be interested in hearing what your opinion would be if you did the same thing to the whole CD and listened to both versions of the whole CD.

G.

 

[ecktronic]

so I opened my limiter and crank it up a few dB . . .




. . . and I liked it better




I'm scared, hold me

Did you do a fair A/B comparison? Did you make sure that the original and the limited tracks both were at the same listening volume?
Cuase if you just blasted a limiter on the track and then did an A/B by bypassing the limiter then the louder one will sound better.

Eck

 

[mshilarious]

Dudes, we are talking about 2dB here, and the pre-version at what would be around 87dBA. I am fully aware of the implications of psychoacoustics, but for me, normally as stuff gets louder than that point, I like it less.

If you insist, I will go back and normalize, but it would be a bit of a pain since I've already deleted the ripped track and put away the CD. You wanna trust my judgment here? I mean I started with about a 12dB change in volume going from WMP to Wavelab (still don't know why that happens), and somehow that didn't spur a similar reaction.

Glen, I have to admire your clientele if they take stuff that quiet, I don't dare return something like that because when I've tried, I don't get the job.

 

[ecktronic]

Dudes, we are talking about 2dB here, and the pre-version at what would be around 87dBA. I am fully aware of the implications of psychoacoustics, but for me, normally as stuff gets louder than that point, I like it less.

If you insist, I will go back and normalize, but it would be a bit of a pain since I've already deleted the ripped track and put away the CD. You wanna trust my judgment here? I mean I started with about a 12dB change in volume going from WMP to Wavelab (still don't know why that happens), and somehow that didn't spur a similar reaction.

Glen, I have to admire your clientele if they take stuff that quiet, I don't dare return something like that because when I've tried, I don't get the job.

What was it about the limited version that sounded better?

Eck

 

[mshilarious]

What was it about the limited version that sounded better?

Eck

The kick was punchier, and there was a kind of midrange swooshiness that went away.

I'm thinking about this exercise now and I don't believe I could listen again and be impartial Of course I wasn't impartial to begin with, but then I had the opposite result to my bias

But it got me thinking, it would be an interesting test, if say, Glen booked a session with Massive, let's say on April 1 , and John was feeling playful so he took Glen's track, and first he dropped it 2dB, and that became the "original". Then he limited that by 2dB, with no makeup gain. Finally, he took the real original as a third version.

When Glen comes by, John tells him his track was great, so all he did to it was 0.5dB of some sexy high-shelf EQ he had. But also, just in case the client wanted it, he did a super-loud squashed version that he also ran through a BBE and an Aphex Exciter and polished it off with the SSL LMC-1 plug

The "EQ" version would be the limited version, and the "Squashed" would be the real original track, both compared to a "Original" that was the -2dB version.

My guess is Glen would be staring at John like he was on crack, at least as long as John could keep a straight face before they both started laughing


Anyway, that is pretty much what I'd have to do now, but I can't do a blind test on myself . . .

Oh well, it was almost a good thread

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Glen, I have to admire your clientele if they take stuff that quiet, I don't dare return something like that because when I've tried, I don't get the job.

I'll admit that I am luckier than many in that most people I work with are veteran musicians who have been at this racket for a while, and who don't give a rat's patootie about volume.

Well...let me qualify that a bit. They do usually know when there is still room in the mix and will call me on it if I deliver a soft mix that can go further. But they tend, like me, to focus on the feel and the texture of the mix instead of the volume, and care most about if the "fit and finish" are proper for THAT song, and not how the volume of their stuff compares to something else.

Ms, after the past couple of years on this forum, you know that I respect your posts and understand you to be one of the smarter and more talented folks on this board. I did not mean to disparage you in my previous post. I just found it suprising - considering your extensive undertanding and concentration of gain staging and levels measuring - that you considered -15dBRMS as being "quiet". When one considers that 0VU typically comes in at -18dBFS, often equating to a real world of somewhere around -22dBRMS (give or take a couple of dB on either one), mastering out to -15dBRMS is actually quite a push. It is only "quiet", IMHO, when compared relative to the pancakes we are subjected to on the radio and in iTunes.

And the reason I asked the second question as to listening to the whole CD, that was a way of trying to broach the subject of potential listener fatigue from extended exposure to unnaturally squashed dynamics.

OK, maybe there aren't that many in the key demographics that listen to CDs from begining to end any more. But there are many, many of them who wish to listen to their iPod playlists for hours on end, even if they are mostly individual singles and not so much album cuts. Stack that many pancakes together, and their ears will tire too fast and get tired of what they're listening to too fast. That results in your and my mixes falling out of the rotation ever faster. That can't be a good thing for either us or our clients.

G.

 

[mshilarious]

I just found it suprising - considering your extensive undertanding and concentration of gain staging and levels measuring - that you considered -15dBRMS as being "quiet".

Yeah you are right there. I think when I say "quiet" I mean "the way things were". But then when I listened to this pre-volume wars CD, I guess I disappointed myself.

I dunno, I listen to old stuff all the time, Beach Boys, etc (although I confess I like the stereo remaster of Pet Sounds MUCH better than the original). Maybe it's the style of music that triggers something in my head that says it must be louder. Scary.

And the reason I asked the second question as to listening to the whole CD, that was a way of trying to broach the subject of potential listener fatigue from extended exposure to unnaturally squashed dynamics.

I didn't answer that, did I? I think I did in a draft I deleted. This CD wouldn't be a good example of that. The Cranberries aren't a particularly good case study, compared to say Rush where in the heyday of prorec.com they did a very interesting comparison. Rush like most bands softened up over the years, so by all rights maybe Fly By Night should be their loudest record. But the Crans actually got harder as they went along.

On NNTA, there are only a few hard tunes, so no, I wouldn't suggest limiting most of the CD. On their previous CD, there were none, and that CD still sounds great to me.

 

[mshilarious]

One final thought: the other day, for a random reason, I went to the abluesky site and downloaded their pink noise calibration file, which they say is -20dBFS (RMS, but they don't specify). But in Wavelab, it showed as -11dBFS peak, -22dBFS RMS. So there is a bit of slop in RMS scales, which I knew but have never seen quite so quantified. Therefore it's possible my -15 is your -13.

Edit: or did I get that backwards? Well, I gotta go do some other work right now

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The Cranberries aren't a particularly good case study...On NNTA, there are only a few hard tunes, so no, I wouldn't suggest limiting most of the CD. On their previous CD, there were none, and that CD still sounds great to me.

Well, that brings up another point that I had yet to get to (I was kinda hoping someone else would jump in and take the credit ), and that is there are indeed some individual songs that can be pushed further than the production version and sound better. Just because a song is by big name people on a big name label doesn't always necessarily mean that it's a perfect job. We all know that there's a lot of "big boy" stuff out there that sounds only average, at best.

It's entirely possible that the Cran song you came across was just one of those examples where the job done somewhere along the production line was not 100% perfect and was, in fact - just like you said, a couple of dB short of perfect. Just as Fastball's "The Way" is so obviously pushed a few dBs too hard, maybe that Cran song is a couple of dBs too soft of it potential. It happens all the time.

But I'd be hesitant to base the rationale for an entire war on that one piece of evidence (hmmm...where have I heard that before? )

G.

 

[mshilarious]

Well, that brings up another point that I had yet to get to (I was kinda hoping someone else would jump in and take the credit ), and that is there are indeed some individual songs that can be pushed further than the production version and sound better. Just because a song is by big name people on a big name label doesn't always necessarily mean that it's a perfect job. We all know that there's a lot of "big boy" stuff out there that sounds only average, at best.

I think this track is pretty well mixed, based on the fact that it can really be pushed and not fall apart. That's a sure sign I didn't mix it

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I think this track is pretty well mixed, based on the fact that it can really be pushed and not fall apart. That's a sure sign I didn't mix it

Though I don't know that specific song very well, I am familiar with the Cranberries' stuff in general, and I'd tend to agree with you there. That would mean that the mastering itself was soft.

Only specualting here as I don't have the album, but I wonder if that could be a case where the mastering was done that way in order to keep that track in line with some of the lighter-density tracks on the CD that wouldn't push as hard?

Or maybe it was just a phone-in mastering job

G.

 

[giraffe]

did you compair them at the same *listening* volume?
like, both at 85 db in the air, not on the board?

p.s. listener fatuige is a real vile thing. don't believe me? try and listen to that last green day cd front to back.
each song sounds good (world class, makes me wish i sucked less) but to get thru the entire cd is nearly impossible. (at any volume)
seriously, try it.

 

[mshilarious]

Though I don't know that specific song very well, I am familiar with the Cranberries' stuff in general, and I'd tend to agree with you there. That would mean that the mastering itself was soft.

Only specualting here as I don't have the album, but I wonder if that could be a case where the mastering was done that way in order to keep that track in line with some of the lighter-density tracks on the CD that wouldn't push as hard?

Or maybe it was just a phone-in mastering job

G.

Nah, I don't fault the mastering, it was 1994 after all. The other thing about the Crans is I don't think the ME would have known what to expect from the album, since only "Dreams" had gotten airplay off the first CD, and that only a few months before NNTA was released, The first CD (name too long to type) was very mellow, so they probably just thought to continue that vibe.

Then "Linger" off the first CD got picked up by radio at the same time as several tunes off NNTA, and they blew up huge.

Anyway, it did leave lots of room for radio compression, maybe that was the thought at the time.

 

[Uladine]

All of this mastering talk reminds me of trying to understand physics. I think I'll leave it to you people with larger brains. Maybe someday I will comprehend what you speak of, but for now I'll just tip my hat in respect and admiration.

With the inexperience that I have, though, I must confess that while playing a collection of proffesional CD's on shuffle mode in my CD player yesterday, I noticed I liked the "Louder" sound of the more recent CDs better than the "Quieter" sound of the early nineties CD's I had in the mix. But I attribute that to my inexperience and most likely being unable to hear the subtle dynamics of the older CDs.

 

[Yareek]

If it's any consolation, I gave the "mastering" treatment to a few albums while cleaning up my iTunes library. Granted, those albums were either rough demos of albums I had found (Jimmy Eat World Mark Trombino Futures sessions, way better than the actual album) or local bands that had terrible mixes, but I could understand where you're coming from.

I was half tempted to try my hand at evening the levels out on the first Tori Amos CD, or on Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates, but I thought better of that

(btw, if you want to blow out your monitors, put on RLJ's song "We Belong Together" and watch the peaks jump 30 dB constantly).