Luodness or dynamcs - what would You sacriifice?

This is where the past comes to haunt you...

About a dozen or so years ago (geez, it was closer to 15), I was being interviewed for some music mag. The question came up: "Do you think there should be a standard for volume like the film industry has?"

Me, being fairly conservative on such things, said "absolutely not."

But that was me being naive and not thinking that people would actually do what they're doing now. The abhorrent sounding damage that they're willingly subjecting their own recordings to. It's absolutely amazing what people will sacrifice just to keep up with the Joneses.

I'd *kill* (maybe...) to have a music standard now. IMO? Around -16 to -14dBRMS. That seems to be an almost universal point where dynamics and punch start to go down, distortion starts to go up, clarity starts to suffer, focus starts to blur - and go figure - That's where your converters are probably calibrated to line level. DUH!!! Which is why it was always a good spot to be 15 years ago!!! And guess what else - 1.23vRMS 15 years ago is exactly the same as 1.23vRMS is today! Does anyone think that the circuitry we're running these unbelievably hot signals into can work with these insane voltages without the audio suffering because of it?

Find me the guy who - IF there were a standard - would purposefully mix something to have a crest of 8dB and then turn it down 6-7dB to keep it at the standard. Honestly - Can ANYONE here say they'd do that? Or would you take advantage of a 15dB crest instead? Heck, half the rock/pop mixes out there naturally have a crest around 15-18dB in the first place!!! BEFORE any buss processing. I wonder why...

GOD!!! It would be SO EASY to make music sound great again. We've got technology at our fingertips that people a generation ago couldn't even imagine. And what are we doing with it? Trying to piss farther than the next guy. It's ridiculous. Honest - It occasionally makes me want to just quit. People can make recordings with fidelity and clarity that couldn't be touched 20 years ago. Instead, they're "recording as hot as they can without clipping" (which is another freakishly stupid "first day of class" rookie mistake if there ever was one) and ramming recordings into limiters to make them almost unlistenable on even the best systems with the *most* available headroom - Not even mentioning the crappy consumer systems and iPods and such that fall apart long before they could ever reach the sustained levels asked of them.

And without a doubt - Without any question at all - as mentioned in here somewhere a few posts back, I'll crank up a great recording so loud that God will call complaining and tell me to turn it down. But some of these smashed, cruddy recordings that are coming out now? Forget it. You can't listen to those at loud levels. I refuse to damage my hearing and my gear for that.


[/RANT - Sorry...]
 
Massive Master said:
This is where the past comes to haunt you...

About a dozen or so years ago (geez, it was closer to 15), I was being interviewed for some music mag. The question came up: "Do you think there should be a standard for volume like the film industry has?"

Me, being fairly conservative on such things, said "absolutely not."

But that was me being naive and not thinking that people would actually do what they're doing now. The abhorrent sounding damage that they're willingly subjecting their own recordings to. It's absolutely amazing what people will sacrifice just to keep up with the Joneses.

I'd *kill* (maybe...) to have a music standard now. IMO? Around -16 to -14dBRMS. That seems to be an almost universal point where dynamics and punch start to go down, distortion starts to go up, clarity starts to suffer, focus starts to blur - and go figure - That's where your converters are probably calibrated to line level. DUH!!! Which is why it was always a good spot to be 15 years ago!!! And guess what else - 1.23vRMS 15 years ago is exactly the same as 1.23vRMS is today! Does anyone think that the circuitry we're running these unbelievably hot signals into can work with these insane voltages without the audio suffering because of it?

Find me the guy who - IF there were a standard - would purposefully mix something to have a crest of 8dB and then turn it down 6-7dB to keep it at the standard. Honestly - Can ANYONE here say they'd do that? Or would you take advantage of a 15dB crest instead? Heck, half the rock/pop mixes out there naturally have a crest around 15-18dB in the first place!!! BEFORE any buss processing. I wonder why...

GOD!!! It would be SO EASY to make music sound great again. We've got technology at our fingertips that people a generation ago couldn't even imagine. And what are we doing with it? Trying to piss farther than the next guy. It's ridiculous. Honest - It occasionally makes me want to just quit. People can make recordings with fidelity and clarity that couldn't be touched 20 years ago. Instead, they're "recording as hot as they can without clipping" (which is another freakishly stupid "first day of class" rookie mistake if there ever was one) and ramming recordings into limiters to make them almost unlistenable on even the best systems with the *most* available headroom - Not even mentioning the crappy consumer systems and iPods and such that fall apart long before they could ever reach the sustained levels asked of them.

And without a doubt - Without any question at all - as mentioned in here somewhere a few posts back, I'll crank up a great recording so loud that God will call complaining and tell me to turn it down. But some of these smashed, cruddy recordings that are coming out now? Forget it. You can't listen to those at loud levels. I refuse to damage my hearing and my gear for that.


[/RANT - Sorry...]
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It's crazy that you would say this..Cause I would've tend to agree that there should be some kind of standard, just as a protection to the hearing of the general public....but then I saw an interview on either gearslutz or somewhere else, where they were interviewing a mixing engineer who said plainly that this loudness war has been going on since the 60's bet. big labels..He was a motown engineer..I wish I could remember the name..So I don't think we are seeing anything new in the war department...we are just seeing worst results
 
reklus said:
Do whatever it takes to make sure this is listened to by as few people as possible.

This music makes me violent.


Why do all women have to sing like this these days? This rasping mic sound always accompanies strummed acoustic guitars and shitty girly voices.

Agh.

Must Kill...
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: That's fairly... extreme.
The 2nd track 'Wherever is nice.
Maybe ya just forgot to account for it's a big world, with a ton of different dreams.
 
Massive Master said:
..GOD!!! It would be SO EASY to make music sound great again. We've got technology at our fingertips that people a generation ago couldn't even imagine. And what are we doing with it? Trying to piss farther than the next guy. It's ridiculous.
[/RANT - Sorry...]
Click to expand...

Gota love it. :)


Hey, it's only hurts when you think about it.
 
mixsit said:
:rolleyes: That's fairly... extreme.
The 2nd track 'Wherever is nice.
Maybe ya just forgot to account for it's a big world, with a ton of different dreams.
Click to expand...

Ton of different dreams that all follow the same pattern and sound indistiguisable from each other?

69% of people are always in the bottom 69% , but art and music and movies cater to them.

And as songs like this indicate, modern media is more than just catering to the tards, it's giving them incentive and ability to make their own work.
 
deejaytrixx said:
It's crazy that you would say this..Cause I would've tend to agree that there should be some kind of standard, just as a protection to the hearing of the general public....but then I saw an interview on either gearslutz or somewhere else, where they were interviewing a mixing engineer who said plainly that this loudness war has been going on since the 60's bet. big labels..He was a motown engineer..I wish I could remember the name..So I don't think we are seeing anything new in the war department...we are just seeing worst results
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Undoubtedly. Since day one it was "Hey, give it a little extra kick, will ya?" before the client left for lunch.

And no doubt, competitive levels - within reason - has always been a part of he deal. But now - Holy Jeebus - It's so far beyond "competitive" and so far past "reasonable" that it may as well just be white noise half the time.

At least back in the day you were physically limited by the medium. Needles would jump out of the groove and skip along the surface (among other interesting things).

Now, we have a medium originally celebrated for its ability to retain the dynamics of a recording without audible loss or added noise - and look what's happened to it... It's a damn shame.
 
deejaytrixx said:
It's crazy that you would say this..Cause I would've tend to agree that there should be some kind of standard, just as a protection to the hearing of the general public....but then I saw an interview on either gearslutz or somewhere else, where they were interviewing a mixing engineer who said plainly that this loudness war has been going on since the 60's bet. big labels..He was a motown engineer..I wish I could remember the name..So I don't think we are seeing anything new in the war department...we are just seeing worst results
Click to expand...
Dj, hold on to your fedora: the "Volume Wars" have been going on in one incarnation or another, off and on, since at least the 1930s. But back then the battle fronts were not in the RMS of each recording, but rather in the RMS level of the AM radio station's broadcast. Another difference was that back then there was actually some real science behind the idea. Anyone who has hobbied in ham radio or broadcasting can tell you that (in general) the higher you push the modulation level of an AM radio signal, the farther away the signal can be heard. The farther away the signal can be heard, the more customers the advertisers can reach, and the more the station can charge for their advertising rates.

In the 50s and 60s there were radio stations that hired engineers to build custom signal chains at their transmitter that squeezed the most out of the signal and yet at the same time yielded a pleasant-sounding result. CKLW out of Windsor/Detroit - for just one example - was famous for the quality of sound they put out because of their proprietary transmission circuit design.

Unfortuntately, a couple of generations later that idea of "you have to be loud to compete", which applied strictly to AM carrier wave radio broadcasting (it doesn't even apply to FM) has been improperly adopted and adapted in the Age of Digital, where it has no validity whatsoever.

As far as standards, I'm on record in plenty of places as against them. The last thing this world and this industry needs is yet another excuse for folks to try and mix by the numbers instead of using their ears. We might as well just sell the industry to Hair Ball.

Besides, this generation of loudness wars will end of it's own volition eventually. It's all cyclical, it always was, and it always will be. Unfortunately it will re-appear in another generation or two, who like all previous generations will refuse to learn from their parents, and it will be in some new form of holographic plasma loudness compression that we can't even imagine right now.

G.
 
reklus said:
Ton of different dreams that all follow the same pattern and sound indistiguisable from each other?

69% of people are always in the bottom 69% , but art and music and movies cater to them.

And as songs like this indicate, modern media is more than just catering to the tards, it's giving them incentive and ability to make their own work.
Click to expand...

Are you aware of a concept known as 'tact'?
 
reklus said:
Do whatever it takes to make sure this is listened to by as few people as possible.

This music makes me violent.


Why do all women have to sing like this these days? This rasping mic sound always accompanies strummed acoustic guitars and shitty girly voices.

Agh.

Must Kill...
Click to expand...

Hey, I'm counting on some creative advice that could guide me to the right point, not just pure negative peak of criticism, so tell me what to change in the mix to make the first track up to your taste man. See, I'm not telling that what we've done is pervect or universal in its form, it's a suggestion-research-thread.

PS. Have you tried to use your violent energy in somewhat positive way?

:-)

peace,
mike
 
Pykon said:
tell me what to change in the mix to make the first track up to your taste man.

peace,
mike
Click to expand...
Don't make music that's been made a million times before.

Kill the singer and the guitarist.

Make good music instead of painful girly schtick.
 
killthepixelnow said:
Loudness for sure, my music is loud enough :D

To be honest, today's records need more dynamics and less noise.
Click to expand...

Well...

The deeper I go into mixing, the more dificult it is to fulfill all the requirements. And at some level it's sometimes all about the choice. The responsibility needs to be taken.
So I choose: every time I have to compress to a certain loudness, I do it at the DAW's bus so I can always go back to the mix to separate and clear what's needed when over-compression starts to mess the sound up.
So instead of fighting with the common standard, I'll do my best not to kill the dynamics and retrieve some clarity back in the mix if needed. That's what - as a newbie - I can do. Even if preparing the mix especially for destructive compression is a bit crazy an idea - you know that tomorrow's compression will make some tracks louder and some attenuated, so you prepare uneven, unnatural mix.

Some time ago doing a clear mix was a challenge for me. Now I can see that preparing a highly compressed - and still sounding clear - "master" is something much more demanding. But that only makes sound engineering more involving, almost endless process. As we can see here - causing some exploding emotions as well. And that's cool :-)

PS. Some day we'll probably see exclusive shops where subtle, skillfully engineered music will be sold. And every new customer will be priced with a course on selective listening. Not a bad idea BTW.

peace,
mike
 
reklus said:
Don't make music that's been made a million times before.
Click to expand...

Some people can't see the difference between their neighbours apart from what they are wearing. A human being has been made more than a million times but it's still being made. The rain is still falling down anywhere despite uncountable repetitions of the very same basic process. Is it really that bad?

reklus said:
Don't make music that's been made a million times before.

Kill the singer and the guitarist.

Make good music instead of painful girly schtick.
Click to expand...

You have lots of violence indeed, but it comes from inside of your mind, not from a song. Maybe you lack some grounding man?

:-)
 
Don't feed Reklus.

With my monitors at half their potential output, a modern recording is as loud as I would ever want it at 3 'clicks' but the blaring, distorted midrange and lack of detail in SOME of these recordings makes me sick. I personally just experiment with what I can do and find a balance but I'll never sacrifice quality over volume.

I think that us as home recordists (we'll inherit the earth one day) have a duty to lower the RMS level by NOT trying to push shit into the red. If every project studio on earth ignored the rest of the industry and mastered like it's '94, we'd change things!
 
Yonce N Mild said:
My goal is as loud as possible without sacrificing the dynamics.
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This is always the goal. You will always end up sacrificing some dynamics for loudness though.

It's like having your cake and eating it too.

A good ME can get close. It's about how graceful it's done and invisible to the end user.

A bad mastering job leaves it painfully obvious.
.
 
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Pykon said:
Hi @ll!

Which choice You find better:

1) to sacrifice dynamics for a louder sound, comparable with commercial CD tracks

2) to save dynamics and clarity of the sound, but leaving it significantly quieter than popular songs

I'm quite happy with my modest mixes, but when I play it among other CD's, my songs are simply so quiet that I'm afraid people will skip them on average stereo systems.

Should I compress to the limit? Is the loudness more important than other sound qualities? I'm afraid for most listeners it is, but - tell me Your opinions: 1) or 2)?

peace,

mike
Click to expand...

These are pretty interesting times in audio. These days I (as a home mastering person) can buy a "pro' CD so I can learn how NOT to master a CD.

Its kind of like I get the CD of my favorite band AND a free mastering tool.

Neat-o
 
deejaytrixx said:
they were interviewing a mixing engineer who said plainly that this loudness war has been going on since the 60's bet. big labels..He was a motown engineer..I wish I could remember the name..So I don't think we are seeing anything new in the war department...
Click to expand...

It was either Bob Olhsson or Bob Dennis. Both very good mastering engineers.
 
Yonce N Mild said:
My goal is as loud as possible without sacrificing the dynamics.
Click to expand...
Then make a quality, dynamic mix with lots of headroom.

It's almost always the "more normal" (what some people would consider "quieter") mixes that generally have the most "loudness potential" anyway...
 
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