overall volume of a finished track after bouncing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brohnis
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Greg_L said:
I'm personally sick of hearing people whine about the "loudness war". It is what it is and it's not going anywhere. I find that modern recordings sound okay loud.
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Go spin "Death Magnetic," Greg. You'd hate it anyway, but holy hell does it sound bad thanks to the way it was mastered. Or, a newly remastered "Cowboys from Hell" was on Soundcloud not long ago, and was pretty abysmal, too. Check it out.

You might legitimately feel that a lot of modern stuff sounds just fine, but I suspect that's because you're just not hearing the really bad stuff.

miroslav said:
The one thing about radio mixes that many people forget (or not realize) is that the stations apply their OWN level control. IOW...they pump up & even out the levels of whatever they are playing...so there's no need to do it for them, and often that double-slam is what really kills the songs.
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And, ironically, a lot of the quieter stuff holds up better when it gets slammed again.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
And, ironically, a lot of the quieter stuff holds up better when it gets slammed again.
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Though technically it was probably never "slammed" to begin with... :) ...which is why it holds up so much better to getting slammed by the radio's broadcast equipment.
 
dintymoore said:
For the overall volume to finished track, I'd find the best recorded song in whatever genre I'm in, put that song right up on Cubase in my song, and try to match it.

You don't want the song too loud because that does sound bad, but you also don't want your song to be softer than most songs in your genre or people won't like it. :mad:

To me it only makes sense to do that, then you're in the ballpark of the best in the industry. This all is a no-brainer to me - copy the pro's.
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I've been struggling with volume (quality versus quantity) especially since my genre is a little unique, and for some reason it never really occurred to me to try this.
Good advice, thanks.
 
The answer to the "playlist sandwich" problem is NOT to make one's music sound as awful as everyone else's just to match something as simple as volume, but rather to leave that choice up to the listener, and let them set their playback hardware to *automatically* level the volumes using a modern-day version of an automatic gain control on the playback.

That way everybody can win, including the hardware manufacturers, who would then have a new toy to market to the masses (my AGC sounds better than yours!). The listeners get to choose whatever they want, the same perceived volume that they don't have to change (AGC switched on), or the original dynamics as the composer/artist intended (AGC switched off), making both sides there happy as well.

Of course, if this never happens it won't matter in 20 years anyway, because by then the vogue of the day will have changed back to more dynamics as the new generation wants to "rebel" against the then old-timers with their crunched dynamics by doing something different.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Of course, if this never happens it won't matter in 20 years anyway, because by then the vogue of the day will have changed back to more dynamics as the new generation wants to "rebel" against the then old-timers with their crunched dynamics by doing something different.

G.
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We can only hope. let us pray. :D
 
Terra said:
We can only hope. let us pray. :D
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I see no reason why human nature should change. The next generation always wants to find their own voice and do something different than their parents, especially in things related to pop culture.

Some pop artist will come along soon enough and make a big splash by publicly bucking the trend and making a really popular album with purposely ultra-high-dynamics in one way or another and purposely making a public statement about it that basically flips the bird to "the establishment" in order to endear themselves to the money-spending "my generation" teenagers out there. Before you know it, all the labels and producers out there will be wanting to parrot that idea in an attempt to cash in on the idea, followed in a couple of years by more serious artists wanting to explore the musical possibilities of higher dynamics mixes.

Then a few yeas after that someone will come up with the idea all over again that mo' louder is somehow mo' better, and the cycle will start all over again.

G.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Go spin "Death Magnetic," Greg. You'd hate it anyway, but holy hell does it sound bad thanks to the way it was mastered. Or, a newly remastered "Cowboys from Hell" was on Soundcloud not long ago, and was pretty abysmal, too. Check it out.

You might legitimately feel that a lot of modern stuff sounds just fine, but I suspect that's because you're just not hearing the really bad stuff.
.
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I know all about Death Magnetic and the really bad stuff. That album sucks regardless of volume. I think the whole anti-loud movement is a monkey-see-monkey-do phenomenon perpetuated by nostalgic audio snobs. It clearly doesn't bother anyone to the degree that they claim because seemingly everyone passes their shit through a limiter. And if your music doesn't rely on dynamics anyway, what's the big deal? Sure master limiting can go way too far, but listen to Motorhead. They're not the same as some soft Pink Floyd dynamic sonic landscape. I think the whole dynamic argument is dependent on the song/band/genre. If you can squash for loudness without butchering the sound, then it's fine with me.
 
To completely generalize, people are stupid. Have a look at this simple question posted on Yahoo questions. Which format sounds better.

Well the answer is mp3 because when enquiring minds want to know, they go to Yahoo questions, get the definitive answer and then spread that wisdom around like ebola in a commune!

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080630041407AAcMq8j
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
The answer to the "playlist sandwich" problem is NOT to make one's music sound as awful as everyone else's just to match something as simple as volume, but rather to leave that choice up to the listener, and let them set their playback hardware to *automatically* level the volumes using a modern-day version of an automatic gain control on the playback.

That way everybody can win, including the hardware manufacturers, who would then have a new toy to market to the masses (my AGC sounds better than yours!). The listeners get to choose whatever they want, the same perceived volume that they don't have to change (AGC switched on), or the original dynamics as the composer/artist intended (AGC switched off), making both sides there happy as well.

Of course, if this never happens it won't matter in 20 years anyway, because by then the vogue of the day will have changed back to more dynamics as the new generation wants to "rebel" against the then old-timers with their crunched dynamics by doing something different.

G.
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In 20 years, I still won't be as old as you are now! lol


But we can start the rebellion now
 
Considering that the analog recording equipment back in the day didn't have the dynamic range of todays digital equipment seems to have something to do with it.

When I listen to older recordings with good dynamics, they are not that loud but I just solve that with more amplification. Todays music seems to be more standardized. I have noticed that I don't change settings to match the music like in the old days, it just all sounds good on the same settings being optimized for the equipment itself.

It does seem that since todays equipment is capable of the wider dynamic range that everyone seems to want to just push it up to that limit because it can play there reliably but does crash much harder when that limit is surpassed. So why do it? Just because you can? It sounds much better with more dynamic headroom.

I do think that older recordings tend to be more dynamic and airy in sound but do lack the lower noise floor of the digital age.

The output of todays music doesn't seem to give most preamps enough headroom to work with and runs those levels right at the point of clipping with no way to back that off, not that the recordings themselves are bad, some are and all MP3 128KBPS is just crap but as said before most people are stupid and don't know what good sound really is as they are spoon fed the portable age of convenience and not quality.
 
BLP said:
In 20 years, I still won't be as old as you are now! lol
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IN 20 years I'll be dead for a good 10 years or so already and will be well past giving a shit.

G.
 
Saw this on Wikipedia. This is a great example of what is happening to music:
380px-GiveItAwayLoudnessComparison.webp
Two versions of the same song (Give It Away by Red Hot Chili Peppers) as mastered in 1991 (top) and then again in 2003 (bottom).

Same song, but remastered, they felt the need to squash the life right out of it.

The good old days of vinyl were self limiting. If you cut a track like the bottom example on vinyl, it actually wouldn't even play right. What made the needle move in the record grooves was the dynamics. The more dynamics, the more the needle moved which ultimately made your speakers move air and reproduced the sound. How can a speaker even define a sound with no dynamics. It just pushes air hopelessly unable to reproduce what the recording sounds like.

This brings me to my other point, if your under 20, get the hell of my lawn!:laughings:
 
BLP said:
but you will live forever with everything you post on homerecording.com
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I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.................hug for papa?

hallmark.jpg


SouthSIDE Glen said:
IN 20 years I'll be dead for a good 10 years or so already and will be well past giving a shit.

G.
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Don't count on it. I had two brothers as neighbors. One, straight as an arrow, had 1 wife and a solid career.

The other brother drank his brains out, was married 6 times (yes, 6) and smoked cigarettes through his cancer chemo therapy AND his heart bypass surgery. Brilliant.

Well, you know where this is going. Of course brother #2 outlived the straight guy by several years. He passed away at about 75 or 76. He was pissed at everybody. His favorite saying was "Lousy Bastards!". Everybody was a lousy bastard. The government, the cops, everybody was a lousy bastard!

My point is that you never know, and life seldom makes sense. One of my best friends smokes his brains out and thought for sure he'd die when he was 52. Next month he'll be 54.

Remember what Liberace said: "we all get it in the end".
 
Lordy! What have I started.

There's clearly more to this than I realise. It's kind of liberating to learn that overall volume isn't everything though, as I've been annoyed about it! Could not work out what I was doing wrong.

My wavs are looking similiar to the chili peppers so I guess that's good:P
 
Greg_L said:
If you can squash for loudness without butchering the sound, then it's fine with me.
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Sure, who doesnt really want a louder fuller mix, but some stuff is just blaring frequencies, its almost like arranged white noise. I forget the video name, but this guy was saying the loud sound starts right at the beginning of the process, not just slamming a mix with gain and limiting.
 
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