Stronger Than Pride

GuitarLegend

GuitarLegend

New member
I was listening to Sade's "Stronger Than Pride" album and out of curiosity, imported some of the tracks into the DAW. There is so much headroom on those tracks that it looks like someone forgot to master it. Even a simple normalization wouldn't have hurt.

While they may not care to compete for loudness, this album is awfully quiet. Would there be a good reason for that?
 
I'm serious though. I'd much rather turn up a good sounding, "quieter" album than turn down a loud, shitty one.
 
Mr Clean said:
I'm serious though. I'd much rather turn up a good sounding, "quieter" album than turn down a loud, shitty one.
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I was asking a serious question. If you have a playlist on your iPod you would want the music to be at a consistent volume rather than having turn some up and some down. I was just asking why Sade's album was mastered at such a low level.

Using your logic, I would rather not HAVE to turn up a good sounding album. I would rather it was at the setting I chose for all the other music I was playing.
 
GuitarLegend said:
I was just asking why Sade's album was mastered at such a low level.
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I have no idea why that particular album is quieter. Some albums are. Create a playlist with music from the 50's to present day and see the inconsistencies in volume levels. It's just the way it is.

GuitarLegend said:
I would rather it was at the setting I chose for all the other music I was playing.
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In that case, get a program like MP3Gain and raise the volume on the tracks. (Or import the files into your DAW, raise the volume and export)

At the end of the day it is your issue, not the album. Maybe you got a dodgy copy/rip? It sounds alright on GROOVESHARK - Stronger Than Pride - although I would imagine they use some kind of leveling feature like Greg mentioned. Comparing that album on there to GROOVESHARK - Never Mind The Bollocks they sound comparable, level wise and the content couldn't be more different. (Again, that could be due to some leveling feature.)
 
This is how I see this: in my opinion the Sade albums are very well mixed/mastered and sound absolutely awesome. About the 'quietude' I think that this is a characteristic of Sade albums. Her tunes aren't for stress but for calm down the listener. I think that there is not any volume issue at all. Happens that people are used to crowded, loud, compressed, squashed, noisy tunes where all the minimum spot is filled with some instrument or effect. The case is that mostly of Sade tracks are based on a spaced, empty arrangement while every single track is very well constructed. It is part of her style.

Similar thing happens with graphic design. Regular people thinks that every square milimiter of a sheet of paper should be stuffed with visual information. When you come with a clean elegant design with a lot of empty space they think that there is not any design work there. Typical.

:facepalm:
 
Well, I did raise the level in the DAW and exported them. I don't hear any damage done. I was just curious why the original level was so low. Whatever reason you can give for turning up the volume for their quiet tracks also applies to turning down the volume on tracks that make use of the available headroom. If the listener wants to be calmed down, then let them turn down the volume. These just seemed to be extreme...
 
Well this is an 80s edition. You should expect that such vintage records has way less volume then modern ones. I think that one of the reasons they mastered them quieter is because at that time they still printed vinyls. I may be wrong though.

:listeningmusic:
 
YanKleber said:
Well this is an 80s edition. You should expect that such vintage records has way less volume then modern ones. I think that one of the reasons they mastered them quieter is because at that time they still printed vinyls. I may be wrong though.

:listeningmusic:
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Good point...
 
The other thing....
...not all music is recorded with people's iPod playlists in mind.

I get the fact that when you run a bunch of different stuff in a row, it's a PITA when song volumes are going up/down...but the point I'm making is that artists when recording/mixing/mastering aren't always thinking...
"How will my song sit next to a Metallica cut on someone's iPod"? :D

They could be just thinking about how their album stands on its own....and then let each listener do with it as they will.
 
miroslav said:
but the point I'm making is that artists when recording/mixing/mastering aren't always thinking...
"How will my song sit next to a Metallica cut on someone's iPod"? :D
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They might think like that now. Besides, isn't itunes taking care of this now for people? They'll tell you how loud or quiet you can listen to things. Yay technology.
 
Yes, I beleive that iTunes does control final levels of their music offerings.

The problem with someone recording an album and as part of their production, trying to conisder all the diiferent ways it can be listened to....is that there's no one answer.

I think at some point you just record the album YOU want to record, and let it roll as it may. :)
 
miroslav said:
Yes, I beleive that iTunes does control final levels of their music offerings.

The problem with someone recording an album and as part of their production, trying to conisder all the diiferent ways it can be listened to....is that there's no one answer.

I think at some point you just record the album YOU want to record, and let it roll as it may. :)
Click to expand...

I totally agree, but don't tell that to the folks that come in here doing mixes on earbuds for earbuds.
 
I've noticed that CD releases in the 80s tended not to be normalized. All my Beatles CD's (talking the original 1987 editions, not the 09 remasters) are never louder than -2 dB, oftentimes less than that. They could have cranked them up even louder without literally doing anything to do the waveform.

Maybe that was just a limit of the technology. Like, they didn't have DAW's and didn't have a normalize button. Brickwall Limiters didn't come out until 1994. So when they ran the music through the digital interface, they essentially had to guess a level and hoped not to clip, which is why they probably did things a little conservative. Just a thought.
 
The thought probably never occured to them.
Those early CDs were basic transfers from tape, so they were most likely simply following analog recrording/mastering practices....which focused on headroom and dynamics, etc.
 
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