The Loudness War has NOT reduced dynamic range

  • Thread starter Thread starter benage
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benage said:
No problem, I was hoping it would kick off more in here though, there's still time.;)

(By 'Kick off' I meant fight-
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YARGH! Ye scurvy dawg ye.

And it's not only the reduced dynamic range, but there's also the matter of peanut butter in my chocolate. :mad:

Put em up, says I!
 
Dogbreath said:
Put em up, says I!
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Aye, alrighty, but I'm bringing me mates.




glen_4866.jpg
 
Mo Facta said:
I'm afraid it's a lot worse than that. Using the top 4-6 bits would mean the material has got 24 to 36dB of dynamic range since each bit is roughly equal to 6dB of DR. You will be hard pressed to find this in even the most dynamic material. Sadly, most modern pop music has anywhere from 3 to 6 dB of dynamic range, and less! This would mean this music is utilizing only the top bit. And yes, I said BIT. ONE.

Cheers :)
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I figured as much, but since I was speculating about the number of bits used I wanted to keep the estimate conservative. Cripes.
 
Apparently the author doesnt listen to music thats being played theses days.

Besides doesnt this feed into all of the rest of the instantaneous gratification syndrome? No time to really listen or hear things for pleasure any more so lets cram as much information into each millisecond of time available......oh look, an unused bit......fill er up!

I dont need the math to tell me what my ears have already responded to.
 
Digital limiters also have the added advantage of lookahead (which was mentioned earlier), thus giving them *negative* reaction time, if so desired (thus limiting before the sound even passes the threshold). Digital limiters are impossibly faster because of this.
 
miroslav said:
I do believe there have been analog look-ahead detectors that employed some type of millisecond delay circuits to the signal.
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So, a bucket brigade delay? I'm not sure that would be a desirable trade to get look-ahead detection.

miroslav said:
With any look-ahead...yeah, that will obviously be faster as the audio is anticipated.
I was thinking more in terms of the pure compression action without look-ahead detection in either...would analog or digital win???
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I think analog would win a contest if look-ahead were ruled out. The digital processing time to measure the level and decide what to do about it would take some finite amount of time. There's a basic compressor built into one DAW I use that even on the 0ms setting lets sharp transients through, but it's meant more for general use compressing on individual tracks rather than limiting a mix. Another, mastering specific, limiter in the same software behaves differently and lets nothing by the threshold.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
The digital processing time to measure the level and decide what to do about it would take some finite amount of time.
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A sample of a digitized signal is already a numerical value representing an amplitude, so the level is instantaneously known. And we're talking about processors that perform billions of operations per second vs. a signal that has 96,000 some-odd samples per second. There is plenty of time between samples for the algorithm to scale the sample as desired.
 
And I'll kick it off with anyone who tries to change my mind :p
 
bottom line is.....


HOW MANY OF YOUR ARE GETTING YOUR PROJECTS MASTERED AT WELL BELOW THE CURRENT EXTREME?

in other words, money where mouth is?
 
bouldersoundguy said:
There's a basic compressor built into one DAW I use that even on the 0ms setting lets sharp transients through.
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What exactly are transients?

When you say lets them thru, your saying some parts of the sound are not compressed, and others are?

Maybe giving a less wet blanket effect?
 
Transients are extreme peaks that usually occur at the onset (or "attack") of a percussive sound. They're very fast and short - faster than the detector can respond - so they can slip by without being compressed.
 
GONZO-X said:
bottom line is.....


HOW MANY OF YOUR ARE GETTING YOUR PROJECTS MASTERED AT WELL BELOW THE CURRENT EXTREME?

in other words, money where mouth is?
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This thread makes me LOL
As a home recordist, we have complete control of the loudness of our finished product, and a handful of people will listen to it, and no real ability to impact the Loudness wars as an artist
If you are on a label you have almost no control. Unless you are a major superstar who can pretty much release whatever you want however you want it, the label will tell the mastering engineer to squash the living heck out of the mix and millions of people will listen to it (although very few will actually pay for the privilege if "The Industry" is to be believed).
This however says nothing about loudness just that people will buy what they are fed.
Clearly most people are happy to be fed hyper crushed, no dynamic, poor playback quality (MP3 data compressed) music and a flashy looking MP3 player.
Sure a few people are making vinyl releases or 24bit wav releases but most people don't have the playback systems to accommodate these now "Exotic" formats. MP3 players still have quantity of songs stored of stored (even in this age of ultra cheap solid state memory) as a key marketing piece. Quality of playback medium isn't even worth a mention.

So either way make the best music you can. If you are doing it for your own gratification careful use of an L2 or Event Horizon or similar can help your mixes sit a little better better with other commercial mixes on your CD or MP3 player.
If you are recording for a label they will do whatever the heck they want to the finished mix in the mastering process anyway

If you really want to effect the Loudness war you can only really do so as a consumer, the artist doesn't have any power here, the industry will provide what it sees people will pay for. If you want to make a change, stop buying ultra loud MP3s and start buying vinyl and convince everyone you know to do the same. If enough people do this and "The Industry" sees dollar signs then there would be a production shift. Otherwise we have what we have and no one will rock the boat so long as it's easy not to and *some* money is being made
 
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miroslav said:
It's simple...you have a song with soft passages and loud passages. You compress/limit the crap out of it and raise the total average level...the *differences* between soft passages and loud passages disappear. That's the dynamic range.
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+1 there, totally agreed.
Take for instance the hugely popular 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' album, which I guess most people have heard at least some of. Surely you can't say it's got less dynamics than a the majority of modern tracks with the standard brick-wall limiter cranked right up?
 
benage said:
Just read this article from 'Sound on Sound' magazine, thought some may find it interesting, basically saying that actually the loudness war has not reduced the dynamic range of modern music after all, and how it's the same as the 70's.

It may get a bit technical at times (for some), but the basic concepts are graspable for the semi-Layman.

'Dynamic Range' & The Loudness War
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This is one of the worst articles I've ever seen in SOS. IMO the author realizes there's really not much anyone can do to turn the current shit state of music around, so all we can do now is make people feel better about it. Nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking in this article. Most probably it’s the economy and "Shocking" articles like this get attention and sell copy. We all know music that’s squashed to death sounds like shit… we have ears dammit! No one’s “Research” is going to change that.

If you haven’t already, do the music world a favor and join the Pleasurize Music Foundation. I did. ;)

Our Aim | DYNAMIC RANGE | pleasurize music!
 
Beck said:
If you haven’t already, do the music world a favor and join the Pleasurize Music Foundation. I did. ;)

Our Aim | DYNAMIC RANGE | pleasurize music!
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That's all well and good...but you know, there's the AES, and even though most of the pros are involved with the AES, there still hasn't been any turnaround in the loudness norms of commercial releases. It's like everyone talks about it...but no one wants to actually be the one to do it for fear that others will not follow. :D
If the premier audio engineering organization in the world can't make a dent...what's another website going to do?
 
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