the volume war has been won!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lt. Bob
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
RAMI said:
Hehe...Bob, you kill me man. You need to relax, watch your blood pressure. None of this is really that important.
Click to expand...
dude ..... why do you continue to assume that when I disagree with you that must mean i'm all worked up?
It's insulting.
I'm not worked up at all nor do I really care how anyone else does their music listening.

I just don't agree with you and no ..... I don't think you should change how you do things simply because I disagree with you nor do I care how you do things nor did I make even the slightest suggestion that you should change anything based on what anyone else says.. I was just giving my opinion on the subject ...... that's not ok?

And you're the one that basically said doing it different than you is stupid ..... why do you think that others should do things the way you do?

There's nothing to get over man ..... I don't care how anyone else listens or really , whether they live or die. :D
I certainly don't give a shit about people having different opinions about things ..... you're the one that always insults me when I dare to disagree with you.
I thought I had the right to have an opinion ..... apparently not.

You've gotten to where if I say anything at ALL you accuse me of being pissed off ...... gets old plus it's ignorant.
 
I am opposed to there being a "standard" that everything must follow. I oppose a homogenized standard approach to anything, and music might be the worst for it. So some sleepy jazz trio recorded live to a two-track is going to have to be "mastered" the same as techno or metal so it can all work on itunes? That should be awesome. :facepalm:
 
What freaks me out here is that there seems to be a panel of "experts" who have chosen to define the parameters of acceptable expression, and to effectively punish those who dare to step outside those bounds.

Just looking at my most recent album (Lorenzo's Tractor - Sunless Port) most of it is mastered pretty conservatively because the pieces wanted a pretty wide dynamic range. However, throughout the run of the album I deliberately manipulated the dynamic range at every stage so that there is (what I felt to be) a natural progression and flow. Some of the songs are busier - and therefore louder - than others. One of the songs devolves into a horrible undulating wall of distortion which purposely pushes up to the wall and sounds like your entire playback system is melting down.

Now, this album is not available on iTunes, and will never be on their streaming radio whatever thing. But I think about the friend of mine who downloads the album from Bandcamp and then loads it through iTunes onto his phone and goes out to play it in his car while taking a nice ride in the woods. If he has been "encouraged" to enable the SoundCheck "feature", then his experience will be quite different to what I intended.
 
Greg_L said:
So some sleepy jazz trio recorded live to a two-track is going to have to be "mastered" the same as techno or metal so it can all work on itunes? That should be awesome. :facepalm:
Click to expand...

Nope...that ain't it.

You can still master however you like...and the Jazz guys can still do their sleepy trio, quiet album....it doesn't have to be made as loud as a Techno album.
All that will happen is that there will be a loudness meter put on the iTunes stuff that will prevent audio from going louder, and that level will still be pretty darn loud. It will be based on "average loudness" of the entire piece, so it takes into account quiet sections too and not just peak loudness.

In case you haven't noticed....loudness standards have been around a long time now. Radio and TV transmissions have followed them going way back, and it's only because of the new digital processes that things got out of control, so now they're simply bringing them back within those standards.
Same thing in many clubs/venues....they've been using SPL meters for a long time now to make sure the bands don't exceed acceptable levels.....but just like radio and TV it hasn't made everyone sound the same, there is still lots of differences in the dynamics of the recordings and performances.

This is what you loudness proponents don't get.....you can still have things as loud as you like for your own listening pleasure, but there has to be some standard for everything to follow and be measured against...and really, audio has like dozens and dozens of "standards" that we all use every day, we just forget about them....so complaining about them is kind of silly, since they don't restrict how you record or play your music at all.
 
Miro has spoken! The authoritative voice of all that is good and reasonable has blessed us with another sermon!
 
ashcat_lt said:
What freaks me out here is that there seems to be a panel of "experts" who have chosen to define the parameters of acceptable expression, and to effectively punish those who dare to step outside those bounds.
Click to expand...

What the heck are you talking about? :D

OK...like what freedoms of "expression" do you think you're going to be punished for?

1. You can still perform & record your music any way you like.
2. You can still master it any way you like.
3. You can still listen to music as LOUD as you like.
4. You can still compress and limit and crush your dynamic range as much as your artistic heart desires.

So how are you going to be "punished" by the iTunes level meter algorithm...???


Greg_L said:
Miro has spoken! The authoritative voice of all that is good and reasonable has blessed us with another sermon!
Click to expand...


No sermon....I just actually read the article instread of jumping to conclusions. :laughings:
 
I'm being punished exactly as I stated in my post. This isn't just a meter or a limiter, it is a normalization program which makes everything that you play through your iTunes sync'd device come out very close to the same average loudness as every other damn thing. It purposely eliminates any difference in "loudness" between the jazz record and the techno record. If I want my album to come across on my friend's iPhone the same way it left my studio, then I am constrained to their version of acceptability, and that's not acceptable.

I could try to warn all of my listeners to turn off SoundCheck, I suppose...
 
ashcat_lt said:
This isn't just a meter or a limiter, it is a normalization program which makes everything that you play through your iTunes sync'd device come out very close to the same average loudness as every other damn thing. It purposely eliminates any difference in "loudness" between the jazz record and the techno record.
Click to expand...

Dude....radio has been doing that for many, many, many years....and yet, you can listen to all kinds of music and it didn't sound the same dynamically or loudness-wise. The only way it would have the same loudness characteristic is if everyone first crushed the crap out of their dynamic range so that it was basically non-existent, and then uploaded to iTunes....which is kinda what's been happening lately.
What this algorithm will do in the long run if it becomes a standard, is actually **restore** the differences in dynamics from a jazz tune to a techno record.

Also...when you upload to SoundCloud, MySpace, YouTube and dozens of other audio file electronic distributors....WTF do you think they do to your WAV files......???

And....when your friend plays your music off of a CD on a stereo, or in the car or on a boom-box or on any of a dozen other player systems....do you REALLY think he's going to hear what you heard in the studio? :D

If you want you friend to hear exactly what you hear, have him come over and sit with you in your studio.
 
Lt. Bob said:
You've gotten to where if I say anything at ALL you accuse me of being pissed off ...... gets old plus it's ignorant.
Click to expand...
It's only the second time we disagree on anything that I can remember, so how can that even be true? . Last time we were even in the same thread, you're the one that accused ME of getting insulted just because you disagreed with me, which I just laughed off. So, let's not exaggerate, because you're being a liar right now. Speaking of ignorant.

In this thread, I told you to get over it because I thought you were getting uptight. But don't make it sound like I do that EVERY TIME we disagree because that's just plain not true, and it would be impossible for it to be true since there is no "EVERY TIME". This is the ONLY time. Maybe you're confusing me with others who have told you to relax, which should tell you something right there.;)

Either way, I apologize if I came off too sarcastic earlier in this thread when I was talking to you. I didn't mean to come off that way. Not with you anyway.

The rest of my posts were awesome though! :)
 
Last edited:
Radio has been normalized forever, and it's a good thing.
When you're out snowboarding, jogging, whatever and your player is in your pocket it is a major PIA to constantly have to fiddle with the unit to turn down songs that all of a sudden start blasting.
The only way to make it better, IMO, would be to make it an option, like in WMP, so you could choose whether or not it were engaged.
 
idon't care about iTunes or ianything.
I've been opposed to Apple proprietryism since the 1st Mac started to FIX documents Macstyle. I didn't mind the 2Cs & Es butafter that blah!
As a result I've not bothered with anything that equired iTombs as an interface even down to removing Quicktime from all computers (along with the fact that Quicktime is rubbish on PCs and causes all sorts of conflict problems probably installed with it to push me towards an apple product).
The real takeaway is the Maccas style Mac music that iTunes buyers generally buy. Mind you a good take away shop in the 70's made the best bugers and chips!
 
I've been using Replaygain for years. Seems like this iTunes function is very similar.

With Replaygain, audio files are scanned for their average loudness levels and the difference with a predetermined level is saved as a metatag. The louder an album or song, the higher the Replaygain value. For instance, a loud song might get a Replaygain value of -10dB, an average song -4dB and a soft song +1dB. These gain values are applied upon playback, making all songs sound equally loud. Replaygain can work on whole albums, making a loud album sound equally loud as a soft song, without changing differences between an album's songs. Lots of audio players support Replaygain. ReplayGain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm kind of a dynamics purist. I'm always looking for CDs and LPs of albums I like with the best sound quality, and to me good dynamics is an important feature of good sound. When compensating loudness differences, a heavily compressed album will almost always sound dull compared to a dynamic album.
I really don't get the point why vocals, guitars, drum et cetera all have to sound equally loud, like music is some exact science with no organic qualities whatsoever. Lots of good sounding music could sound much better with better dynamics. People seem to really underestimate the power of both micro and macro dynamics in music.

If this iTunes feature helps in anyway to get rid of the attitude that every new album and remaster HAS to be compressed a lot, it might be good.
 
I suspect as iTunes goes, so goes the music industry. Could it be their evil ways have done some good for the world? I don't think so. I prefer not living in a "walled garden", protected from any harm; sounds like a really boring way of life to me.
 
Jimmers said:
Could it be their evil ways have done some good for the world? I don't think so.
Click to expand...

I'm not a Mac-head or iStuff user....but what "evil ways" are you referring to? :D
Seems like everyone is in love with the iStuff.


Jimmers said:
I prefer not living in a "walled garden", protected from any harm; sounds like a really boring way of life to me.
Click to expand...

Again, what are you referring to...what "walled garden" is being imposed on anyone, AFA music is concerned...???
 
miroslav said:
I'm not a Mac-head or iStuff user....but what "evil ways" are you referring to? :D
Seems like everyone is in love with the iStuff.




Again, what are you referring to...what "walled garden" is being imposed on anyone, AFA music is concerned...???
Click to expand...
Who the hell cares about any of that??? I want to know why Bob is scared to come back into this thread and explain why he's so paranoid. He accused me of something that can't be proven, because it's not true. Where the hell is Perry Mason when you need him????

I'm joking. I couldn't really give a shit, but this thread has way surpassed it's usefulness. :D



I'm referring to this:
BOB said:
You've gotten to where if I say anything at ALL you accuse me of being pissed off ...... gets old plus it's ignorant.
Click to expand...

ME said:
It's only the second time we disagree on anything that I can remember, so how can that even be true? . Last time we were even in the same thread, you're the one that accused ME of getting insulted just because you disagreed with me, which I just laughed off. So, let's not exaggerate, because you're being a liar right now. Speaking of ignorant.

In this thread, I told you to get over it because I thought you were getting uptight. But don't make it sound like I do that EVERY TIME we disagree because that's just plain not true, and it would be impossible for it to be true since there is no "EVERY TIME". This is the ONLY time. Maybe you're confusing me with others who have told you to relax, which should tell you something right there.

Either way, I apologize if I came off too sarcastic earlier in this thread when I was talking to you. I didn't mean to come off that way. Not with you anyway.

The rest of my posts were awesome though! :)
Click to expand...

Now THAT'S important shit. :D
 
RAMI said:
....but this thread has way surpassed it's usefulness.
Click to expand...

It's like 3-day leftovers....you don't quite want to toss them just yet, but then, you're not sure about eating them all up either....so you open the fridge occasionally and maybe pick at some of the bits-n-pieces from the leftovers, hoping to decide what to do with them.

Does that fried chicken leg still look good.......mmmmmmmmmmm......
 
miroslav said:
It's like 3-day leftovers....you don't quite want to toss them just yet, but then, you're not sure about eating them all up either....so you open the fridge occasionally and maybe pick at some of the bits-n-pieces from the leftovers, hoping to decide what to do with them.

Does that fried chicken leg still look good.......mmmmmmmmmmm......
Click to expand...
Great analogy. Eventually though, the fridge starts really stinking bad and you got to throw that shit out. :)
 
The loudness wars is riding that edge of mush-sounds. Been noticing recordings and the quieter sections sound clear and then the Loud-trick comes in and its like mush noise with bass and drums and everything blurred....like an effect. It was great the first 1000 times.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top