[Closed] The LOUDNESS war

So's you can hear it on your car, so I'm told.

if only to compress it to within an inch of its life

There's your answer. Mastered to be compressed into neat little MP3/AAC low quality packages.

Sad, really.

So's you can hear it on your car, so I'm told.

One of the tracks was on the radio as I drove home last night. I actually wondered if my stereo was broken, as all I could hear was an incoherent mumbling sound.

I blame Guns n Roses.

Axl Rose on the tour bus:

[img] [/img]

There's your answer. Mastered to be compressed into neat little MP3/AAC low quality packages.

Sad, really.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps this album only stands out so much as suffering from compression due to its originally wide dynamic range, but surely it would be easy enough to just master for CD and vinyl, then apply the compression to the MP3/AAC at the same time as compressing the size?

It's been going on since the 90s so I don't think it's anything to do with MP3s and that sort of compression. More it's to do with making stuff always sound loud, so partly so it can compete with all the overly-loud stuff when it's played on the radio.

Interesting reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

That's progress for you...

Have you made sure your speaker cables are the right way round?

Cougar - Member
I blame Guns n Roses.

I wouldn't:

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war ]

By contrast, in late 2008 mastering engineer Bob Ludwig offered three versions of the Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy for approval to co-producers Axl Rose and Caram Costanzo, and they selected the one with the least compression. Ludwig wrote, "I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned."[14] Ludwig feels that the "fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level."[14]

Mastered to be compressed into neat little MP3/AAC low quality packages.

Really?

Really?

Well, it would certainly explain why the CD and LP versions of this particular album both sound like they've been mastered with a 1980s Ford Escort stereo in mind.

I wouldn't:

Yup, fair enough. I was misremembering, I knew they were notable but forgot why.

MP3 will be mastered exactly the same as CD version, but will be compressed going to lossy format from lossless. That has nothing to do with mastering and Loudness war though... You can master as hot for vinyl as you can for a digital format.(Some do and this would sound even worse)

That I can clearly tell the difference from a low quality youtube vid though a laptop's speakers is astounding. And horrifying.

Chicken no longer tastes of chicken.
Digital radio sounds worse than FM.
Most chocolate bars have been altered to taste blander, documentaries have to be presented by a sleb and there are cliffhangers in The Archers.

Everything has been homogenised and yes, dumbed down, because those who decide such things believe we are stupid and because greater mass market appeal aimed at those who crave mediocrity makes money.

Thanks, I feel better now. 😀

Surely your car stereo should be able to adjust the loudness to suit your car, rather than the original recording? Likewise your MP3 player etc.

Surely your car stereo should be able to adjust the loudness to suit your car, rather than the original recording? Likewise your MP3 player etc.

That would require some quite advanced processing, much of which isn't possible in real time (look forward limiting etc).

This is a good article: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm

Crap audio equipment is everywhere, so music is mastered for it.

C'est la vie.

Although in the digital era where the extra storage needed is small, it would be nice if you could choose between a version aimed at ipod users, and people who cared.

Incidentally, this is exactly what TV adverts do, wazz up the loudness to 11 and drop any pretence any dynamics.

That would require some quite advanced processing, much of which isn't possible in real time (look forward limiting etc).

Isn't it? We had compressors in the rack when I used to do sound engineering. Used for the same reason as it is in the car, a singer wispering into a mic isn't audiable in a noisy bar so you use the compressor to limit their range (same as you don't want them overpowering everything else whilst screaming).

I suppose the problem is more likely that you can get one good compressor in a studio, or 30million crap ones in cars. and the car one wont be selective in which parts of the song it compresses.

Although in the digital era where the extra storage needed is small, it would be nice if you could choose between a version aimed at ipod users, and people who cared.

+1, although the purists like their vinyl (or CD's), so the market most likley to buy into it wouldn't buy that format. On the other hand CD's might be the best medium for it now that a lot of people have cars with MP3 players?

I've just dug out [i]Smells Like Teen Spirit[/i] on original vinyl after watching that youtube vid. And he definitely has a point.

Surely your car stereo should be able to adjust the loudness to suit your car, rather than the original recording? Likewise your MP3 player etc.

"Loudness" in this context is a bit misleading. It's not just about the overall track volume/attenuation (which is what you're thinking about)..ie, the volume knob. Rather, it's about how the track is actually mastered, where the full dynamic range of the track is altered so, in essence, the bits that should be "quiet" are actually as loud as the bits that should be (and still are) loud. Hence, lack of dynamic range (the range between quiet and loud bits on a recording). Boils my piss that this is way of things these days, although there are a few standout performers & engineers who are bucking the trend.

and the car one wont be selective in which parts of the song it compresses.

Well, which ever compressor Arcade Fire's Masterer used, it couldn't either 😕

although there are a few standout performers & engineers who are bucking the trend.

Which is why it's all the more perplexing why Arcade Fire aren't one of them.

Compression means two things, doesn't it? 1. Squeeze it into a small file size, and 2. make all the levels near to as loud as each other (radio edit style). The OP is about the latter, whereas the discussion has drifted into the former (further up). You can have the highest quality in raw file size terms, but it could still be compressed for loudness.

Yeah, I guess that's partially my own fault, glenp. Being aware of both, I was a bit taken aback to find that even the LP mastering of an album had the LOUDNESS treatment, rather than being left alone and only the MP3 version suffering this fate.

Which is why it's all the more perplexing why Arcade Fire aren't one of them.

Agreed. I wish everyone in the business was as audio-geeky as [url= http://stevenwilsonhq.com/ ]Steven Wilson[/url].

A compressor has what is called a knee or a threshold, this is used so that any thing that passes the volume the knee is set at wil be compressed or squished, this could be set to 0 or infinity so that everything will be compressed, but generally it is set to only squish or compress the loudest peaks, then the gain can be brought up on everything to fill the same space without clipping, then there are also brickwall limiters.

Well, which ever compressor Arcade Fire's Masterer used, it couldn't either

I think I've just twigged what chiefgrooveguru meant, compressing a song you know (or can have mutiple attempts at live mixing, or doing on a computer) you can set the level for each input so that it's level for a section of the song.

The compressors we used live were probably either just limiters with a curve rather than a definate cut off, or some sort of algorrithm (it's getting louder, turn the level down and averageing that over a period of time). Basicly they let us be lazy if we didn't know the song, but wouldnt be as good as an engineer who knows the music sitting there and doing it manualy.

[edit] beeten to it.

Taking people to see a full orchestra for the first time is always fun.
Not much to match that in terms of dynamics.

Classical radio transmissions are so compressed in comparison.

even the LP mastering of an album had the LOUDNESS treatment

That's fine up to a point, everything needs mastering to an extent and if you can make it brighter and louder without totally killing the dynamics it should be done.

As someone said above it's about competing for 'impact' when played in the radio. There's lots of research showing people think music sounds 'better' if its louder, even by a very small amount, and it will jump out at you more from just being background sound.

Of course if you actually listen carefully in a decent format on reasonable speakers it sounds like crap, but many people don't notice.

There was a big fuss over a RHCP album a few years ago where lots of people said it was almost unlistenable due to excessive compression/limiting.

Compression means two things, doesn't it?

There's audio compression and digital file compression - totally different things.

That would require some quite advanced processing, much of which isn't possible in real time

Yeah but digital music doesn't have to be real time does it? You read a chunk of data, decompress it (from MP3 format) and then play it. You could read the next song in its entirety and take 3 mins to do whatever you feel like whilst the current song is playing.

I tell you what though, I wish they'd compress Radio 4. Listening in the car is a pain in the balls. You have some vocally competent presenter coming over loud and clear having a conversation with some mumbler on the end of a phone - you are either deafened by Sue McGregor or you can only hear one side of the conversation. It's just about the only station where compression wouldn' thave any drawbacks, surely?

There was a big fuss over a RHCP album a few years ago where lots of people said it was almost unlistenable due to excessive compression/limiting.

Beat me to it. I was reading through this thread and Californication sprung to mind. A fundamentally broken recording. By has-beens.

R4's biggest issue would be background music affecting the legibility of speech.
Already an issue, compression makes this much worse.

Digital radio sounds worse than FM.

That should change once analogue TV is finally switched off completely.

It's just about the only station where compression wouldn' thave any drawbacks, surely?

I'm sure they do compress R4 already, but possibly not that much. The trouble with lots of compression on speech is it brings up the level of little mouth noises, lip-smacking, breathing etc. It can sound quite horrible if overdone.

That would require some quite advanced processing, much of which isn't possible in real time (look forward limiting etc).

The original idea with DAB radio was that there would be no compression at source and the playback system would apply compression as needed, for instance in the car but not on the home hifi.

That should change once analogue TV is finally switched off completely.

you're deluding yourself - the BBC have already dropped bitrates on DAB far below their original recommendations for what was acceptable, which I think was 192kb.

Now you only get R3 at that high a rate sometimes - and why should that be - why shouldn't some of the live sessions that the other stations do also be at that high a bit rate - is classical superior to everything FFS?

maybe, just maybe, the album sounds exactly as the artists intended.

stw at its finest 😆

More proof that later posters don't bother to read the preceding thread...

I hate this cack. I've started collecting 'unmastered' versions of albums whenever I find them. The two that spring to mind are Amy Winehouse Back to Black and Metallica's Death Magnetic (ripped from an XBOX game). Absolutely stunning difference in sound quality compared to the real CD.

There was a great video of a lecture posted here about mastering for vinyl which touches on the subject.

BTW anyone with golden ears slagging off MP3/AAC*, let's see your encoder & ABX logs... 🙂

* absolutely nothing to do with dynamic range compression by the way, many encoders (eg NERO AAC) will happily encode 24 bit dynamic range source material.

you're deluding yourself - the BBC have already dropped bitrates on DAB far below their original recommendations for what was acceptable, which I think was 192kb.

Now you only get R3 at that high a rate sometimes - and why should that be - why shouldn't some of the live sessions that the other stations do also be at that high a bit rate - is classical superior to everything FFS?

Perhaps.

The principle is that the DAB frequencies are very cramped for space. Analogue TV takes up, relatively, a massive amount of the available bandwidth. Once this has gone, there should be a lot more room to increase the number of available stations and to improve the quality of them.

Faced with the choice between fewer stations or a drop in quality that the majority of listeners won't notice / are about, it's only ever going to turn out one way.

Whilst we're at it, I would like to question the morality of those in the media production business who compress the sound for TV ads. Hangings too good for 'em!

There is only a market for so many stations though surely?

So why the hell did they employ a monkey who's previous job was possibly to make Nokia ring tones to master the bloody thing?

Wasn't it Thomas Dolby that is responsible for making the Nokia ring tones, and if so, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have mastering the bloody thing 🙂

Screen Kiss is still one of my all time favourite songs.

trailmonkey - Member
maybe, just maybe, the album sounds exactly as the artists intended.
stw at its finest
POSTED 12 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

It's not how they play it live. Indeed, about the only music I've seen performed live with greater dynamic range has been orchestral

So ironically, you're quite right in regard to this being stw at its finest: there's always one poster who shows up and posts crap, clearly not having read much, if any, of the thread's contents

Once this has gone, there should be a lot more room to increase the number of available stations and to improve the quality of them.

but it won't happen - both Sky and the BBC have undertaken experiments to see how far they could drop bitrates on their tv channels before users start to complain - i.e. how far they could get away with.

cable and satellite could carry far higher quality tv and radio feeds than they do as they have more bandwidth, but they don't.

interesting thread, going back to album mastering and what the artists want.... have any of you recorded an album then paid to have it mastered for proper release (as in: into the shops, radio play, national music magazines etc etc, not cd ripping and selling to your mates for a fiver)?

i can appreciate this from a music lovers point of view, but even when getting an album mastered the band does have the scope to ask for dynamics to be left in i..e quiet bits remaining quiet and loud bits loud.

Again. This is what puzzles me with bands like Arcade Fire, who clearly use dynamics as part of their music when played live, but seem quite happy to totally erase that dimension of their creative work when it comes to selling it on a cd, lp, or mp3

but it won't happen - both Sky and the BBC have undertaken experiments to see how far they could drop bitrates on their tv channels before users start to complain - i.e. how far they could get away with.

The cynic in me wondered if the perceived drop in SD quality was to make their HD channels appear more attractive.

The cynic in me wondered if the perceived drop in SD quality was to make their HD channels appear more attractive.

bloody irritating when playing mix stuff on your ipod, you can hardly hear some stuff and other tracks have you diving for the volume as your ear drums begin to bleed !

Do the BBC get a cut of HDTV sales then?

Do the BBC not get any benefit whatsoever from broadcasting in HD then? Seems odd that they'd bother, if so.

's an interesting point, though. I might compare freeview terrestrial BBC SD against Sky-delivered BBC SD at some point, see how they stack up. Cos Sky absolutely do benefit from it, they charge you a tenner a month extra for the HD and 3D package.

bloody irritating when playing mix stuff on your ipod, you can hardly hear some stuff and other tracks have you diving for the volume as your ear drums begin to bleed !

Isn't their a "normalization" function in iTunes to solve this issue?

My Surround Sound thing (which isn't particularly advanced) has a Dynamic Range Compression thing for watching films at night. You can then hear people whispering without deafening the neighbours everytime there is an explosion/car chase/gunshot etc.

It seems to be adaptive and takes a brief moment to adjust. Wouldn't that solve the compression thing or have i misunderstood?

In iTunes its called SoundCheck apparently... http://ipod.about.com/od/itunes/g/soundcheck_def.htm

[i]Isn't their a "normalization" function in iTunes to solve this issue?[/i]

unfortunately it seems to have the habit of making very quiet songs inordinately loud.

That's what it's supposed to do? (-:

The cynic in me wondered if the perceived drop in SD quality was to make their HD channels appear more attractive.

They've dropped the bitrates on their HD channels as well, although they reckon you won't see a difference with the encoders they now use.

Anyway, the pictures are far from stunning, and there's a campaign site dedicated for it:

http://hdcampaign.kk5.org/

Do the BBC not get any benefit whatsoever from broadcasting in HD then? Seems odd that they'd bother, if so.

Because they can? Unlike Sky they don't need to make a profit.

Sky quality is crap anyway (well ours is, but it's through a SCART cable).

Sky quality is crap anyway (well ours is, but it's through a SCART cable).

Have you waggled it? All scary cable related problems can be solved by waggling it

MP3 will be mastered exactly the same as CD version, but will be compressed going to lossy format from lossless. That has nothing to do with mastering and Loudness war though... You can master as hot for vinyl as you can for a digital format.(Some do and this would sound even worse)

Incorrect - I saw an interview with Bjork where she sasy she masters for each format separately - SACD/Vinyl, CD and Compressed audio. I am sure she is not alone.

Still has nothing to do with the loudness wars.

For those interested in this topic, this is a good read:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfecting-Sound-Forever-Story-Recorded/dp/1847081401

So ironically, you're quite right in regard to this being stw at its finest: there's always one poster who shows up and posts crap, clearly not having read much, if any, of the thread's contents

i only read the op as that's all that i needed to form my opinion.

whatever you're doing with your life, you need to become arcade fire's musical director and engineer. 😆

whatever you're doing with your life, you need to become arcade fire's musical director and engineer.

Thing is though, it probably has nowt to do with their musical director or engineer. It will be set off to a specialist mastering house and any decisions will probably be made by record company sales executives.

schrickvr6 - Member
Still has nothing to do with the loudness wars.
POSTED 4 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST

If a decision is made only to compress the mp3 version in terms of dynamic range, it does

i only read the op as that's all that i needed to form my opinion.

Let's hope you're not in a position back in the real world where your opinion matters one iota

I'm not really that into music, and I can tell the difference (and dislike the compressed sound). The thing is, the standard stereo in my base model Ford has a compression function for when you need to make the quiet bits louder due to road noise (it also has auto volume control, which to some extent also negates that need), hence making any compression when the CD is recorded rather unnecessary.

Cody, thanks for posting that, I was just about to, but you beat me to it. A quick google would have helped out on this thread, it would have given some crucial info; I just asked who mastered the album, and got this; (note the forum name)
http://forums.linn.co.uk/bb/showthread.php?tid=7722

Which makes it all the more puzzling, unless they really dislike dynamic range, despite going to the effort of using it in their music.

The dynamic range of pretty much all modern mastered music is abysmal, i realised this quite a few years ago when i finally had the time and money/contacts to start playing about with music production hardware/software, when i run any new music through my software now the dynamic range is minimal : IE the quiet sections are maxed out to the limit and the loud sections are maxed out to the point of audio degradation when played back on decent equipment.

There was a good article last year in [url= http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/articles/loudness.htm ]soundonsound magazine here[/url].

I use a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 usb external soundcard with 24-bit/192kHz sampling, high-end Cirrus Logic AD/DA converters onto KRK active monitors and sub, sounds sublime and crystal clear with my 400gb of various samples and selected 24-bit tunes but play a badly mastered cd or mp3 through it and you'll want to throttle the mastering engineer. I prefer to buy what music i can in 96khz/24bit format, which for my electronic/techno tunes is available if you know where to look, for normal music that is mastered correctly with true dynamic range from the original master tapes i recommend [url= https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php ]HD Tracks[/url] , there is a vast difference in audio quality and please don't ever buy anything from itunes with the comical "mastered for itunes" moniker.

Reading a bit about HDTracks it seems they are a bit funny about selling outside of the US. Is this easy to circumvent?

Well, now currently listening to Fleetwood Mac - Rumours. It appears that there have been many technological steps backwards thanks to the loudness war and compression since 1977. Cymbals and snare crisp and clear, guitars have bite, vocals soaring. Arcade fire should have used whoever mastered this...

Which makes it all the more puzzling, unless they really dislike dynamic range, despite going to the effort of using it in their music.

I bet it was done by the record company, against their wishes. I doubt many bands are savvy enough to ensure when they sign a record deal that they get control over the final mastering.

I'm not really that into music, and I can tell the difference (and dislike the compressed sound). The thing is, the standard stereo in my base model Ford has a compression function for when you need to make the quiet bits louder due to road noise (it also has auto volume control, which to some extent also negates that need), hence making any compression when the CD is recorded rather unnecessary.

Compression will be used in pretty much every recording and it's not necessarily a problem - I doubt there are many vocals in any style of music that don't have some sort of compression applied during recording/mixing. What we're talking about here is excessive compression/limiting applied to the final mixes after recording, usually in a specialist mastering facility.

If you look at the waveforms for some modern dance/pop tracks you can see how unbelievably compressed they are. Rather than seeing numerous peaks and troughs the waveforms are almost a block. It means the higher peaks are all being squashed completely by hard limiting, which as well as reducing dynamic range also introduces nasty compression artefacts that give that compressed sound.

[img] [/img]

Reading a bit about HDTracks it seems they are a bit funny about selling outside of the US. Is this easy to circumvent?

hint - use Paypal 😉

I use a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 usb external soundcard with 24-bit/192kHz sampling, high-end Cirrus Logic AD/DA converters onto KRK active monitors and sub, sounds sublime and crystal clear with my 400gb of various samples and selected 24-bit tunes but play a badly mastered cd or mp3 through it and you'll want to throttle the mastering engineer. I prefer to buy what music i can in 96khz/24bit format, which for my electronic/techno tunes is available if you know where to look, for normal music that is mastered correctly with true dynamic range from the original master tapes i recommend HD Tracks , there is a vast difference in audio quality and please don't ever buy anything from itunes with the comical "mastered for itunes" moniker.

Slight thread hijack....which KRKs do you have, and does the sub make a big improvement? I've got a pair of KRK Rokit G5 but the bass driver on one of them is dead so I'm either just going to replace it with another, or maybe upgrade the pair. I was also thinking of getting a KRK sub to go with it. I really like the KRKs for electronic in particular, wondering if the bigger ones might be worth the upgrade. Cheers!

pedalhead : I've got a pair of the KRK VXT6, a pair of KRK Rokit 5's and a KRK 10s sub, to be perfectly honest there is very little audio difference between the VXT's and the Rokit's, certainly not enough to justify the £400 price difference, although on the VXT's there is more so called "headroom" and definition such as cymbal crashes or hi-hats, i guess you'd call it more snap or urgency to the drive, however they are not a monitor for listening to music for pleasure on as they are so analytical but they are perfect for mixing or buggering about in Ableton for hours trying to perfect that elusive beat.

The sub is a KRK 10s and i wouldn't be without it, the difference it makes is just light and day and i've made myself jump with shock when i've been buggering about late at night with tunes, if i was in your position I'd get a new driver for your Rokit 5's and a KRK 10s sub, my room is approx 13/14ft square and the Rokits and sub are more than capable of filling the room - don't think you need to size up on the monitors to get the perfect sound.

Thanks for the info, I'll follow your advice & stick with the Rokit 5's (and get a sub 😀 ). I only use mine for nearfield listening (I don't do mixing) as I have a small space. They were meant to be a stopgap after I moved house & sold my old system (Sonus Faber, infinite baffle DIY subs etc), but I've been pleasantly surprised with the Rokits, just lacking a bit of bass. Got 'em running balanced from a CI Audio DAC and a Squeezebox & it's a great solution for the price.

Anyway, sorry for the thread hijack folks!

As we appear to have diverted off on an equipment tangent, one of the reasons I posted this was having been very impressed with a Naim Uniti 2 in the new HiFi shop across the road. Until I found out about HDTracks earlier today, I was beginning to wonder what the point was. At least as my Fleetwood Mac experiment demonstrated earlier today, there's some hope if I listen to older recordings.

How glad am I that I just totally love MUSIC and don't know much about or care much about sound quality.

How glad am I that I just totally love MUSIC and don't know much about or care much about sound quality.

Not one bit? Not remotely interested in hearing it as close to how it was intended by the artist? Not at all bothered about loosing a lot of the expression and bite of the music due to compressed dynamic range?

I guess ur bik iz saracin then!