Loudness wars 'over' ?

browellm

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Would be great, but I think he's way too optimistic. DRC was in full swing for years before iTunes was a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye. Although it's an important music service, I don't think that's going to stop mastering engineers doing what they've been doing for 20 years.

 

SergeAuckland

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I'm rather in agreement with Mark above. FM radio has been processed for very many years, and heavily already-compressed recordings sound worse than uncompressed recordings which the FM station compress for broadcast. That hasn't stopped record companies compressing CDs excessively. Only if Apple Radio becomes the de-facto standard for music distribution will it have any effect on recording companies now that CD release, especially for 'pop' music becomes a minority format.

S

S

 

Dale Smith

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Hi.

I thinks it's over, given that fact that we can't get any louder,and as Vinyl is increasing in popularity again, we will maybe see more sympathetic mastering.

I guess the problem is, until its recognised that this is a real issue that will directly impact on record sales, there will always be a record company representative present when music is mixed and mastered to ensure the bands new album is as loud as everything else on the market.

Only the chosen few bands will be able to make that decision for themselves. Its a shame because it would only take one big record company to make the leap, master albums with greater dynamic range, and the rest would be safe to follow.

In my mind it lyes completely in the record companies hands.

 

SergeAuckland

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Hi.I thinks it's over, given that fact that we can't get any louder,and as Vinyl is increasing in popularity again, we will maybe see more sympathetic mastering.

I guess the problem is, until its recognised that this is a real issue that will directly impact on record sales, there will always be a record company representative present when music is mixed and mastered to ensure the bands new album is as loud as everything else on the market.

Only the chosen few bands will be able to make that decision for themselves. Its a shame because it would only take one big record company to make the leap, master albums with greater dynamic range, and the rest would be safe to follow.

In my mind it lyes completely in the record companies hands.
Completely agree with that last sentence. Many years ago, when this whole loudness nonsense started, it was explained to me that Record Companies were responding to their Focus Groups' comments that CDs didn't sound like they heard then on the radio. By then FM radio was heavily compressed, so a recording played on-air sounded a lot meatier than the original CD and a lot of kids complained they weren't getting what they heard on the radio. In the mid '90s, FM radio was still the main way people heard new music.

So, increasing amounts of compression started being applied, even to the point of using an Optimod or Omnia as a mastering processor so what was on the CD was effectively processed as if it were on the radio. Of course this then meant that when that already processed CD was played over the air, it would be doubly processed, but nobody seemed to care by that point, and anyway, an Optimod or Omnia, faced with an already processed CD won't do a lot with dynamics, it will just mess with the frequency balance, usually adding (even) more bass and sharpening up treble.

If now we're regaining a little sanity, that must be a Good Thing, but I have little doubt that, as you said above, if one record company exec wants his artists to sound louder than anyone else, then there won't be an end to it.

About 10 years ago, the situation amongst Commercial FM stations in Paris got very silly with all stations being ludicrously loud, and sounding terrible with it. The regulator managed to persuade all the main stations to turn the processing down to something reasonable for 24 hours. The Stations' management universally agreed that their stations sounded a lot better for it, but within a week or so they were all back to 11 as no-one wanted to be less loud than their competitors. Ho-hum.

S.

 

The Count

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I was watching a TV programme on music technology in the middle of the night recently. Several times 'compression' was mentioned as being used as an effect. One music producer said that he used compression to improve the sound :doh:

 

SergeAuckland

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I was watching a TV programme on music technology in the middle of the night recently. Several times 'compression' was mentioned as being used as an effect. One music producer said that he used compression to improve the sound :doh:
It can do. I do regular recordings of live acoustic bands, and the recordings are always done mixed straight to stereo with no compression and mostly no EQ. In some cases, the resulting recording sounds a bit thin, and passing the mix through a classic soft-knee compressor improves the sound considerably.

S

 

The Count

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It can do. I do regular recordings of live acoustic bands, and the recordings are always done mixed straight to stereo with no compression and mostly no EQ. In some cases, the resulting recording sounds a bit thin, and passing the mix through a classic soft-knee compressor improves the sound considerably. S
It was on an Ellie Goulding track. She may well have been a bit thin :geek:

 

Dale Smith

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Compression is vital in pretty much all mixing / mastering situations. No matter which music you listen to, it will have compression on the individual instruments, and on the mix as a whole. And thats not a problem.

There is no way a CD / record and an average stereo ( not many of those around here ) can reproduce the dynamic range of a live performance, and most people also wouldn't want to listen to music at a volume level high enough.

Compression helps bring out the finer details of an instrument or a mix, which means that we can listen at a reasonable level and still get the full picture.

 

SergeAuckland

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Compression is vital in pretty much all mixing / mastering situations. No matter which music you listen to, it will have compression on the individual instruments, and on the mix as a whole. And thats not a problem. There is no way a CD / record and an average stereo ( not many of those around here ) can reproduce the dynamic range of a live performance, and most people also wouldn't want to listen to music at a volume level high enough.

Compression helps bring out the finer details of an instrument or a mix, which means that we can listen at a reasonable level and still get the full picture.
I agree that compression is necessary for home reproduction. A professional recording chain (microphones, mic amps, mixers, ADC) will have something around a 90dB dynamic range leaving some headroom, so that's not the bottleneck, that comes at home where even 60dB can be a challenge between ambient noise and peak levels acceptable to neighbours. BBC Radio 3 used to mix to something like a 20dB dynamic range long term (over several seconds) allowing parts to go naturally quiet provided it wasn't for too long, as people would switch off if they couldn't hear it. Several minutes of ppp and people just switch off.

Chamber music (especially of the baroque era) generally fares better as it's designed to be played in domestic surroundings and doesn't have the huge swings in dynamics of symphonic music which was meant for the concert hall. This to my ears reproduces the most naturally as the dynamics of the perfomance can be left pretty much unsullied on a CD.

S.

 

Dale Smith

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I think this is why HiFi people are surprised when they hear good Studio Monitors ( like the highly acclaimed Event Opals ). They're designed to reproduce huge dynamic swings, by definition they tend to reproduce very faithfully and they tend to have good waterfall plots. I know thats not the only spec for good speakers, but it is often an eye opener when compared to similarly priced HiFi speaker / amp combinations.

Chamber, like simple acoustic folk music does indeed lend itself to easy reproduction and is easier to get sounding natural if you get what I mean.

 

Tenson

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Can't read all this right now, but I'm happy to read that article! I don't think it is 'over' but it is a big move in the right direction. I think Spotify is going to become the major distributor of music along side iTunes and both of these have volume regulation. It is just a case of the engineers across the world making changes to their recording habits now. In fact I already feel recordings over the last 2-3 years are better than those before. We are over the mountain and starting down the other side!

 

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