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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 11, 2018 18:24:01 GMT -6
thread.
I just referenced a major label release for this pop country chick...and when I pulled it into ozone, the waveform looked like a solid bar. I go in and look and it's -5.8 LUFS at the peak. Holy shit. It's hard to sell a client that knows nothing about this on the ills of that. All they know is - Why ain't my shit as loud as their shit...?
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Post by EmRR on Apr 11, 2018 18:34:26 GMT -6
The worst.
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Post by matt on Apr 11, 2018 19:00:11 GMT -6
thread. I just referenced a major label release It's no secret, who is the artist, and what song? I'm getting ready to start releasing my band's music and am very interested in doing some cross-genre loudness comparison. |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Apr 11, 2018 22:14:51 GMT -6
thread. I just referenced a major label release for this pop country chick...and when I pulled it into ozone, the waveform looked like a solid bar. I go in and look and it's -5.8 LUFS at the peak. Holy shit. It's hard to sell a client that knows nothing about this on the ills of that. All they know is - Why ain't my shit as loud as their shit...? The unfortunate answer to that question: because if we get much louder it’s just going to be one giant square wave that nobody can hear but eats speakers, to think we used to call them songs!😪 |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2018 3:45:11 GMT -6
I hate this. It's basically just bigger dick syndrome, sound quality be damned. I just did a 21 track Chillout/Downtempo compilation where the label owner wanted sound quality above loudness, and left it all in my hands. I've mastered it so that the loudest sections of each track are somewhere around -14.5 LUFS Integrated. It sounds fantastic, lives and breathes, client and artists are happy, so am I.  |
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Post by allbuttonmode on Apr 12, 2018 5:57:18 GMT -6
I attended a talk by a well known producer/mixer, where the loudness problem was addressed. (His mixes are notoriously loud)
He flat out said he won't change his approach anytime soon. From what I gathered, he doesn't seem to understand the issue at all. He went as far as to say that in, say Spotify (in any of the streaming qualities offered there), he could not hear any significant difference between his tracks and tracks mixed/mastered to -14 LUFS.
To me, that's just insane.
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Post by adamjbrass on Apr 12, 2018 6:24:29 GMT -6
We will forever remember these times as the "knobless volume" age of mankind. When all men and women could not be bothred to control the volume knob. A 5 db difference between low and high peak is very loud. We're so competivite, we forgot there is a knob.
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Post by svart on Apr 12, 2018 6:48:40 GMT -6
If people are buying it that must mean they like it.. so why not do it?
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Apr 12, 2018 7:33:13 GMT -6
We will forever remember these times as the "knobless volume" age of mankind. When all men and women could not be bothred to control the volume knob. A 5 db difference between low and high peak is very loud. We're so competivite, we forgot there is a knob. Adam you forgot the major Nob who chose to compress the life out of it so we no longer need the knob, so it’s all the nobs fault ! |
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Post by viciousbliss on Apr 12, 2018 8:04:53 GMT -6
Are people buying? Sales keep going down and I don't think it's only due to downloading and streaming. The average modern release from say 2000-present isn't going to stand the test of time like many classic rock releases or 80s songs featured on The Goldbergs have. A lot of these bands and producers are just very neurotic and insecure. They love being trendy too, as do many top engineers. I've seen so many engineers either at the purple place or in their youtube videos not only normalize all this insanity, but seemingly brag about how loud they get things. I just did a contest on recording.de and was very puzzled at the mixes that got voted to the top. It seemed that the ones where every element was loudest got the most votes. I didn't think many were good at all. They normalized all the volume levels, but you could still tell when the intent was to make every part of the mix as loud as possible. The majority of the mixes were like that, it just seemed like the ones at the top were loud and somewhat proficient and the others were loud with glaring flaws. My mix seemed kinda out of place. The sample mixes done by the band and one of the judges both emphasized loudness too. If I recall, the one synth part pretty much got lost in a lot of the mixes, even the band's. These weren't great-sounding tracks either.
The loudness doesn't do any favors for not so pristine recordings as I understand it. It helps to reveal more of the flaws. They've always talked about waveforms on the Steve Hoffman forums, but that's only part of the story. There's some brickwall looking waveforms on stuff I've seen from 93 or 94. But it sounds 10x better than more modern brickwalls. The average person I don't think cares much unless it's really obvious. I doubt the average music fan in 1991 was thinking "you know what would get me to buy more cds, brickwalled mastering". Maybe they think the loudness appeals to hyper teenagers. Mostly I think these people live in their own bubbles.
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Post by adamjbrass on Apr 12, 2018 8:08:55 GMT -6
We will forever remember these times as the "knobless volume" age of mankind. When all men and women could not be bothred to control the volume knob. A 5 db difference between low and high peak is very loud. We're so competivite, we forgot there is a knob. Adam you forgot the major Nob who chose to compress the life out of it so we no longer need the knob, so it’s all the nobs fault ! "If you can't figure out how to move a knob, just turn your head, because you ARE a knob!" -Tomasz Scull |
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Post by jazznoise on Apr 12, 2018 9:12:31 GMT -6
If people are buying it that must mean they like it.. so why not do it? Sonic Reducer or Sonic Reductionist? Gonna take it as Devils advocate and bite. How do you know what you like if you don't even know what it is? |
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Apr 12, 2018 9:13:30 GMT -6
The thing about distortion is that you don't want to listen for very long, much less often enough to consider buying a copy. The thing about too much tuning and quantizing is that you feel your lungs choking up if you try to sing along. This is so utterly basic to making records that people want to buy that it's ridiculous. It's not fashion, it's competence!
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Post by svart on Apr 12, 2018 9:39:14 GMT -6
If people are buying it that must mean they like it.. so why not do it? Sonic Reducer or Sonic Reductionist? Gonna take it as Devils advocate and bite. How do you know what you like if you don't even know what it is? You either like something or you don't! The old guard of music labels could tell if a song was going to work by listening to the first 10-30 seconds of the song. You think they cared if it was a few dB louder? Nah, they wanted to be hooked by the songwriting. The average listeners don't listen to sonics, they listen to songs. I think as mixing and audio professionals, we tend to forget that the mix/master adds to the impact of a song, but is not the song. |
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Post by jimwilliams on Apr 12, 2018 9:41:37 GMT -6
If people are buying it that must mean they like it.. so why not do it? Killing off the record biz should have been warning enough. Now these producers want to kill off the rest of your musical enjoyment. 20 years of mass compression ought to be enough, it has been for me.
Seems it's institutionalized now. Fashions eventually change, this has not. I recall asking folks in line at the old record store how they liked the sonics of the new releases. I got an earful every time. "Why does this music sound so irritating" was a common response.
They are no longer in line buying music. It's all free now because that's all it's worth.
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Post by svart on Apr 12, 2018 9:54:25 GMT -6
If people are buying it that must mean they like it.. so why not do it? Killing off the record biz should have been warning enough. Now these producers want to kill off the rest of your musical enjoyment. 20 years of mass compression ought to be enough, it has been for me.
Seems it's institutionalized now. Fashions eventually change, this has not. I recall asking folks in line at the old record store how they liked the sonics of the new releases. I got an earful every time. "Why does this music sound so irritating" was a common response.
They are no longer in line buying music. It's all free now because that's all it's worth.
How does the line go...? Oh yeah, "If it's too loud, you're too old".. |
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Apr 12, 2018 10:08:02 GMT -6
At this point, all we have left is the songwriting but performance and arrangement used to be able to "hook" people too even when the song wasn't all that great.
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Post by keymod on Apr 12, 2018 10:20:40 GMT -6
Killing off the record biz should have been warning enough. Now these producers want to kill off the rest of your musical enjoyment. 20 years of mass compression ought to be enough, it has been for me.
Seems it's institutionalized now. Fashions eventually change, this has not. I recall asking folks in line at the old record store how they liked the sonics of the new releases. I got an earful every time. "Why does this music sound so irritating" was a common response.
They are no longer in line buying music. It's all free now because that's all it's worth.
How does the line go...? Oh yeah, "If it's too loud, you're too old".. I have to disagree Svart. I like loud but I don't like feeling that I'm listening to a chainsaw instead of music. I don't even like to listen to the classic rock stations on the radio anymore for more than a very short time because they broadcast digitally remastered versions that are all way too loud. |
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Post by svart on Apr 12, 2018 10:30:43 GMT -6
How does the line go...? Oh yeah, "If it's too loud, you're too old".. I have to disagree Svart. I like loud but I don't like feeling that I'm listening to a chainsaw instead of music. I don't even like to listen to the classic rock stations on the radio anymore for more than a very short time because they broadcast digitally remastered versions that are all way too loud. That's ok. I don't hear the "chainsaw" at all that you guys are talking about. In fact I think older recordings sound incredibly dull and without energy. |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Apr 12, 2018 10:56:40 GMT -6
At this point, all we have left is the songwriting but performance and arrangement used to be able to "hook" people too even when the song wasn't all that great. And performers, consider how many are self taught from recordings they hear, so many lack an understanding of dynamics and dynamics control. So many try to sound compressed! Hey |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Apr 12, 2018 11:04:51 GMT -6
I mastered my recent tracks using Aria. I chose type D, which is the second lowest in volume, but quite a significant leap from the unmastered final. When I compared the volume of my track against another on youtube, it was annoyingly lower, not by tons, but enough to be noticed. I don't plan to change it. So I can understand how we got here, but don't see a way out yet.
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Post by EmRR on Apr 12, 2018 11:28:18 GMT -6
I have to disagree Svart. I like loud but I don't like feeling that I'm listening to a chainsaw instead of music. I don't even like to listen to the classic rock stations on the radio anymore for more than a very short time because they broadcast digitally remastered versions that are all way too loud. That's ok. I don't hear the "chainsaw" at all that you guys are talking about. In fact I think older recordings sound incredibly dull and without energy. It's the knob labeled 'Volume'. Turn it up more. That is, unless your (generic, not YOU) system doesn't have the gain necessary.....which many now don't....they rely on the dynamic range being crammed to achieve listenable levels. Modern speakers (if anyone uses them) have such over damped low sensitivity they hardly reveal real dynamics anymore....put those chainsaws on truly dynamic speakers and they are excruciating....they clearly sound flatlined. ......it's all about what people are used to, and whether they've ever had a chance to hear the difference. A lot of these loud records sound like a rotting corpse festering in the sun, about to burst and spray all bystanders, even at very low levels. They sound 'too loud' at very low volumes. They all sound like a commercial.....which the Reagan administration approved could be louder than the programs people were watching....for the first time in broadcast history...... |
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Post by happychap on Apr 12, 2018 11:28:59 GMT -6
And despite the reality that FM radio stations use both compression and expansion, if your track is not reasonably 'loud,' you will be embarrassed when it comes on the radio. Not that I have first hand experience  ... |
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Apr 12, 2018 11:37:31 GMT -6
And despite the reality that FM radio stations use both compression and expansion, if your track is not reasonably 'loud,' you will be embarrassed when it comes on the radio. Not that I have first hand experience ... That actually is not true at all. The only place loudness has ever counted is in a programming meeting. |
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Post by svart on Apr 12, 2018 11:50:40 GMT -6
That's ok. I don't hear the "chainsaw" at all that you guys are talking about. In fact I think older recordings sound incredibly dull and without energy. It's the knob labeled 'Volume'. Turn it up more. That is, unless your (generic, not YOU) system doesn't have the gain necessary.....which many now don't....they rely on the dynamic range being crammed to achieve listenable levels. Modern speakers (if anyone uses them) have such over damped low sensitivity they hardly reveal real dynamics anymore....put those chainsaws on truly dynamic speakers and they are excruciating....they clearly sound flatlined. ......it's all about what people are used to, and whether they've ever had a chance to hear the difference. A lot of these loud records sound like a rotting corpse festering in the sun, about to burst and spray all bystanders, even at very low levels. They sound 'too loud' at very low volumes. They all sound like a commercial.....which the Reagan administration approved could be louder than the programs people were watching....for the first time in broadcast history...... But I like how these things sound before I turn it up. I like the punch, the energy and the clarity at all times. And I turn it up as well. Every time one of these threads pops up, we get dogpiles of folks patting each other on the back for being on the "right" side of the argument, and maybe a few of us looking up at you (generic, not YOU) on your soapboxes and say to you "but what you're arguing is about TASTE, not facts" to which we're then subjected to quips about "volume" knobs and other assorted insinuations that there's a simple solution, to go back to the good old days of soft recordings for delicate ears and the rest of us on the "wrong" side of the argument can just make due by some means, like using the volume knob. Sorry guys, I say that times have moved on, loudness is what music is today, and hoping for a grand return to your favorite times and experiences isn't likely to happen. |
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