The Loudness War: Give It Up!

I am professional music producer since nearly 20 years (mostly thrash/ black/ death / doom / heavy metal, some metalcore stuff in the past, punk, rock) and to me it is much more important that the artist is satisfied at first, not the label or distributor.
When I do a mastering, the band will decide if they want a full dynamic range mastering (expecially for vinyl or a more relaxed or "old-school" CD representation) or a loud one (for modern CD). I also work for some labels who share my opinion that I prefer to master the sound slightly lower in volume, compared to modern pop or rock music to keep the dynamics and, of course, the quality of the sound itself intact. I don't care about a label that want to tell me that the CD mastering must be brickwalled to death, if the artist don't want it. When I sent the final master (approved by the band) for pressing, the label has to guarantee that my master will be on CD without any additional work. Most time I send the final imagefile directly to the pressing plant.
Music is ART and the ARTist is responsible to present his product as it was meant to be...the label is just responsible for distribution, promotion and paying the studio bill...this is what I think about it and how I do my work.

 

Respectfully disagree. And my specific problem is with the use of the word "purported"; it is, doubtlessly, a trend, if not close to an industry-standard practice (save the relatively small group of labels and specific audio engineers who buck this "trend").

Further, i'm primarily viewing this from the perspective of what is being done to older recordings, from the 50's-80's, with new digital remasterings when the juicing and goosing alters the original EQ and destroys the dynamics present in the original recordings. I realize that the general loudness and/or brickwalling are the dominant trend for new contemporary recordings, and fortunately, that doesn't directly concern me very much. Visiting this process on music that i do have decades-old affection for, and drastically altering the sound quality from the way it was originally created, does concern me.

To keep this brief and to the point as much as possible, so if all throughout history Rock music people have been trying to make their recordings as loud as possible, let's give some credit to those original recordings (and those who mixed and engineered them), that back then, they got them as loud as they wanted, and as good-sounding as they thought possible. I don't fully agree with your second sentence if i understand it properly, sort of inferring that had those people had the ability to make the music from then sound like new music does now (in terms of extreme loudness and massive compression over any dynamics), that they would have done so. It would seem to me that, since the ability to add compression to recordings (which of course they did do, but mostly in degrees which still showed some respect to dynamics) was present in the analog age, that had those folks wanted to mix and master the music to sound as it does now, they could have. Their ears knew better.

But back to the main point, "purported" was complete BS, and even "trend" alone, is a stretch; "industry dictate" might be more accurate.

 

Problem is some people's perception of harsh, congested and distorted mixes are different than others. Some feel almost everything that is produced now is like this and I think those people are the people he is referring to here. I run into many that feel that all new music is "crushed" and this just isn't the case.

 

They didn't have the tools to make the music as loud as it is today even 20 years ago and my point was that almost every engineer of Rock music had a similar goal and that was to make the music as loud as they could without destroying the sound. Now you can argue the definition of destroying the sound but the basic fact remains the same. If they had these tools back in the 60s, 70s or 80s they would have used them the same way as they do now for better or worse.

 

Agreed. I'd even say some newer or newly-remastered stuff sounds better in my car than my rips of 1980's CD's, because it's punchier and more alive. To me the fault line is where you hear the same distortion over multiple instruments, digital clipping (which I wouldn't choose as an aesthetic), not being able to separate guitar from bass, or bass that seems to waver in and out of the mix. Those are the worst, and to me only represent a smallish portion of new productions. Not necessarily new bands. I'm looking at you, Van Halen's A Different Kind of Truth.

 

Okay, you hit the bullseye "as loud as they could without destroying the sound", and even more so with the subjective definition of when sound has been destroyed (or even diminished), and that is where my ears have definite parameters, just as yours and everyone elses do. I know well that many folks do like and prefer the meaty punchy full-on aural assault that brickwalled mastering offers, and i respect that completely. I don't want to change anyone elses mind anymore than i'd want mine to be changed.

Still disagree here; i think that it's an impossible assumption for anyone to make. Maybe some would have; a majority, a minority, c'mon, who can truly say?

 

We're dealing in semantics here. I believe most would have used them but not all.

 

True, and on that note, i'll play my Semantics cd tonight, and it is brickwalled, wouldn't ya know!

Truth is, i do own far more brickwalled (or close) cds than i'd like. With some of my favorite music, sadly, it's the only way to get it.

 

I pretty much gave up on new music (other than releases with dynamics intact a la Tom Petty's Hypnotic Eye 24/48) & vast majority of remasters (except audiophile quality ones from AF, AP & likes, flat-transfer Pt/non-Pt SHM-CDs, "unlimited" Hi-Rez downloads, etc.). Case closed...

 

Just read the article and haven't read the response from you guys, and excuse me, but what a fool. Yes subtle compression can be a good thing adding a bit of muscle to a recording, but to argue Rubins later work sound good is an insult to music itself!! Badly compressed recordings kills the music. Music is all about dynamics, take away the dynamics you take away the pulse of the music. The loudness war recordings are without any doubt the worst thing that has happened in the world of recording the past, say sixty years. Depressing reading coming from someone who's supposed to be in the know. So sad.

 

Just read the article. I think there is a huge difference between lightly applying a technique (or using it as needed) and destroying a recording with clipping and distortion. Sorry....audible distortion IMO is nothing shy of defective product.

 

You are the exact type of person he was writing this article to. The Loudness wars have been happening for the last sixty years. They have just figured out more ways to make the recordings louder over the years. I personally don't see it as an issue for say 80% of the new music out there. Now the other 20% that is a different issue.

 

True but I only notice that in maybe 20% of the new music/remasters tops.

 

Perhaps. For example....in my 1500+ cd collection I can instantly think of about 5 that have gross distortion all over it.

 

Most new music IS crushed, on CD anyway. The exceptions are few.
A DR value lower than 9 is just tiring to listen to for me, especially with headphones.
99% of new CDs have a DR lower than 9 (not counting remasters of older recordings).

Many releases are even in the DR 5-6 range which is an attack on my ears and my brain cells.

 

Yep mine is probably a similar percentage which is less than 1% of my collection.

 

I know very well compression is not a new thing. But it's being used to the point where there is virtually no dynamics left in some recordings. And if I'm the type of person the article is written for I should think it's only fitting I respond to it. And I'm not giving up. I shall continue to research which recordings are badly compressed and totally avoid them.

 

The sad thing is that I really dig a lot of music from the last 15 years, e.g. I love a couple of the best albums by Muse but it is impossible for me to listen to them from start to finish with headphones at decent volume, it literally gives me a headache.

 

Interesting - that is how I imagined the process.

Also my imagination (I wonder if they bear any relationship to reality):

After creating the music, many artists are not interested in even being in on the mixing stage.

After the mixing stage, most artists are not interested in listing to their own music.

 

Another great example. The HD Tracks release of "2nd Law" was a nice reprieve from the "purported" Loudness War. But what about the great albums before that? No way to listen to them with good sound. There are some fantastic songs there, and tracks like "United States of Eurasia" seem taylor made to exist in a form where dynamics are part of the music. But its not allowed to. So sad.

 

Well radio stations back in the 60s frequently made the records louder.

 

Your point is very well taken. Obviously Stereophile is speaking for the engineers and masterers and labels who feel that dynamic compression is what the market is demanding or at least what works best on sonically compromised mobile devices. It is no different than Michael Fremer defending Bob Ludwig's 96/24 upsampling of MP3 material on Beck's latest album in a bid to call it hi-rez. Sure some material can have more dynamic compression and not destroy musical values. At the low end of the loudness scale we could cite the harpsichord, which has limited dynamic range . Some metal and thrash music is more uniformly loud. However, just RECORD them playing loud. If it is loud you don't need to monkey with it in Pro Tools or whatever.

 

Fortunately for me, I've been preparing for this since the 80s by conditioning myself to enjoy classical music. When the loudness wars hit I can retreat into my survivalist shelter and listen to my classical music recordings.

But now I find out that I also will need to learn to appreciate the Rudy van Gelder jazz recordings too as part of a survivalist plan against the loudness wars? I haven't trained for that yet. I'm not conditioned. It's not that I don't like jazz. It's just that the RVG jazz recordings aren't the most ideal recordings for headphone listening. I'm a headphone listener. I'm unprepared to attempt survival on RVG rations.

 

Sadly, recorded metal hasn't been like this since probably the 80s. Nothing is "recorded" anymore, really. It's "tracked" piecemeal, then manipulated and assembled in the DAW. That's what modern music is - assembled. Engineers would say that you simply can't "record" electric guitar-based music (especially metal) because of the volume and frequencies involved... personally I think our modern obsession with clarity and perfection has resulted in this. This is where commerce interferes - artists and everyone down the line is afraid to release something that has any imperfections. I've heard plenty of metal demos, dudes playing together in a room, that sound great - but, then, to many, many pros, musicians included, this kind of sound (real people playing together in a space) is not what constitutes "good sound". Mic bleed! Oh, the horror!

 

Analog radio in general compresses music, and I suppose adding more compression to an album would make it sound more like it did back in the day on the radio, but doesn't seem like a great argument for over-compressing recordings...