Hi-Res Download News (HDTracks, ProStudioMasters, Pono, etc.) & Software/Mastering Part 12**

I got the new Marillion from the PledgeMusic campaign - It's DR-9 (Album details - Dynamic Range Database »). From a brief listen I like the music but am disappointed by the lack of dynamics.

 

Bowie's back.

 

Any one got the Radiohead releases and can report?

 

Thanks for the info. I have not purchased it yet. Was debating on which format to get it on.

Pat

 

I find it disappointing that Ascension has been split up as if it was a vinyl release, however it is great that both takes are included. The non live albums are Crescent, Ascension, Coltrane Quartet Plays, Coltrane (AS-21), Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, and parts of Impressions.

Now please remaster the Complete Live at the Village Vanguard without the compression on the CD box

 

The DR can be easily measured with widely available software. No need to "separate" it from changes in frequency balance.

My point was that changes in dynamic range should not really be directly related to changes in frequency balance. They are due to dynamic compression. 3dB is 3dB no matter what frequency is being measured.

 

But has often been posted here, and which one can easily demonstrate for oneself, an EQ boost or cut often affects the DR meter value.

 

I can see how altering the EQ may indirectly result in a change in dynamic range. But it won't have near the effect of actual dynamic compression.

 

I took a track ("Nuclear Burn", the first track off of the album Unorthodox Behavior by Brand X, using the mastering found in the 'Nuclear Burn' compilation) and applied different simple 'Quick EQ' settings to it in Audition, and then checked each version with the TT Dynamic Range Meter (the 'DR Meter') that anyone can download from dr.loudness site.

The Audition presets are called 'Bass Boost', 'Flat' (which applies no EQ), "Old Time Radio', 'Loudness', 'Treble Boost'.. 'Quick EQ' is described in help as " an 8‑band graphic equalizer that you can easily customize to suit many filtering needs. Unlike a standard graphic equalizer, settings for the individual frequency bands interact with nearby frequencies. For example, significantly boosting the level of the highest 22 kHz frequency band moderately boosts the level of lower frequencies. This behavior helps you to quickly and easily enhance audio tone." Each preset was applied to the whole track, both channels.

In each case, if applying the EQ preset resulted in peaks that were 'over', I then normalized the track peak level to -0.5dB and rechecked (this never changed the DR value)

Result: While the DR value of the unaltered track was 12, DR values after applying different 'Quick EQ' presets ranged from 8 to 13.

Code:

-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:     -0.82 dB   ---    -0.20 dB
Avg RMS:       -15.39 dB   ---   -15.49 dB
DR channel:     11.68 dB   ---    12.12 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR12
===============================================


-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_flat.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:     -0.82 dB   ---    -0.20 dB
Avg RMS:       -15.39 dB   ---   -15.49 dB
DR channel:     11.68 dB   ---    12.12 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR12
===============================================


-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_bassboost.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:     -0.62 dB   ---    -0.13 dB
Avg RMS:       -13.52 dB   ---   -13.79 dB
DR channel:      9.71 dB   ---    10.22 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR10
===============================================


-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_loudness.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:      over      ---     over
Avg RMS:       -13.17 dB   ---   -13.37 dB
DR channel:      9.92 dB   ---    10.04 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR10
===============================================


-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    01 - Nuclear Burn_loudness_norm.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:     -0.50 dB   ---    -0.50 dB
Avg RMS:       -13.67 dB   ---   -13.87 dB
DR channel:      9.93 dB   ---    10.05 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR10
===============================================



-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_oldtimeradio.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:      over      ---     over
Avg RMS:       -12.08 dB   ---   -12.07 dB
DR channel:      8.11 dB   ---     8.04 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR8
===============================================



-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_oldtimeradio_norm.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:     -0.50 dB   ---    -0.50 dB
Avg RMS:       -12.58 dB   ---   -12.57 dB
DR channel:      8.12 dB   ---     8.05 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR8
===============================================






-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_trebleboost.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:      over      ---     over
Avg RMS:       -15.81 dB   ---   -15.96 dB
DR channel:     12.94 dB   ---    12.99 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR13
===============================================

-----------------------------------------------
Statistics for:    Nuclear Burn_trebleboost_norm.wav
Number of Samples: 16889124
-----------------------------------------------

                  left              right

Peak value:     -0.50 dB   ---    -0.50 dB
Avg RMS:       -16.31 dB   ---   -16.46 dB
DR channel:     12.95 dB   ---    13.00 dB
-----------------------------------------------

Official DR value:  DR13
===============================================

 

My guess is that EQ doesn't effect the actual DR. It just fools the tools used to measure it. Boosting treble fools the tool into increasing measured DR, boosting bass lowers measured DR. This is exactly what has been posted numerous times. It's great to see a demonstration. It's interesting to see loudness decreases since this should be a boost of both treble and bass. I wonder what oldtimeradio is?

 

You do all realise that the DR figure as implemented here (am assuming you are all using the FB2K plugin) is a pretty terrible gauge of perceived loudness right? From the help file:

And even more so when only whole albums or tracks are measured. I can see it might be somewhat useful in comparing different masterings, but that's about it. Someone needs to make a great offline plugin for FB2K that gives you the integrated BS1770-3 loudness figure in LUFS, which whilst not perfect, is a lot closer to perceived loudness than so called "DR". To get even closer just analyse the different musical sections, instead of the whople track. Can do it easily in RX5 Advanced, but needs to be done by hand.

 

Sure it can affect the actual DR. If the peaks that cause the high DR number were all in a certain frequency range, and EQ reduced that frequency range, the overall DR would be reduced. Opposite would be true if boosting a range led to new higher peaks. Nothing at all surprising about this.

 

I'm totally with Steve Martin on this. DR meter is a simple but useful tool. I don't know for others but I can definitely tell that something like Metallica - Death Magnetic with DR4 would sound a lot worse than I dunno, Megadeth - Youthanasia with DR9. I use DR only to see how loud and squashed the release is in terms of DR meter itself and that's why dr.loudness database is useful for all that. I don't need some special DR calculations in aforementioned LUFS (and I know about them).

 

Same question here. Also the Peal Jam!

It’s so much better to read what someone says about *listening* to a release before I buy it than to read what someone expects it to sound like or what the DR number is.

But that’s just me... cheap and subjective!

 

Interesting. I'd like to see what is being boosted in the "old time radio" setting as this is the only one which results in what I would classify as a significant change. The others are changes in the DR meter of 1 or 2 - I consider those sonically insignificant based on my experience.

I would guess that these EQ settings on that software are far, far more extreme than anything that would be done by a mastering engineer.

 

Yes, 'Old Time Radio' preset is the most drastic, it is for making modern audio sound like *old time radio* after all . It mostly involves large cuts in level ( of 12-15dB) at bands from 86Hz to 1.4 kHz, then a big boost at 3kHz, then large cuts again at 7.4K and 22K. In other words make the audio midrange-heavy at the expense of all other frequencies.

If there's a way to upload images on this thread I'd be glad to post the EQ settings for all presets. The 'boost' and 'loudness' presets aren't nearly as extreme as 'old time', and aren't extreme by normal standards either.

The main point is, though: you can increase 'dynamic range' just by boosting treble. You can decrease 'dynamic range' by boosting bass. And these aren't the only ways to change "DR' that involve no actual use of compression/limiting.

 

Sure. But that involves EXTREME equalization that is pointless to even discuss if we're talking about what may happen in a real studio. No mastering engineer is going to EQ a recording in a matter similar to "old time radio". The EQ they use will obviously be much more subtle and will likely have minimal effect on dynamic range, especially compared to the actual dynamic compression which is all-too-prominent in today's musical landscape.

 

Neil Young (PonoMusic)
PONO Update on our progress towards reopening:



All of our PONO team is in place and working non-stop to get things back to where they need to be to serve you with the best musical experience possible, an alternative to streaming and CDs.

Though it has take longer than we anticipated, until we feel we can deliver the best quality experience to our community, we will not reopen our store.



Quality whether you want it or not.

Neil Young

Phil Baker (PonoMusic)
We'd like nothing better than to have a timeline. I can tell you that our team is working very hard and doing all that is possible. Along the way, as we dig in deeper, we find that there are new tasks to implement that we hadn't expected would fall on our shoulders. That's been the primary impact to our schedule and why it's not possible to provide a timeline.
Ultimately, we are only Pono if what we do provide you allows us to bring you the latest 24-bit content and implement the Pono Promise. Trust us that we are looking out for your best interests and doing all we can to be back as soon as possible.

 

My money is on them going out of business

 

It's become rather tiresome.

 

I hope not, but they do seem to have a rather serious flaw in their business model.

 

I disagree completely. They seem completely committed and delays in complicated software implementations are normal. It sounds like one of the hiccups is being able to get the Pono Promise (which is their key differentiator) implemented properly.

They will, everything will be fine.

 

It really sounds like they have no idea what they are doing. They should fire their CEO .

I do hope they find a way forward however. Not many businesses could survive a shutdown like this.

 

It also appears that they are no longer pursuing a partnership with 7digital, since all mention of them has been taken off the website and was not mentioned in the update.

 

If that's the case they missed one edit