SH Spotlight Why the new "LOUDNESS CRAZE" in digital mastering really robs music of life..

Barry,

I am aware that the statement is untrue! But in the 90's when asked "why is this CD so loud?" that is what record companies said as a defense. The thing is there is NO reason! It doesn't make the music sound better, on boom box, radio, in a car, or on a computer. And if they listened to this forum, anyone who actually listens to there music, not just using it as background, people don't like it. So, doesn't even help to SELL the music to people that love it.

Then the only real reason for the record companies to do this fool hearty thing is, that they're trying to get the public's attention, and there going about that the wrong way!

 

You guys are assuming the engineer doesn't know what they're doing. They most certainly do. They are the ones who are being hired to do it. I keep telling you guys to blame the producer, not the engineer.

 

In this debate, I think the argument turns to black and white very quickly (the audiophile minority vs. the common listener who has developed a preference for sound quality.) I think that the gray area is forgotten, the people that care about the music they listen to but haven’t heard anything better YET.
I’d like to share with you a story of a little experiment I did.
One day a group of musician friends got together to do a few songs for a local variety show (none of them are audiophiles). We decided to work up Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping”. The three other guy I was performing with and our assistant for the show (also a musician) heard this song many times and new it well. In fact they were very familiar with the whole album, but I was the only one who owned a copy. So it was my job to copy the song for everyone so they could learn the parts.
So this is when I decided to conduct a silent experiment. I transfer the whole album from vinyl to CDR using the ‘Classic Records’ 45RPM release. There were absolutely no clicks or pops on the transfer that would hint that it was from vinyl. I gave a copy of the whole album to everyone without stating what it was sourced from and waited.
Keep in mind that only one of these guys have a playback system of any merit. The rest have such things as a book-shelf system, iPod, or car stereo to playback on.
Every single person commented on how good this sounded and wondered were I got this copy from. Comments such as “never heard this cd sound like this before”, “it sounds like it was recorded yesterday” and “it just grabs you” were common responses. I will always remember walking in to our restaurant and see my friends jumping around the kitchen sing along with ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’. I was shocked be the response.

I also did a bit of a bonus round on my friend who was the assistant. We were talking about such things as the loudness war and best Led Zeppelin album. Everyone who knows me will soon find out I think ‘Presence’ is the best Zeppelin album ever. So having discovered that this guy never heard that album, I loaned him my CD copy of ‘Presence’ with only the comment that this was the best sounding Zep record as well.
After a day, he called me back while I was at work and was puzzled why I sounded harsh and tiny or something like that. I said it was the way the CD was mastered and that the vinyl was the true representation of this classic. So after work he came over and I spun the original pressing and the classic records reissue. And he stated “I get it know, a high quality source will sound better on any playback system than a bad quality source on that same system. Much like how an 8-track cart sounds compared to a CD”.

AND THAT”S WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT!

 

Gary, you have every right to be mad. And Steve, so do you, on behalf of your profession.

Masterers are to recorded sound what museum or art gallery curators are to paintings. They are the filters through which the great unwashed masses (that would be me and others like me) can experience the art. We ONLY get to see it or hear it through them.

Over-compressing, or applying any other change that moves the final product in any direction other than towards what the artist originally put on tape is like putting a pleasant lavender-coloured piece of glass over the Mona Lisa to make it look better. Even if the curator is right that it does look better (which is highly unlikely) IT ISN'T THE MONA LISA ANYMORE!!! And I, and the rest of the great unwashed, will NEVER get to see the Mona Lisa the way it really is!

The argument that only audiophiles want clean, uncompressed sound is spurious. It's like saying only art afficionados want to see the Mona Lisa unfiltered. The curator's job is to put the painting in the best light possible (literally) so that we can all experience the subtleties, textures and nuances that the artist so painstakingly built into his or her work. Some people will get it; others won't. So be it.

It's the same thing with sound, where it's the masterer who builds the physical context in which the recording is displayed. A masterer who over-compresses (or noise-reduces, or anything else like that) takes away MY ability to hear the "real" recording and discern for myself what's truly great, or not, about a work of art. I might have got it; I might not. So be it.

And that makes me mad, too.

 

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=1825991&postcount=84

(You can thank Google)


Addendum: does anyone else get people complaining "SACD and DVD-A output too low!" ??

 

It's really hard for those "grey area" people to hear quality sound when it's getting harder to find anyone with a quality sound system anymore. Don't say HT, because most people don't even have a proper HT setup, let alone the speakers for it.

 

This is a nice point of view. Unfortunately you are trying to compare art and those that care for it with a business who has left art out of the equation wholesale and measures the interest of an artist solely by the money it can make them next week, as well as serving lowest-common-denominator products and now wonders why it's sales are dwindling. It's not only the dynamics of the music that is left out of those over compressed albums, the feeling is also gone from them as a result.

 

<sarc>
in 5 years, when the war is over, it'll be time for a new set of "proper" remasters. hurrah!!

we get to buy a whole new set of CDs - and this time the dynamic range will be demonstrably better than LPs

</sarc>

 

And, in some cases, the artist may be to blame. There are plenty of artists out there who want their CD "cranked and maxed" because they think it sounds better and/or they believe it's what the public wants to hear.

I would guess that the labels are guilty of it at least as often as the artist. They feel that if their artist is to successfully compete with everyone else's music, it has to be "louder than the other guy."

There are also many D.I.Y. artists who record and sell CDs online and at shows but are not directly affiliated with a label. Some of those artists also have the "need to compete with the majors" attitude. Lately though, I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of independent discs that I've received which sound great! It goes both ways.

I would really like to see a reverse trend in the "loudness craze" but I'm not convinced that it's possible at this point.

 

Hi Grant,

You raise a good point but I must say I find it quite hypocritical when an engineer talks against insane loudness but allows their name to be used on such a record.

I understand and respect that folks have to earn their living and this is a personal decision. I'm fine with that. But as I said in "Declaring an end to the loudness wars" ( http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/loudness.htm ):
Lip service will not end the loudness wars, action will. It will take boldness on the part of musicians, producers and engineers. It will take those willing to lead the trend instead of following it.

I guess it reminds be a bit of the soldier who said "I was just following orders." In the end, one's actions supersede one's words.

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

Very good article Thanks Barry

 

Hi Mike,

I look forward to the day when more labels and artists realize the way to "compete" is to create more interesting music, not simply raise the level.

When I browse in a record store (brick-n-mortar or online), I'm not looking for the loudest records or rejecting the quietest ones. I'm looking for music I find interesting.

To the best of my knowledge, outside of some folks in the record biz, everyone else shops the same way. So in order to "compete", the artist has to provide the composition and/or the performance.

Sometimes I think if this forum worked the way the record industry has been, everyone would write in all capital letters, seeking to use larger and larger fonts until at some point, the content of the message is gone and each post is just one single, VERY large letter.
And at some point, someone would say "but folks want larger fonts" ;-}

Best regards,
Barry
www.soundkeeperrecordings.com
www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

You are right on the money. This means that I will still buy new music I find interesting and not because of the mastering, but because of the music. For example, the reason I have Nichole Nordeman's CDs in my collection is that I find her style of singing and songwriting very interesting and challenging and she is very musically diverse. The mastering on her CDs are loud and compressed for the most part for reasons explained in this thread.

 

Same here... 1st: music and 2nd: technique. Even it's a pain sometimes listening "loud" music.

 

The "real" reason for the loudness war? To quote Barry Diament's article: "The roots of the loudness wars most likely took hold when someone realized that a very small increase in level is perceived by most listeners as sounding "better"."

IMHO, that is very hard to fight. The problem is that increasing the loudness does make it sound better in comparison. Just like the bluer TV in the showroom or the one with the more saturated colors makes the others look washed out by comparison. Unfortunately many products are sold by comparison, even if they aren't used that way. And the music industry, these days, is all about sales; any musical artistry is just a quirky little thing they have to put up with from time-to-time in an attempt to keep the profits rolling in and the investors happy. The loudness war is just a tool that the music industry uses in a misguided effort to steer the listener to their product and away from their competitor's product. And it's an arms race that has reached MAD (mutually assured destruction) proportions. Believe me, record producers are way into the comparison thing, and it is so obvious that louder sounds better in comparison.

However, most enjoyment derived listening to music doesn't come from comparison, or at least it probably shouldn't. Except in comparison, there's no positive effect to increasing levels and squashing peaks. And (and this is a big and) the listener has final control of the volume, so he will simply turn it down, so all of the producer's efforts to turn it up are wasted. Bottom line, most listeners don't care about loudness at all.

The real problem, as I see it, is convincing the producers of what seems obvious to everyone else: people don't buy music just because it's louder. This should be obvious to them, too, but they seem to be so far into the comparison thing that they just can't grasp the obvious. They will continue to compare music before compression and after compression; the "after" will sound more "full", simplly because it's louder, while the "before" will sound "flat" (not refering to frequency response, but fullness), and the end listeners will continue, unlike the producers, to turn down the volume.

 

One of the problems are that too many decision-makers at the record companies are probably tone-deaf, and don't care about music. to them, it's just a widget. The other is that artists are not known for being audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, and more than a few suffer from hearing loss. They also try to balance their art with trying to keep food on the table.

But, they're all going about it the wrong way!

 

I couldn't agree more. For me, this issue starts with the song. If the song is there, why ruin it with excessive and painful compression? There are some great songs being written today but we have often have to actively seek them out.

I laughed out loud when I read this. Very true!

 

Good point, and it would work...if, say, I REALLY DIDN'T CARE ABOUT WHAT I WAS TYPING;I JUST WANTED YOU TO READ IT AND NOT PAY AS MUCH ATTENTION TO THE OTHER POSTS. I DON'T CARE BECAUSE THEY'RE ONLY WORDS. I GOTTA GET THESE WORDS MOVED!NOW THE NEXT POSTER IS GOING TO HAVE TO INCREASE THEIR FONT SIZE,and so on....
How's that for an analogy???!!!

 

And it won't stop...

 

After a few words your post was easier to read, but after a very short while it became a nuisance. (How's this for analogy)

 

Exactly! But suppose the majority of posters here thought it looked pretty cool but didn't really read it. Don't need to; it looks cool,though...

 

The changeover from analogue to digital has allowed too much electronic trickery in the world of audio levelling. In the world of radio audio processing, the combo of the Texar Audio Prizms and the Optimod 8100 produced a compressed, yet tolerable sound that enhanced most of what was played through it. Sadly, now that it is all too easy to 'brick wall' the audio on a CD and, essentially, 'brick wall' the audio broadcast over FM, the result is very unpleasant. I grew up in the days of AM and broadband processing and happen to prefer the sound of Top-40 music from that era processed in that fashion. Modern CD's (e.g Nickelback's latest) are so 'square waved' that they hurt my ears. And modern multiband processing makes the entire spectrum equally dense without regard to the artist's original intent.
It would be great if those responsible would read this, but with the ease of recording at home on a pc as opposed to a studio, there is too much audio destruction being done by untrained ears.
Who am I? An electronics guy who has jocked and engineered at radio stations in every size market.

 

Welcome to the forum, HadYourPhil.

The quote above is another reason why the record companies should set the audi quality example. That is, if they want to have a market in the future. Nowadays anyone can make a cr***y recording at home. It has always taken the pros to show the difference... that is, until now.