The loudness wars.

I guess this is news now.

chris walla wrote:

"I really feel I'm on an island a lot of time"

so do i.


-e

Ultramaximizer and Maxim are not replacements for real mastering engineers. I'll put some on rough mixes sometimes to simulate mastering (softly) but if a real mastering engineer did this to me they'd be asked for a recall.

Someone (I think RR) posted this similar Rolling Stone article about it the other day. A friend has coincidently bought me for Christmas a book by Daniel Levitin, a neurologist and music professor who is quoted in the article, called "This Is Your Brain On Music" - it looks extremely interesting.

Following up Youtube links I found this one:

http://pl.youtube.com/watch?v=xkkqsN69Jac

The last two minutes have what I thought was a decent demonstration to my lousy ears.

He's dead on about the TV commercials, too. They're WAY loud.

Also, music and action scenes in movies need to be turned down. I have to ride the volume on my remote throughout all these new movies. Actors now whisper when they talk, then a song or action sequence comes on and all hell breaks loose. CRAP.

Dr. Venkman wrote:He's dead on about the TV commercials, too. They're WAY loud.

Also, music and action scenes in movies need to be turned down. I have to ride the volume on my remote throughout all these new movies. Actors now whisper when they talk, then a song or action sequence comes on and all hell breaks loose. CRAP.

I second everything you said.

This happens to me all the time. I hate it.

otisroom wrote:

Dr. Venkman wrote:He's dead on about the TV commercials, too. They're WAY loud.

Also, music and action scenes in movies need to be turned down. I have to ride the volume on my remote throughout all these new movies. Actors now whisper when they talk, then a song or action sequence comes on and all hell breaks loose. CRAP.

I second everything you said.

This happens to me all the time. I hate it.

Um, what you describe is dynamic sound in action. In terms of the 'loudness wars', you're the enemy!

*winky face*

I just wrote about this in a blog of mine, too.

http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/entertainment/related/C700/

Here's the text:

The Death Of Radio

Updated Dec 31, 2007 at 12:35 PM

In the war to be loudest, radio stations and record labels have crossed a threshold where nearly everything on the dial sounds squashed and lifeless.

Driving home for the holidays in a family member’s car I listened to a hard-rock hit from the previous year playing on the radio. It sounded like a constant wall of static. Since I didn’t care for the band playing, I chalked it up as evidence to their lack of quality. But right after came a song I knew and liked by Radiohead—a track from their new record, one full of subtle nuances. What played from the car’s speakers was an aberration, an abomination, a screeching blanket of noise. Where did the nuance go? Was there something wrong with the car stereo?

As a part-time recording engineer I’m someone who deals a lot in the way things sound. It stands to reason that most music listeners, whether driving in their cars, listening to their iPods or enjoying a tune playing over the television, are much less discerning. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how much bad-sounding music most quietly endure.

It’s the sound of music compressed to death. Compression for radio play is nothing new. With compression, a song’s quiet parts are made louder. This has the effect of making the song stick out to the casual listener. TV Commercials use the trick; but modern radio compression has the effect of removing all dynamic range in a song’s volume.

Eventually, if every song employs the same trick to sound just a little louder than the other, the whole scheme hits a ceiling where everything sounds the same. This is where we are now with recorded music.

There are aural consequences, too. A lack of dynamics causes ear fatigue for the listener. It makes everything sound monotonous. Monotonous radio – an oxymoron, to say the least.

This is not what the musicians intended.

Musicians like dynamics – the sound of a finger on a string, the quiet interlude before a crashing finale. It’s the art (and science) of acoustic energy as an emotional trigger. The best pop songwriters have employed it for decades; but when it comes to radio, the science of loudness reigns supreme.

I’m reminded in these car rides that the current sad state of the music industry has multiple causes and villains. It’s not just labels signing cookie-cutter acts. The industry makes the good acts sound like the bad ones with misused recording and mastering techniques—another example of the principles of commerce being used to alter the principles of art to such an extent that the art disappears.

There was a time in the music business when the people with the money let the songwriters write the songs and the engineers make the records without too much interference.

The music industry today operates like a sports league where the owners decide that instead of funding the teams and profiting from their successes they’ll coach the players themselves, because after all, they can do a better job. They’re businessmen.

elisha wiesner wrote:chris walla wrote:

"I really feel I'm on an island a lot of time"

so do i.


-e

I see what you did there.

Adam I wrote:

otisroom wrote:

Dr. Venkman wrote:He's dead on about the TV commercials, too. They're WAY loud.

Also, music and action scenes in movies need to be turned down. I have to ride the volume on my remote throughout all these new movies. Actors now whisper when they talk, then a song or action sequence comes on and all hell breaks loose. CRAP.

I second everything you said.

This happens to me all the time. I hate it.

Um, what you describe is dynamic sound in action. In terms of the 'loudness wars', you're the enemy!



*winky face*

Well then I guess I wish they'd use more compression on their hollywood blockbuster 5.1 bus.

Why is it that action movies can have really quiet parts and really loud parts but rock records can't?