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Topic: Loudness War - still alive and kicking (Read 6954 times) previous topic - next topic
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Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Metal-fi's been delivering great punches at it lately; such as this one.

But the bwitch just won't die, apparently.
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #1 –
They mention one of my favorite current bands, Be'lakor.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #2 –
Lately i did read by Jean-Michelle Jarre who should know how digital works "Also very quickly I noticed the CD was not as good as vinyl. Vinyl was not perfect but it’s still far, far better than the CD"
Maybe someone can tell him a DR4 album is not exatly an intelligent way to use the CD format.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #3 –
I think JMJ is just senile: "Try playing a CD from 25 years ago and it doesn’t play."  He should take a look at my collection that goes back a lot further than that and not a one of them has rotted.  Wish I could say the same for the cases ...

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #5 –
I had begun to type this up and then stopped because it was off-topic, but since this has gathered some legs...

It's pretty funny how JMJ then goes on to to praise Dolby Digital, despite it being a lossy format.

Silly artists.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #6 –
Quote from: includemeout on
Metal-fi's been delivering great punches at it lately; such as this one.

But the bwitch just won't die, apparently.

So how is one, as a consumer, supposed to send a message here? It seems like metalheads are currently stuck either refusing to buy an album at all or supporting the vinyl industry, which isn't really solving the problem. I'm so glad none of this is affecting classical (knock on wood).

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #7 –
Quote from: greynol on
Silly artists.
It borders the ironic (not to say 'pathetic') how some artists suddenly (sometimes out of obscurity) see themselves as an authority of sorts, qualified to talk about some technicalities they obviously barely have a grasp of - and as the article referred to within the link above, implies.
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #8 –
Quote from: greynol on
I had begun to type this up and then stopped because it was off-topic, but since this has gathered some legs...

It's pretty funny how JMJ then goes on to to praise Dolby Digital, despite it being a lossy format.

Silly artists.
But JMJ has a very good point. A Dolby Digital track has a lot of headroom, so there is a good chance it has not been clippressed.
I would also prefer a lossy dynamic track to a lossless clippressed track.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #9 –
He didn't make that point.  Even if he had, it relies on the notion that a CD must be clippressed (which simply isn't true), so it still wouldn't have made him appear any more knowledgeable.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #10 –
How does one physically make DR 1????

I'd like to try this...supposed I rip a CD and want to make it DR 1 in audacity...just for fun and to see what people are doing to make this Stuff.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #11 –
Quote from: ron spencer on
How does one physically make DR 1????

I'd like to try this...supposed I rip a CD and want to make it DR 1 in audacity...just for fun and to see what people are doing to make this Stuff.

Slam and compress the hell out of everything and use tons of sideband compression to make the individual parts still stand out against each other.

I'm not surprised that a darksynth album is the first I've heard of to reach DR1, the crunchy electronic distorted sound is a key part of the aesthetic.

I was actually expecting the dynamic range measurement to be higher, based on listening to the album: https://perturbator.bandcamp.com/

It is very crunchy and has lots of distortion, but it doesn't really sound nearly as compressed as I though it would. It sounds a lot less compressed than some of the newer thrash metal I've got, which hovers around DR5.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #12 –
Quote from: lithopsian on
I think JMJ is just senile: "Try playing a CD from 25 years ago and it doesn’t play."  He should take a look at my collection that goes back a lot further than that and not a one of them has rotted.  Wish I could say the same for the cases ...

Well my copy of En Attendant Cousteau (Waiting for Cousteau) is still going strong, in fact my oldest CD is Joshua Tree U2 vintage 1987 & thats plays perfectly.
Morality, like art, means drawing a line someplace. (Oscar Wilde)

Doktor Lorenz

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Doktor_Lorenz on
Quote from: lithopsian on
I think JMJ is just senile: "Try playing a CD from 25 years ago and it doesn’t play."  He should take a look at my collection that goes back a lot further than that and not a one of them has rotted.  Wish I could say the same for the cases ...

Well my copy of En Attendant Cousteau (Waiting for Cousteau) is still going strong, in fact my oldest CD is Joshua Tree U2 vintage 1987 & thats plays perfectly.

I can go back slightly further, to 1985 but also have had zero failures. I have one CD that sometimes confuses a player, skips, stops playing etc but it's always done that and is usually playable. I have no doubt there may be some commercial CDs that have failed but he's just plain wrong in his statement, as a generalisation.

I bought Electronica 2 recently and regret not doing my homework. I rather assumed an artist such as JMJ wouldn't be party to the extremes of the loudness war - WRONG! To add insult to injury, there is audible clipping on some tracks and that, to me, is unforgivable for an artist of his stature and makes me feel decidedly cheated of my hard-earned.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #14 –
If your CDs aren't lasting long then it's probably more likely that you don't care of your CDs properly.  It could also be the way you're storing them.  I swear some people shouldn't ever be allowed to handle or care for things because they wreck everything!

Anyway, I got plenty of old CDs that play just fine and even rip perfectly.  I'm very careful with how I handle them.  I sometimes buy used CDs and won't buy any disc that looks like it's been abused, missing the original packaging or scratched up.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #15 –
I have no problem poking fun over the irony.  I also take issue with those who would attribute technical qualifications to someone simply because he bears the "artist" moniker (electronic, well-seasoned, or otherwise).  Before crying hypocrisy, however, I would prefer to know whether decisions about compression didn't occur further downstream and were, practicably, no longer under JMJs control.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #16 –
Quote from: greynol on
I have no problem poking fun over the irony.  I also take issue with those who would attribute technical qualifications to someone simply because he bears the "artist" moniker (electronic, well-seasoned, or otherwise).  Before crying hypocrisy, however, I would prefer to know whether decisions about compression didn't occur further downstream and were, practicably, no longer under JMJs control.

I have no quibble with the above. It's distinctly possible that JMJ wasn't responsible for the final result. I don't pretend to be familiar with the details of releasing a CD but isn't there (logically) a "test" pressing or "final output" of it that the artist listens to? Perhaps naaive of me to think there might be.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #17 –
Right.
Anyone care to comment on the article itself? (or the other one it links to, for that matter)
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #18 –
I think that article is largely correct, but there's a bit too much free marketing for mastering engineers in there for my taste.

Mastering engineers have used this kind of self-marketing for a long time that aims at making them look like the ultimate audiophiles who work magic to get the highest possible quality out there. Their way of talking about their gear is a testimony to that.

Yet, the mastering stage is usually the stage where the sound quality suffers most. This is obviously because of the drive towards higher loudness, which is being regarded as the main factor for "competitiveness", and the corresponding willingness to sacrifice dynamic range and low distortion. So we have the seemingly paradoxical situation that the output of those self-proclaimed audiophiles and industry legends is highly damaged and sounds kaputt, once its loudness has been normalized.

To their defence, this is usually what is being demanded of them, and what they get their money for. However, this doesn't undo the fact that they participate in the crime, some more willingly, some less, while at the same time trying to paint their role in completely different and much brighter colors.

Similar things can be said of the artists, who like to portray themselves as the victims of the industry, who maim their precious work of art for their own profit. It is often the opposite: The artists themselves push for the highest loudness in order to prop up their sales. The case of Metallica that was discussed in the link is a good example: When their drummer was confronted with the complaints about poor sound quality of their Death Magnetic album, he responded:  “Listen, there’s nothing up with the audio quality. It’s 2008, and that’s how we make records. Rick Rubin’s whole thing is to try and get it to sound lively, to get it to sound loud, to get it to sound exciting, to get it to jump out of the speakers. Of course, I’ve heard that there are a few people complaining. But I’ve been listening to it the last couple of days in my car, and it sounds fuckin’ smokin’."

So my verdict is: The loudness war is here to stay. The producers want it, the artists want it, and if the mastering engineers don't want it they are made to want it. As soon as someone backs off in favor of a bit less distortion, someone else moves in and uses the small gap left by his competition. All those dynamic range initiatives achieve precisely nothing, except that they give everybody a forum to be hypocritical about it.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #19 –
Quote
So my verdict is: The loudness war is here to stay.

I still don't give up hope. It all might change when physical sales and downloads decline further and become an insignificant part of overall renevue.

Spotify already has a loudness equalization option similar to replay gain (or maybe it actually is following the replaygain standard, they just don't call it that), which is enabled by default. I haven't yet played around with apple music, but i assume it also has the (proprietary) sound check function already known from iTunes, which does pretty much the same thing.

So when everything on streaming services is played back at equal volume, regardless of how hard mastering engineers tried to beef up the volume, the only way to stand out is to actually have some dynamics, have some punch. Those mastering jobs would be the ones that actually "jump out of the speakers", to use Mr. Ulrich's own words.
I think that war is not decided yet.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #20 –
Quote from: Groschi on
Quote
So my verdict is: The loudness war is here to stay.

I still don't give up hope. It all might change when physical sales and downloads decline further and become an insignificant part of overall renevue.
I don't know what to expect. But I refuse to lose sleep over it either.
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #21 –
The recently remastered PIpes of Peace by Paul McCartney actually has the same dynamic range as the original CD release from the 80s.

I think what we will eventually see is albums with more dynamic range being release by companies like Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, Audio Fidelity or HDTracks, with a premium price tag.  Look at the HDTracks only releases of Green Day'S American Idiot and 21st Century Breakdown.  You want more Dynamic range?  You can have it for $26.00 an album.

I just got a copy of the SACD of Counterparts by Rush.  It's DR value of 12, as opposed to the 9 the original CD had.

So, you'll be able to get non-brickwalled music.  But you're going to have to pay a premium for it.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #22 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
So, you'll be able to get non-brickwalled music.  But you're going to have to pay a premium for it.
This has been tried with the SACD already, and it didn't work. What makes you believe it will this time? What is different now?

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #23 –
I think what might be different now is the growing use of soundcheck in iTunes and ReplayGain elsewhere. The impact of the loudness war is lost when all the tracks are played at the same relative volume, so to be "competitive" you have to have music that actually sounds better.

HD tracks seem to be where some bands are playing with that concept. Maybe that will translate to better mastering for CD quality.

Personally I suspect the audio CD will go away, and the 44.1 kHz sample rate will be replaced with 48 kHz for non HD tracks. Either with the lossless sources themselves, or lossy encoders will automatically resample 96/192 kHz sample rates to 48 kHz when compressing for the cheaper lossy release.

Re: Loudness War - still alive and kicking

Reply #24 –
Quote from: AliceWonderMiscreations on
The impact of the loudness war is lost when all the tracks are played at the same relative volume, so to be "competitive" you have to have music that actually sounds better.
Except for the clipped samples, you mean?
Listen to the music, not the media it's on.
União e reconstrução