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Topic: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital (Read 19328 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #25
Although not very common, there are records which were compressed to death and then reduced in volume.
If you're including records pressed before, say 1995, then sure; otherwise a citation is needed.
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/125043
A very extreme but real example. It's crushed nearly as much as the notorious first versions of Death Magnetic, and then the gain is reduced to as much as -6 dB. It's likely done by mistake, but it's just the fact of life, a record like this got through all (if any) checks and released as it is.
I can say that this measurement is true because I used to have this record.
I also have seen other examples (but not as extreme as this), but I don't remember them.

Quote
If you're including records pressed before, say 1995, then sure

By the way, before 1995 almost no one used to destroy (already mixed) music by pathological levels of compression and clipping. It's for the most part caused by the loudness war, and it went totally out of control in 1994-1995.
(I were talking about records which are at the same time destroyed by compression AND are quiet; before 1995 it was common to be quiet but not at all common to be destroyed by compression)
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #26
I were talking about records which are at the same time destroyed by compression AND are quiet
So you aren't saying records that are destroyed but not quiet are not very common.

Citing DR figures is worthless since high DR values for vinyl are woefully inconclusive.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #27
Yes I were of course not saying that. (It's obvious that there's a lot of them). I were only saying that destroyed records can also be quiet and DR score only may estimate the amount of damage but not the loudness. Low DR usually goes with high loudness (because otherwise the DR compression is completely pointless), but people aren't perfect and they do pointless things sometimes, and the link above is one extreme example of people doing pointless things.

Quote
Citing DR figures is worthless since high DR values for vinyl are woefully inconclusive.

Yeah but I were citing low DR values and not for vinyl.
I know that there are many ways to inflate DR score without actually improving anything; phase shifting, EQ, adding noise or clicks just to name a few. You are right that high DR, strictly, doesn't guarantee anything.
But if it's low (in particular ≤ 4), there's no way it'll sound good. So citing extremely low DR may actually mean something conclusive.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #28
http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/125043

"Not normalized" is not the same as "reduced", and at least the DR and peak values do not prove that it was ever reduced in volume.
My hunch would be that it was recorded with a few dB headroom (not a bad thing), mixed to sound to the band's satisfaction (good or bad, matter of taste) and then sent off to the - quite underground -  label who pressed the artist-approved master without doing anything about it.
Actually, there was a limited edition version of this release, with a bonus CD-R.

(By the way, being self-pronounced "primitive" black metal, a low volume could just enhance a "demo" feel to it. Something I lost by using ReplayGain :-o )


Yeah but I were citing low DR values and not for vinyl.
Confirmed. It is this one: http://db.cuetools.net/?tocid=F5S_6d1bt.hAqyFLSidq6PUpgto-
And it was not released on vinyl: https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Sorcier_des_Glaces/The_Puressence_of_Primitive_Forests/309775

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #29
Quote
"Not normalized" is not the same as "reduced", and at least the DR and peak values do not prove that it was ever reduced in volume.
My hunch would be that it was recorded with a few dB headroom (not a bad thing), mixed to sound to the band's satisfaction (good or bad, matter of taste) and then sent off to the - quite underground -  label who pressed the artist-approved master without doing anything about it. 
Normally the clipping in mixing happens close to 0 dB and not at some arbitrary point near -5..-6 dB. Unless their taste dictates crazy amounts of clipping, it's likely not been as you described.
It doesn't affect the result anyway, if the clipping was done intentionally at a lower level, or the gain was reduced after clipping. In both cases the end result is a clipped record with low peak levels.
If you open a track from that disk in a waveform viewer/editor, and zoom in, you'll see what I mean.
And, by the way, there's not much a label can do if they get a totally devastated master. They may perhaps refuse to release it and ask the artist for a replacement.

The DR and peak values prove (by counter-example) one thing here: if a record is quiet, it does not follow that it must have good dynamic range.
(it's already pretty obvious in theory, you can always make any record quieter (until it is buried in quantization noise, which is far away even with 16 bits) and it won't make it magically sound better/have more DR; this is just an example of an "officially released" record with such a property)
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #30
I didn't bother to look at the dr.loudness link provided, but normally "record" implies vinyl, at least in the English language, anyway; even if the definition of the word indicates that it can be used regardless of the specific type of media.

I do agree that a low number can be assumed to mean high DRC, but I've seen more than my share of posts where high DR values for vinyl were taken as meaning it was free from heavy DRC.  I'll even go a step farther and say that I've seen posts where people claimed to hear more dynamic range (read: less DRC) in a vinyl version over compared to the CD version when there wasn't any.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #31
normally "record" implies vinyl, at least in the English language, anyway; even if the definition of the word indicates that it can be used regardless of the specific type of media.
I had no idea, sorry.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #32
I probably overreached. I'd say it's typical to call an album on vinyl a record in the US. 
Turntables are often called record players, at least by older generations. I'd say the term album without specifying the medium often implies vinyl as well.

I have no stats on any of the above, though. ;)

...and if you want to buy a "record album" on amazon you get this:
https://www.amazon.com/slp/record-albums/zvy23e4vr7g23np

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #33
The purpose of ReplayGain scanning and DR scanning are completely different.
Indeed it is. I diverted into a secondary topic, offering an old version of Foobar as a scanner for two kinds of statistics, to be used as a separate tool from the main player, which is kept current. I have muscle memory with using legacy menus, like Masstagger.

Quote
Although not very common, there are records which were compressed to death and then reduced in volume. (So they are both distorted&lacking in dynamics, and "quiet").
My favorite music release that has been clipped and later turned down 2-3 dB is "Falling Into You" by Celine Dion. Oh my god. Lately, I have observed a convention of setting the limiter ceiling to -1 dB, sometimes -2 dB, as in the remastered "Death Magnetic", with two decibels reserved "unused" for deviations of the true peak. A waste.

I was unsuccessful getting DROffline trial to run inside a virtual machine. CodeMeter is smart. I suspect the whole improvement in v.1 consists of FLAC support and the bug fixed, which treated tags as full scale samples.

Maybe LRA could have some rare applications in a music collection (apparently, JRiver collects this statistic), for example, when selecting music for a noisy environment. But it cannot measure how far drums reach above average level, and is deaf to the spaces in a dynamic, but evenly spaced regular track like "Billie Jean" (LRA = 2.5±0.2). The shaded area of Variance is a kind of swing of instantaneous loudness of unspecified, very short integration time (used to closely track Momentary in VisLM v2.0) decaying over the Short-term window. The decay is rectangular and crude, and there is no integrated readout of it. But crushed tracks measure less, opposite of LRA in this case.


Frontah still works welll for my needs
Frontah is a great frontend, extendable by the user, which I use on daily basis for SoX spectrograms and encoding. I'm surprised that somebody else still has it.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #34
It's worth noting FFmpeg now has a drmeter audio filter.
Opus 96 kb/s (Android) / Vorbis -q5 (PC) / WavPack -hhx6m (Archive)

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #35
Quote
I was unsuccessful getting DROffline trial to run inside a virtual machine.
When a piece of software actively prevents running itself in a VM for no good reason, you may be certain that it's a kind of malware.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #36
I have observed a convention of setting the limiter ceiling to -1 dB, sometimes -2 dB, as in the remastered "Death Magnetic", with two decibels reserved "unused" for deviations of the true peak. A waste.
Also the fear of lossy codec induced clipping. Every time I suggest to use a RG compliant media player in forums other than HA people will throw out nonsense like loss of dynamic range, not "bit-perfect" and so on.

Opinions like these are pretty common in audio production related discussions:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/1200247-what-ceiling-1-dbfs-0-1-dbfs-use-master-prior-audio-normalization.html

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #37
Quote
fear of lossy codec induced clipping
It's even more funny when they "limit" data with dumb, in-your-face clipping, like the Celine Dion example above. As if baked-in unavoidable clipping is somehow better than the other clipping which may or may not happen.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #38
It's worth noting FFmpeg now has a drmeter audio filter.

Also worth noting that, though we love all the contributors at FFmpeg and even use some of their code under license as noted in our user manual for DRMeter MkII, that filter only approximates DR Dynamic Range as defined by the PMF.
OMas 
::  maat.digital  ::  seneschal.net  ::  othermunday.com  ::  audioxpress.com  ::  hifizine.com  ::

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #39
Quote
MAAT will not only maintain the DRMeter in the future but also improve it into an evolved fully ITU BS.1770 (R128/A-85) compatible universal metering tool (DRMeter MkII). Release is scheduled before end of 2017.

Thank goodness. R128 is a drastic improvement. DR Meter magically gives vinyl rips extra dynamic range, presumably due to noise. R128 is less easily tricked. I find I can trust the loudness range in LU much more.

Hey Moni,

To be fair, DR was not designed for vinyl rips so, you’re right not to trust it for that use case. Nothing wrong w/them per se, but a vinyl rip has gone through so many convolutions since the master, usually a digital file these days, was fed to the lathe that it’s without question a completely different beast from what was cut to the lacquer.

As with DR, R128 and A/85 metrics are standardized and thus repeatable. That said, there’s no magic in an R128 measurement except for the Gate, which is most likely responsible for your R128 measurements correlating better with subjective experience w/vinyl.

A side note: DRMeter MkII, eluded to above in the quotequote, and DROffline MkII both provide all R128 Loudness metrics, along with DRi, Minimum PSR and a nice collection of other measurements that help engineers (and enthusiasts) make informed decisions about dynamic range.
OMas 
::  maat.digital  ::  seneschal.net  ::  othermunday.com  ::  audioxpress.com  ::  hifizine.com  ::

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #40
It's worth noting FFmpeg now has a drmeter audio filter.

Also worth noting that, though we love all the contributors at FFmpeg and even use some of their code under license as noted in our user manual for DRMeter MkII, that filter only approximates DR Dynamic Range as defined by the PMF.
Also worth noting that they (or someone else) will add the "new" Dynamic Range (it's called DRi?) in no time, if you just stop keeping the formula in secret. :)
And it's a good idea to not keep it in secret anyway, otherwise nobody's really sure what exactly is this magic closed-source code is measuring.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

 

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #41
The whole thing is a joke.

Why?  Your eyes cannot hear.  This thing is useful for idiots who judge music based on numbers rather than content.

To help engineers make informed decisions about dynamic range?  That's absurd.  It's more like help the producers see that the music isn't compressed enough.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #42
The whole thing is a joke.

Why?  Your eyes cannot hear.  This thing is useful for idiots who judge music based on numbers rather than content.

To help engineers make informed decisions about dynamic range?  That's absurd.  It's more like help the producers see that the music isn't compressed enough.
It's not possible for us mere mortals to judge all music based on content, because there are time and money constraints.
And if I see (before buying) that a particular recording has suspicious numbers, then it's an increased risk of wasting time&money. Nobody says that it guarantees bad sound, but the risk is higher and for some people this can be meaningful.

If all music was free and we were immortal and never bored with life, then, sure, it would be very close to absurd.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #43
And very few people get the opportunity to look at the digital contents of a CD without paying for it first, and most stores won't refund you money for an open package.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #44
And very few people get the opportunity to look at the digital contents of a CD without paying for it first, and most stores won't refund you money for an open package.
This is true, but someone else could have already done it, and it can be searched on the Web. http://dr.loudness-war.info/ for example.
And if we're talking about web releases, Bandcamp usually even allows to listen to at least a few tracks from an album with poorer quality (it used to be 128k cbr mp3, not sure what it uses now, probably the same), and it can be used to estimate DR too (with less accuracy, but mp3 compression doesn't inflate DR scores as drastically as vinyl does) — in that case, sometimes it's not even necessary that someone else had bought it before and uploaded the measurement results.
(Although in the latter case, if it was only a little bit better than 128k cbr mp3, it could be judged by ear as anything higher would be close to transparent, but I guess they lower the quality intentionally to leave more incentive for buying; so it's unlikely to change, or they'll maybe use something like Opus @ 40 kbps in the future as a replacement; when you hear compression artifacts or know that they are very probable, it's hard to be sure if the defect which you hear is a result of lossy compression or a result of bad mastering, if you don't have the lossless source to compare, or at least a lossy version encoded with something that's pretty much guaranteed to be transparent)
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #45
Something like this:
https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,114892.msg947214.html#msg947214

Without telling people that "b" is a lossy version of "a", how many people will think the opus file actually sounds "better" and more "dynamic"?

IMO lossy preview at lower bitrate is a nice idea, at least it can let people know lossy codecs, like vinyl and analog tape, can change the waveform dramatically.



Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #47
Quote
fear of lossy codec induced clipping
It's even more funny when they "limit" data with dumb, in-your-face clipping, like the Celine Dion example above. As if baked-in unavoidable clipping is somehow better than the other clipping which may or may not happen.
Someone told me iTunes rejects masters with intersample and codec induced clipping based on Apple's own analyzing tools. A bit of Googling I found it's real.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/1000408-mastered-itunes-inter-sample-peak-conundrum.html

Maybe one of the reasons why some songs are delibrately clipped at lossless and non-intersample level.

Re: New version & ownership of (TT) Dynamic Range DR Meter: MAAT.digital

Reply #48
I did not see anyone say Apple rejects masters in that discussion, nor do I recall reading anything in Apple's boneheaded document saying that would be the case when they released their suite of tools.  IIRC, it was only a guideline.

Maybe you have some other smoking gun?

Also, we have a dedicated discussion on Mastered for iTunes. That would have been a better place for this.