The Loudness War

[George]

I have been thinking more and more lately about loudness and how these days, most Rock/Pop CDs that come out are over-compressed.

This video should provide a good starting point for a discussion on the topic:

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

[George]

More info on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

[Lethevich]

Hehe, I was reading about this on WP a few days ago - apparently it is the cause of the stupid sounding production on Lily Allen's album.

[Sean]

It's postmodern levelling and digitization of sound, everything being corrupted and made uniform. There's some interest in it though- uniformity in place of background and foreground etc is in minimalism, which I defend...

[andy]

It's postmodern levelling and digitization of sound, everything being corrupted and made uniform. There's some interest in it though- uniformity in place of background and foreground etc is in minimalism, which I defend...

I wouldn't say that there's anything postmodern about maxing the volume levels on new cds... the intent isn't to be novel, just to make recordings sound "better." Now maybe you could claim that it's postmodern because of the progression which has taken place in recordings, but I think it's a stretch. A big stretch.

[head-case]

I wouldn't say that there's anything postmodern about maxing the volume levels on new cds... the intent isn't to be novel, just to make recordings sound "better." Now maybe you could claim that it's postmodern because of the progression which has taken place in recordings, but I think it's a stretch. A big stretch.

Quite so, compression is one of the oldest tricks in the book.  The culprit is the "iPod" generation whose ears are so burned out and whose brains are so addled by having those "buds" blasting all day that they can't recognize subtlety in music.

[Great Gable]

I wouldn't say that there's anything postmodern about maxing the volume levels on new cds... the intent isn't to be novel, just to make recordings sound "better." Now maybe you could claim that it's postmodern because of the progression which has taken place in recordings, but I think it's a stretch. A big stretch.

As I understand it, and this point is discussed endlessly on the Steve Hoffman forum, it's certainly not to improve sound - because it patently does just the opposite. The motive behind all this compression is to pander to the needs and buying habits of the target audience - that being the downloader, the listerner via portable media players and the car driver. It is deemed by the industry, and I've seen many an article from the people behind this scandalous practice, that the serious listener can go whistle if they want quality because they aint going to get it. Why not? Because the market is driven by people for whom quality is unimportant - quantity at a cheap price is everything. The music fan and audiophile are in the minority and their constant bemoaning sound quality is going to be ignored for some considerable time I'm afraid.

Don't take my word for it - vist the Hoffman forum to see for yourselves. It is populated by many recording engineers and producers and they have a certain weight when it comes to convincing arguments.

And the sound of many of today's CDs? Why do you think people are hankering after some of the CDs released in the first few years of CD production. And why are people rejecting wholesale many of the, so-called, "remastered special editions" the record industry keeps throwing at us? Why? Because they are nearly all far worse than first generation releases. Some of the latest "specials" cause listener fatigue and even to induce headaches and nausea - but above all they often sound bloody awful! Caveat emptor!

Correct me if I'm wrong but my impression is that this problem is endemic to rock and pop. To my knowledge classical releases are still, in the main, being produced and mixed sympathetically - although not exclusively so.

[drogulus]

     I just got bitten by this phenomenon recently. I bought a remaster of a classic rock album which was supposed to be better than the one I owned. Since remasters frequently are better in my experience I was shocked to find this one was worse. Take a look at this:



     I think the Golden Age for CDs was ~1990-96 when 20 and then 24 bit mastering came in along with the first generation of remasters, often made from newly found master tapes. In part it was a matter of reinstituting good practice with rereleases of older material. The last years of vinyl were terrible as record companies put out truly awful stuff from worn production masters, and this carried over into the early digital era, in the process giving CDs a bad name they didn't really deserve. People blamed the technology, just as they blame iPods or mp3s for bad sound based on what is being produced for them. In fact there were always audiophile-grade CDs (if you check out various lists of-all time audiophile hits you'll still find CDs made in the '80s, and you always will). My Copland 3rd Symphony with Mata/Dallas SO was recorded in '86 and it can't be beat for SQ.

     If you want audiophile sound from your mp3 player get a line-out dock and a headphone amp, and make your own mp3s from your favorite and best sounding CDs. Experiment with the bit rate until you can't tell the difference before and after. In other words, take control.

      Many CDs are just too loud and can be fixed by using Replaygain to lower the volume. Others are overcompressed like the example above. In that case the only thing you can do is hunt down an earlier edition that doesn't have the problem.

[Solitary Wanderer]

Yeah, I discovered this problem with expensive prog mini LP 'remasters' some years ago. I was informed they sounded great, had extensive new sleeve notes and nifty packaging so it seemed to be worth the investment to update my fave albums like this. However they were so LOUD that it was hard work listening to them; sometimes I had to turn them off before they finished. In the end I stopped buying them because my old versions were more enjoyable to listen to.

Like Simon, I read up on all this via the Steve Hoffmann website and it all suddenly made sense.

I don't buy, and rarely listen to, rock music anymore so I sincerly hope this epidemic dosen't infect the classical music cd engineering techs 

[andy]

As I understand it, and this point is discussed endlessly on the Steve Hoffman forum, it's certainly not to improve sound - because it patently does just the opposite. The motive behind all this compression is to pander to the needs and buying habits of the target audience - that being the downloader, the listerner via portable media players and the car driver. It is deemed by the industry, and I've seen many an article from the people behind this scandalous practice, that the serious listener can go whistle if they want quality because they aint going to get it. Why not? Because the market is driven by people for whom quality is unimportant - quantity at a cheap price is everything. The music fan and audiophile are in the minority and their constant bemoaning sound quality is going to be ignored for some considerable time I'm afraid.

Sorry I wasn't clear... by "better" I meant better by the criteria of "the next song on the radio isn't slightly louder than ours" which is ridiculous since radio stations level out the volume anyhow. And I have heard arguments that maxed out, overly compressed versions sound better on crappy speakers and mp3 player buds.

And I wouldn't actually attribute this fault to customers... I would attribute it to music industry execs with their heads up their asses. These guys have got to be the largest group of morons making more than $500,000 a year ever. As far as I'm concerned the by record labels can finally keel over and die.

[drogulus]

    Radio stations do level the volume. That's why the producers use this overcompression, so that even with volume levelling the track will sound louder since everything is pushed up to the maximum.

    I've been analyzing my classical music too and what I've found is that while this extreme overcompression isn't used there are a number of CDs that are way too loud (a kinder and gentler version of the loudness wars). An optimal setting would be in the 88-90 db range which gives you plenty of room for dynamic swings, but I've seen levels of 95 db for classical. That doesn't leave much headroom.

[George]

     I just got bitten by this phenomenon recently. I bought a remaster of a classic rock album which was supposed to be better than the one I owned. Since remasters frequently are better in my experience I was shocked to find this one was worse. Take a look at this:



     I think the Golden Age for CDs was ~1990-96 when 20 and then 24 bit mastering came in along with the first generation of remasters, often made from newly found master tapes. In part it was a matter of reinstituting good practice with rereleases of older material. The last years of vinyl were terrible as record companies put out truly awful stuff from worn production masters, and this carried over into the early digital era, in the process giving CDs a bad name they didn't really deserve. People blamed the technology, just as they blame iPods or mp3s for bad sound based on what is being produced for them. In fact there were always audiophile-grade CDs (if you check out various lists of-all time audiophile hits you'll still find CDs made in the '80s, and you always will). My Copland 3rd Symphony with Mata/Dallas SO was recorded in '86 and it can't be beat for SQ.

     If you want audiophile sound from your mp3 player get a line-out dock and a headphone amp, and make your own mp3s from your favorite and best sounding CDs. Experiment with the bit rate until you can't tell the difference before and after. In other words, take control.

      Many CDs are just too loud and can be fixed by using Replaygain to lower the volume. Others are overcompressed like the example above. In that case the only thing you can do is hunt down an earlier edition that doesn't have the problem.

Yeah, that second example is simply awful. I wouldn't want to hear it. 

I use audacity from time to time when I'm making a mixed CD and one track is really low. They have a function where you can amplify the track to 0 dB (no clipping). If you did that with the first example, I bet you'd get good results.

Are those images from audacity? It looks like it. 

[drogulus]

Are those images from audacity? It looks like it. 

     Yes, this is from Audacity 1.3 Beta, which accepts mp3 and FLAC input as well as .wav. I use it to do lots of things. For example, I have some rock music with the stereo reversed, so I corrected it. I've done some EQ and level changes as well. You can do fade-ins, add silence to the beginning of tracks (very useful for tracks that begin too abruptly, cutting off the first notes). I also use it for HDCD decoding along with WMP (which has the decoder built in). It's a great program.

[George]

Some hope:

Guns 'N Roses:
Dynamics and quality win the Loudness Wars
from Bob Ludwig:

On Sunday, November 23rd the new Guns 'N Roses record Chinese Democracy was finally released after many years of waiting and many millions spent making it.  14 different recording studios are credited.  I was thrilled to have been chosen to master the album.

In October, when I first heard some of final mixes which were incredibly multi-layered and dense, I was surprised by two things:  The mixes were so finally honed that doing the smallest move sounded like I had done a lot and also that adding the typical amount of compression used in mastering these days took the life and musicality out of the recordings in a big way.

The trial disc I submitted to the producers had 3 versions: The one I personally liked had no compression that was used just for loudness, only compression that was needed for great sounding rock and roll.  Then, knowing how competitive everything is these days, I made two more masterings, one with more compression and another with yet more compression, but even the loudest one wasn't remotely as loud as some recent CDs.  Hoping that at least one of these would satisfy Axl and Caram Costanzo, the co-producers of the record, I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned.

I think the fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level.

The dynamics vs. volume trade-offs include the act of simply turning your playback volume clockwise a little.  True, when shopping the iTunes store your song may not blast out as loudly as other songs. When trying to impress the radio station PD it may be an issue if you don't have the guaranteed attention this record deserves, however level on the radio broadcast is NOT an issue.  As I have been lecturing to people for years, the radio stations are all in competition with each other and they all have devices to make loud things soft and soft things loud and indeed, I heard a critic's review of Chinese Democracy on NPR and the song examples they played screamed over my portable radio.  Even with the radio station compression you can still hear detail in the car... amazing!
I'm hoping that Chinese Democracy will mark the beginning of people returning to sane levels and musicality triumphing over distortion and grunge.  I have already seen a new awareness and appreciation for quality from some other producers, I pray it is the end of the level wars.

[RussellG]

The culprit is the "iPod" generation whose ears are so burned out and whose brains are so addled by having those "buds" blasting all day that they can't recognize subtlety in music.

Compression during mastering for CD to increase perceived volume predates not only the iPod but also the internet.  It began in the early 90's and has progressively got worse.  IMO the "golden age" of CD mastering was the 80's, because these are the only CD's that are, for the most part, completely unmessed with during mastering.  They often used dub tapes rather than the original master but I'll take a little copy tape softness, increased hiss or muddiness over the effects of compression, noise reduction and the insane EQ settings they've used since the early-mid 90's any day.

[George]

Interesting article by Alan Wilder, former member of Depeche Mode.

[Bogey]

Interesting article by Alan Wilder, former member of Depeche Mode.

Thanks for that.  Excellent article.