The loudness wars might soon be over...

[Bob Womack]

Interesting editorial in MIX magazine, HERE. Tell me what you think...

Bob

[jayhawk]

Bob

I hope so.

One of my greatest frustrations is constantly having to adjust the volume on my player from ? (what do you call them in digital format, they're not CDs, Albums might be the right name, but that name is so LP oriented, Collections?) to keep the sound at the same level.

Jack

[alohachris]

Aloha Bob,

Thanks for sharing that Mix piece with us, Robert. I'd have to disagree with the premise because of long experience as a gigger (audiences are amped, rude, loud & plugged in) & practical observation of recent events.

Bottomline? It's all about getting your message to people. So, your music CD can't afford to be quieter than others, not in this culture.

People are so hyper, distracted & un-present due to the amount of technology that's found its way insidiously into our lives. The only way to get people's attention in America is to BLAST them with your message. Even then, most kids don't even make it completely through even one song without moving on to the next.

Even out here in Hawaii on our astoundingly beautiful beaches, it's noisier than heck with all the technology people bring along - clicking away - not present - in the face of such natural beauty. Bellowing with their Ipod plugs in their ears. A sunny day has ceased to be their favorite toy, sadly.

Case in point. I went to the Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium a couple weeks back. Not much of a football game, but non-stop, high-decibel commercial messaging for our ADHD society of 2011 - from every part of the arena. Left the stadium overloaded, ears ringing, & tired from the sheer prolonged volume.

Second case. I watched the Super Bowl last week & all those over the top, almost painfully loud commercial messages. Non-stop, no reprieve. The Black-Eyed Peas' half-time show didn't give us any reason to believe the loudness wars are abating either. Exhausting after four hours of that kind of loudness & sensual overload. The game has become an after-thought today.

IN yo' face electronic commercial messaging is the tail that wags the communication dog in today's America. And Mainstream music has become commercial messaging - part of marketing strategy - for the most part.

Dere Aint a-Gonna be no dB reduction anytime soon from the looks of it in any part of our society, let alone in CD production. It'd be like saying to Americans, "OK, were going to start eating European-sized portions at our restaurants from now on." No way. As ugly as it is, we love our obesity & our insane dB levels.

Now, indie's? That's a different story. But even that world is dB infected.

Self-produced music, pure-form roots folk music on traditional instruments, solo acoustic instruments of all types, & various forms of classical music are where the taste, sincerity, integrity, musicianship, art & inspiration are to be found, IMO. Along with more human(e) levels of sound.

There you can find "God's Beat" - the space between the notes being as revered as the notes themselves -at lower decibels. Commercial music is in the toilet, for content, taste & loudness, IMO. Haven't listened to it since the late 80's. Rap, hip-hop & grunge are definitely the music-killers for me in terms of a benchmark for this demise.

Pete Seeger once told me that music in America was "locked in a money-straightjacket." Today's high volumes prove that statement from 43 years ago to be correct.

From a loudness viewpoint, America is truly committed - & eff'ed!

alohachris

[Bob Womack]

Well, because the television industry failed to get its act together on this issue, congress recently passed legislation that placed a limit on audio signal saturation, ie,. the ratio of peak to average level, that is probably going to kill the era of super-saturated television commercials. It hasn't taken effect yet because broadcasters have been given time to purchase the required analysis and encoding equipment and get them installed into the stream. Program originators (including commercial originators) will be required to analyze their content for its relative loudness according to Dolby standards and encode metadata in the digital stream that tells the broadcast provider's equipment at what level to play it back. Highly compressed signal will have its average level set so that it is at parity with less compressed material via the Dolby AC3 Dialnorm (dialog normalization) metadata standard. As a result, finally, highly compressed material will actually have less punch than more dynamic material. A good example of this effect can be found in Foreigner's Agent Provocateur album. I bought it for the song, "I Want to Know What Love Is" (I know, that made it a one-song album for me). However, because it was mixed with heavy compression in order to make it as loud as possible on radio, when I played it on a decent sound system at a level I could survive, it was absolutely dead and lifeless, with no punch whatsoever. They'd killed the drum kit with compression.

More recently, congress has been working on legislation to limit headphone system volume levels to protect hearing. Because the audio industry got caught with its pants down on the TV audio issue and zapped with a congressional mandate that might not have been the best possible standard (built by congressmen, not audio men), it has scrambled to beat congress to the punch with technology and standards that will allow them to present a completed system to congress that will do the job as elegantly as possible. The goal is for everything to be at a relative parity: Over-compress the audio? The system turns it down to an "equal loudness level." Record at a low level or leave the transients? The system turns it up to an "equal loudness level.". And the standard announced in MIX tells the world that the audio industry has, indeed, beat the congress to the punch this time.

So there might be a rosier glow on the horizon than you think, Chris.

Bob

[KevWind]

I have read and heard about of a number of Audio engineers and Mastering engineers saying this.

That they and even many artists are more and more moving away from smashed records and files.

Hopefully in the not to distant future the small portable storage and playing mediums will be able to store and reproduce uncompressed files .. It would seem that Nanno technology should be capable.

While I sympathize with Chris's assertion about his rude ADD type audience. There is one thought that comes to mind, and that is how completely nerve racking it can be to play a venue where the audience sits quiet and intently focuses on every note every musical and vocal nuance. and therefore every possible mistake.
There is one open mic here where this is the case and it does blow the mind.
I do concur that it is a shame and it seems that in general , consumers from say Generation X or the Walkman generation ( 40 yrs. and younger ) Who have definitely been the victims of an ever increasing pace of life and technology, an on slott of a loud, fast paced relentless consumerism promoting the need to be constantly entertained and distracted. Yielding a consumer focused on portability and convenience rather than on sound quality, A consumer that has never , for example just sat and listened, in a room with no computer and no tv, to music being played listened to a whole album or CD through a Hi Fidelity sound system.

Hopefully the artists and technology can and will move in a direction to rectify this trend.

[theotigno]

We can't blame technology, nor can we rely on it to bring back the subtleties of dynamics in popular music. As musicians, we are a lot more sensitive to the artistic expression, and thus the various dynamics, of a particular music piece. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who have digested music in its current pop-culture form: just trying to jockey for attention. What's more unfortunate is that a lot of live music has gone the way of recorded music because it is what people are used to.

Yet, I think that the change is coming because people are just plain tired of music that comes across more like a commercial. Hopefully, as it seems that there is less and less money in the music industry, more songwriters will return to creating music for music's sake. Hopefully, when this happens, they will be inspired not music that was built around a catchy hook, but rather music that brings you to a place that is beyond this earth ... beyond the everyday rhythm of our everyday lives ...

Then, music will no longer be about the loudness wars, but about music.

[Ty Ford]

I think MIX is a sad shadow of what it used to be and that the publishers should combine MIX and EM, blow out a few redundant people and try to make it work as a real magazine instead of an ad pamphlet.

I think it's expected that a mastering engineer would write such a piece. It's like hearing about a study made by the Hershey Institute that increased chocolate consumption facilitates weight loss. I think it's whistling in the grave yard, a message from a representative of a fading group of "we know better than you" people. Whether or not I agree with him is irrelevant.

The "loudness war" is a war of who against whom? Musicians against mastering engineers? Groups against groups? Record companies against record companies? If you want to mash up YOUR music, I don't really care. If I would listen to it at all in the first place, I probably won't listen to it once it crosses some distortion point in my listening brain, but you don't really care, now, do ya? (apologies to Leonard Cohen). If it's an expression of your art, so be it.

Home studios and new "recording engineers" with little or no engineering background refreshed the art of recording with their "let's turn this knob and see what happens" approach. That's how we got here.

Using gain reduction used to be about increasing the density of a track or a mix. Somewhere it got out of control. Arguably during Grunge, if you want a mile post. Any sort of music in which the musicians are playing the studio instead of their instruments can end up this way. And some will add that it's BECAUSE the musicians can't play their instruments that they have to play the studio, but that's a whole 'nother topic. (Note: if you're a guitar player who uses more than a couple (2) pedals at a time, ya might want to try coming clean for a change.)

Ooops! Coffee's gone. Gotta go.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[wthurman]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Well, because the television industry failed to get its act together on this issue, congress recently passed legislation that placed a limit on audio signal saturation, ie,. the ratio of peak to average level, that is probably going to kill the era of super-saturated television commercials. It hasn't taken effect yet because broadcasters have been given time to purchase the required analysis and encoding equipment and get them installed into the stream. Program originators (including commercial originators) will be required to analyze their content for its relative loudness according to Dolby standards and encode metadata in the digital stream that tells the broadcast provider's equipment at what level to play it back. Highly compressed signal will have its average level set so that it is at parity with less compressed material via the Dolby AC3 Dialnorm (dialog normalization) metadata standard. As a result, finally, highly compressed material will actually have less punch than more dynamic material. A good example of this effect can be found in Foreigner's Agent Provocateur album. I bought it for the song, "I Want to Know What Love Is" (I know, that made it a one-song album for me). However, because it was mixed with heavy compression in order to make it as loud as possible on radio, when I played it on a decent sound system at a level I could survive, it was absolutely dead and lifeless, with no punch whatsoever. They'd killed the drum kit with compression.

More recently, congress has been working on legislation to limit headphone system volume levels to protect hearing. Because the audio industry got caught with its pants down on the TV audio issue and zapped with a congressional mandate that might not have been the best possible standard (built by congressmen, not audio men), it has scrambled to beat congress to the punch with technology and standards that will allow them to present a completed system to congress that will do the job as elegantly as possible. The goal is for everything to be at a relative parity: Over-compress the audio? The system turns it down to an "equal loudness level." Record at a low level or leave the transients? The system turns it up to an "equal loudness level.". And the standard announced in MIX tells the world that the audio industry has, indeed, beat the congress to the punch this time.

So there might be a rosier glow on the horizon than you think, Chris.

Bob

Hi Bob,

You speak to dynamic range somewhat... and something I've noticed about lack of dynamic range is that it's also fatiguing. Otherwise exciting music literally puts me to sleep. It's like eating everything covered with do much hot sauce that your taste buds basically switch off. Anything used to excess can be this way, too. Yes' Union album was unlistenable to me because it sounded like they had a BBE turned up to 11.

As for differing levels on differing CD's that others mention, I'm sorry... I find it comparatively simple to adjust the volume myself. Sure, it can get old, but to me, it doesn't get as old as music constantly going YAAAAAAAAAA in the car or at home. I've almost completely stopped listening to music on radio and TV as a result.

Not that compression is a bad thing in and of itself. It's use has simply taken us to a point where the the excitement of dynamics hasn't just been removed - the concept is completely lost, apparently, on a whole generation of listeners.

IMO.

[Ty Ford]

"Well, because the television industry failed to get its act together on this issue, congress recently passed legislation that placed a limit on audio signal saturation, ie,. the ratio of peak to average level,"

Bob,

I thought it was more the jarring differences in volume over the air from one element to the next. Are you sure they give a rip about crest factor?

Regards,

Ty Ford

[rick-slo]

Thought I read that they had already pass regulations on peak volume of commercials versus program but the advertisers were getting around the intended purpose of that by compressing the commercial's audio thus raising it's average volume annoyingly high - thus the newly passed regulations.

[Ty Ford]

Rick,

It's been that way for years, but there are still ways to circumvent the system by faking the metadata. Does the FCC have the person power to ride herd over this. Heck no.

-Ty Ford

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

Rick,

It's been that way for years, but there are still ways to circumvent the system by faking the metadata. Does the FCC have the person power to ride herd over this. Heck no.

-Ty Ford

Probably true but one can still hear the difference. So if you get the majority of the people obeying the rules they will likely complain about and report those who don't. If the fines are large enough it could be a self supporting operation.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

Rick,

It's been that way for years, but there are still ways to circumvent the system by faking the metadata.

How exactly does that work??

[Ty Ford]

Joseph,

Check these guys out. http://www.linearacoustic.com/

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

"Well, because the television industry failed to get its act together on this issue, congress recently passed legislation that placed a limit on audio signal saturation, ie,. the ratio of peak to average level,"

Bob,

I thought it was more the jarring differences in volume over the air from one element to the next. Are you sure they give a rip about crest factor?

Regards,

Ty Ford

I was referring to the saturation factor adjusted by Dialnorm and trying to expresses it in a way "civilians" could understand. I try to avoid or explain jargon as much as is possible.

And regards to you my friend,

Bob