Audio loudness, I don't get it.

I'm going to side with Jon here.

There is NO good reason on this earth to BOOST the LOUDNESS just because everybody else is doing it. Compression, even limiting (and limiting is just another type of compression) destroys the music's natural DYNAMICS and FEEL.  It squiches and squaches the music into mush.  It causes the music to sound in-your)face tiersome causes earaches and headaches and causes the listener to lose interest. It wears out the nerve endings in your ears. It makes it hard to listen to the music as much as reading all color does and it all feels better once the natural dynamics and nuances are preserved.

Get my point?

Hi beetle,

Could you take a minute and list a couple of your commercial favorites too, I'd like to hear them and add them to my reference list. I am mostly using pop rock reference material at the present but what ever you're listenening to at the moment is good also.

One's where:

...the natural dynamics and nuances are preserved.

thanks,
kylen

groucho, zemlin, rpc9943, jonrose, AMSG

Would you be willing to take a moment and list a couple of the commercial pop mixes that you rate in your top 5 list that exhibit good loudness characteristics.

I'd like to consider them in my own list that I use for reference material.

Thanks,
kylen

See, the thing is, I don't really even notice "loudness characteristics". I just put a cd in, wait for the first few bars, and adjust the volume knob to my liking.

I mean, sometimes when I have things on a mix cd back to back, I'll notice that one is a lot louder than the other (or quieter) but... I just use the volume knob again.

Basically, I mainly notice when it's done *badly* (ie: clipped, distorted, overcompressed).

Chris

kylen Posted:
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Could you take a minute and list a couple of your commercial favorites too, I'd like to hear them and add them to my reference list.

Any of the Steely Dan projects recorded by Roger Nichols, Jeff Beck (Blow by Blow), most of the Narada and Windham hill recordings.... just to name a few!  

groucho, zemlin, rpc9943, jonrose, AMSG

Would you be willing to take a moment and list a couple of the commercial pop mixes that you rate in your top 5 list that exhibit good loudness characteristics.

I'd like to consider them in my own list that I use for reference material.

Thanks,
kylen

See, the thing is, I don't really even notice "loudness characteristics". I just put a cd in, wait for the first few bars, and adjust the volume knob to my liking.

I mean, sometimes when I have things on a mix cd back to back, I'll notice that one is a lot louder than the other (or quieter) but... I just use the volume knob again.

Basically, I mainly notice when it's done *badly* (ie: clipped, distorted, overcompressed).

Chris

I don't know how trained your ear is to things like compression and it's effects, but once you know what to listen for you will do more than just adjust the volume.  You'll hear the degredation of the sound.

beetle Posted:
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...once you know what to listen for you will do more than just adjust the volume. You'll hear the degredation of the sound.

That is the same thing I try to explain to people about lossy compression formats (namely MP3's)!  I can hear a difference and it ain't pretty...  

Hi beetle,

Could you take a minute and list a couple of your commercial favorites too, I'd like to hear them and add them to my reference list. I am mostly using pop rock reference material at the present but what ever you're listenening to at the moment is good also.

One's where:

...the natural dynamics and nuances are preserved.

thanks,
kylen

Well, I have over 5000 CDs, so i'll just list some of the ones that come to mind that have not been compressed/limited.

Teena Marie-"It Must Be Magic" remaster on Motown
Sting-"Dream Of The Blue Turtles" Mobile Fidelity gold disc
Stevie Wonder-"Innervisions" Mobile Fidelity gold disc
Eagles-"Greatest Hits" DCC gold disc

Wow!  I totally forgot about Sting's - Dream of the Blue Turtles.  It was engineered by JIM SCOTT.  He also mixed Michelle Branch's - Hotel Paper , Lisa Marie Presley's - To Whom it May Concern and Matchbox Twenty's - More Than Your Think You Are.  He's also done some Producing with Franky Perez's -  Poor Man's Son (Bonus Track)

FWIW, he also Assisted on W.A.S.P. - W.A.S.P.  

groucho, zemlin, rpc9943, jonrose, AMSG

Basically, I mainly notice when it's done *badly* (ie: clipped, distorted, overcompressed).

Chris

I don't know how trained your ear is to things like compression and it's effects, but once you know what to listen for you will do more than just adjust the volume.  You'll hear the degredation of the sound.

Um, as I said, I *do* notice, when it's done *badly*.

But if we're just talking about relatively recent CDs that sound good and have good dynamic range, I think the Gillian Welch cds (particularly the middle 2 produced by T-Bone Burnett) are phenomenal-sounding. I think Patty Griffin's "1000 Kisses" is great-sounding. I love the sound of the last Dylan record ("Love and Theft").  I also liked the last Beck record ("Sea Change") in terms of sonic quality - although the music itself was more hit and miss for me.

I also just listened to some Jane's Addiction stuff for the first time in awhile. Forgot how good those records sounded. And they're plenty loud.



Chris

Um, as I said, I *do* notice, when it's done *badly*.

But if we're just talking about relatively recent CDs that sound good and have good dynamic range, I think the Gillian Welch cds (particularly the middle 2 produced by T-Bone Burnett) are phenomenal-sounding. I think Patty Griffin's "1000 Kisses" is great-sounding. I love the sound of the last Dylan record ("Love and Theft").  I also liked the last Beck record ("Sea Change") in terms of sonic quality - although the music itself was more hit and miss for me.

I also just listened to some Jane's Addiction stuff for the first time in awhile. Forgot how good those records sounded. And they're plenty loud.



Chris

Just so you know, they had to alter the sound of the mixes to get them so loud.  Loud is NOT better!  In fact, most mastering engineers detest having to make mixes louder.  The only people who want it are the artists and the record company execs.  Most of the audience doesn't know any better, either.

Hi guys, thanks for your reference choices, I use some of the same myself for pre-master references. I also really dig some CD's I listen to on the strength of the music but wouldn't necessarily use them as reference material for a mix, pre-master or something that I would consider to represent an upstanding example of dynamics preservation.

So in that spirit I wanted to dig into something groucho and beetle have said.

groucho: I also just listened to some Jane's Addiction stuff for the first time in awhile. Forgot how good those records sounded. And they're plenty loud

Groucho - aren't you saying that the Jane's Addiction is good sounding, plenty loud - but not louder than necessary. Not too loud in other words.

beetle:Loud is NOT better!

beetle - I think you are saying here that louder and louder and louder is bad. The way the music industry keeps escalating louder music. But do you agree with groucho that a song that is loud enough and not too loud is OK ?


What I'm trying to get at here is that if it's not loud enough (but fixable by turning up the volume knob) that could be bad but if it's too loud that's definitely bad (unfixable because of distortion in the wave).

I'm looking for the middle ground where the wave is in a good loudness zone. The reference CD's you guys mentioned and others on the internet  can help me set that. I can also bring up the volume on my amp a little - no problem if I'm listening at home. Sometimes you're in rotation at a club or wherever and the volume of the wave on the media needs to be at an acceptable loudness level.

I do pop rock music so I know for a fact I'm not going to pop a CD in my system that has 60dB of dynamic headroom (rms to peak) on it - the speaker cones would fly out of the cabinets. I'm thinking probably anywhere within 10-25dB of headroom (rms to peak) from readings I've taken but that's just a guess at this point (not dB SPL).

The cinema industry have established some loudness levels but I'm just discovering that stuff now. Then there's the auditory and hearing sites...

We've got the Fletch-Munson equal loudness curves that tell us at what loudness differenent frequencies sound good (at dB SPL). If I find a standard or reference of different frequencies dynamic balances I'll pop back in here - that one has a lot of program variables I guess.

kylen

groucho: I also just listened to some Jane's Addiction stuff for the first time in awhile. Forgot how good those records sounded. And they're plenty loud

Groucho - aren't you saying that the Jane's Addiction is good sounding, plenty loud - but not louder than necessary. Not too loud in other words.

I guess I could put it like this: my opinion, based on what I've learned so far (and my own experiments) is that if you tracked well and mixed well your mix will be loud enough. Whether it's loud enough to compete in the "loudness wars" of the major label dingalings is another matter, of course.

To me, something's "too loud" when it becomes apparant that sound quality has been sacrificed in order to get a few more dbs of volume.

Understand, I *do* have sympathy for you folks who are forced, because of your clients, to try to make your stuff as loud as the latest corporate-manufactured bubblegum alt-rock posterboy candyass stuff, but as a *listener* it's just not important to me. It's much more important to me that the levels betwee the various *songs* on the cd be consistant (that's something that really annoys me).

Cheers,
Chris

Are there methods of making sure the EQ's are balanced so much to the point that you really can maybe use a statistical frequency graph or what?

rpc9943,
You mentioned EQ. You might try this, print out an equal loudness curve: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug01/images/eqloudness23.gif

Now take a ruler and draw a horizontal line at 85 db SPL. Now you can see how your ears' sensitivity works at various frequencies.

If your mixing/listening space is giving you trouble, or maybe you're just prone to mixing guitars louder or something like I do then maybe you mostly have an EQ problem. There's a heck of a lot of energy down in the bass regions that surely account for perceived loudness.

It's possible you might either remix or pre-master watching the CEP spectrum analyzer trying to attain loudness via eq settings that take into consideration the equal loudness curve. Then throw a little compression on it to taste to tighten it up if you need it.

I'm going to try something similiar on a piece I'm working on where there are problems in the 20-100Hz range.

kylen

Ed: The EQ curve came from this SOS article:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug01/articles/usingeq.asp
The 85 SPL is a recommended listening level set by the cinema industry I believe.

Kylen, I have some cd's that are of very good soundquality (I think) but it's not really commercial music (metal) so I don't think this would be interesting for you as a reference.

 

To me, something's "too loud" when it becomes apparant that sound quality has been sacrificed in order to get a few more dbs of volume.

 
Chris

But that is exactly what is happening 90% of the time!  

16-bit digital has an absolute ceiling.  Any attempt to exceed that limit will cause some compromise to the sound to be made.  The change can be heard on the cheapest boombox/portable to the finest mastering gear in the world.  The listener can hear it too, although many people just don't know what to listen for.

When something is limited, the loud parts of the music sound as if they reach a plateau or ceiling and can't get any higher, and something is forcing it back.  The effect is also described as the music not being able to breathe, or that there is no room to move around in.  The bass may sound a bit more powerful but less articulate.  This is called compression.  When you reduce the frequency extremes it tends to exaggerate or raise the midrange so that the music now sounds a bit midrangy or edgy.  If band compression was used in conjunction with that limiter, the dynamics will sound less clear.  All of this is routinely done to exceed the digital limit in order to get the music louder.  The music is not really louder, it just sounds that way.  So, you think this sounds better?