The loudness war - heavily clipping audio CD's
Discussion
Any other music fans/audiophiles noticed the distorted crackling on some modern music recording, especially with rock bands? I was interested to see issue raised in this news story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/17/metall...
I do quite a bit of mixing and mastering and find digital clipping can be useful in moderation in combination with compression, though as highlighted in the story, the latest Metallica is quite extreme!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/17/metall...
I do quite a bit of mixing and mastering and find digital clipping can be useful in moderation in combination with compression, though as highlighted in the story, the latest Metallica is quite extreme!
Its been going on for quite a few years now. Some albums come out worse than others.. But on the whole, the situation is pretty dire. And a real shame because we have all this great and often inexpensive music technology these days capable of amazing results.. Yet quality is binned in favour of loudness.
Im not sure about your idea of digital clipping being a good thing though? But it seems you are using it as a form of limiter. Much better to use a proper limiter where possible..
All in all, compression and limiting is very much where its at these days in order to get the loudest possible production. But at the end of the day, its massively overused and essentially just becomes distortion in its own right.
Its the fault of 2 groups of people.. The mastering engineer, and record companies for demanding those kind of results from the mastering engineer. And also, to a certain extent the artists and mix engineers, as its now stamped into their brain that they must apply compression to everything every step of the way.
Open a few of these recordings up in just about any stereo audio editor, and what you'll see is what I call a "Block of wav" As it really is pretty much a solid block. Its no wonder it sounds crap. Now open up some recordings made in the say, 70's and 80's.. I guarantee they will look completely different. And more than likely, sound a damn site better too.
P,
Im not sure about your idea of digital clipping being a good thing though? But it seems you are using it as a form of limiter. Much better to use a proper limiter where possible..
All in all, compression and limiting is very much where its at these days in order to get the loudest possible production. But at the end of the day, its massively overused and essentially just becomes distortion in its own right.
Its the fault of 2 groups of people.. The mastering engineer, and record companies for demanding those kind of results from the mastering engineer. And also, to a certain extent the artists and mix engineers, as its now stamped into their brain that they must apply compression to everything every step of the way.
Open a few of these recordings up in just about any stereo audio editor, and what you'll see is what I call a "Block of wav" As it really is pretty much a solid block. Its no wonder it sounds crap. Now open up some recordings made in the say, 70's and 80's.. I guarantee they will look completely different. And more than likely, sound a damn site better too.
P,
Thanks for the reply!
I must confess that I do generally like loud sounding recordings with high RMS which I tend to to produce for heavy rock/metal bands, I do like a fairly block-ish wav. They can be fatiguing to listen to after a while though, I must say. There is a line that needs to be drawn.
Yes, I do think a degree of clipping has it's uses when mastering as a form of limiting providing it's short duration peaks (namely kick and snare drums that are punching through a mix). Okay, this does introduce distortion, but I find this to be useful, giving a "snap" or "punchy-ness" that wasn't otherwise there (this technique is used in mix-down pre-mastering). I find this works best when used with multi-band compression/limiting. I find you can achieve a "bigger" sound and it is more "transparent" than using a limiter as there's no side effects in the way of "pumping".
I think the thing with '70's and '80's recordings is that they sound great on systems with a wide frequency response and good dynamic range, but not as impressive on say, small radio speakers, the tele, etc.
I must confess that I do generally like loud sounding recordings with high RMS which I tend to to produce for heavy rock/metal bands, I do like a fairly block-ish wav. They can be fatiguing to listen to after a while though, I must say. There is a line that needs to be drawn.
Yes, I do think a degree of clipping has it's uses when mastering as a form of limiting providing it's short duration peaks (namely kick and snare drums that are punching through a mix). Okay, this does introduce distortion, but I find this to be useful, giving a "snap" or "punchy-ness" that wasn't otherwise there (this technique is used in mix-down pre-mastering). I find this works best when used with multi-band compression/limiting. I find you can achieve a "bigger" sound and it is more "transparent" than using a limiter as there's no side effects in the way of "pumping".
I think the thing with '70's and '80's recordings is that they sound great on systems with a wide frequency response and good dynamic range, but not as impressive on say, small radio speakers, the tele, etc.
Edited by Kieran XJR on Thursday 18th September 21:39
Its been a problem for years.
The fact is though that 'better' to untrained ears - 90% of the population - is a lot worse to the rest.
I have been in a mixing session of an album ten years ago which was of the calibre that it won a Grammy - not a crappy pop track. However, a story was recounted to me that the artist walked past the studio doors at the start of a mix session, heard the 'mix' as said she wanted it to sound exactly like 'that' as is sounds as if it is ready for the radio.
What she didn't realise was that the producer and engineer hadn't even started mixing yet - they just had all the faders pushed up no processing or EQ whatsoever and let the mix hit the limiter just so they could be reminded of what tracks were there on the mix before they started.
That was a decade ago, since then it has got worse and worse. Will anyone 'get off the train'? How can they?
The people who hold the pursestrings are the ones who want to maximise sales, and in a nutshell tell the producer/engineer what sounds good. As does the artist. Therefore at the end of the day the engineer/producer's 'art' is overtaken by those who are paying their wages.
Do you aim a mix at the 90% of the public who listen in their car or mp3 player or the 10% who sit and listen to a CD? If it is a commercial 'chart' track then the answer is simple.
Its a sad state of affairs, but unfortunately I see no reversal is possible. It is an out of hand situation everyone saw from the start like 'What would happen if we start paying Premier League footballers £50,000 a week?'.
I thought the answer would be for something like a DVD-Audio to offer an alternative mix, and some of them that I have such as the Beatles Love album are astonishing pieces of work. No-one else wants it though.
The fact is though that 'better' to untrained ears - 90% of the population - is a lot worse to the rest.
I have been in a mixing session of an album ten years ago which was of the calibre that it won a Grammy - not a crappy pop track. However, a story was recounted to me that the artist walked past the studio doors at the start of a mix session, heard the 'mix' as said she wanted it to sound exactly like 'that' as is sounds as if it is ready for the radio.
What she didn't realise was that the producer and engineer hadn't even started mixing yet - they just had all the faders pushed up no processing or EQ whatsoever and let the mix hit the limiter just so they could be reminded of what tracks were there on the mix before they started.
That was a decade ago, since then it has got worse and worse. Will anyone 'get off the train'? How can they?
The people who hold the pursestrings are the ones who want to maximise sales, and in a nutshell tell the producer/engineer what sounds good. As does the artist. Therefore at the end of the day the engineer/producer's 'art' is overtaken by those who are paying their wages.
Do you aim a mix at the 90% of the public who listen in their car or mp3 player or the 10% who sit and listen to a CD? If it is a commercial 'chart' track then the answer is simple.
Its a sad state of affairs, but unfortunately I see no reversal is possible. It is an out of hand situation everyone saw from the start like 'What would happen if we start paying Premier League footballers £50,000 a week?'.
I thought the answer would be for something like a DVD-Audio to offer an alternative mix, and some of them that I have such as the Beatles Love album are astonishing pieces of work. No-one else wants it though.
The new Metallica album is taking some heavy stick.
I have not heard it yet but there is an online protest to have it remixed, the ME has distanced himself from it.
It is getting to be more and more of an issue.
Another part of the problem i think lies with radio stations and the lack of trained engineers working for them.
We have had feedback from a couple of labels who have in turn had feedback from radio stations complaining there album is not as loud as some others.
Why can't they just turn it up?
I have not heard it yet but there is an online protest to have it remixed, the ME has distanced himself from it.
It is getting to be more and more of an issue.
Another part of the problem i think lies with radio stations and the lack of trained engineers working for them.
We have had feedback from a couple of labels who have in turn had feedback from radio stations complaining there album is not as loud as some others.
Why can't they just turn it up?
KB_S1 said:
Why can't they just turn it up?
They can't just turn up a track with a low RMS (that the average signal level) as all the tracks are essentially normalised so that their peak level uses all available output headroom. Most commercial radio station add additional compression/limiting but this can't compensate for excessively quite tracks.Radio stations want all their audio content to be at roughly the same perceived level, listeners don't want to be riding the volume up and down every 4 minutes.
KB_S1 said:
The new Metallica album is taking some heavy stick.
I have not heard it yet but there is an online protest to have it remixed, the ME has distanced himself from it.
It is getting to be more and more of an issue.
Another part of the problem i think lies with radio stations and the lack of trained engineers working for them.
We have had feedback from a couple of labels who have in turn had feedback from radio stations complaining there album is not as loud as some others.
Why can't they just turn it up?
Radio stations have compressed their output to hell for years. Even back to the Stock, Aitken and Waterman days.I have not heard it yet but there is an online protest to have it remixed, the ME has distanced himself from it.
It is getting to be more and more of an issue.
Another part of the problem i think lies with radio stations and the lack of trained engineers working for them.
We have had feedback from a couple of labels who have in turn had feedback from radio stations complaining there album is not as loud as some others.
Why can't they just turn it up?
If you listen to one of their tracks from the day you will hear that there is little or no bass on them - specifically because radio stations used to brickwall limit output using bass as the trigger. As a result, the rest of their track wasn't compressed to hell and sounded more open and bigger than the rest of the songs of the time.
Hey, its what the kids want isn't it? Being the devil's advocate, considering that probably about 90% of music listening minutes are on the radio or mp3, commercially it would make sense to optimise the loudness for that?
The crazy thing is that these overly compressed tracks only sound "loud" and "exciting" for the first few minutes and after that it all just sounds kind of flat and boring. To get people to jump out of their seats going "Whoa!" you need to have some dynamics...
Best examples probably come from live gigs - I've seen Motorhead a time or two , every time when they've come on I think "F*ck Me that's loud..." but within a song or two I'm just kind of used to it and it no longer has much of an effect, comparing and contrasting with the Jethro Tull shows I've seen Tull's use of dynamics means that while the peak sound levels never get close to Motorhead[1] the bits where they do crank it up a bit actually have much greater impact and are subjectively louder.
Far better to leave the dynamics in and let them be processed out in the broadcast chain, the MP3 encoding process, or even in the equipment you're listening on. I'm pretty sure most modern kit (even at the cheapest end of the spectrum like basic MP3 players or car stereos) has enough processing horsepower to apply a bit of compression at playback if it's really considered desirable...
[1] At least not according to my crude internal "how long my ears are ringing for afterwards" SPL meter...
--
JG
Best examples probably come from live gigs - I've seen Motorhead a time or two , every time when they've come on I think "F*ck Me that's loud..." but within a song or two I'm just kind of used to it and it no longer has much of an effect, comparing and contrasting with the Jethro Tull shows I've seen Tull's use of dynamics means that while the peak sound levels never get close to Motorhead[1] the bits where they do crank it up a bit actually have much greater impact and are subjectively louder.
Far better to leave the dynamics in and let them be processed out in the broadcast chain, the MP3 encoding process, or even in the equipment you're listening on. I'm pretty sure most modern kit (even at the cheapest end of the spectrum like basic MP3 players or car stereos) has enough processing horsepower to apply a bit of compression at playback if it's really considered desirable...
[1] At least not according to my crude internal "how long my ears are ringing for afterwards" SPL meter...
--
JG
Kieran XJR said:
KB_S1 said:
Why can't they just turn it up?
They can't just turn up a track with a low RMS (that the average signal level) as all the tracks are essentially normalised so that their peak level uses all available output headroom. Most commercial radio station add additional compression/limiting but this can't compensate for excessively quite tracks.Radio stations want all their audio content to be at roughly the same perceived level, listeners don't want to be riding the volume up and down every 4 minutes.
Another good article on the subject here, this one describing Rush and the difference as they went from vinyl to CD formats.
http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/2...
http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/2...
garycat said:
Another good article on the subject here, this one describing Rush and the difference as they went from vinyl to CD formats.
http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/2...
Thanks for that. Great article http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/2...
I agree with it 110%P,
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