by Duke

So this is a bit of a rant, inspired by the “mute” button on my TV remote.

Like so many Canadians, I watch a fair bit of TV. Like the majority of Canadians, I find most of the ads deeply insulting and even depressing. There are gems out there (the eyebrow kids from Cadbury were funny for the first couple runs), but for the most part they rely on pitch points that have been around for centuries – hyping up the product to unreal levels, “Bouncing Negatives” (the presentation of solutions against objections, a.k.a. being pushy), The “Jones Effect” (making sure you know everybody else is doing it, so you’d better keep up), etc.

But the #1 technique is still just shouting. Taking a cue from the record industry, advertisers are getting louder all the time. The audio in TV ads is so compressed and juiced that dynamic range is drastically reduced, making them across much louder than the show you’re watching.

I know TV isn’t really that important, but when I’m craning to understand what Tim Roth is saying on “Lie to Me” and then the ads come on, I get beaned with decibel levels that would get a DJ fired.

It’s just like flipping through iTunes. Can’t speak for everybody, but when a song comes on that’s significantly louder than the previous one, my first instinct is to skip it fast (before I lose the ability to hear above 10kHz).

The purpose of advertising is to draw your audience in; it’s the reason TV was invented. Lambasting your audience with a screaming, bombastic pitch will send them away. I hit the “mute” button, and that’s only because I can’t afford TiVo.

The easy thing to do would be to stop watching TV altogether.

Advertisers & record producers are endangering their own livelihoods. Keep smashing those dynamic range levels and at some point your audience will hit “mute.” Where’s the benefit in that?

See also: The Distrustful Nature of Leveraging Loudness

and The Decibel Heap – a List of Loudness

Technorati Tags: advertising, compression, Duke, Loudness Wars, TV

by Duke

We thought it timely to compile a Top Ten list of Loudness-War-related stories and videos.

And here it is:

1. Dinosuar Jr’s Album Recalled For Being Too Loud by Ryan Dombal

2. How Spotify Might Defuse the Loudness War from Production Advice

3. Welcome to the Land of Loud? by James Pew

4. Declaring an End to the Loudness Wars by Barry Diament

5. Why Mastering Sucks in the 21st Century by Ian Shepherd

6. Remastered Dire Straights from wado1942

7. The Silver Dollar Room Disaster also by James Pew

8. Loudness War: Why Should You Care? Part 1 & Part 2 by Shawn Daley

9. The Loudness War Analyzed by Paul Lamere

10. If Smells Like Teen Spirit Were Released Today…

…and the sequel by goodrob13…

Comments? Suggestions? In the time-honored words of Dolph Lundgren, “I’m all ears.”

Technorati Tags: daley, diament, lamere, Loudness Wars, pew, shepherd

Production Advice in UK started by writing an article about how Spotify is limiting all the music on their website to “equal out levels”. The article was actually orginally called “How Spotify is contributing to the Loudness War”.

After some more research and correction, he quickly changed the article to reflect on how Spotify is trying to destroy the loudness wars.

They’re doing this by putting a low-level normalizer (not a bad thing when used sparingly) to equal out all songs. This makes sure that every song plays back at roughly the same volume, negating the need for overcompression in mixing and mastering stages.

If this continues, there’s no reason to destroy a mix to be the loudest on the radio, and this is great news for music makers, and especially, our ears.

As technology develops towards alternative radios in the car, such as Satellite radio, and, in my opinion, internet radio, this will help to destroy the Loudness War.

The war hasn’t been won, but this is a great battle won due to Spotify’s rising success, and current media presence.

Spotify’s “Volume Normalisation” works exactly as advertised, and doesn’t add any unnecessary limiting to already high-level tracks. This feature is a great thing, in my opinion, and hopefully in the long term will help make the “Loudness Wars“ irrelevant.

Read the full article (and subsequent corrections) at Production Advice

Technorati Tags: Loudness Wars

compiled by Duke

Here they are in a particular order:

1. Why Mastering Sucks in the 21st Century

2. Don’t Forget to be Awesome

3. Music Presentation at Soundtopia part 1

4. Homemade Acoustic Drum Machine?

5. Reverb Store Looks Awesome

6. Awareness Grows for the Loudness Wars – Please Retweet

7. Ignoring RIAA Lawsuits Cheaper Than Going to Court

8. Head of Australian Recording Industry on the New Music Business

9. Music Presentation at Soundtopia part 2

10. Why the Lily Allen Story is Important

Technorati Tags: top 10

by Ian Shepherd

This is a rant. If you don’t like rants, don’t read it.

The first argument goes like this:

1. Mastering is just a matter of balancing tracks with each other using EQ, compression and limiting.

2. I can get mastering EQ and compression plugins free with a pint of beer, nowadays.

3. Why would I pay someone else to do my mastering?

The second argument goes like this:

1. Nobody buys CDs any more.

2. Nobody listens to albums any more.

3. Everybody uses mp3 players and crappy earbuds nowadays.

4. Why would I pay someone else to do my mastering?

The third argument goes like this:

1. I sent my last CD off to be mastered, and it came back sounding no different.

2. I sent my last CD off to be mastered, and it came back sounding the same but a bit louder.

3. I sent my last CD off to be mastered, and it came back sounding absolutely terrible.

4. Why would I pay someone else to do my mastering?

Case closed, right?

When I started out as a trainee mastering engineer, over 15 years ago, one of the toughest jobs was explaining to people what mastering actually was. In those days it truly was a dark art, costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear just to obtain admission to the club. Nowadays you rip a few tracks into iTunes, burn a CD and you’re a mastering engineer, right?

Hmm.

My first set of replies goes like this:

1. That’s some of what mastering involves, yes. I wrote more about it here.

2. You can buy plugins that say they allow you to do mastering EQ and compression, yes. Why don’t the top engineers use them? Leaving that aside for a minute, do you know how to use the ones you have? Are your speakers good enough to hear what you’re doing with them? Do you have the experience to know exactly what things should sound like in your genre? Do you know when it’s a mix problem and when it’s a mastering problem?

Let’s try another tack. As a musician or record label, releasing your music to the world is a bit like having a really important job interview, and you need a new suit. Do you buy the cheapest, or the best you can afford? Given the choice, would you have one hand-made by a master tailor using the finest quality material to fit and flatter your exact build and body-shape, or would you order one over the internet and hope for the best?

3. Why would you want someone else to do your mastering?

See the rest of it at Mastering Media Blog

We just found this great post from goodrob13 on the loudness wars. goodrob13 gives a very effective loudness wars demonstration on this video he created comparing a Nirvana re-master with its original release master. See it below.

goodrob13 also describes the history of the loudness wars as well as how he slowly began to discover the corporate loudness agenda, which eventually expanded into the distorted world of brick walled loudness that we are bombarded with today. Great piece by goodrob13, we at Studio Manifesto can relate to his message. Please read his post and view the videos…and pass this along to everyone you know!

Here is a quote from goodrob13:

new music was being over-compressed to make it sound louder. Supposedly, record executives want their label’s CDs to sound louder than everyone else’s. The result is that the executives at every record label are constantly trying to outdo each other’s loudness. It’s an audio arms race and if it continues, all music will sound like distorted, nondescript garbage.

Read the full post at goodrob13.com

Follow goodrob13 on twitter. @goodrob13

Technorati Tags: compression, curmudgeon, goodrob13, Loudness War, mastering, nirvana

It was a great week for Studio Manifesto…more great marketing advice for indies with the W5H post, loudness wars and live entertainment reconsidered with “Are music festivals worth your time and money?” and “Dire Straits Remastered”, strange instruments were featured with the hang drum post and the “Gallery of Weird Instruments,” and much more.



Seven Crimes That Will Get You a Smaller Fine Than File-Sharing
Cool Musical Instrument the Hang Drum
Gallery of Weird Instruments
Are music festivals worth your time and money?
W5H for the Indie Artist: Marketing Your Music
Korn To Embrace Multiple EP Strategy
Finally Some Details About The Rock Band Network
The Copyright Scorecard
Remastered Dire Straights
Yahoo’s online radio service wins ruling over license fees

Technorati Tags: indie marketing, live entertainment, Loudness Wars, studio manifesto, Top Ten

We really liked James’ post The Death of the Music Festival . (That’s James Cartwright from BeatCrave, not James Pew). His central idea is that “fan enjoyment is not the top priority” in how musical events, like festivals, are organized. It goes without saying that if fan enjoyment is not a top priority, neither is sound quality.

In the type of overbooked corporate festival that James refers to, often the convention is to throw excessive volume at bad acoustics issues. Since people have been led to believe that Loud=Awesome (untrue) when it comes to certain styles of music, we can be fooled into thinking a live music experience was amazing simply by the face that it blew our heads off.

If big business artificially embedded loudness into its music product, robbing fans of the dynamic subtleties of the art form, why wouldn’t they do it to live music as well (See the loudess wars for much more on that). Even at the level of small local live events, bands and live sound engineers push volume levels way beyond what is comfortable for an audience. When putting on any type of show fan enjoyment should be top priority. Give them something awesome to look at and listen to…and note the message behind this BeatCrave rant. James is not alone in his frustration at music festivals. Here is quote

The biggest problem with how today’s festivals are being run is that fan enjoyment is not the top priority. Without getting into economics or free market philosophies, the point I’m trying to make is that promoters have spent years perfecting a formula to return the greatest lump sum. They’ve been too focused on collecting bands-of-the-month and civil engineering as many people as humanly possible into the same space that they haven’t taken a step back to realize that they’re strangling their consumers’ experience to death. I think the prophetic Dr. Ian Malcolm put it best, “Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

So what do you think? Are music festivals worth your time and money?

Full story at BeatCrave

Related Posts:
The Silver Dollar Room Disaster

Technorati Tags: BeatCrave, James Cartwright, Live Music, Loudness Wars, Music Festivals

Technorati Tags: dire straights, Loudness Wars, money for nothing, remaster

Loudness War: Why Should You Care Part Two

Sellaband vs Kickstarter: Fan-Driven Fundraising for Artists

Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn’t you?

The Social Media Revolution

Your Credit Card as a Record Label: What to Know Before You Go There

The Real Reason Why the Major Labels Love Spotify

3 Ways To Make Money Now – Playing Covers, Playing Sessions & Playing Live

Radio Man Bruce Warren and his Righteous Anger for Labels

Dweezil Zappa’s Dangerous Road Rig

The New A & R

Technorati Tags: Band Central, dangerous, dweezil zappa, fundraising, Kickstarter, Loudness Wars, music, Music Business, recording, SellaBand, Social Media, sound check

By Shawn Daley

This post is a follow up to The Loudness War: Why Should You Care?.

After looking over Part 1 of this series of posts, I’ve decided to show exact numbers in relation to loudness with the music James Pew, Freddy Gabrsek and I have worked on in recent months at Euphonic Sound Recording Studio.

I would like to share music from the two most recent artists we’ve released on Broken Window Records. First, an alternative punk band called 48 Caliber from Ajax Ontario.

Using the Offline TT Dynamic Range Meter plug in (which you can find at The Pleasurize Music Blog), I’ve analyzed the RMS value of the latest 48 Caliber EP “Say It Loud”. The RMS value, for those of you who are unaware, stands for root mean square. This will help us calculate the average loudness. The TT Dynamic Range Meter has the ability to calculate the RMS, Peak Value, and Dynamic Range of either an individual song, or a full album all at once.

Many modern recordings have been absolutely smashed with over compression and limiting, reducing the dynamic range, quality, and thus the listening experience. Freddy Gabrsek of Freddy’s Frets and Origin Audio Electronics has generously taken the time to calculate the DR and RMS values of some modern music. Most present-day recordings, especially those meant to be listened to loudly (hard rock, alternative, punk, metal songs etc.), have roughly 6 to 3 dB of dynamic range. More recent recordings by System Of A Down, Metallica, Bad Religion, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Avenged Sevenfold (not to mention countless others) have registered individual songs at an RMS value of -4.0 to -6.5, and a DR of 6dB to 3dB of dynamic range, and in many cases 6dB is being generous. I thoroughly enjoy the songs these artists release, but listening to music containing such a dense spectrum of dynamic range is tiresome on the ears. The music loses definition after half an album of listening.

Back to 48 Caliber. The songs on the album “Say It Loud” have from 10dB to 8dB of dynamic range. These numbers are not exactly common (in the modern recording industry) for an alternative, fast punk group, and it DOES make a difference. This allows the listener to control the volume level, as opposed to the song it’s self controlling the volume. Turn it up loud, you’ll not hear distortion or suffer ear fatigue at the same rate you would with a “squashed” recording.

Another artist with whom we’ve recently wrapped up production is Andrea Gauster, a singer / songwriter from Peterborough Ontario. She falls into the Indie / Folk category. Many think that only rock and hip hop music are victims of The Loudness War. Paul McCartney, Sting, Lily Allen, R.E.M., and Keane have released albums plagued with over compression and limiting. Andrea’s newest EP, “Reverie”, registers a DR Rating of 10dB, and an RMS of -12.3 dB.

People like loudness. Not everyone, but plenty of us do. The key to enjoying loud music is simply retaining the ability to control the listening volume without losing resolution. Could you enjoy reading a book which turns the pages automatically and without your input? To a certain extent, you probably could, but why the hell would you want to?

Not only are over compressed recordings strenuous to listen to, but possibly a danger to our hearing.

According to a study in construction from the Directorate – General For Health And Consumers:

“In the preliminary report, the Scientific Committee highlights that users of MP3 players would exceed the occupational health limits if listening for one hour per day each week at high volume (exceeding 89 decibels). Users listening for longer periods risk a permanent hearing loss after 5 or more years (approximately 5-10% of the listeners).”

While listening to music infused wirth artificial loudness, the ammount of listening volume you’ll need to apply is miniscule. Because of this, we can’t enjoy music at high quality and full resolution. Recordings mastered with a higher dynamic range require us to actually turn the stereos up, controlling the level of volume we listen to and sustaining resolution.

Here are a few words of wisdom from renowned sound engineers and producers educated on the subject:

David Bendeth – Multi-Platinum Award Winning Producer:

The louder is better has ruined many good songs and left the listener with no dynamics. It has alienated people and all that has to happen here is for someone to set a new standard which will happen! Maybe I will try it.

Bob Ludwig – Grammy Award Winning Mastering Engineer

I’m thinking people are realizing that there is a musical price to pay to have your iPod on “shuffle” and have your song be the loudest thing. I admit, to put out something that won’t sound as loud as what comes before and after it on a iPod shuffle does take a certain amount of guts as a producer, but more and more producers and artists are getting back into dynamic range again.

Bob Katz – Acclaimed Author, Founder Of The “K-System” and Grammy Winning Mastering Engineer.

The war for loudness has only casualties and losers. Some CDs made in the year 2001 are 10 dB hotter than those made in 1990! But the system can’t take it…this is only obtained with horrendous amounts of compression and limiting. Can you take one of these CDs for more than 5 minutes? They sound fatiguing, overmodulated…..

Fact: Your CDs are hotter than anything made in 1990. They have reached the maximum level that they can and still maintain the sound quality. CDs cannot escalate because there is a limit. The waveforms of the top of the charts “hits” are shaped like 2 x 4s, sound fatiguing and unrelenting and have no relationship with the sound of a good album. No one is happy—-not the artists, not the producers… And on the radio? Still sound like crap, only worse.

The choice to listen to high quality music is up to you.

Check out 48 Caliber and Andrea Gauster on the Broken Window Records site to hear their music and learn more about them.

Technorati Tags: 48, advice, andrea, Caliber, compression, daley, dynamic, freddy, gabrsek, gauster, indie, james, Loudness, music, pew, range, recording, shawn, toronto, war

Well actually Dr. Dre is teaming with Interscope Chairman Jimmy Iovine, and computer maker Hewlett-Packard. in an effort to “lift the sound quality of the too-often tinny tunes squeaking out of our ear buds” – an ambitious plan and noble pursuit.

Its not about new business models, or Apple vs. the RIAA, its about sound quality. At least if you believe this unlikely trios statements it is. I for one sincerely hope that Dr. Dre, HP, & Jimmy Lovine take a no compromise approach to their plans of overhauling the digital music infrastructure, and include in its design a standard or guideline for dynamic range in mastered audio recordings thereby offering a solution or alternative to the loudness wars.

HP will release premium-priced laptops, headsets, and software featuring the “Beats by Dr. Dre” brand this fall, and Jimmy Lovine confirms that he and Dr. Dre are part of a plan to reconstruct the entire “digital music ecosystem” from the sound file to the computer and culminating with high-end headsets according to CNET News.

Relevant Studio Manifesto posts from the last of couple days:

Online Outlets Dedicated To Fighting The Loudness Wars
If Smells Like Teen Spirit Was Released Today
The Sound Between The Notes

Technorati Tags: Apple, Digital Music, dr dre, Hewlett-Packard, Interscope, jimmy iovine

Due to the modern Loudness Wars, this is what Nirvana’s breakthrough track, Smells Like Teen Spirit, would sound like if released today.

Technorati Tags: compression, Loudness Wars, mastering, nirvana, smells like teen spirit, You Tube

Before reading this post, I’d like to recommend you read “The Loudness Wars: Why Should You Care?” and “Welcome to the Land of Loud” as well as other posts in our Loudness Wars category here on Studio Manifesto. You can also listen to “The Sound Between the Notes” interview of producer James Pew by podcaster John Meadows about the Loudness wars.

While many music consumers are unaware of the Loudness Wars, just as many audio engineers and producers are fully aware of the methods currently used to reduce the dynamics in music today. Luckily, those who understand the Loudness Wars are taking actions through blogging and even software development. Below are a few organizations and articles to check out for those interested in making a difference.

Turn Me Up!

“Turn Me Up!” is a non profit organization encouraging artists not to fear releasing an album with more dynamic range than usual. This, of course, means an artists album won’t constantly sound “in your face”, and some artists fear this may be less impressive to audiences. The solution is simply for listeners to take control of the volume knobs on their listening systems. Should an artist’s album meet the Dynamic Range of TMU!’s certification levels, you will receive the following label for your album packaging:

From the Turn Me Up! Website:

The intention of this label is to give artists the choice to release a more dynamic record, and to inform the consumer that nothing is wrong—all they need to do is Turn Me Up! To be clear, it’s purpose is purely instructional. It’s not meant to be seen as a standard, recommendation, or approval. It’s meant to simply tell the listener to do one thing . . . turn up the volume.

This is a great service for artists, providing them with the confidence to produce an album with fuller dynamic range, but it’s equally, if not more, important for the listener. Reminding the average music consumer to simply control the volume knob themselves seems like common sense, but only if the recording allows for it.

Visit Turn Me Up! for more information.

Pleasurize Music Foundation

The Pleasurize Music Foundation is another nonprofit organization which has designed a plug-in for various DAW’s, (as well as an “offline” version to be used without any other program) which analyzes aspects of audio pertaining to loudness.

From the PMF Website:

For technicians, this is the average cumulative difference between peak and loudness (RMS) over a specific period of time (duration of a song or album) and is a whole number value given in decibels. Just the top 20% of the loudness are taken into consideration to ensure that songs with a long intro and and over compressed refrain doesn´t appear with a too high DR value. The DR value represents the grade of compression of released music in an easy to understand and standardized whole number system.

As you can tell, this plug-in is a fantastic tool for engineers and producers for keeping track of dynamic range. Even music listeners can use the “offline” meter for measuring the DR and RMS values of the music they are listening to which I would like to recommend you try.

Ian Shepherd

Ian Shepherd is the senior mastering engineer at Sound Recording Technology in Cambridge, and founder of a great blog called “Production Advice” which covers subjects on all aspects of music production. Ian has more than a few fantastic articles in regards to loudness and over-compression:

What Is Mastering?

How Do We Hear Loudness? : Peak vs. Average Levels

Mastering Techniques: Using A Compressor (Part 1) (Part 2)

Mastering Software Part 1 – Metering Levels And Loudness

DIY Mastering – (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5)

Those are only a few of the great articles Ian offers, make sure to check out the rest.

Do you take dynamic range into consideration when producing an album? Hit the comments and let us know.

Technorati Tags: advice, compression, Loudness, Loudness Wars, production, software

By James Pew

Last week John Meadows, creator of the On The Log podcast, came by the studio and interviewed me about the Loudness Wars. It was a great discussion and I really got the feeling that John “gets it.” This feeling was reinforced when I heard his intro to the interview. He also came up with a great analogy for the loudness issue involving hot sauce!



An audio player with the podcast is embedded below. And I highly recommend checking out the other editions of John’s “On The Log” podcast series.

Andrea Gauster is a new folk artist who came to me with a desire to record a collection of her original songs. Over the past few weeks I’ve been producing six of them. The music has beautifully arranged melodies supporting sophisticated compelling lyrics, delivered by a soft & smooth but confident vocal style.

The subject matter of her songs ranges from chilled out bliss to intensely dark expressions of pain, anger and resentment. The first time Andrea played them for me, the melodies, and even many of the lyrics stuck. I remember singing some of the hooks as I walked home from the studio that night. You know you’re dealing with great material when it instantly becomes memorable like that.

My first instinct, which was also Andrea’s, was to produce an organic sounding recording with acoustic instruments and live musicians. Since Andrea doesn’t have a band, we decided to call in a couple session players to lay down beds. Upright bass and Drums played with brushes was what we needed. JD Katz, long time Euphonic Sound session drummer, and Grahm Smith on upright bass.

First Andrea and I spent a number of sessions in pre-production, deciding on things like key and tempo. During which I recorded guide tracks of Andrea singing and playing guitar. We used a metronome and kept the meter strict and pocketed. JD and Grahm laid there parts using Andrea’s guide tracks, along with a click track in some cases.

After deciding on the best drum and bass takes we brought in Shakey Dagenais, from the Gary Kendall Band, for piano, then re-recorded Andrea’s acoustic guitar and vocal parts. Then I laid down a bunch of back up vocal harmonies. That brings us up to everything included in the current working mix of Reverie that you can hear below.

Next we will be bringing in a series of guest musicians to contribute a variety of instruments. Fiddle, Mandolin, Hammond Organ, Pedal Steel, Hand Percussion, and more Harmony Vocals are a few ideas we have. Take a listen to what we have so far, and tell us what you think could add to the mix.

Check out today’s post on Euphonic Sound for Andrea’s video shout out to fans!

More about Andrea Gauster at her blog Bibbity Bop
Join her facebook fan page too!

Technorati Tags: Andrea Gauster, Broken Window Records, euphonic sound, gary kendall, James Pew, New Folk, recording, studio 2.0

By Shawn Daley

Unfamiliar with the term “Loudness War”?  Here is a quick rundown:

For the last several years, modern music has been subjected to quality-destroying production methods mostly during the mixing and mastering stages of the recording process.  Through the abuse of digital audio compression and limiting, music is given a false sense of loudness, and a resulting reduction in natural dynamic range (ratio of the quietest section of a song to the loudest section of a song) occurs.  In extreme cases clipping of the audio waveform results in audible digital distortion.  Go to our Loudness Wars category for more information.




Not everyone  will understand why this is such a large problem, or even care about it. This is understandable. This also begs the question…. Why not? Why WOULDN’T the average music listener care about the quality of the music they enjoy so much? I’ve come across plenty of average music consumers, educated on the Loudness Wars, who still feign ignorance and choose to ignore it.

Why?

One key reason is that many listeners have not compared the quality of artificially loud music to a recording with greater dynamic range.  A reasonably compressed recording doesn’t need artificial loudness. These recordings beg you to  listen loud! When the dynamic range is taken full advantage of,  you notice a crisp and clearer sound, even at a large level of volume.  Turn it up and feel the power and punch of dynamics!

Over-compression and limiting results in recordings that sound worse when listened to loudly.  Don’t we want to turn our music up?

Another reason is one that many involved in the music industry are coming to realize: change is on its way. Thanks to many extreme examples, particularly Metallica’s Death Magnetic, the Loudness War has gone from a slight loss of dynamics to gross quantities of distortion. Even average music listeners are noticing the snaps, crackles, and pops that can be heard throughout Death Magnetic. This is nothing new for today’s modern recordings, but the fact that consumers are noticing this is a sign that the engineers and producers responsible are pushing the limits of what is acceptable.

It’s one thing to notice this loss of quality, but it’s another thing to understand the cause of it.

At Euphonic Sound Recording Studio, James and I are working with two bands, who are taking advantage of our Studio 2.0 offer, and have specifically acknowledged the Loudness War. They have volunteered their music in the hopes of educating others regarding over compression and limiting. 48caliber (Ajax, Ontario) and Foresight For The Blind (Toronto, Ontario) understand that the general public perceives louder as better. Since most of today’s hard rock bands release their material ridiculously loud, how does one compete with that?

For the 48caliber and Foresight For The Blind recordings, we are aiming to put back the punch in Metal and Punk, by allowing more dynamic range in our mix and mastering process.

The decision to listen loud will be up to the listener

To anyone who has never set foot in a recording studio, or has never heard the words compression and limiting described in an audio environment,  This video is straightforward and simple, showing the way audio is physically affected by the result of over-compression. However, the best way to understand is to simply use your ears.

Compare older recordings from the 50’s through to the early 90’s with the recordings of today. You probably won’t be able to transition between songs comfortably without either turning your stereo up during the 50’s – early 90’s recordings, and needing to turn it down during a modern recording.

Finally, I’d like to go over a couple of common misconceptions that many people have about the Loudness War.

Misconception 1 – Loud Is Bad!

With a title like The Loudness War, this could easily lead people to believe that loud equals bad. This is only true when loudness is artificially introduced to a recording. I like to listen to music loud. Hundreds of thousands of people love to crank their stereos. Because of this artificial loudness, we lose quality when we listen loud. When each individual instrument in a song is being heard at the same level of volume, we don’t need to crank our stereos. If we do, we’ll hear distortion, our ears will tire quicker than usual,  we lose dynamic resolution. If music is produced without artificial loudness, we CAN turn our speakers up, and it WILL sound better. This issue should be referred to as the Artificial-Loudness War to avoid the confusion that loud equals bad.




Misconception 2 – Compression Is Evil!

With all this talk of compression and limiting, many of you might think that both are responsible for destroying the quality of music. Compression and limiting are fantastic tools that can be used for creative purposes in the same manner that equalization and microphone placement techniques are. As with anything they can be abused. It’s when producers and engineers overuse these tools that the real problem occurs, hence the term over-compression.




So, what is your take on the Loudness Wars?

Leave your words in the comment section and let us know.

The Loudness War – Why Should You Care? by Shawn Daley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at studiomanifesto.ca.

Technorati Tags: 48caliber, audio compression, Broken Window Records, Death Magnetic, dynamic range, euphonic sound, Foresight For The Blind, James Pew, Loudness War, Metallica, music, Shawn Daley, toronto recording studio, You Tube

By James Pew

In the spirit of the recently launched Open Window Project, an Open Music collaboration with artists on Broken Window Records via the Indaba Music Community, I decided to begin a series going more in-depth into another collaborative movement empowering the culture of indie music…DIY audio!

But first let me point to a source which illustrates the notions of democratizing through collaboration.  Democratizing Innovation written in 2005 by MIT professor Eric Von Hippel explores the dynamics of  User Innovation:

“Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services.  These innovating users – both individuals and firms – often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons.”

Democratized Analog, a  global movement of professional and non-professional audio electronics technicians, sound engineers, music producers, and artists sharing information  and working collaboratively to build and develop analog audio devices for use in music production.  In most cases this group of analog audio user/innovators interface their analog devices with computers and digital plug-ins, disproving the myth that analog audiophiles reject digital.  My view is that digital democratization promotes analog democratization.

The analog audio research and development initiative I’m involved in is called Origin Audio Electronics.  For 10 years, the R&D work at the Origin Audio lab has drawn from and contributed to the growing knowledge base found on the DIY audio electronics forums that are the center of the DIY analog audio movement. Here are a few:

DIY Audio

DIY Audio Projects

Simple Machines Forum

Today it is these three simple ideas that inspire me most:

Democratized Innovation – The ability to draw on and contribute to an open community of user innovators. The accessibility of experts willing to help (both locally and over the web via forums) greatly enabled us to develop several hi-fi analog audio recording devices.

Technology Wants To Be Free -  Here is a quote from this great Kevin Kelly post:

“Over time the cost per fixed technological function will decrease. If that function persists long enough its costs begin to approach (but never reach) zero. In the goodness of time any particular technological function will exist as if it were free. ”

User Determined – Driven by the idea that anything can be built better and cheaper than most of what is  offered in the  world of established pro audio.  We build what we determine we need.  And change what we determine needs changing on something already built.  I love this post on Radical Trust called A Cultural Revolution, Not A Commercial One,  the themes are identified as key principles of the web 2.0 movement, but as Collin Douma points out “These principles are popping up in every vertical and horizontal.”

The latest example in the Origin Audio Electronics effort  to achieve greater analog tonal characteristics, is a new working prototype of an analog recording device called the VP8 Fatboy.  VP stands for Valve Preamplifier – meaning this is a microphone preamplifier using vacuum tubes.  The 8 represents the eight channels – meaning up to eight microphones can be connected simultaneously (enough to record a rock band).  And Fatboy is derived from its characteristic “fat” tube tone.

The VP8 Fatboy represents the essence of analog democratization, with eight hi-fi analog inputs it has the power to turn a digital only studio into a high end analog/digital studio.  The fact that these types of devices are accessible to home studios and professional studios alike means better tools in more hands of those who are creating music.

Euphonic Sound is a good example of an independent studio able to work with a broader range of artists because of the empowering nature of democratized innovation.   Instead of investing a quarter of a million in an analog mixing console, the work at Origin Audio Electronics provided the analog front end at Euphonic Sound. Which means we can use quality gear meeting the standards of the worlds top studios, but still work within an indie artists budget.

Here is an unmastered mix of indie band RBB.  This is the first band we recorded using the VP8 Fatboy at Euphonic Sound.  Because this is an unmastered mix you’ll need to turn up the volume to compensate for the lack of mastering compression and loudness.  The VP8 Fatboy was used on every instrument and voice in this mix.

Check out our note about the VP8 Fatboy at Euphonic Sound for some tech specs.

Democratizing Analog Part 1 by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.studiomanifesto.ca.

Technorati Tags: Democratizing Innovation, Eric Von Hippel, euphonic sound, Freddy Gabrsek, James Pew, Origin Audio Electronics, VP8 Fatboy

Recently I was invited by Hugh Reilly to be interviewed on his live streaming radiocast Liquid Lunch, on thatchannel.com. He played four songs from artists I’ve worked with at Euphonic Sound and we discussed indie music production, indie label Broken Window Records, and even got into the Loudness Wars.

Next we will be bringing in a series of guest musicians to contribute a variety of instruments. Fiddle, Mandolin,

I love the attention to sound quality that Hugh shows. Check this out thatchannel.com/bestsound

Thanks again Hugh.

Here is more info on the artists Hugh featured:

Remi Stevens and the Gang of Thieves
Raka
Gary Kendall
Douglas Watson

Technorati Tags: Broken Window Records, Douglas Watson, euphonic sound, gary kendall, Hugh Reilly, Liquid Lunch, Loudness Wars, Raka, Remi Stevens and the Gang of Thieves, thatchannel.com

Due to the over the top distorted loudness treatment of Metallica’s new record, over 16,000 fans have signed an online petition to have Death Magnetic re-mixed and re-mastered. Here is a response from Ted Jensen (mastering engineer for Death Magnetic) of Sterling Sound.

“I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case, the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. “Believe me I’m not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else.” – Ted Jensen

For more insight on the loudness wars check out Welcome to the Land of Loud, and listen to the BBC Radio 4 discussion of the Death Magnetic loudness issue below.

Check out this video made in response to Metallica’s co-manager, Cliff Burnstein, who said – “fans find the sound on Death Magnetic exciting, and are really responding to it.” This video aims to give Metallica’s back catalog the same Death Magnetic loudness treatment.

Metallica’s Death Magnetic – Another victim of the Loudness Wars by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Technorati Tags: BBC, Cliff Burnstein, Death Magnetic, James Pew, Loudness Wars, Metallica, Rick Rubin, Sterling Sound, Ted Jensen, Welcome to the land of loud

How do you enjoy music with an ice pick in your ear?

“You listen to these modern recordings, they’re atrocious, they have sound all over them. There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like static.” – Bob Dylan in Rolling Stone Magazine.

Bob is one voice among many expressing disdain for modern digital recordings, in the above quote he refers to the abuse of digital audio compression tools and the narrowing effect they have on the dynamic range of music. But the digital age of music has both good and evil. The good can been seen mainly in its empowerment of indie producers and indie recording artists. Digital production tools make it easier for indies to get the music recorded. Digital distribution makes it easier to get the music delivered. And the internet makes it easier to get the music the promotion. The dark side is that many digital recording/playback devices and software tools are making music something that is hard to enjoy. You want to enjoy it. You used to enjoy it. Its music you love music, its just that its getting harder to listen to. Here are a few ideas about what it is that’s damaging the enjoyment of music.

Musical audio content – And the Top 4 offenders of quality material

1. Audio Compression.

“When there is no quiet – there can be loud” – Matt Mayfield – Youtube.com

In a nutshell; when audio compression, and its more extreme form called limiting, is applied, it reduces the difference in volume between the loud and quiet parts of music, called dynamic range. In other words, it brings the quiet parts up in volume so that they are closer or equal to the loudest parts. By decreasing dynamic range, you increase the average volume level of the music, which results in something perceptibly louder than music with full dynamic range. The abuse of audio compression has made music relentless in its loudness it has been proven to fatigue your ears and affect your mood in unpleasant ways.

Known as the loudness wars, and widely considered to be the biggest problem with modern music. Many believe that the years 1996 to 2008 will be remembered as an era of extreme low fidelity in popular music. Attributed to a senseless and seemingly endless pursuit for infinite loudness. Through the abuse of audio compression, loudness is being artificially manufactured into the recordings of popular music, all because a twisted industry doctrine proclaims louder recordings stand out. This assault on the art form was originally concocted by music industry participants whose interests were mostly financial – read: big business/corporations. Once the loudness treatment became the industry norm, artists and producers began demanding that their recordings have similar treatment. Driven by a desire to have their recordings “stand up” against the other artists in their genre – this vicious cycle took hold. Its hard to believe that, in the absence of industry pressures, any recording artist would choose to have their art treated so brutally. Awareness of this confusing and contentious issue has been virtually non-existent and until very recently the only people I knew who discussed audio compression were sound engineers and audiophiles. With awareness becoming wide spread – indie music optimists believe that the loudness wars may soon be coming to an end, but the battle is far from over. Studio Manifesto aims to empower indie artists and producers to reject the loudness regime. Understand the issue and spread the word – and history will reveal 2008 to 2018 as a revolutionary movement that not only ended the corporate control of the music business; but saw the creation of inspired artful musical content… without the gratuitous loudness.Check out this inspired youtube video I Want To Break Free from Loudness Wars.

So if the music we consume comes embedded with loudness, and we turn our stereos down to compensate for this artificial loudness, does that bring balance to the force? By adjusting your volume down you are making the level comfortable, true. Except with the average levels that high, the music still pounds away until turning down the volume eventually leads to shutting off the stereo. Since music has become so painful to listen to, its no surprise that an enormous demographic of music listeners seem to have completely lost interest, leaving the corporate music industry in a fast declining state of collapse. The piracy of content is far from the only reason music sales are down. So much of todays pop music, across almost every genre, has had the loudness treatment. Also known as the Wimpy Loud Sound. Read more about digital audio compression and the Loudness Wars here.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619

http://www.digido.com/other-audio-articles/loudness-war-explained

There is enough awareness within the industry; but being in a state of flux no issues are being effectively dealt with, beyond the issues of content and the future of its distribution. Again, sound quality takes a back seat to more pressing matters. I don’t like it more than any other muso or audiophile, but evolution takes time, so here is what Studio Manifesto suggests indie artists and producers do to revolt against the loudness regime. Join the resistance . Start by checking out mastering engineer Bob Katz’s honor roll and compare the difference between a pre-extreme loudness war recording and a modern product of the loudness war.

Is there a solution on the horizon?

Studio manifesto thinks the people over at turnmeup.org are on to something very very interesting.

2. File compression.

“Putting on a headphone and listening to an mp3 is like hell” Neil Young

Not to be confused with audio compression, file compression deals with the resolution of audio. I always think of resolution in terms of video. Imagine looking at a video clip with poor contrast and detail – the images would look blurry and distorted because the resolution is low. File compression removes resolution from the audio, as the compression is applied. The more heavily compressed, the lower the resolution. 16-bit files, called .wav files, the format used on CDs, are the main targets of file compression. MP3s are the product of 16-bit .wav file compression, but file tampering takes place well before the file makes it to 16-bit. Modern day producers typically record in 24-bit with sample rates of 44.1KHz, 96KHz, and even higher. A process called dithering is applied to the original high resolution footage converting the 24-bit/96kHz file to the CD standard 16-bit/44.1KHz file. Leaving you with something close to its un-dithered 24-bit counterpart, but noticeably lacking in resolution if you do a close comparison. MP3 conversion is actually sonic assault round 2. MP3s and other portable player and web friendly file types, come in a myriad of differing quality levels. Ranging from good and sounding close to CD quality, to horribly distorted indecipherable sonic disasters.

Many people can recognize the sonic artifacts that go hand and hand with poor quality digital conversion to low resolution MP3s. If you need help with that click below to provide an audio example.

For downloading, click the links below

| 96 kbps | 128 kbps | WAV |

MP3s have less sonic resolution than CDs and CDs have less than DVDs (which are 24-bit 96KHz – no dithering), and now Blu Ray is available boasting 24-bit/192KHz. File size trumps sound quality. To make matters worse Peter Mansbridge recently reported that social networking website youtube.com used as much bandwidth in the year 2007 as the entire internet did in the year 2000. The social networking movement on the internet has put an intense demand on bandwidth. The experts are predicting slow downs of the internet, which means that quality web friendly audio formats may be taking another back seat until web delivery technology speeds up. We are likely going to see more low-resolution MP3s as the internet strains from lack of available bandwidth, but that will hopefully be short lived. Once the internet improves its delivery technology, and makers of portable MP3 players improve there storage capacities, a day will come that by many will be unnoticed, but for myself and countless other muso’s, it will be a day worthy of vast celebration. File size will not be of such concern once the web becomes super powered. Maybe then the 24-bit format will be adopted as the internet standard… that is until someone invents a new audio file format with larger bit depths and sample rates, and so on and so on, just like the evolution of physical formats (analog: Vinyl, 8 track and cassette, to digital: CD and DVD). Studio Manifesto views this evolution as a great thing not only for the commerce it generates but also for the inspired and excellent work of those who develop better and better sounding file formats. It won’t be wasteful in terms of physical materials, unless of course we keep up with physical formats like CD and DVD and Blu Ray, which cause all sorts of problems for the indie artist, distribution for one. The internet rules for its promotion and distribution empowerment of the indie artist, but sucks for its affect on the quality of music.

Heres a few articles about MP3 compression and suggestions on how it should be applied.

http://www.mp3-converter.com/bitrates.htm

http://www.thetravelinsider.info/mp3/makingdigitalrecordings.htm

And heres one that talks about dithering.

http://www.planetoftunes.com/computer/dithering.html

Also a factor is the quality of audio playback systems and how they are setup. You could spend a lot of time researching this stuff – Go here to do that. (http://www.audioasylum.com)

3. Indie production value.

Production quality and the sound engineering of indie recording projects.

On the one hand we have mainstream popular music that is ramped up on loudness – and on the other hand we have indie production that often sounds more like demos than works of art. Is it Guerrilla style tactics – or Ed Woodian hackery? Because of the affordability and availability of music production tools, Guerrilla style indie production is empowering for the global indie community. This means there is much more music being produced by individuals in informal settings as opposed to in institutions with formal technical methods and practices. While the empowerment side is a great thing, it does mean that a lot of unqualified hacks are recording music with cheap consumer devices and are not applying sound engineering science or method. Often indie production values can be poor to abysmal. More about this in the upcoming blog post Guerrilla production – The empowerment of the indie producer and the decline of method.

4. Playback devices and the environments they are found.

Audiophile fanaticism – or a subtle, yet needed, adjustment in music listening culture?

The three key audio playback centers are – the portable audio device – the automobile – the home stereo/computer. When engaged in music listening at one of these playback centers, it is often impossible for the acoustics and/or the ambient noise of the immediate environment to allow the audio to be given a balanced delivery to your ears. I’m not talking about audiophile stuff, or about to suggest hanging expensive acoustic treatment on your walls – I’m referring to extreme environmental conditions like;

Even in your home – if there is a lot of unwanted noise in the environment it’s hard to enjoy music.

The engine of your car and the other traffic – I’ve measured the SPL (sound pressure level) in a car, with the stereo turned off, driving in the presence of other traffic – the levels were at 85db and up. To put that in context – it is not recommend to listen to music with average levels in excess of 85 db – These levels can be very fatiguing and even harmful to your ears. It goes without saying that once the car stereo is turned on – the levels go well beyond safe listening thresholds. When music is blasting into your ears at levels beyond the pain threshold things do not feel or sound good.

When walking the streets with your iPod – the traffic and environmental noise is competing for your ears attention. Some people wear bulky closed headphones that cancel some or all of the environmental sounds – but most people wear ears buds.

Broken down to common denominators – the people involved look like this:

One extreme is audiophiles – they have great stereo systems that they take the time to ensure are set up to allow for the best sound reproduction results possible. Some of these people are geeks, some are elitist snobs, but most are normal people with decent stereos (decent does not always mean expensive) set up correctly in semi quiet spaces.

The other extreme is the casual consumer of music who pays no heed to sound quality. Their playback systems are chosen by things like affordability and portability and other convenience factors. Often their devices, being the cheapest and having designs featuring things other than sound quality, are very poor at delivering accurate and balanced audio to their ears.

Well thats it for my first blog post. If you made it this far, your bound to have some interest in future posts. Please leave comments and add to the discussion. If you would like to sign up to this blog group go here.

Welcome To The Land Of Loud by James Pew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License

Technorati Tags: audio compression, bob dylan, bob katz, digital limiting, dynamic range, file compression, Loudness Wars, matt mayfield, music, Music Culture, Music Production, neil young, rolling stone magazine, studio manifesto, today's music, today's records, turn me up, youtube