"Loudness"... Why we're where we are.

[Malcolm Boyce]

I was having a conversation with a young musician friend, and budding recordist... I thought this exchange says much about why music continues to be produced in the crushed dynamic state that it's progressed to.

Name blocked to protect the innocent.

22:38*****
i record live drums today

22:39Malcolm
Where at?

22:39*****
my house with the stuff i bought

22:40Malcolm
You have to let me hear some stuff.

22:42*****
I will I gotta record a few more parts. It's really hard to get things loud. Like i put one tune on my itunes playlist and its not as loud other songs why is that?

22:43Malcolm
Too much "new" music is too loud, and if that's what you're comparing it too, that's why. Don't worry about "loud" right now, worry about "good".

22:44*****
ok i will then. I just hate going through shuffle on itunes and when my tune is sooo quite and it takes so much away from it

22:46Malcolm
Check this out... I hate to say it but, your generation is part of the problem: http://www.turnmeup.org/

22:47*****
I still focus on the dynamics but it just feels so weak

22:48Malcolm
Make sure you watch that video...

22:48*****
will do

This is one of many people being caught in the same trap. Where do we go from here?

[Malcolm Boyce]

This is one I hadn't heard yet:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =122114058

Old news, but interesting none the less.

[Christian LeBlanc]

I didn't read the first article, but the second one explained things pretty good.

But yeah, I can relate to that 'volume anxiety' - moreso years ago, when all I had to record with was two tape decks bouncing back and forth.

At this stage, when I'm done a song in Cubase, I export it to a .wav, take it to CoolEdit, and click 'normalize,' and hope all goes well :P

Maybe in the future (or now?!) ipods will just automatically set all songs to the same levels, so volume discrepancies won't really matter anymore?

[macrae11]

Somedays I think Death Magnetic was the peak of the loudness wars and we're on the downward slope now, but other days, I feel like things are just going to continue on the same track or maybe even get worse.

I think the solution will come from technology, something like what Christian said. When there's a new standard audio format created it will no doubt have metadata of some kind. If it can track the RMS of audio and even out the volume from track to track. This will mostly eliminate the need to strive for the loudest master. I think it will be brought on by demand as consumers become more savvy and learn more about why their old Zep' records are so quite. There's already some demand for this in the realms of TV commercials:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story ... S-Congress

[Crimson Chameleon]

I read a few of the articles posted and one that I thought was very interesting was the one by Bob Ludwig in regards to Chinese Democracy by Guns n' Roses. He said he did three mastering takes: one with barely any compression to maintain the dynamics, and then two others that had more extreme compression in order to compete with today's "standard." I was amazed (and quite pleased) to hear that Axl Rose liked the good old fashioned mastering job with full dynamics despite a loss of "loudness."

It is also interesting to hear what Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, and that guy T-Bone Burnett are all up to. Maybe we will get more of a return to good old dynamic music in the future.

Perhaps the "loudness" music can be for the masses, whereas there will be nice dynamic music for those of us who want it.

All in all, thanks for the links and articles. There are a lot of articles out there, so this "loudness" problem is obviously a concern, for some at least.

[Cubical]

I am really glad to have read all the articles, links and that Malcolm posted this. I have just started to tip my recording iceberg, and now it all makes sense. I have said the very exact, if not, even worse things without considering the true art that goes into making music, especially the abilty to be as quiet and loud at appropriate times. This all couldn't have come at a better time than now, as I am mixing nre tracks for my new band that we are about to releae. I thought I was done, but now I've gone and marched my arse back to the masters and am undoing what I had done. I can't get over how much better things are already starting to sound. It is like an electronic drumkit: I'm always complaining about cheap ones because they lack dynamics in the drum heads, and I love the cresending and descending aspects of drumming. Now I am hearing this more in my music. We're waging the war on loudness one recording at a time.

[Mathieu Benoit]

It is like an electronic drumkit: I'm always complaining about cheap ones because they lack dynamics in the drum heads, and I love the cresending and descending aspects of drumming.

That is an analogy that I can certainly get behind. I don't think the point was ever made so clear to me. But then again I'm not a musician, I'm the drummer, so...

[jammy jamz]

im actually guilty of crushing some/one of my productions.

but, in my defence, (ha), it was because my business partners really wanted it to be LOUDER......LOUDER. LLLLLLLLLLOUUUUUUUDER......

im all for dynamics, and crescendos, and diminuendos..

thats why im continually smiling when im in the wings for the symphony shoes. im usually on the side of the contra basses, and cellos.....cuz, thats the way i like it.

not that i would know first hand or anything, but, it would be hard to compete with just even the commercials on the radio....crush crush crush up the volume.

i've never even listened to monster magnet. after load, and then re-load, i just cant bring myself to put it on and listen to it...they were my favorite band for a long time too.

[Cubical]

I think that the Radio and commerical media nwill be difficult, if not impossible to overcome. I wouldn't want to assume, but I would hope that radio jockeys are adjusting volumes appropriately for each track. Then again, it seems commercial radio/ mainstream media are in the habit of making everything alittle "eaier" on everybody; "set it and forget it" anyone? C98, the WAVE, and others are now preprogramming all music played on the air! It is funny to look in at the C94 building on King street. I don't see any CDs/records in there, do you? That's a whole differnt discussion but I do think that Loudness has and will continue to go hand in hand with the seemingly more common dumbed'down, poorly written and produced music that occupies the top spots in new music at the present.

[Mathieu Benoit]

They take mp3s actually, I recently found out. (If you give them a CD you run the risk of only hearing things in the right side... ) I'm assuming this has been the case for a while. That doesn't make a whole lot of difference. I personally can't tell the difference between a 44.1/16 wav and a 320kbit MP3.

The problem is that everybody feels that if they are louder they will be more noticeable or relavent. It's like having an argument where you figure if you can over power the opposition in volume then your lack of logic may be seem as insight. Well it doesn't translate that way. Just liek with music, the music isn't necessarily better, just more exhausting.