The Loudness War and the Future of Music

[seti]

An article up at IEEE Spectrum outlining the history and dangers of the accelerating tendency of music producers to increase the loudness and reduce the dynamic range of CDs.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aug07/5429

"The loudness war, what many audiophiles refer to as an assault on
music (and ears), has been an open secret of the recording industry for
nearly the past two decades and has garnered more attention in recent
years as CDs have pushed the limits of loudness thanks to advances in
digital technology. The 'war' refers to the competition among record
companies to make louder and louder albums by compressing the dynamic range.
But the loudness war could be doing more than simply pumping up the
volume and angering aficionados it could be responsible for halting
technological advances in sound quality for years to come... From the
mid 1980s to now, the average loudness of CDs increased by a factor of
10, and the peaks of songs are now one-tenth of what they used to be."

The future looks bleak for music reproduction. This is one more reason to buy records and cds from the little guys that make music right like mapleshade.

[Daddy Dee]

Seti,

Thanks for the link. Great article, though sad, indeed.

The music world has taken it's cue from what television advertising has been doing for decades.

[CaptnBob]

I don't know how new a problem this is. I remember recording an album (I think either Moody Blues or Yes) in the early seventies on my trusty Teac 4010-GSL and noticing the VU meters went up to "0" at the beginning of each song, wavered a bit, but never going above +1 or below -2 for the entire side.

The CBS classical recordings of the sixties and seventies enjoyed an evil reputation for poor sound quality too. The bosses at CBS felt everybody listened on cheap record players, and so the engineers were told to boost the mid bass and lower treble, roll off the frequency extremes, and compress the daylights out of everything. On some recordings you could hear the compressor "pumping" on quiet passages.

Some of this may go back to some "bad science" from Bell Labs in the thirties. They did tests which "proved" listeners preferred a restricted, peaky frequency response to a wide range, flat one. The problem was, the sources and equipment of the day couldn't cleanly reproduce the frequency responses, and the heavily distorted signals were pretty annoying to listen to. When "hi-fi" began to catch on, and equipment improved, that began to change

[Coytee]

Dumb question time...

If this music is now so compressed, wouldn't some kind of expander (ala, dbx 3bx) at least "help" the situation??

I have owned a dbx expander for decades now, starting with the original 3bx. My tendency is to favor them... or maybe I should say, to not specifically DISFAVOR them. I say it that way because I've not used the expander I've got in my system hardly at all in the last year.

I usually ALWAYS have it turned on when folks are over for a demo because it allows a remote control of the volume. Some have listened with it in defeated mode, others have had it engaged...I try to leave it to them & their preference. However, it's nice having that remote when doing demos.

So...back to point... won't a 3bx, 4bx kind of thing help put SOME of the life back into the recording??

[Frzninvt]

This is why an older DBX consumer group 3BX-DS 3-Band Dynamic Range Controller or 5BX-DS 5-Band Dynamic Range Controller can be an invaluable tool. I can compress down the newer oversaturated recordings, and expand older recordings and restore the impact levels.

All CD and records are not created equal. My Alpine CDA-7998 CD player in the car has similar abilities but not as much control and adjustability but it sure makes a big difference.

That old adage from audiophile purists that say they want to listen to a recording as the artist intended don't take into account the engineers behind the sound boards being directed by top level brass to make it as loud as they can at the sacrifice of sound quality.

I have been aware of this for about 15 years at least.

When I was competing on the IASCA auto-sound quality circuit in the mid-90's I even used a DBX 3BX-DS in my car and the judges were shocked at the detail and impact and asked what I did. (see photo)

***Richard beat me to the punch while I was composing my post.***

[seti]

This is interesting and not somethingI have considered in the past. I

usually just take the recordings warts and all. Going to do some

research on this DBX critter.

[IndyKlipschFan]

coytee .. Yes.. But artificially too...

I think this is where the great jazz albums, for intsnace, just SMOKE cd's to no end.. There is a "liveness" < If that is a word..LOL> to something that sounds like it was real, right before you. Sad as it may be, some of these types of recordings on CD, just sound like crap. It is a joy when you do find them even in crude form too.

I recently found a great re mix of Herb Alberts "Whipped Cream And Other Delights..." Besides one of the most recognized covers ever on LP of a 3 month preggo Deloris Erikson in what was supposed to be nude with whipped cream on her and nothing else... This LP was a HUGE success for the music... Listen to how life like the recording sounds cranked up, and you feel they are in the room with you and your treated to a great concert every time.. Sad to say recordings like this, are not made this way today.

[Frzninvt]

Well Seti, here is a copy of the DBX 3BX-DS User Instruction Manual that will explain what it does pretty thoroughly.

[seti]

Well Seti, here is a copy of the DBX 3BX-DS User Instruction Manual that will explain what it does pretty thoroughly.

Thank you I will check it out.

[Frzninvt]

coytee .. Yes.. But artificially too...

I think this is where the great jazz albums, for intsnace, just SMOKE cd's to no end.. There is a "liveness" < If that is a word..LOL> to something that sounds like it was real, right before you. Sad as it may be, some of these types of recordings on CD, just sound like crap. It is a joy when you do find them even in crude form too.

I recently found a great re mix of Herb Alberts "Whipped Cream And Other Delights..." Besides one of the most recognized covers ever on LP of a 3 month preggo Deloris Erikson in what was supposed to be nude with whipped cream on her and nothing else... This LP was a HUGE success for the music... Listen to how life like the recording sounds cranked up, and you feel they are in the room with you and your treated to a great concert every time.. Sad to say recordings like this, are not made this way today.

This is incorrect, it is bringing out what is already there only buried/surpressed in the recording by the sound recording engineer.

[IndyKlipschFan]

Ok, (I will take the bait here...) explain how you can do this after the song is recorded.....

Your still using a device "artificially" to give you that feeling.

It may be a great add on to your gear. I think they did a great to even a fantastic sales and marketing job on this unit.. It may "seem" like this is exactly what it does.... But your still looking at a recorded source that is then artificially tweeked to sound a certain way with various gear in the studio.... VS (uncompressed and more life like live...)

The only caveat, I could see from the master tapes is this.. (everything is made up here) Say you had a DBX 555 compressor limitor... at the studio and used it to a certain degree.. Where the red nob compresses and limits.... and the studio said "We did a level 6 reduction." You also had one at home say a DBX 555 Uncompressor with the ultra "blue nob" to uncompress those dynamics that the red nob did in the studio... So you added a level 6 gain.. LOL THEN... I might agree, becuase this same unit was used both ways... (And even here to a degree of success too.)

it is still "aritificial" because you do not KNOW the dynamics at the recording to re create them faithfully later.

OR---- Am I wrong?

[pauln]

I recently found a great re mix of Herb Alberts "Whipped Cream And Other Delights..."

When I was in college (70's) Herb Albert did a concert at the school. I did not go, but those that did recognised his sound system was similar to mine. I had a pair of Heresys; Herb's concert sound system was rack mounted Heresys - dozens of them...

[kaiser SET say]

Well Seti, here is a copy of the DBX 3BX-DS User Instruction Manual that will explain what it does pretty thoroughly.

Owned this very unit for years back in the eighties and wish I had never sold mine, I used it with my Nak cassette and turntable with fantastic results. Not only does it have dynamic range expansion but sonic restoration also. As you say Frzninvt it can really help poorly recorded material[Y]

I purchased a 1BX off a guy on A-goN a couple years agio and it was dead in the water on arrival so that was $50 bones out the window[] Now I'm hesitant but would love to get ahold of a nice BX3[]

[Jay481985]

Anyone at the Holiday Inn at Indy heard this loudness war when I played "The Killers" songs on the Jubilees..... some people *cough* Trey told me very boldly not to play any mp3 on the Jubilees...... I put a copied cd..... I own the cd, but I do not bring the original with me on trip to get scratched and or broken........ But it sounded like all that was described.

[el jopez]

Thank you Jay, my appreciation of the KiIlers just died a little today.

[jacksonbart]

I just vomited a little bit back into my mouth.

[Strabo]

To confuse the issue more, there are two very different types of compression that people have mentioned in this thread, dynamic compression as mentioned in the original post, and coding compression which is storage option.

Neither type of compression is bad in itself, it is how it is used. Over use is the problem. In the case of dynamic compression, I don't want 20+ dbs of dynamics when listening in my home so some compression is needed. The problem is the industry has all but done away with any dynamics. It is almost impossible to find a new CD these days with more than 4dbs of dynamics. This is being done to make new CDs sound louder than anything prior. Remember, to the general public, louder = better. Hopefully everyone here knows better.

Coding compression likewise is not so bad if done moderately or better yet, losslessly. MP3 is a lossy compression. Combine that with a small sample rate and you lose a lot of music data. High sample rate MP3 isn't that bad IMO. It is a degridation to the sound, but for casual listening it works.

Combine the two, no dynamics and lossy compression and you can chase anyone out of any listening room, no matter how how great the equipment or how well the room is designed. It's going to sound horrible.

[seti]

To confuse the issue more, there are two very different types of compression that people have mentioned in this thread, dynamic compression as mentioned in the original post, and coding compression which is storage option.

Neither type of compression is bad in itself, it is how it is used.  Over use is the problem.  In the case of dynamic compression, I don't want 20+ dbs of dynamics when listening in my home so some compression is needed.  The problem is the industry has all but done away with any dynamics.  It is almost impossible to find a new CD these days with more than 4dbs of dynamics.  This is being done to make new CDs sound louder than anything prior.  Remember, to the general public, louder = better.  Hopefully everyone here knows better.

Coding compression likewise is not so bad if done moderately or better yet, losslessly.  MP3 is a lossy compression.  Combine that with a small sample rate and you lose a lot of music data.  High sample rate MP3 isn't that bad IMO.  It is a degridation to the sound, but for casual listening it works.

Combine the two, no dynamics and lossy compression and you can chase anyone out of any listening room, no matter how how great the equipment or how well the room is designed.  It's going to sound horrible.

 

Amen brother! 

I think indie labels, local homebrew studios and obscure high quality studios are the way to go. Plenty of people are recording the old school way. Right now my favorite studio is Gok Sound Studio in Tokyo Japan everything they do is golden. The quality is amazing. The Creatures album HAI is great and Hoppy Kamiyama with Bill Laswell is killer.

[gaspr]

Practically everything recorded today is processed digitally.
It also seems that almost everything in the mainstream is also
available as a download. It would seem to me that it would be
rather simple for a good recording engineer and or producer to record
two versions of a CD. One destined for radio and Ipods
(compressed) and another done with audiophiles in mind (dynamic).
Make both versions available online. Doesn't seem like it would
add much in the way of costs to the recording industry. Any
additional costs might be easily recouped in increased sales??
Some of the better engineers would probably love to do a no holds
barred version to really show off what they can do and would rather be
doing.

Any thoughts??

[seti]

Seti has the right idea. You have to find independent producers. Mainstream music is like, well, mainstream TV or movies or books. Junk. There will always be real artists out there. But, you have to do some work to find it.

Thanks. What I have found is once you find a studio that has IT right you just look at the other bands recording there as well. If your lucky there are a couple that you like. Another thing is you get the bands album not what some executives in a recording studio deciding what the band us going to sound like. There have been several local bands from Little Rock to get signed to bigger labels but they all come back with the same story. The labels wanted them to change their sound or songs in order to back an album. These bands have all come back to town refusing to work with the studios anymore. Instead they expanded a local label everyone was recording with any way and are much happier with their music. It is not my kind of music but I have to admire their integrity and attitude after trying to work with major labels.