Loudness War - Reports from the Frontlines (1 Viewer)

[Pantone247]

Ash's new album is on here, it's pretty average/boring, they've gone for a big LA lottsa money Nu Mateal production, doesn't suit the pop stuff at all.

Anyway after about 10 minutes i realised this album was actually hurting my ears, not in a 'oh this band are shit' way, more in a 'jesus this is drilling my brain' way...

Anyway if you put your funky meter thing on your CD player, where it shows you the levels going up and down.... the entire mid range is STUCK at the top for the whole thing.... it's unrelentess, it rarely if ever drops.... they have boosted and limited the holy shit out of it.

And it really drills the crap out of my ear shells, i can't imagine anyone handling listening to this album for a very long.... bizzare....

 

[kraster]

I hate that shit.Loadsa mastering houses use multi-band limiters across the whole thing usually making shit of the Mid-range (and everything else) in the process. The mid-range is the range our brains are most receptive to so everything is made extremely dense there. But in truth our brains get really tired really quickly of relentless mid-range frequencies. Everything is so compressed and driven there's no relief fom it because at no point is there true silence behind it all. There's definitely cocaine involved somewhere. I think I'm gonna puke.....

 

[Pantone247]

I hate that shit.Loadsa mastering houses use multi-band limiters across the whole thing usually making shit of the Mid-range (and everything else) in the process. The mid-range is the range our brains are most receptive to so everything is made extremely dense there. But in truth our brains get really tired really quickly of relentless mid-range frequencies. Everything is so compressed and driven there's no relief fom it because at no point is there true silence behind it all. There's definitely cocaine involved somewhere. I think I'm gonna puke.....

some people argue it's too make it sound louder, or as loud as other songs on the radio, or in shops or just generally around the place, so the single leaps out at the listener.

Anyhow, wanna see something funny....

Here:

is the waveform for Wilie Nelsons version of a wondeful world

Here:

is the waveform for Ricki Maretins Living La Vida Loca

the phrase is 'holy shit'

 

[ITalkShite]

and here:

is the waveform for aphex twin's 'windowlicker', complete with phantom watermark head.

 

[kraster]

Here:

is the waveform for Ricki Maretins Living La Vida Loca

the phrase is 'holy shit'

Holy shit indeed. That's incredible. When they use to master to Vinyl they use to cut a lot of records through the fairchild's 670 and 660. Huge valve limiter yokes that were directly connected to a cutting lathe to cut the master. You could get up -14db of gain reduction without any audible effect other than the fact that it sounded beautiful. We now have the TC Finaliser a machine that chews up up material, sits on it, throws it against a wall, and generally squeezes any life out of it. Hence Mr. Martin's mass of square waves.

 

[C24]

OK Ricky may well be full of square waves but the fact that mr martin is crap is nothing to do with loudness... There are some people out there mashing records into the ground and trying to make them louder and louder... tis rock music after all... what are ye'all whining about... make it louder and harder less 300 more 3k... less bass more guitar!!! But seriously listen to that Jet song from the Vodaphone add.... It is SO LOUD but not abrasive at all.. not tiring to listen to.. and look at its waveform sometime... Amazing... No clipping at all. No little plateaus at the top of the waveform... I just don't know how they did that one... And one final question.... If you gave a master to a mastering engineer 30 years ago and offered her a 670 or an M6000 which do you think she'd go for.. Loud is good.. I think I'll go home and listen to highway to hell nice and quietly.... Ballls!!!baggyyyy

 

[Pantone247]

Loud is good.. I think I'll go home and listen to highway to hell nice and quietly.... Ballls!!!baggyyyy

Highway to hell is a well mastered album, probably done to analog tape too. I imagine with lots of head room so you get the full sonic range of the guitars. And sure you'll listen to it loud, by turning up the volume dial on your stereo! Like yer meant too! I'm not critizing loud music, I've just been cranking Sonic youth's Goo at such volume to make people walking in the street turn their heads when they walk by! So that's not the issue.

The problem here is mastering at such a level that the signal clips when hittng the CD. Leaving guitars that sound like electric shavers and snare hits that are basically bursts of white noise. This is done so if you have the radio on in the office the song 'leaps' out of the stereo at you amongst the other songs on the radio.

Ash's new album is a classic example, it is unrelentless, the meters go up, and stay up, even when instruments drop out the meters are still up there as the limiting is so that any gap created is filled atuomattically by making the remaining instruments louder. It could've been mastered -3db quieter and sound a hell of a lot better... and if you wanted to listen to it LOUD you coulda turned up your volume dial... see?

Highway to Hell, and indeed any 'classic rock' album you care to mention all benifit from dynamics, thats what it rock so when the big chorus kicks in, or the lead guitar rips thru the mix sounding like pure hell. There was room left for these things. These days a song starts, and drills the fuck out of your skull for 4 minutes and leaves you feeling rattled.

i'm not up on the Jet song you mention, but I've heard the album a few times and it sounds well tempered and big sounding (although the songs are pretty dsirivative in my opinion) the Franz Ferdy album too, it really pumps out and sounds damn full on and spikey, but never exhaustive. It's very much an American phenomon, thus to my mind why As (looking for their US breakthru,) got the mega mastering treatment, and it's more of an issue in pop music.

 

[snakybus]

that jet song's a piece of shit

1,2,3 I wanna doodle doodle dee
look so fine, now I'm really gonna make you mine

mastering or no mastering

 

[Jimmy Magee]

It's a horrible piece o shit alright.


Grrr posted some article about this sonic mashing on this here board prolly about a year back, or even a little bit more, it was making the same point really, about how painful relentlessly compressed to shit is to listen to.

I listen to classical music lots meself, and it's the complete opposite situation...almost inaudible and then CRASH!!!! and it's grate altogether.

 

[MrT]

Yeah,
They just compress the shit out of everything these days...not like my day when we liked a bit of dynamic...a bit of load soft.

God that Jet song is pure shite. Sounds like a cut and paste job from about 5 old songs....are you going to go my way by lenny kravitz, lust for life (obvioulsy) and 3 others I cant think of.

What kind of mastering tools do people use? I've been playing around Vintage warmer myself and its quite good.


I'm getting down with
the groove cos
I'm smoother than the cream
in a twinky...word up,
Ian

 

[zebra heart attack]

Waves L1 Ultramaximizer is pretty nifty

 

[aoboa]

It's a classic complaint from bands and punters alike though...
"Boo hoo, why doesn't my (their) CD sound as loud as XXXXXX".....
F**k off!
I can't listen to music that sounds like that.
That's why vinyl still has some of the best mastering of any format left.
Reason? - You can't physically get those ultra-compressed songs onto vinyl because you can't physically cut those butchered mid-high frequencies onto lacquer without distortion, never mind blowing the cutting head.
Digital formats will reproduce any old rubbish.

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Here's a pic of the waveform from Ricky Martin's 'la vida loca' song.

That's a beautiful sight.

 

[Latex lizzie]

Seek help pete.

 

[MrT]

Has anyone heard the new prodigy album?
Its compressed to fuck.
Havent looked at the waveform (like a big nerd) but I'd say its somthing like...
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

 

[El Presidentè]

So if most of the modern mastering houses really fuck up the mastering in the mid range can some one here recommend a decent place to go for mastering in Ireland?

I just ask because we're just about to record and want to get the best sound we can....

 

[aoboa]

So if most of the modern mastering houses really fuck up the mastering in the mid range can some one here recommend a decent place to go for mastering in Ireland?

I just ask because we're just about to record and want to get the best sound we can....

You know, you can just ask the mastering engineer to take it easy (but only if you know what you're talking about)...

 

[El Presidentè]

Well I a sort of hopeless case.

 

[C24]

It's a classic complaint from bands and punters alike though...
"Boo hoo, why doesn't my (their) CD sound as loud as XXXXXX".....
F**k off!
I can't listen to music that sounds like that.
That's why vinyl still has some of the best mastering of any format left.
Reason? - You can't physically get those ultra-compressed songs onto vinyl because you can't physically cut those butchered mid-high frequencies onto lacquer without distortion, never mind blowing the cutting head.
Digital formats will reproduce any old rubbish.

Vinyl will also reproduce any old rubbish.... just without the same apparent loudness... and also without the same dynamic range...

 

[aoboa]

Vinyl will also reproduce any old rubbish.... just without the same apparent loudness... and also without the same dynamic range...

Vinyl won't reproduce any old rubbish. Read the post again, it's not physically possible to get those ultra-compressed mastering jobs onto vinyl without distortion and with a loud cut. Same goes for tape. Therefore, the physical limitations of vinyl and tape make it more faithful to the source material especially with a frequency range of 6Hz up to 25KHz.

CD will reproduce anything in the 0-22050Hz range! You can compress and limit a song until it approaches and then becomes a square wave that will rip the cones out of your speakers and CD (read digital) will faithfully reproduce it. Why is that a good thing for music? <- and I'm not talking about experimental or noise merchants like Merzbow here.
Dynamic range as you know it doesn't exist on most CD's mastered in the last 5 years or so because it 'has to be loud'.
What ever happened to reaching for the volume control?
CD in the player... On you marks, get set to 0db, go -> cross the finish line at 0db with an average level of, you guessed it 0db.

BTW: Vinyl has a dynamic range of over 75db before surface noise becomes a problem. Direct Metal Mastering has increased the dynamic range again but I don't remember to what.