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Loudness War video explanation


analoq
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hey guys, i caught this over at the R:K:O forums.

it's a 2 minute video that makes the loudness war simple enough for anyone to understand.

youtube's encoding mechanisms lose a large chunk of the audio fidelity but it's good enough to get the idea.

it's rare to see such an elegant primer to an audio engineering topic, so i thought i'd share it.

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Nice video. When everything is loud, there is no room for loud. A seemingly paradoxical statement, but true. Other than the loss of sound quality from over limiting, engaging volume dynamics are also lost. Sad really on both ends: How the record companies enforce it, and how listeners are fooled by it.

If you want to get more in depth about the discussion of the "Loudness Wars" you can take a gander at this article.

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Well, lots of people have done something about it, but perhaps we don't see any impact in the major label release market. Hell, I'll use myself as an example. For all my tracks, even the dance ones which are generally supposed to be loud and maxed out, I try not to succumb to the loudness war. Here's an overview of a song from the album I'm working on.

LTS1.PNG

Yeah, it's compressed, but the dynamics are all there. There are soft and loud sections of the song (breakdowns, buildups, etc.) More importantly, so are the transients. Here's a closer look.

LTS-2.PNG

Compare this to "Ten Miles Back", a song by the Crystal Method that is in a very similar style.

TMB-1.PNG

Basically, one big square wave. Here's a closer look.

TMB-2.PNG

Lopped off samples all over. Great song, but I don't like the mastering.

So if nothing else, at least smaller independent musicians like me are doing their part.

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So if nothing else, at least smaller independent musicians like me are doing their part.

well i'm doing my part too. but i'm still not happy with it.. actually i wanna go even more extreme and go back to the late 70s early 80s mastering, which i consider to be ideal

here's an example, Dinorah Dinorah by George Benson from 1980

dinorah.gif

dinorah2.gif

thats just the perfect looking waveform...

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