Frequency clipping and even peak clipping in the final masters of OC remixes and many official modern audio productions - the direct consequences of the ongoing loudness war (including possible solutions)

[Master Mi]

I noticed these phenomenons quite a while ago when I loaded a few audio files into my DAW to compare certain parameters and audio measurements for different soundtracks.

And I think that such technically obviously not quite clean masterings of today's era are above all the direct consequence of the constraints that the loudness war has brought with it since the beginning of the 90s with the dawn of the era of digital music production.

And once the music industry sets such rather counterproductive trends for mainstream music in terms of music quality, many musicians seem to feel compelled to follow suit in order to keep up in terms of loudness or to be noticed at all.

But just as - at least according to their aggressive endless advertising - the arms industry stands for peace and security in the world or the pharmaceutical industry for people's health (while the reality often speaks a completely different language), the same is obviously true of the modern music industry and music, especially the quality of many of today's music productions.

And by that I don't mean the often first-class compositions, but rather these often radically messed up, because far too loud, undynamic and therefore usually not very lively masterings and remasters (if you want to hear more dynamic and lively music from certain bands, always get the original works if possible and never any remasters or even remasters of remasters).

Even in today's music industry, making a quick buck is often more important than the actual thing - and then it ends up being crap again.


I will show this below with corresponding negative and positive examples of soundtracks from different times in the music industry and certain forms of individual approaches to mastering and music production in general.

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1) David Guetta Feat. Sia – Titanium
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:
 

While David Guetta is literally a guarantor for really groovy and impressive compositions, when it comes to mastering he is rather a real negative example of how not to do it.

Here you can find massive clipping in the bass range of up to over 9 dB above the zero point (see Spectroscope/Spectrum Analyzer in the middle right of the picture), while the measurement displays are apparently no longer sufficient to capture the true extent of the mastering excesses.

The true peak measurement shows a value of a whole decibel above the zero mark, which should never be exceeded in a technically clean mastering, as this leads to audible clipping in some cases.

And the loudness of this mastering was driven so close to or even above the maximum limit by excessive use of compressors and limiters with a loudness value of around -8 dBFS (the exact loudness value within the complete loudness measurement is only obtained at the end of the soundtrack, but the loudness has certainly not changed much after the first half of the soundtrack and the heavy compression) that any efforts to achieve dynamics and sound quality in this soundtrack were literally beaten to death with the digital mastering club.

But this is probably how it must be when the music producer sees mastering as the final boss and then shouts to the mastering engineer: "FINISH HIM!"
(with the iconic "Techno Syndrome" theme from the Mortal Kombat movie playing in the background)


2) Donkey Kong Country 2 - Prismatic (OC Remix)
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:
 

This is definitely one of my many favorite soundtracks from OCRemix, which combines a really beautiful, energetic composition with impressive sound design.

The mastering here is also very loud with a measured loudness value of around -11 dbFS and technically not entirely flawless with similarly strong clipping in the bass range and a slight overshoot of the level peaks at 0,3 dB above zero.

But at least the mastering here doesn't seem to have been completely fucked up compared to the mastering of the previous David Guetta soundtrack and offers a little more dynamics and sound quality.


3) Final Fantasy 7 Remake - Let The Battles Begin! - A Merc's Job
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:
 

This is an original soundtrack from the video game Final Fantasy 7 Remake and at the same time a really powerful, modern new composition of the standard battle theme from the old Final Fantasy 7 for the Playstation.

In such a world-class production (and a Japanese one at that), I would never have guessed that there were apparently minimal technical flaws in the mastering (slight clipping in the bass frequency range and minimal exceeding of the 0 dB limit at the peak levels with a value of 0.1 dB, even if this value remained at 0 dB for a long time during the loudness measurement) and that Japanese sound engineers would let them get carried away with something like this.

But I could imagine that they really had a lot of time pressure in this mammoth project and perhaps couldn't subject every soundtrack to an exact loudness measurement again.

And perhaps the mastering engineers, as is often the case in the music industry, were given exactly the same guidelines by the leading developers and producers, contrary to their own aspirations and rules, and were told: "As loud as possible, but also with a sense of power and dynamics, with gentle clipping if necessary."


4) Bridges - Miss Eerie
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:

Many people probably don't know it.

But the band Bridges, which was founded back in 1978, was the immediate predecessor band of the well-known Norwegian synth-pop band A-ha, while the soundtrack "Miss Eerie" was virtually the early version of the cult hit "Take On Me".

Although “Take On Me” has more impressive vocals, “Miss Eerie” has some really creative, effective compositional interludes and variations to offer.
For example, I really like the melodic, multi-octave playing of the steelpan synthesizer from minute 1:36 onwards in the soundtrack, which gives the whole thing a very refreshing individual touch away from the later mainstream productions.

The mastering (which may not even be the original mastering, but a remaster) is also convincing in terms of production quality - technically absolutely clean, with no critical values (neither in the spectrometer nor in the measurement display of the maximum level peaks) above the permissible limits.

The maximum level peaks may still have been -3.2 dB at the time of the screenshot.
But towards the end they were also just below the zero mark (which is still within the limits for a technically clean production).


5) Michael Jackson - They Don't Care About Us (Brazil Version)
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:
 

Throughout the history of his musical career, Michael Jackson has not only stood for unique world-class compositions, but also for excellent music production at the mixing and mastering level, which has not so easily bowed to the bad trends of the modern music industry, but has gone its own way, which did not aim to win the small-minded race in the loudness war.

According to my memory, Michael Jackson once mentioned somewhere that music should always be able to breathe a little.
He was probably alluding to the desire to make his musical works as dynamic, natural and lively as possible.

And this is only possible if the loudness is not set to such a high level during mastering, so that the level peaks can rise up freely without the forced use of compressors and limiters, which also preserves the transients and maintains the sound quality.

As you can see here in the measurements for the soundtrack, the loudness measured from the beginning is only around -20 dBFS, even shortly before the end of the soundtrack (see the position of the marker at the top of the waveform after the 120th bar).
This is only slightly louder than the loudness standards I use to master my own soundtracks and remixes (around -23 dBFS, or more like -23,1 dBFS).

And despite the low loudness, you can clearly see from the measurements of the maximum level peaks with a value of -0.2 dB that the level peaks in the soundtrack obviously need this low loudness in order to be able to level up freely and unhindered without exceeding the 0 dB mark.

Apart from the more than sufficient headroom in the spectroscope measurement across the entire frequency range, the waveform of the soundtrack also clearly shows that this is obviously a very dynamic and lively example of a sophisticated music production.


6) Treasures Of The Deep - Shipwrecked
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:
 

“Shipwrecked” is an original soundtrack from the underwater exploration action-adventure video game Treasures of the Deep for the Playstation.

Apart from the truly atmospheric, ambient composition, this soundtrack is also a positive example of successful music production in the field of video game music in terms of mastering.

The spectroscope measurement makes a relatively relaxed impression along the frequency range shown.
The maximum peak levels of -0.4 dB measured also appear to be within the bounds of technically clean mastering.

And with the measured loudness of around -18 dBFS, no unnecessary excesses appear to have been made here either.


7) Crisis Core - Final Fantasy 7 - Wings Of Freedom (Master Mi Remix)
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Soundtrack link:
 

Visualization of the measured values for the soundtrack:
 

For comparison, these are the measured values from one of my soundtracks and remixes, which I regularly mix according to the loudness standard of the EBU R 128 norm with a target value of -23 dBFS.

It's possible that I will develop my higher compositional potential over the coming years.

But I believe that I'm already on a really good, future-oriented path in the area of mixing and mastering, which might be able to solve numerous problems in today's music production.

As you can see in the picture with the measurements, none of the measured values shown here are even dangerously close to any limit value.

The maximum peak level values show a completely relaxed peak level control at the end of the measurement with a value of -7 dB.
Even the measurements in the spectrometer still show more than enough headroom over the entire frequency range, although this is already a very dynamic remix in the classical-orchestral and rock ballad music genres.

I believe that the far-sighted developers and sound engineers behind the EBU R 128 loudness standard had exactly this in mind, namely to develop a uniform, universally applicable loudness standard that works for all music genres and other listening programs and at the same time allows maximum dynamics, naturalness of sound and the highest sound quality without making the listener's eardrums bleed.

...

And yes, I think that such a generously designed, uniform loudness standard can solve almost all the problems in the field of music and audio production that the soulless trend of the loudness war has brought with it in the course of the modern music industry.

These problems include, for example, serious loudness jumps between different musical works and other audio programs from different music producers - or sometimes even loudness jumps between different musical works and audio programs from one and the same music producer (often caused by a lack of good loudness concepts in the field of music production, where the primary focus is still on maximum peak levels).

What's more, a generously designed, generally applicable and, at best, globally enforced loudness standard can also guarantee the return of high dynamics, liveliness and sound quality in musical works, regardless of the music genre or type of audio program, the respective TV and radio station, the streaming platform, etc.

In the near future, it may be possible to develop playback devices that use an integrated software solution to bring music and audio programs mastered at different volumes to a uniform loudness level and play them back accordingly.

If this is approached wisely, all music and audio programs in the world could be brought to a uniform loudness level (so that there are no more annoying loudness jumps between different music works and audio programs and the volume on the playback device only has to be set correctly once according to your own listening habits and loudness preferences), and at the same time the best possible dynamics, liveliness and sound quality could be guaranteed for music and all other audio programs.

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And since we're in a very large, multifaceted and international musician and remixer forum here, I'm particularly keen to hear your opinions and experiences on this topic. ))

But I would also be happy if you just wanted to share something about the phenomenon of clipping in certain frequency ranges or peak clipping, which I have noticed in numerous remixes from OCR as well as in many modern music productions and remasters in the field of modern mainstream music.

Edited 5 hours ago by Master Mi